Page 123 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
King glanced around, looking nervous. Almost guilty as he dropped his voice and said, “You should go with them.” Was he talking to Alex? He wasn’t, was he? He couldn’t be, because they were in this together. This was their problem. Their mission. Their life.
“King—”
“I need to track down Merritt.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Notice how she’s conveniently disappeared? Again. You should go to the hotel or—”
“Or what?” Alex snapped. “We still don’t know where the ring is. Or why Tyler and Kozlov wanted it. Or how they got the jump on us in Vegas. Or, heck,whywe were in Vegas.”
Someone cleared a throat, and they turned to see Sawyer sidling closer. He was off the phone but still looking down at the screen, finger moving and swiping until he found what he was looking for and froze. Alex had been undercover with the man for five years, but she couldn’t even start to read his face when he said, “According to MI6—”
“Ooh, did you talk to the Duke of Hottington?” Zoe asked.
“Who?” King looked at Sawyer, who gave a nod as if to say,I’ll explain later.
“They just raided Tyler’s London flat, and they found a bunch of audio recordings on a laptop.” Sawyer looked at Alex. “Including one he created using a sampling of King’s voice, telling you that Zoe was in the hospital in Vegas.”
Alex felt almost sick as she turned and looked at King. “He deepfaked you. That’s how he got me there.” She would have felt silly if it hadn’t been so simple. “But how did he lure you to Vegas?”
King was staring oddly into the distance, like a fog was lifting. Like it was a dream he’d only just remembered. His eyes went from hazy and unfocused to laser sharp as he found Alex’s gaze and said, “You.”
And then Zoe whispered, “Gasp.”
Chapter Seventy-One
Two Days Before They Woke Up in Vegas
Scotland
King
“Did you really get her a ring?”
When an old acquaintance calls out of the blue in the middle of the night, a normal person is either terrified or ecstatic, but when you’re both spies, there’s a whole range of other emotions, and King didn’t know which one he was feeling as he rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock by the bed. Three a.m. So either Tyler didn’t know what time zone King was in or he didn’t care. Or both. King was vehemently hoping it was both.
“Who is this?”
“You know exactly who this is. Now answer the question.”
King didn’t want to answer the question, but he wanted to give Tyler a speck of intel even less. Six years as a private citizen should have made King less cautious, but it hadn’t, so he tried to shake the sleep out of his voice and the scotch out of his system. “Not that it’s not lovely hearing from you, Tyler, but this isn’t a good—”
“Did you really get Alexandra Sterling a ring?” Tyler asked again, harder this time. “Come on. Admit it.”
“No.”
“I heard you, Kingsley.”
King pushed upright and felt the cold air of the room hit his bare chest. The fire must have gone out. He knew he’d built one—yesterday? Last week? King couldn’t remember and it didn’t matter. He was glad for the cold air. It was like being thrown into a freezinglake, and, when he surfaced, his head was clearer than it had been in months.
“You heardwhat?When?”
Tyler laughed. “She really did do a number on you, didn’t she?”
“I’m hanging up now—”
“I was at Merritt’s. That night. In the hall, getting ready to knock when I heard the two of you talking. But I need to know.... Are you that serious about Alex? Like...ringserious?”
“What difference does it make? She’s gone.” King hadn’t been willing to admit it—not for the first few months. But he’d been looking for a year, and she wasn’t just in the wind. There is no wind in outer space, and that’s how it felt. Alex hadn’t just left the life, she’d left the planet, and the longer she was gone, the bigger the black hole inside of King seemed to grow.
“You’re good, Kingsley,” Tyler said. “Always were. But you shouldn’t have left the Agency.”
