Page 129 of Once a Hero

Jake rubbed her shoulders. “About that, I moved into a supervisory role.”

“Meaning a desk job?” Beatrice was surprised.

Jake nodded. “Thing is, I need to be myself after a while. I can’t be undercover all the time. At my age…”

“You’re what? Thirty-eight? You’re talking like you’re eighty-three.”

“How did you know how old I am?”

Beatrice didn’t say.

“That goes into the box of mystery questions that included how you knew I was drowning outside Cannes.”

Beatrice didn’t want to get into an argument with Jake, but she thought he should know the truth.

“My brother and I, with Kenichi, were tracking everyone who had anything to do with Molyneux. With your mole in the FBI selling data in the black web, your personal information was up for grabs.”

“Personal? How personal?”

“Age, height, that sort of thing.”

“How I squeeze my toothpaste?” Jake raised his eyebrows.

Beatrice laughed. “No, mainly your age and lots of photos of you.”

“So you began tracking me.”

“My whole team was. For only about a year. Not much to find, really. You weren’t doing much.”

Jake laughed. “Normally I’d argue with you, but it was true. I was transitioning out of being undercover.”

“It helps that we were also watching Molyneux. I didn’t out you.”

“I know you didn’t. The mole did—directly to Molyneux. That’s how I ended up at sea outside Cannes.”

“As for that, after we saw the news reports that Helen Hu et al had helped to find the Petros Eggs and a few broken panels from the Amber Room, we started tracking her. She was in Cannes. So we were in Cannes.”

Jake nodded. “And you were also after Philomena.”

“All things considered, I’m glad we came out of the whole situation alive.”

“Thank God.” Beatrice grinned. “And now we’re both going to be bored to tears being stuck at our new desk jobs.”

“Are we?”

“Aren’t we made for adventure?”

“I had fun while it lasted,” Jake said. “Now I’m all too happy to let young whippersnapper agents go instead of me. They have more energy, require less sleep, and they’d do daredevil things I don’t want to do any more.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I figured it’s time for me to settle down and have my own family.” Jake thumbed her jawline ever so gently.

A family? Did he say family?

“You know?” Jake whispered in her ear.

“Know what?”

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