Page 35 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
“There’s been chatter.” The wind was cold and the clouds were dark and threatening rain, but that wasn’t why she shivered. “Our man has been doing business with someone.”
“Sounds like he’s been doing business with a lot of someones, so why—”
“Someone named Nikolai.” Blue eyes looked into his. Piercing and icy calm. In moments like this, no one could ever mistake Margaret Merritt for an old woman. She was more deity than flesh and blood.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Have you told—”
“No.” She shook her head. “Your father doesn’t know. And he won’t hear it from me. But he still has friends at the Agency. Allies—and enemies. And even if he didn’t...”
King knew what she was going to say, but he didn’t want to hear it. “Nikolai doesn’t exist, Merritt, you know that.”
“Idon’tknow that. And neither do you.”
“Grandfather always said—”
“Your grandfather is dead, Michael. And he wasn’t all-knowing.”
“If Nikolai were real—which he isn’t—he’d be...” King trailed off and tried not to blush scarlet, but Merritt only cocked an eyebrow.
“As old as me?” She laughed. “Oh, dear boy. The thing you need to know about old spies...” She inched closer and dropped her voice, but it was the look in her eyes that stopped him. “We have absolutely nothing to lose.”
She was right, of course, but King didn’t want to admit it, so he just shook his head. “Someone has a sick sense of humor.”
King waited for his heart to stop pounding, but Merritt merely answered with a sigh.
“Or a good sense of history?” She tucked her hands in her pockets. “In any case, we need ears in that house, and I thought you might like to be the one to put them there.”
This job was never like the movies. It wasn’t car chases or black-tie galas. Just well-placed bugs and scandalous secrets that weaved across the decades like a fuse. King had spent his whole life waiting for theboom, but something in his eyes must have given him away because Merritt pulled back.
“Of course, I know this might be hard for you, and if you’d rather—”
“I’ll do it.” He had to do it.
“I tried to spare you, you know,” she admitted. “But the man owns a private compound. On anisland.”
“The Agency has divers. Submarines. Probably a mermaid or two.”
“It’s a fortress, Michael.” Now she sounded like a very tired mother who just wished the little boy would run along and play and stop asking so many questions. “We have satellite surveillance. We’ve sent up a few drones. But, for the most part, we would be sending a team in blind, so we need to get boots on that island. There’s only one weakness that we’ve found—one potential access point. He only ownshalfthe island. The other half was undeveloped until recently, but a new business just opened its doors on the far side.”
Suddenly, King got it. Or at least part of it.
“That’s my way in?”
She nodded, a little too slowly.
“Merritt...” The word was a warning. “Why do I get the feeling you’restillhiding something?”
She gave the smirk of a woman who isalwayshiding something. “It’s a high-end retreat. For wealthy couples whose marriages are in trouble.”
King couldn’t help himself—he snorted. “Are you saying I’m going to be your boy-toy?” He looked down at the woman who was like a grandmother to him—waited for her to laugh or tease.
But all she did was turn when the jet door slowly opened and a familiar blonde head peeked out from the top of the stairs and shouted, “Hi, honey. I’m home.”
Chapter Twenty
