Page 108 of Deadly Secrets
Chapter Nineteen
Two hours after his surgery, Roman was sitting up in bed when Brooke blew in, a bucket of double chocolate fudge swirl in one hand and a box of tissues in the other.
“That’s a lot of ice cream,” he said, his eyes wary as he scanned her face. “I don’t know what they told you, but Iamgoing to live.”
“The ice cream’s not for you.” She plunked it down on the tiny table and pulled up a chair. His family had left a few minutes ago, his team was on the way to see him. She needed to get her answers and get out. “I figured I was going to need solace food and tissues when you explained to me exactly what happened with my birth mother.”
“How’s the ankle?”
“It’s sprained, not broken. They gave me some serious pain meds that I’m fully enjoying.” She withdrew a spoon and the Glock from her purse and set them on the table next to the ice cream bucket. “Start talking.”
His eyes didn’t miss the gun. “First, I want to apologize for not being upfront with you.”
“Yada, yada, yada.” Peeling the lid off the bucket, she motioned with the spoon for him to get on with it. “Spill. I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or you’re going to need another surgery. Understand?”
That got his attention.
He told her everything. How her birth mother had initially contacted him after Brooke’s rental had been broken into on campus. The message had been anonymous, cryptic. Brooke was in trouble, needed protection. He’d already figured that out.
From the information Brooke had told him, he’d contacted Cooper Harris’s friends on the East Coast again and asked Petit and Beatrice Reese, the former NSA gal, to do some digging. It hadn’t taken long for a few details to emerge, thanks to a retired CIA agent who currently did work for Shadow Force International. Not only had the man known Aurora back in the day, but had trained her.
Like Mikhail and Uri had confessed, Aurora Adams had gone undercover for the CIA to get into the Zion criminal organization. Aurora was a cover name—her real name was Justine Amour.
She’d become pregnant with Victor’s child and refused to abort it.
Knowing the Zion family would come after her and the baby, she’d gone into hiding, given birth, and then found a couple who didn’t ask questions to adopt Brooke. There was no paperwork with Aurora or Justine’s name on it, only a fake birth certificate that claimed Brooke was indeed the child of Krissy and Everett Heaton.
Roman had put two and two together, figuring that the anonymous message had probably come from her biological mother and had put Shane on the task of searching traffic cams, parking lot surveillance, and satellite feeds for anyone who might be following Brooke. Shane had found two hits of the same woman following them to the discount store and outside the Laudlin Towers. “She’s still got it,” Roman said. “I checked and double-checked that we didn’t have a tail, but I never saw her.”
“What else?”
He continued, explaining how Justine had sent Roman a new message, this time with a contact numberin case.
“I never actually knew where she was or what she looked like,” he told Brooke. “In the videos we caught of her, she’s wearing a scarf over her hair and sunglasses to hide her eyes. She made sure to keep her head turned away from the cameras. Shane couldn’t get a positive facial rec on her, and the CIA refused to provide her official photo to me, even though she hasn’t worked for them—or so they claim—in thirty years.”
Brooke swallowed the cool ice cream and focused on theso they claimpart. “You think she’sstillworking for them?”
“No idea.” He eyed her bucket. “You didn’t happen to bring two spoons, did you?”
“You think I’d share my favorite ice cream after you lied to me?”
“I was trying to keep you safe, and honestly, I wasn’t convinced that first anonymous message was even legit. A lot of people knew your car was broken into and you could be in danger. Anyone could have sent that message to me.”
“And after you found out about Aurora—Justine—and my birth, you didn’t think that was worth sharing?”
“I planned to tell you after my parents’ anniversary party, but you got off on the Percy tangent and blew my timing.”
“The Percytangent? Oh, Dr. Walsh, you haven’t seen a tangent yet.”
“I have a feeling I’m about to.”
She threw the box of tissues at him. She didn’t feel like crying, but she seriously considered making him cry.
He flashed a smirk but it lacked luster. His whole demeanor was off. Might have been the drugs in his system or the fact he’d been shot twice, lost a lot of blood, and had required a three-hour surgery. Physical therapy, and lots of it, loomed in his future.
Good. He deserves to suffer a little.
Or it could be he was actually worried that she was about to walk away and never give him the time of day again.
