Page 47 of A Moment Never Forgotten
She returned her gaze to Micah. "You. You were not what I expected. I knew from the beginning that you weren't involved."
"So, you admit it. You used me to get to my friends." His heart hurt as though someone had just punched him in the solar plexus. Her silence said it all.
"Get the fuck out of here." Micah couldn't stand to be in the same room with her. He stormed to the closet, whipped out her coat, and tossed it to her. Without looking at her, he opened the front door and unlocked his SUV. "Get your fucking bags out of my car. I don't ever want to see you again."
Chapter Sixteen
Berit wanted to slam her front door behind her, but instead, she pasted on a smile, turned, and waved to Matthew Saint Clare, mouthing the wordsthank you. Her head spun with everything that had happened in the past four days. The past hour had been a tornado, crushing everything in its wake.
She refused to cry as she snatched her coat out of Micah's hands and marched toward his open trunk. Just as she grabbed her suitcases and opened the app for Uber, Matthew had appeared at her side. His insistence on driving her home probably had more to do with job preservation than courtesy.
He didn't know her well enough to understand that she refused to let her personal life affect her professional life. She would never be so petty as to hold Micah's outburst against Matthew. He'd been through enough.
They'd spoken little on the drive to her home. Before she got out of the car, she'd reiterated her offer to help, and reassured him that she did not suspect him of being a double agent. She would help him more than he would ever know.
The empathetic part of her was so upset at what the agency had done to him, to Elizabeth, and by extension, to Micah, Logan, and Teagan. Matthew had lost so much that he could never get back. Those early years of watching Austin reach each baby milestone were lost forever to him. Fortunately, he would be there for both Elizabeth and their new baby, Wyatt.
Berit looked forward to watching Kenzi crawl for the first time, pull herself up to a standing position and bounce, strengthening those leg muscles in preparation for walking. She couldn't wait to watch her granddaughter's first steps. She, too, had lost much already in the baby's life, but that was only four months.
Matthew had lost nine years with Austin. He'd also lost those years with Elizabeth. Both of their military careers were gone, but they had been successful in their CIA careers.
Like Matthew and Elizabeth, all Berit could do was move forward. She would do everything within her power to take out, and destroy, every mole within the CIA.
As she emptied her suitcase back into her drawers or the hamper, she allowed herself to think of Micah. Her heart clenched. He’d based his final words and actions in anger. He'd been reeling from Matthew's revelation…and hers.
She was as much to blame in this situation. He'd been correct. Although her friendship with the five of them had started innocently, it turned the moment Director Hennel had ordered her to spy on them.
But Micah surprised her. She hadn't been looking for a new man in her life. At her age, she'd never expected to fall in love again. It had been so long that she didn't even recognize the feelings—until he'd crushed them, along with her hopes for more.
As she placed her clean panties back in the top drawer, memories of Micah stripping them off her, his warm hands running down the outsides of her legs, up the insides till he reached her center and stroked her clitoris.
Stop!
You fucked that up, she chastised herself. She didn't even defend herself when he accused her. She couldn't. He'd been right. She had used him as a conduit to his friends. But then everything changed. She changed.
She was such a fucking idiot, emphasis on the word fucking, for believing that a man like Micah Reid would want her for more than a weekend of good sex. Maybe throwing her out of the Saint Claires’ home was his way of cutting ties with her.
She didn't believe that. Not really. Sure, Micah was angry with her. Disappointed in her. He had reasons for both emotions. She doubted there was any chance of the two of them ever reuniting, but she would try to make it up to the five people who had become her friends, even for a short time. She would do whatever she could to protect them and clear their names.
While preparing for bed, she started to organize her Monday. How much should she tell either her past or her present bosses? Maybe she needed to do more research before she spoke to either of them.
Crawling under the covers, she feared her mind was too busy to allow her to sleep. As she shut down her phone, she took a few minutes to look at the pictures she'd taken of Kenzi. When her grandbaby first awakened, she'd been playful. Berit made her giggle and coo. She would try her damnedest not to miss anything in this child's future. Although she didn't have a mother, Kenzi most definitely had a fairy godmother in the form of Nanna.
The next morning, Berit felt rested and ready to kick ass and take names. It was a good thing, too. Over the weekend, all hell had broken loose. Two contracts for field offices in the Middle East had fallen through. After multiple phone calls, she’d been so frustrated that she hopped on the next agency jet to that part of the world. Some things were just better handled in person.
Unfortunately, only the computer in her office was capable of the highest security level, so she wasn’t able to examine the files on Micah’s friends. It took her three days to deal with the problems in the Middle East and return home.
Finally, back in her office on Friday, she spent all morning on her secure computer. She was shocked to discover that Director Hennel had been in charge of the Special Activities Division during the Syrian mission. According to the records, he'd been in the vicinity, supposedly watching Gabriel who was under consideration to become the assistant director of that division.
Not that she doubted Micah, but she pulled up the SEAL's after-action report, confirming a John Doe. Strangely, nothing was mentioned of gold.
Matthew Saint Clare’s file was next in her queue. Sure enough, everything before the Syrian mission looked and felt like CIA fiction created many years back. Matthew had been correct when he'd accused Dr. Sydney Petersen as the most likely to have fucked with his mind.
Clicking on his name, Berit pulled up the lead psychiatrist’s file. Interesting. He’d been recruited twenty years ago after working on a government-funded project called Total Recall. She laughed. Someone had a sense of humor naming the project after a 1990 movie about the same subject, brainwashing.
Next up, Elizabeth Saint Clare. Since Berit had thoroughly examined her file a month ago, she just gave it a cursory perusal. As she was about to close the file, Joseph Lambert's name caught her eye. Why the hell would he be listed as her supervisor? She worked in the translation department, which was under the Directorate of Operations, so her boss would be Noah Hennel.Oh. My. God. Director Hennel is going to go high and right about that one. She added that tidbit to the list of things she needed to discuss with him.
Following the trail, Berit discovered that all of Elizabeth's translations went directly to Joseph Lambert, not to the clandestine analysis department. Checking the table of organization, Travis Thurbrow, a new translator, had also been receiving communications to and from Nassar al-Jamil and his had been the only ones forwarded to the correct analyst.
