She looks around, as if concerned that others might be watching.
“Nico. What are you—”
“I’m in town for business.”
“Business,” she echoes the word, skeptically.
He nods.
“They sent you on a business trip less than a day after rescuing you from a coal mine?” She eyes the sling.
So she has seen the news. And his heart sinks again—she never checked in on him. But what did he expect?
Get over yourself.
“I thought we might talk,” he says.
She studies him. “I’m not sure there’s anything to say.”
“Look, I know this is weird, but I nearly died and—”
“And what?” she cuts in. “Now you want to talk? Make it up to me? Let’s save each other the time. I’m over it. I forgive you or whatever it is you need to hear.”
Her features are hard now. Tears threaten to fill her eyes.
“Nat, please. Just give me a—”
“What? Give you a chance? That ought to be the tag line for your stupid TV show. For your life.”
“Did you get the money I sent?”
“I got it. Not before my credit score hit four hundred. Not before all the stress and sleepless nights worrying I’d be evicted from the apartment.”
He wants to say sorry but says nothing.
“I’m in a good place now, Nico. I’m glad you’re okay and survived, but I can’t do this again.”
“If we could just talk, let me—”
She cuts him off with a shake of the head.
“I’ve changed,” he says.
She guffaws at that, collects herself. “You’ve changed, have you?” She glowers at him. “The FBI was just here asking about you. But you’ve changed?” She turns, opens the door to the school. Before she disappears inside, she turns back to him. “Goodbye, Nico. Don’t ever come here again.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
JENNA
An evening breeze at her back, Jenna slinks through the majestic doors of Sabine’s elegant home in Kalorama, the security detail not giving her a second look in the outrageously expensive silk gown.
The party is filled with portly men in black tie looking decidedly unlike James Bond and their more attractive spouses.
A server carrying a silver tray offers Jenna a filet mignon bite. That’s when she realizes she hasn’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours. She takes the toothpick and tiny napkin and forces herself not to devour it like Cookie Monster. Her mind trips to Lulu, a stab of despair cutting into her, but she fights it. She needs to focus.
The sound of a cello fills the room. In the back corner, a woman moves the bow skillfully, eyes closed, lost in the music.
Jenna looks around the room. It’s definitely an ambassador’s party. Even in the tuxes, the men wear those obnoxious flag pins on their lapels, like all the politicos in D.C. No fashion-forward pretty boys here. Jenna plucks a champagne flute from another server and takes a sip. A small one.
Her stomach is nearly empty and she needs to be sharp.
She maneuvers through the crowd, her dress flowing as she walks. Then she hears it. The familiar laugh. The French accent with its hints of Russian.
Sabine is leaning into a tall man, likely saying something cheeky. He bellows a laugh.
Jenna watches for a long moment. More partygoers approach Sabine and exchange air kisses. It will be like this all night, Jenna knows. Sabine is a magnet. And she has aged like an expensive whiskey.
Jenna takes a deep breath and sets the glass on a tray as she joins the half circle of people surrounding Sabine. She hits Sabine with a piercing stare, and Sabine doesn’t miss a beat.
“Genevieve,” she says warmly, “I’m so glad you made it, mon chéri.” More cheek air kisses.
Jenna gives a thousand-watt smile, then says to the group, “Would you all mind if I borrow Sabine?”
The others assent and Sabine gives a tight smile of her own, the first break in the fa?ade. But she recovers quickly. “Yes, darling,” she says, “I must show you the piece I told you about. It’s in the master suite.” She excuses herself and leads Jenna through the crowd and past a burly man guarding the foot of a grand staircase.
Sabine glides up the stairs. Not a care in the world.
They pass through two imposing doors and into a master suite that seems to have come out of an interior-design magazine. Sabine shuts the doors, and when she turns around her eyes flash at the sight of Jenna’s handgun.
Sabine lets out a sound of amusement from her throat.
“Why?” Jenna asks.
“You’re going to have to give me more than that, love.” She’s giving Jenna a lazy glance—a look Jenna remembers too well from her teen years.
“You said I was out. Clean. But someone tried to—”
Sabine makes a tsk, tsk, tsk noise and shakes her head. “I’m disappointed in you.”
Jenna shakes her head, annoyed.
“Do you think you’d be standing here if I sent someone for you?”
It’s a fair point. One that’s been gnawing at Jenna since the hitter made the first mistake with the glare of the rifle scope. Then the woman with the weird weapon. The mode of execution is too flashy for Sabine’s taste. Too unreliable for The Corporation.
“Let me guess,” Sabine says. “You were part of that mess downtown yesterday with Artemis Templeton.”
If she’s lying, she’s damned good. But the problem is, she is.
“I’m no fan of that bald savant, but I had no reason to kill him,” Sabine says. “Put the gun down, darling.”
Jenna doesn’t acquiesce.
“And, honestly, I taught you better than this. The safety is on.”
Jenna doesn’t fall for it. Her eyes remain set on Sabine. One look away could be the last thing she ever does.
“Nice try.”
Sabine smiles.
“I’ve been doing this since you took me when I was fifteen,” Jenna says, showing she was offended at the cheap effort to distract her.
“I’m aware. And I also noticed you’re in that lovely gown instead of working at the Walmart in Chestertown.”
“If not you, then who?” This time Jenna does lower the gun. The truth is that if Sabine wanted her dead, she’d be dead. And, now, one yelp from Sabine will cause men with big guns to charge through those doors. “They knew about my background, about The Corporation, tricked me into thinking you all ordered me to take him down.”
“I have no idea. I’ve been out of the game myself. But there’s no way our friends would go after Templeton. I may be out, but I’d know about that.” Sabine walks toward a mirror on the wall. She wipes a finger at her eye makeup.
“It was a young woman,” Jenna says. “Pretty. She uses a strange weapon. She threatened my family. Then came after me. I need to find her.”
Sabine spins around. “No idea, dear. You know the contractors are always changing. I don’t keep up anymore.”
“She’s not a girl you stole from some godforsaken group home like Savior House?”
Sabine lets out an exasperated sigh. “She’s not one of ours. Really, darling, you’re not a teenager anymore, so stop acting like it.”