Page 33 of Stay Close
After a few weeks in Sondmark, I’m able to pick out a few words. “Fish…fisherman.”
“He was on the crew of a fishing vessel,” he supplies. “He was the cook.”
I move down a line. “Mother…I don’t know what this is.”
Scotty gets a translation before I do. “He was support staff for The Mother Earth Collective,” he murmurs. “Washed out after three months.”
“Sounds like a winner.”
“They always are. The most recent employment was…Hold up.” There’s a long pause filled with clicking keystrokes. “Weird.”
“What do you have?”
“An accident report and insurance claims. Might be a clerical error,” he says. The line is silent, but I trust Scotty to give me something I can use. I swipe the cracker through the cheese, picking out some of the other information from the resume.
“I’m back,” Scotty says in my earpiece. “This isn’t our guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve got a stolen identity. The real Cor van Pelt is in a group care facility in Aunslev. Unless he has some bionic legs, this ain’t him. You had a blurry photo. Now you’ve got nothing.”
I return to my room, pacing the floor along the wall, and drum a light rhythm with my fist.
A stolen identity means planning. It means premeditation. I turn, retracing my steps. It means Edie’s attacker knows his way around forging a fake ID and slipping into society without a trace. I turn again. Nils is good. The palace security apparatus is some of the best, but there is no Superman. It only takes one careless guard, one lapse, one slip to create a deadly mistake.
I break from the wall, shove my things into a duffel bag, and run to Edie’s door.
“New plan,” I say, bursting into the room. The door wasn’t even locked. I lock it now, giving the handle a shake.
Edie sits up. “What’s going on?”
“I’m staying with you.”
Her lips pinch together. “I thought you said we couldn’t do this.”
The truth is that Edie and I could be a very, very good idea. But not here. Not now.
“We’re not doing anything. The threat level has changed,” I say, unhooking the curtains and pulling them closed. It’s unlikely that her assailant is sitting in a tree out there with a high-powered rifle, but I am done taking risks where Edie’s concerned.
“I’ve been following the rules,” she insists. I try not to notice the way her flannel pajamas hug her hips and how the neckline of her sweatshirt keeps slipping to one side. I do some recon to take my mind off it.
“New rules,” I say, checking the door to the adjoining room. The lock is good, but I don’t know who has the keys. I withdraw several portable security locks from the duffel bag and slot them between the strike plate and the bolt of the two exterior doors. “Where you go, I go, even in the palace.”
“I was just about to go to sleep.” She lifts a brow and smiles. “Lucas, we’re in the most secure building in Sondmark. Armed guards are patrolling the perimeter. We can relax.”
I won’t be relaxing until she’s in the air, flying home to D.C. Scratch that. I won’t relax until we’ve landed, navigated traffic, locked the door of her townhouse behind us, and checked the crack under the door. Maybe not even then.
I pride myself on self-sufficiency. I once made my way home from Tehran with a flip phone and a NASA t-shirt. Nothing scares me. But having my heart walk around outside my body,out of my control, out of my sight, encountering who knows what kind of dangers? That scares me.
“We need to pick a code word,” I say, looking away. Maybe if I don’t look at her, I’ll go back to normal. I can be a calm professional protection officer, walking around with a plan in my head to neutralize everyone I meet.
“A code word for what?” she asks, trying hard not to laugh.
I stand, torn between wanting to run very far, very fast, and wanting to hold on to her forever. That must be why I’m sweating.
“If we’re separated, we have to be able to trust that any messages we receive are from the right source. Or we use it if you need me to know you’re in danger without the whole room finding out.”
“What do we choose?” She smiles. “Schadenfreude? Fahrvergnügen? Doppelgänger?”
