Page 36 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
Present Day
Somewhere Over Nevada
Alex
“This was a mistake,” Alex said for the fourth time in ninety minutes.
“You are more than welcome to walk to the island... except... wait.It’san island.” At some point during the past six years, King had become someone who looked at home on a private jet on its way to a private island, and Alex didn’t know what to make of it. “So if you have a better plan, my dear...”
“I’m not your dear.” Instantly, Alex wanted to pull the words back. It was the kind of thing she used to say... before they dropped their guards. Before everything changed. Before Scotland.
“You said we were the only people we can trust,” she insisted.
“And here I am...trusting you.” On anyone else it might have sounded smug, but on him it was just normal.
She ran a hand over a leather cushion. It was probably made from the skin of some endangered animal. It was almost disgustingly, criminally soft. “Well, the last I checked, your penthouse apartment was being shot up by a bunch of armed commandos.”
“There were only two commandos.” He sounded unimpressed.
“So, tell me... Exactly how isthis”—she motioned at the glossy interior of the even glossier jet—“any different than a penthouse in the sky? A very crashable, explodeable, vulnerable-to-surface-to-air-missiles... penthouse?”
“Are you finished?”
Alex had to think. “Hijackable penthouse!” She was a little too proud of that last one, but King just looked tired and annoyed.
“Thispenthouse”—he made quote marks with his hands—“is not mine.”
“Neither was the last one.” Alex thought that was a very good point, but then she spotted a basket of snacks and decided that if she had to die at thirty thousand feet, at least she could go out with a belly full of Pringles.
“The plane isn’t mine either, and no one will know you and I are on it.”
“See, the problem is”—she plopped a chip whole into her mouth, cherishing the crisp salty taste and the scowl on his face as he waited for her to chew—“we are back toyou”—she pointed for effect—“andme. Not being able to trustanyone.”
He looked annoyed, mainly because she’d made something of a point. Which Alex took as something of a win. “The owner owes me a favor. This individual is very private.”
Another chip. Another question. “Who?”
King snatched the Pringles from her hands and took a handful, as if to say,Theseare mine now. You have lost your Pringles privileges.
“They. Are. Very. Private.”
Alex took a deep breath, suddenly bored, and stole her chips back. Only the crumbs were left, but the joke was on him because the crumbs were the best part. She tipped the canister up and drank them down. “Must be some favor.”
King turned to the airplane’s window. “It is.”
“I’m going to go count the parachutes...” Alex got up and gestured to the back of the jet.
“You do that.”
“For when we get shot out of the sky.”
“I assumed.”
“Because this is abad idea.”
“Suit yourself.” He wasn’t even paying attention and she almost missed the man who used to look at her like she was nothing but a mistake. Because that guy, she understood. That guy was calm, coolcontempt, but this guy was indifference. Alex wanted to throw him off that airplane just to make him scream.
“I’m going to get some sleep.” He started lowering his chair to a flat position, then touched a button and the cabin lights went dim. Alex should have felt more at home there, in the darkness and the shadows. It’s what her life had been for years, neither black nor white, good nor evil. Her whole world was gray, but the man in the other chair was gunmetal. Darker and harder and even in the darkness, she had to look away.
