I groaned, taking a sip from the now-lukewarm coffee on my desk, needing the caffeine fix to keep me awake. I hadn’t been sleeping all that well since Matt had left. It was as if his nightmares had transferred over to me, and now I found myself waking up in the middle of the night, my body drenched with sweat, images of him being tortured and killed haunting my dreams.

I still hadn’t heard from him.

Whoever he had watching me was good, because I hadn’t seen him once. Everything around me had fallen quiet. There had been no more muggings, no more break-ins, no more mysterious packages in the mail. My wound had healed for the most part, and it was almost as if it had all been a dream.

I’d seen my parents twice since we’d gone to the Kennedy Center, and I had an invitation to attend a dinner at their house with old friends of the family who just-so-happened to have a son who was a little older than me. The whole thing reeked of a setup, but since it also had the added benefit of giving me an excuse to get into the house, I took it.

My work phone rang again.

“This is Kate Reynolds.”

“We have the perfect guy for you,” Jackie announced, skipping the usual phone pleasantries.

I put my head in my hands, cradling the receiver in the curve of my neck. Having sisters could be awesome; right now it felt like a giant pain in my ass.

“I don’t want to go out on a date,” I grumbled. “I’m not really in the mood to be fixed up with anyone.”

“Too bad. We’ve already set it up. We’re going to double-date so it won’t be so awkward for you. It’s a guy Will knows from the gym. Apparently, he’s an attorney.”

I hadn’t been into the date to start with, but this thing just kept getting dodgier and dodgier.

“You’re joking, right? Will knows him from the gym? What, he couldn’t find some random guy off of the street to go out with me?”

Jackie laughed. “It’s not like that. They play basketball together on the weekends. I’ve seen him—he’s cute. And he’s a nice guy. Just give it a shot.”

“I really don’t think—”

“Do you want Blair off your back? Do you want her to think that you’ve really moved on? I saw Capital Confessions. Do you want her digging deeper there?”

Ahh, our resident Machiavelli. Nobody did scheming like Jackie. I could try my best, but I’d never have the same skills she did. She was inherently suspicious, and by the tone of her voice, I knew she knew that I was in deep with this stuff with my father.

“Fine.”

I could hear the triumph in her voice. “Wear something cute.”

I hung up and reached for the bottle of aspirin sitting next to my now-cold coffee.

Fuck my life.

Matt

It was daunting to return to Afghanistan after I’d narrowly escaped hell. I didn’t know if it was nearly dying here, but I found myself constantly on edge, sleep eluding me, my dreams more intense than ever before.

I woke in the middle of the night, my body covered in a thin film of sweat, chest heaving, arms flailing. I reached for Kate, only to come up empty. Alone. Again.

I turned onto my side in bed, throwing the covers off, still not used to the Afghani summer heat.

I’d traced my contact to Mazar-i-Sharif and found myself a room in a dubiously clean inn for a few nights. The staff was nice enough and the wireless worked even if the signal strength was weak; I’d slept in worse places both during my military career and after, and still I felt restless, edgy, desperate to get the hell out and return to the place that despite my instincts I still thought of as home. Back to the girl who I still thought of as home.

I missed Kate.

Now that I’d had another night with her in my arms again, all that I’d lost years ago came rushing back to me with frightening clarity. Time hadn’t made it easier as much as it had dulled my memories of her, making the unbearable slightly more endurable. But now? Now I felt the loss of her again, as though we were connected beyond the distance between us, even as we went through our days in separate worlds. I carried her with me now in a way I hadn’t before.

I calculated the time difference—it was early morning in D.C. Was she getting ready for work? Was she already at her office at Langley? Did she miss me? Had I let her down by leaving? Did she understand why I’d had to go?

Doubts ran through my mind over and over again.

I got out of bed, walking to the rickety desk where I’d set my laptop. I sat down in the chair that I feared would crumple beneath my weight and started up my computer, ignoring the voice in my head that told me to leave it, that the last thing I needed was a distraction when I was trying to stay alive.

I’d made myself promise not to check up on her, not to reach out to her. Some missions had been like that when I was in the military—the danger too high, the need to keep your head in the game too sharp to be distracted by family back home. Maybe it seemed harsh, but distractions were the difference between life and death. Even then I’d struggled with shutting Kate out completely. I’d carried her picture with me, and whenever we’d had downtime I’d stared at the image of her smiling face, reminding myself of all the reasons I fought for the home I had to protect in her.

The computer turned on, the screen flashing as I entered my password and pulled up my Internet browser. Jasper, the guy I’d hired to keep an eye on Kate, hadn’t reached out to me with any news so that told me everything was fine back home. He would have contacted me if anything had happened to her, but it wasn’t the same. I needed to see for myself that she was safe, needed to feel that connection to her.

I was tired. So fucking tired. Tired of running. Tired of not sleeping through the night. Tired of waiting for the knife in my back or the shot in the gut. Tired of feeling impotent, little more than a pawn in a global chess game.

We were close, but it wasn’t enough. They’d slip the noose with evasion and the threat of lawsuits to any source that printed the information if we couldn’t tie it tightly enough. And with Kate’s safety on the line, there was too much at stake to fuck this up.

I typed in the Capital Confessions Web address. As much as Kate hated the attention, there had been so many nights like this one—me in a shitty hotel, in a remote part of the world, waking up from a nightmare with a gnawing ache in my chest and a longing for her that couldn’t be assuaged, sitting in front of my computer, impatiently waiting for the site to load, for the hope that I’d see a glimpse of her—a picture, a story—something, anything that could carry me on when the weight of it all became too fucking much.

Besides, as much as I knew the attention got old, as long as she was in the spotlight and attention was on her, it would be difficult to cover up any violence against her. Her notoriety made her safer, because her death couldn’t be swept under the rug.

Frustration filled me as the page failed to load, the flashy graphics and videos a challenge for the slow Internet. I tried again, checking my cell to see if I’d heard from my source, Abdul.

I didn’t know much about him, just a name that was no doubt a pseudonym. Our meeting was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and then the next day, I’d be on a flight to Dubai, the first leg on my circuitous route back to D.C.

The page loaded and relief filled me. I scrolled down past the scandals, the articles hinting that a certain congressman had embezzled funds, through the posts about a charity that was being investigated, the link about the horse racing scion in Virginia who had disappeared, until the name Reynolds jumped out at me.

I clicked on the link, expanding the article to full size, the top picture sending a sliver of fear through my heart. Kate stood sandwiched by her parents, wearing a stunning blue dress, a smile on her face that I recognized from when we were younger and she’d attempted to play the game, trying to fit their ridiculous mold of who she should be. I scrolled down further, disbelief filling me as I read about her great reconciliation with her family … and I stopped on the picture of her with my father, deep in conversation. In this one, Kate looked pale, her lips pursed, tension in her brow. The caption helpfully pointed out her relationship with my father, referenced our engagement and my death.