Page 42 of Six
She laughed. “Maybe, but I see your point. I hadn’t thought of it like that. The phrase ‘hunting terrorists’ is so closely associated with warfare, and it’s hard to think of something that’s happening in your own backyard—when you live here in the US—as being warfare. You’re right, though, and I guess that puts us a little ahead of the game. We don’t have to look forwho, we just need to focus on how to stop DePalma and the others. Although frankly, in my mind, the Fogartys, Julian Newcross, and DePalmaareterrorists, just maybe not in the common parlance of the word.”
“Any suggestions onhowwe stop them?” he asked as his phone dinged with a text from Cyn. He opened the app and read. “DePalma was in Indonesia earlier this week but returned to Boston the day after Jeremy was killed. Cyn and the others are working on getting an exact location for him, but he hasn’t left the country again. At least not legally,” he added.
“If Jeremy talked to Julian the morning before he died and Julian then called DePalma, DePalma worked fast. He had two hitmen on Jeremy by the middle of the afternoon,” Violetta said.
“Which tells us he’s well connected to the wrong kind of people.”
Violetta nodded. “And when he lost those two men the night they came after me, he had two more on tap to send after the women.”
“We need eyes on him,” he muttered, considering whether to send Cyn a text to that effect. In the end, he set his phone down. They’d just discovered who DePalma was a few hours ago. Cyn, Nora, and Devil would do their best, and they didn’t need him telling them how to do their jobs. Hell, with their secret spy schooling, they’d been doing this kind of shit a lot longer than he had.
“If you ever have a daughter, would you send her to St. Josue?” he asked. The question was a bit apropos of nothing, but thinking about the school—and picturing Violetta, Cyn, Nora, and Devil there—made him wonder.
The question caught Violetta off guard, and her head whipped around. “Pardon?”
He fought a grin. Her Italian accent was much heavier when she was surprised. “If you ever have a daughter, would you send her to the school you attended?”
She made a face at him. “I’m thirty-eight and not likely to ever have kids. I know women in their forties have kids all the time, but I don’t have the kind of life that is conducive to being a parent. Not a good one, anyway.”
“What if you had help?” he asked, then immediately wondered why he’d asked. No, that wasn’t quite true; he’d definitely conjured up a few fantasies about him and Violetta being more than colleagues. But to ask a question that implied he might be the one to help raise any fictional kids they might have was a bit of a reach.
The flash of confusion he felt must have shown on his face, because Violetta laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t think you’re offering. Besides, even if you were, I’m not sure I want kids. Maybe I do, but it’s not something I’ve ever contemplated, so I don’t know what I think about it.” She paused as she passed a slow-moving truck. “That said, if I ever did have a daughter, I’d offer her the opportunity if I could.”
“What do you mean, if you could?”
Violetta bobbed her head. “St. Josue isn’t like a regular boarding school. I don’t just mean in what they teach. It’s by invitation only, and only one girl from each of the participating countries gets offered a place. If I ever had a daughter and if I wanted her to attend, I might not have the choice, if she’s not offered the place.”
He’d known it was exclusive. For some reason, though, he’d assumed that someone like Violetta, someone who’d been through the school and had an exemplary career, would get preference if she had a daughter who wanted to attend. Then again, maybe it made sense that she didn’t. One of the goals of the school was building community. If Violetta ever had kids, those kids would already have an international community in Cyn, Devil, and Nora and their respective contacts. Not to mention, if Cyn, Devil, or Nora ever had kids, too, then the kids would grow up together in much the same way their mothers had.
His phone dinged again, and he picked it up. Another message from Cyn. “Fuck,” he grumbled after reading it.
“What?”
“Guess who else is in Keene?”
“Fanculo,” she muttered. “Confirmed sighting or just location tracking?”
“Tracking,” he answered. “DePalma’s phone and car. Cyn is working on exact coordinates.”
“Fun,” Violetta said under her breath, mirroring his own sentiments.
“What’s our story going to be with Newcross?” Gavin asked. “I assume we’re not going to knock on his door and ask him about Jeremy and Victor?”
Violetta pursed her lips as she considered the question. Then after a beat, she answered, “I actually wonder if we should.”
He chuckled. “That was not the answer I was anticipating.”
She flashed him a grin that hit him right in the chest. “We have records and backup records of everything Jeremy discovered. There’s no point in killing us, because it will all get out anyway. We have no reason for knocking on his door other than our connection to Jeremy. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like going all superspy and breaking in. If we wanted intel on his computers or devices, that might be a better option, but we came up here to talk to him. Assuming DePalma hasn’t decided to tie off that particular loose end and he’s still alive, of course.”
Gavin tipped his head. “With DePalma in the area, I’d say Newcross is either dead or will be in the near future. What if Newcross isn’t home?”
“Then we wait to see if my friends can find him.” She paused, then added, “And maybe ask Joe to call in a favor and send the local police chief up to make a wellness check in case he’s dead in his home.”
“If nothing else, this afternoon will prove to be an interesting one,” Gavin replied, then turned his head to look at the lush scenery. “You ever think of moving back to Italy?”
Again, his question surprised Violetta, and she shot him a quick look. When her eyes were back on the road, she answered. “No, I don’t, actually. I love Italy and I love visiting my family. But I don’t have a lot of friends there since I was so young when I left. I’ve lived far more of my life here than there. Are you looking forward to getting back to England once this assignment is over? When is this assignment over?” She turned and gave him another look. This time her brow was furrowed as if she couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked the question before now.
He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. He’d asked, but the only response he’d received was that he’d be on this assignment until the government decided otherwise.
