Page 79 of Duplicity

Niall grinned at his friend.

Liam said, “Then a terrorist you thought was dead is threatening the country, and everyone you know is looking for nukes. You get blown up, she thinks you’re dead, and you end up running all over Wyoming together trying to eliminate the threat.”

Dead silence filled the cab of the SUV.

Josh started to chuckle. “Um…” He glanced at Cat with a wide smile on his face.

“I’m good, thanks.” She grinned, texting her brother the information they’d found. It was better to arrange the wording in a text rather than have to listen to him demand to know why she wasn’t safe.Because life isn’t safe.

Safety was a misnomer as far as she could see.

And with a threat like Liam had described—a man who had terrorized Simon for years—there was no sitting back and letting other people take care of this.

Sometime later, after the sun had started to lighten the expanse of the sky to the east, Niall handed Cat a water bottle and a protein bar. She ate both while she woke up, listening to Liam and Talia discuss entrances.

The gun that was still stuck to the front of the vest she wore made her feel better, but sleeping in a vest wasn’t something she planned to do again.

Josh handed her a couple of orange pills for the pain. She swallowed them down, then asked for two more. He handed them over. “Let’s go.”

“You wanna walk in the front door and immediately announce our presence?” Liam turned in his seat like a dad telling the kids to quiet down. “We need stealth.”

We need to get Simon back.

Another car pulled up behind them. Up ahead stretched a long highway lined with tall pines on both sides, but on one side, they were completely black as if they’d been burned in a wildfire. The fire must not have jumped the road because the other side was green and healthy-looking.

Romeo and Peter got out of the car. Behind that car, two more men appeared.

More Vanguard operatives.

She spotted River Gaines and Samantha Jesse. Bob Davis, the older Vanguard agent. Jasper and Gage. Yet more people followed them that she didn’t know.

Cat climbed out of the SUV. Romeo eyed the vest and gun and said, “So there’s at least a chance you’ll survive this.”

Niall and Josh moved to stand on either side of her, as if to protect her from the rest of the people gathering around.

Liam said, “Okay, people. Let’s go.”

He went first into the trees.

Cat whispered a prayer, and they all followed him.

THIRTY

Simon’s fingers paused over the keyboard.Hope that wasn’t North trying to trick me.Fear wanted to overwhelm his hope, but it had been hours, and the chance of being rescued lessened with every passing tick of the clock on the wall.

That relentlesstick tickdrove him crazy. He was about to rip the clock off the wall and shatter it.

His brother had owned a clock like that once. It hung on the wall and kept Simon awake all night until he took the battery out. He suggested throwing the thing in the trash, but Peter just moved it to another room.

The guy would sleep through a tornado…or an earthquake.

He expected the door to fling open at any moment.

They’d shoved him into a tiny room that might as well be a storage closet or a prison cell. No window. Bare walls that hadn’t even been painted. The seams where the drywall met had tape over them but nothing else. It looked like an unfinished basement room. A bulb hung from the ceiling. Even the light switch didn’t have a cover on it, just the switch and the wires behind it and the square cut out of the drywall.

The metal desk was cold under his forearms. They’d taken his shoes—why? As if he was going to hang himself with his shoelaces. Or use a sneaker as a weapon? So bizarre.

His mind decided to settle on odd things like that, considering them for a while. Turning the idea over and over in his mind.

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