Page 9 of The Blonde Identity

He was almost free—he was almost gone—when a small voice came floating to him on the wind. “What’s the drive?” He froze. “Those men... they said something about a drive, but I don’t have it. I don’t even know what it is. So... What is it?”

Sawyer took a deep breath. He really didn’t have time for this. But for some reason he turned around anyway. “It’s a flash drive.”

“They want it. They think my sister has it. Why?”

“Because she has it!” On the other side of the street a man started shoveling the sidewalk, so Sawyer lowered his voice and pulled her into a darkened doorway. “Listen. Alex was a very bad girl.”

“So you say.”

“Soeveryonesays. You know your friends from a while ago? The ones whose...” He trailed off as he looked down, noticing... “Oh hey. Their blood is literally on my hands. They work for Kozlov.”

“Who’s that?”

“Who’s that?” He’d honestly forgotten there were people who didn’t know. “You ever heard of the Russian mob? Evil oligarchs? How about gunrunners? Drug smugglers? Maybe a little human traffic—”

“I get the picture.”

“Oh, I don’t think you do. And I don’t think you want to, but that’s fine. Because he’s not your job. He’s mine. And up until a few days ago he was Alex’s. She and I werethis closeto taking him down, but then your precious sister went rogue and decided to download his little black book onto a flash drive—blow up the original—and disappear.” He let out a frustrated breath. “Alone.”

“What’s on it... this book?”

“Everything. Names. Contacts. Bank accounts. A veritable who’s who of evil. The holy f—”Glare.“—freaking grail.”

“What’s it worth?”

He looked at her, cold. Impatient. And so fucking tired he could cry. “Her head.” She gulped. “And I mean that literally. There’s a whole John the Baptist component going on here.”

“So a head that looks like...” She pointed to herself.

“Yup. That’ll do.”

He must have looked like he was trying to decide if it would be easier to transport her headonoroffher body because she started slowly backing away, and with every dainty step he wanted to laugh.

“You just realized I can claim the prize and not kill your sister, didn’t you?”

“I did indeed.” Her voice cracked. “So, thanks for your help, but...”

“Stay right where you are, lady. I haven’t told you the bad part yet.”

Her throat worked while she gulped down a breath of icy air. “What’s... the bad part?”

“Your sister wassupposedto steal the black book and give it to herotherbosses.” It went against his training and his orders and about a dozen laws, so he couldn’t actually tell her... Then he told her anyway. “At the CIA.”

Something like triumph crossed her face, like she was on a game show and had just won a brand-new car. “So sheisa spy!”

“No shit.” He was running out of patience. And time. “But Alex didn’t turn the drive over to the good guys, so now they’re after her. And she pissed off the bad guys. Who arealsoafter her. Basically, everyone with a gun in Western Europe is after her.”

He took a deep breath and a long look at Alex’s face and Alex’s mouth and Alex’s eyes, and he knew what the world would see: a fugitive. A target. A sitting-fucking-duck. So he had to admit, “And, I guess, you.”

He watched her thinking, worrying, calculating until she realized: “So if I can’t trust the good guys... And I can’t trust the bad guys... Who else is there?”

He thought about it and huffed out a laugh, knowing he was going to regret the word long before he said it: “Me.”

Chapter Seven

Her

He was lying. Definitely. Probably. He was almost certainly lying. But she was so tired she could barely stand upright. Her head hurt so badly she could hardly think. And the sun was so bright she could barely see, even though it was little more than a dot on the horizon.

---