Page 20 of The Saint

“You don’t wear nondescript suits and dark sunglasses, flashing your badge like some guy playing the part in a movie?”

“Not a chance, sweetheart, and if you want the truth, I don’t even have a badge.”

“You’re telling me I’ve been calling apretendsecret agent?” She laughed for the first time since the day everything went down. It was so foreign to Amelia that it felt like she’d broken an unwritten rule.

“I’ve said nothing that would make you think I’m a secret agent.”

“You didn’t have to. The code words and special phone number gave you away. Not to mention the fact that you were totally chill while someone was hunting me down. And I’ve seen your coworkers. So—”

“Whoever you’ve met, they aren’t my teammates. That’s one thing you can take to the bank.”

“Teammates. That’s an interesting choice of words.”

“Maybe so…” He remained quiet, as though he’d wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

She hated that he might hang up. “Now that you’ve said too much, do you have to go?”

“I didn’t, and I don’t.”

“All right…” She didn’t believe him. Amelia shut her eyes. She liked his voice: honey smooth and warmly rough, unwavering. Even when the quiet hung between them, Camden didn’t act as though the silence was as unnerving as she found it to be. “How many calls like mine do you get? There can’t be super-top-secret problems that often.”

“Honestly? You’re my first.”

“Huh… How come? Nothing ever goes wrong?”

“Not when I’m on duty,” he teased.

“Have you ever heard that correlation is not connected to causation?” She smiled at his quiet laughter.

“We—the company I work for—were helping a federal agency with a problem.”

“How did you manage to say all those words without saying a damn thing?”

“Just talented.”

She stared at the ceiling of her bedroom and wondered how the stars had aligned to connect them. “I think Hailey and Jonathan worked for the government.”

Camden didn’t respond.

He didn’t ask why she thought that, and he didn’t dispel her of the notion.

Amelia cleared her throat and wished she could turn off her mind. “The stuff on the news about them is made up. I can’t fathom how any reporter has been able to say things that never happened. They do so with such confidence, as if they were told lies from a reputable source.”

Camden hummed noncommittally.

For the first time, she was telling someone her perspective. Thus far, every other conversation had been filled with condolences and mourning. None were about the craziness of the situation. She’d told no one what happened that night except for Camden, Bennett, and Fitzgerald, and she wasn’t sure why. They hadn’t told her to keep her story to herself. Maybe they didn’t have to because it sounded impossible. “The agents who have stayed in contact with me are not normal.”

“What’s normal anyway?”

“You know what I mean. They talk in circles. They’re not regular cops. I think it’s something related to national security or spying.”

Camden hummed again.

She couldn’t believe she was saying her guesses out loud. Even more crazily, she couldn’t believe he wasn’t calling her absurd. “You’re not saying anything.”

“I think we both know that I can’t confirm or deny a damn thing. Even if I knew.”

“Which you don’t…” She didn’t entirely believe him, but he wasn’t hanging up or laughing at her guesses. That was a kind of acknowledgment. “Are you in a top-secret lair somewhere? A nuclear fallout shelter? A secret room in the basement of the US Capitol?”

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