Page 65 of Perfect Order
“There’s no way you’d have the name of my unit’s informant otherwise,” I snarl.
For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. All Leanne does is regard me with the saddest eyes. Then finally, she asks, “Do you know whatQ?zameans?”
“Crash. I looked it up once.” A horrified thought lances through me. I begin to shake my head back and forth. “No, it’s not possible…”
She folds her hands behind the keyboard. “I was recruited right after I kicked Sam’s ass at Defcon. I hadn’t been caught, but long before I went to MIT, I was suspected of peeking into several mainframes I shouldn’t have been able to access. My now handler propositioned me on campus. He frankly bullied my ass.” If her voice didn’t hold a hint of affection despite the fear pumping through me, I’d be enraged. “Even tried to allude to the possibility of jail time. I laughed him off. Then he flat out appealed to my sense of protecting Mom, Dad, and Kylie.” I can’t tear my eyes away from her as she buries her face in her hands. “God, the last thing I wanted to do was live a double life, but what other choice did I have but to say yes?”
“Who is he? What agency, Leanne?” My hands clench the edge of the table.
She gives me a pitying look, as if I can’t already guess her answer. “For years, I cultivated a hard-core reputation as a for-hire hacker to maintain my connections. But that’s how they wanted it played. Our government would ‘hire’ me publicly when their own analysts couldn’t handle the work. The reality is I was already on their payroll, being trained for more difficult missions. When I wasn’t in use, I prepared their systems against outside attacks from our enemies.”
“You’re an operative.” It’s a statement, not a question.
“Not at first. At first, all I did was gather intel. I was damn good at it.” She quickly outlines what she did earlier, hoping to find a message from her sister in the darkest corners of the internet. In light of everything else, finding out Kylie Miles did have some of the skills as Leanne doesn’t shock me as much as realizing Leanne was one of the people passing along intel to me for years. Including the last piece of information that saved my life but caused me to pull the trigger on my best friend.
Shoving the memories aside, I demand, “So, Crash, what you’re saying is there are new messages for you in your drop spots, waiting for you to access them?”
She nods. “Job assignments since I ‘died,’ Kane. Either my old contacts didn’t get the news, or they know I’m not the one whose ashes are buried in that plot. My handler should have shut these down—assigned a new operative. Whatever’s waiting for me shouldn’t be there.”
“Who’s laying the trap?” I wonder.
“Got it in one.” In her voice is a note of weariness that leads me to believe she’s relieved to share this burden.
My mind is whirling a mile a minute. “I want to ask you a million questions.”
“I figured that.”
“But I need to bring Caleb up to speed.”
“You can’t,” she states flatly.
“Why not?” I demand.
“Because his clearance isn’t the same as yours. And…” Her voice trails off.
“And what?”
“So many times, our lives have intersected in ways no one else can understand: me, you, chance, each of us protecting the other because it was our job. Now, it feels…different. Plus, I don’t trust him the same way I feel like I can trust you.”
“Christ, you can’t say things like that to a man.” I run a hand through my hair, hoping the shaking doesn’t show on video.
“Why? It’s the truth.” Her confusion is obvious.
My lips quirk up into a smile. She might be her sister’s identical twin, but it isn’t difficult to tell the two women apart. Despite the murky world of covert intelligence Leanne’s been mired in, there’s an air of innocence cloaked around her, whereas Kylie had a wild wariness.
Whoever killed Kylie either made a drastic mistake, or was she deliberately sacrificed to draw out the other Miles sister?The thought careens through my mind. To Leanne, I wonder, “How did you run a legitimate business and still fulfill your obligations asQ?za?”
“I don’t require more than a few hours of sleep a night. But I also have a crazy-intelligent staff that sometimes puts me to shame.”
“Uh-huh.” I wait for the other shoe to drop.
Her smile turns smug. “It also helps there are several secured facilities in the Castor office up in Saratoga Springs. My office converts into one, just like the one you’re sitting in. With the kind of work Hudson has bid on, I figured either Keene or Caleb would have one. The building specs weren’t difficult to access.”
“Of course, because that’s what every good office has—a qualified hacker to download their building specs after hours.”
“Hey, you guys have Sam. He’s better than I am in a lot of ways.”
“I’m never going to feel safe using my phone again.”
