Page 60 of Devil
“I do have a duty to you, though,” he pointed out.
“And because I care about you, I have one to you as well. You have family, Darius. You have brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents. I don’t mean to sound maudlin, but the fact of the matter is, you have more reason to take fewer risks than I do. And yes, before you go there, I know Cyn, Six, and Nora would be devastated if anything happened to me. But we’ve known since of the age of twelve that there might come a day that we’d have to die for our countries. It’s fucked up, I know. Those aren’t the kind of conversations twelve-year-olds should be having. But we had them because our teachers and trainers wanted us to know what we were agreeing to when the time came to sign the paperwork with our respective governments. We were given a choice when we graduated, and we’d been educated enough that we could make an informed choice. You know what I decided, and it’s a decision I need to live, or die, with.”
His stomach more than churned, it roiled like the Atlantic when a hurricane came through. And because he couldn’t dispute her logic, it turned to anger. Not at her, but at the situation.
“I need to go for a walk,” he said, rising abruptly and releasing Lily’s hand. She looked at him but remained seated. “Don’t do anything until I get back,” he said.
She didn’t have to do as he asked. She knew it. He knew it. But she nodded. “I’ll wait.”
“Twenty minutes. That’s all I need,” he said.
She gestured toward the door. “Go, we’ll be here when you get back.”
Rather than walk out the front door, he exited out the mudroom, through the garage, and out into the alley. Yes, it was an alley kind of night. Clouds had moved in, and an occasional drop of rain hit him in the face, but there wasn’t enough falling to warrant returning for an umbrella.
As the night closed in around him and he walked with no direction, he turned her words over in his mind. She cared about him. He’d known that, of course, but tonight had been the first time she’d said it out loud. Ironic that it was just before she was about to do something that could prove to be exceedingly dangerous. Or maybe it wasn’t ironic; maybe it was like a deathbed confession of sorts. Not a confession in the traditional sense, but an admission of caring. He smiled at that. He didn’t think Lily thought of her declaration that way. But given how averse she was to any emotion, it was solike herto wait until a moment like tonight to voice her feelings. Only upon pain of death would she admit to caring.
He laughed, and the couple beside him on the sidewalk turned. He shrugged and smiled. They smiled back and hurried away, ducking against the wind that had picked up.
He wished he had the authority to order her to let him be the one to open the notebook, but he didn’t. It wasn’t that he wanted to control her, but well, yeah, in this case, he did. He wanted to keep her as far from danger as he could. But of course, that was plain stupid. Even if he convinced her to let him be the one to read the book, there would always be the next op, the next mission. And unlike the situation they currently found themselves in, those were adventures she’d take on her own.
With a sigh, he glanced at his watch and decided it was time to turn around. She’d wait for him, even if he were gone more than twenty minutes. But whether it was twenty minutes or sixty wouldn’t change the outcome, so he may as well head back and get it over with.
He paused at a light and waited for it to turn green so he could cross. His gaze drifted over the busy intersection, then snagged on two men standing in front of a restaurant catty-corner to where he waited. One stood with his back to Darius as he talked to the other. Both wore long black coats over black trousers, though one had a fedora tugged low on his head. There was something familiar about the one who had his back to him. Darius’s gaze lingered, trying to place him without forcing anything.
The light turned green, and he crossed, keeping his eye on the pair as they continued to talk. The conversation seemed to turn a little heated, and the one with his back to Darius gestured insistently with his hands. Darius ducked into a recessed doorway of a closed coffee shop and hunched into the shadows. There was no reason for the two men to look for him, but even so, his gut was telling him to stay out of sight.
The man with the hat was taller than the man without, by maybe six inches, and built more solidly as well. The one who looked familiar was leaner, but it was hard to say by how much given the coat he wore. With a shake of his head, the shorter of the two men turned and walked away. Unfortunately, not toward Darius, so he didn’t catch a glimpse of his face. The other man, however, remained as his companion left. Quickly, Darius pulled out his phone and opened the camera app. He clicked a picture a second before the man turned and walked in the opposite direction.
Darius once again looked toward the shorter man. He was striding away, toward the intersection. The walk sign started blinking, and he picked up a jog. The movement honed Darius’s attention. He could feel the connection hovering on the edge of his memory, within reach, but not there yet.
Then the man turned to check for traffic, and light from a car illuminated his face. Darius frowned. What was Agent Highborn doing in Alexandria two hours after the president of China had arrived?
Darius remained in the shadows until Highborn was long gone. He moved to step out of the shadows, then slunk back in when he recognized a second figure. Agent Crawford was making her way down the road in the direction Highborn had gone, dressed like a woman out for an evening jog.
Only she wasn’t moving like a jogger. No, her head swiveled back and forth in a way he was more than familiar with. She was keeping an eye out for escape routes and places to duck into should she be spotted. Which meant she was following someone.
He’d bet his pension it was Highborn. The only question was why.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
“We needto look into Highborn and Crawford,” Darius said, walking into the house through the back door. He stilled when he saw Lily at the table. It wasn’t the notebook in the bag in front of her that caught his attention. There was a woman, someone he didn’t recognize, standing beside her.
“Uh, why?” Lily asked. At the same time, he asked, “Who are you?”
“Dr. Anjali Patel,” she said, circling the table and holding out a hand. “I’m the virologist who tested your blood last night.”
He shook her hand, then glanced at Lily. If the tests had been wrong, they’d been out all day. Possibly infecting people.
“Everything’s fine,” she said, sensing his concern. “Since we know so little about the virus, or even if the book was exposed to it, Chad suggested we call in some help. He thought she might know a way to make checking the notebook safer.”
He hadn’t exactly been keeping any walls up between himself and Lily, not for a while, but at her words, something inside him fell into place. Not how he felt about her, but what he believed, truly believed, she felt for him. She’d known he wasn’t comfortable with her plan, and she was doing everything in her power to make it safer. She’d benefit, of course. But he knew, without a doubt, that she’d done it for him. She might be uncomfortable saying the words, but with every decision, each action, she took, she was showing him. And that was far more important to him.
He moved toward her and dropped a kiss on her head as he passed. Other than holding her hand, it was their first public display of affection. He had no idea how Lily would react, so he didn’t give her time to. “What are your ideas?” he asked Dr. Patel as he took a seat beside Lily and fingered the sealed bag.
“When I ran the test last night, my interest was piqued, to say the least. As I’m sure you can imagine, while a stitched-together new virus isn’t entirely novel, this one is fairly unique,” she said.
He smiled. “You managed to study it.”
