Midnight Remembered

He had asked those questions in exactly the right tone. As if he really didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. Of course, Josh had always been good. So damn good at everything.

“The company,” she said. That was the nickname for the CIA that almost everyone who worked for the agency used.

“Debolt?”

Which was the name of the firm he was working for here in Atlanta. Again the tone of his question held exactly the right note of confusion. She laughed, mocking his skill. The sound of her laughter almost prevented her from hearing his next question.

“After the accident?” he asked. “Is that what you mean?”

“What accident?”

The word had shocked her for some reason, jerking her out of her very satisfying anger. But the concern in her repetition was the wrong response, and she regretted it as soon as she had given it voice. She had wanted to convey her absolute certainty that she knew who he was and knew that he was lying to her. And then she had bit on that ploy like an amateur.

“The wreck,” he said. “Is that what this is about? Insurance or something? If so, maybe you’ve got the right guy but the wrong name.”

There was enough information there, and the tone reasoned enough, that she had to stop and think about what he had said. Accident. Wreck. Insurance. Wrong guy. Except, of course…

“Not Debolt,” she said again, rejecting the scenario he had just dangled in front of her. “The CIA. And you know what I’m talking about, Josh, so let’s stop playing games. Maybe you’re only doing what they told you to do, but don’t expect me to buy it. Maybe I didn’t spend as many years in special ops as you did, but I spent long enough to know how to do a computer search. Joshua Stone dies, and Jack Thompson is born. It’s all there. Right in the External Security files for anyone who wants to look for it. And I think that means you’ve got a problem.”

He said nothing for a long time, his eyes still considering her face. Trying to read it, maybe? She didn’t care if he was. She was telling the truth. A truth he needed to hear. If she could find him, then a lot of other people could as well.

“I think you’d better come in,” he said. “We need to talk.”

The strongest emotion she felt when she heard that invitation was satisfaction. She had forced him to listen to her and to stop making those ridiculous denials. She started up the basement steps, expecting him to lead the way over to the street-level set of stairs and up to the building’s front entrance.

Instead, he stayed where he was, watching her face until she reached the top. When he still didn’t move, she stopped beside him, looking into his eyes. She didn’t know what she had expected to find in them. Embarrassment that he’d tried to put her off like that? Admiration that she hadn’t bought that cock-and-bull? Maybe even some memories.

They held none of those things. They were interested. Reflecting the same deep intelligence she remembered so vividly, but nothing else. Not even, it seemed, an admission that they had once been more to one another than professional associates.

“I take it I’m supposed to know you,” he said.

Just when I was about to give you some credit, Paige thought. Her mouth tightened in frustration. She broke contact with his eyes, looking past him, focusing on the row of cars parked across the street. An exercise in gathering control, like counting to ten. And then it became something else.

“They’re taping us,” she said, her eyes coming back to Josh’s. “Someone in a car across the street is filming us.”

“Filming?” he repeated, turning around and staring at the car that was parked along the opposite curb, its motor running.

What Joshua Stone had just done was against everything Paige had been taught when she’d been brought over to Special Ops. Griff’s people were carefully trained. They had to be because the things they were called on to do were not only dangerous, but potentially embarrassing for their government as well.

And one of the cardinal sins was to have your picture taken. To have your face caught on camera. That was especially true while you were on a mission, but the rule applied at any time. Any place. And Joshua Stone, the best agent she had ever known, had just blatantly violated it.

As shocked as she had been by his turning toward the man who was video recording their meeting, she was even more surprised when he began walking toward the car. The camera was still pointed toward them, still filming. Josh stopped at the near curb and looked both ways before he stepped out into the street, not even seeming to hurry.

Was he going to ask them to stop shooting? Or was he going to try to get the tape? Which called into question, she supposed, just who Josh thought the two men in that car might be.

Paige’s guess was that they were from the agency. Either they had followed her here, which probably wouldn’t have been too difficult, despite the routine precautions she had taken, or they had already been running surveillance on Josh.

She couldn’t quite figure out why they would be doing that. Why would the CIA be keeping tabs on one of their own? Especially on someone who was no longer working for them? That almost made it seem…Almost made it seem…

Her mind was racing again. And even as it did, Josh reached the car. He opened the door and said something to the man with the camera. Paige was too far away to hear the words, but the man lowered the recorder and looked up at Josh, answering him.

She was already fumbling to open her purse where her weapon was, her hand moving almost without her volition. She had started toward the street when Josh reached out to take hold of the camera, as if he intended to wrest it from the man who was apparently reluctant to give it up. Paige began to run, closing the distance between her and her former partner.

Her gun was in her hand, but she prayed she wouldn’t have to use it. If the men in that car were fellow agents…

And then the guy with the camera came up out of the front seat, still holding onto it with one hand. With the other, he was reaching into his pocket.

Paige’s heart rate accelerated, knowing she was going to have to make a decision about whether to shoot within the next ten seconds or so. It was a decision she didn’t want to have anything to do with. One she didn’t have enough information to make. And one that would inevitably be influenced by what had once happened, a long time ago, between her and Josh Stone.

She stopped, gripping the semiautomatic with both hands, willing them not to shake. She drew a bead on the chest of the man who was struggling with Josh over the camera.

Her concentration, however, was on his other hand. And then, moving almost in slow motion, that hand began to come out of his pocket, bringing something with it.

Chapter Three

This isn’t supposed to be happening, Jack Thompson thought.

He couldn’t even begin to explain why he had come over to confront the two men. When he had seen that camera, for some reason he had been overcome by an overpowering wave of anger.

The doctors had warned him. They had said that a tendency to impulsive and risky behavior was a fairly common result of head trauma. He hadn’t paid much attention, because up until now he hadn’t sensed any lack of restraint within himself.

Up until now, he thought grimly, aware that the guy he was struggling with for control of the camera was reaching into his pocket with his other hand. And he knew with cold certainty, a feeling which tightened all the muscles of his stomach, that the cameraman was going for a gun.

Something Jack wished he had. He could almost feel the solid, reassuring weight of a weapon in his hand. Except he didn’t have a gun, and he couldn’t remember ever having touched one. Couldn’t consciously remember, he amended, because somehow he knew that he had. And he wanted to again. Right about now would be a real good time.

The fumbling hand finally emerged from the side pocket of the guy’s coat. And he hadn’t been wrong, Jack thought, seeing what it held. He wished to hell he had been. He also wished that he hadn’t started this. What could it possibly matter that someone was videotaping him while he was talking to a woman? A stranger. It sure wasn’t worth getting killed over.

He willed his fingers to release their grip on the camera they were struggling over. The unexpected loss of opposition unbalanced the cameraman. He staggered backward, crashing into the open door of the car. Both hands rose automatically, almost shoulder high, as he tried to regain his balance.