Berg nodded. “They’re probably watching this apartment as we speak. Like I said, they move fast. We’d most likely need to make her aware of the countersurveillance, so we could coordinate a point for them to start tailing her. They can assess the tracker situation on the go.”
“They’re that sophisticated?” asked Devin.
“They’re the best,” said Berg.
PART III
CHAPTER 19
Marnie Young set her phone on the coffee shop table and tried to act normal. She took a sip of her lukewarm coffee and scrolled through the last few pages of the United States Senate Employment Bulletin again, pretending to give the screen her attention. What the hell had Devin Gray gotten himself into? Actually, the better question was, What the hell had his mother gotten him into? Mrs. Gray had always been wonderful to Marnie, but something had shifted after they’d left for college in 2004.
Helen had been different when Marnie had visited Devin’s house over Christmas of their freshman year. Cold and somewhat distant to Devin and the rest of the family, from what she could remember. She could see the embarrassment on Devin’s face while they hung out in the family room, recounting “war stories” of their first semester in the dorms at their respective campuses, Helen politely nodding and staring off into nowhere—so unlike her previous self.
That was the last time she’d seen his mother. It had apparently gotten worse each year, and he’d never invited her over to the house again. On occasion, Devin had brought his dad along when they’d met up for lunch or coffee, but Helen had never come up in the conversation. Devin’s dad had looked like a shell of the man she’d remembered. Still friendly and talkative, but on more of a surface level, as though he were pretending, which was probably closer to the truth than she’d realized at the time.
The details of Helen Gray’s downfall still remained a mystery to Marnie. All she really knew was that Helen had done a number on Devin and the rest of his family. And it hadn’t ended with her death. In fact, it sounded as though she’d passed on part of her toxic legacy to Devin, leaving him to clean up the mess. A big mess, judging by the precautions he was taking. Nothing about the conversation that had just transpired had been normal, except for one thing: Devin trusted her enough to reach out for help under desperate circumstances.
Things were still the same between them. As always, they could rely on each other for support, even though they were thousands of miles apart and she seemed to do most of the heavy lifting. She was just glad he still felt comfortable asking. Her decision to look for work post–Marine Corps had everything to do with her career aspirations, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit that a part of her excitement about landing in the Beltway after nearly two decades away had to do with Devin.
She navigated to another website dedicated to internships and paid staff positions on Capitol Hill and spent the next fifteen minutes clicking links and taking notes. Marnie got some real work done but was mostly killing time. Devin had said he needed an hour to move a countersurveillance team into place at the coffee shop. He’d text her when they were ready for her to roll.
From here she had been instructed to drive north on Broad Street to the Whole Foods just past Interstate 66 and to fill a handbasket with a logical assortment of items a thirty-seven-year-old single woman might buy—whatever that meant. Pay for the stuff and head home, where she could start looking for the Airbnb.
They didn’t want her working on the Airbnb in the coffee shop for two reasons: One, it was “possible, but not probable” that someone could be watching her from inside the shop, snapping pictures of her laptop screen. Two, her internet connection to the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi was vulnerable to snooping from someone inside or outside the shop. She hadn’t connected to the internet using a VPN server, which is something she’d never thought to install and use before Devin explained its value a few minutes ago.
Supposedly, by the time she drove to Whole Foods, shopped for stuff she didn’t need, and made her way home, the team sent to watch over her would be able to determine if a tracker had been placed on her Jeep or if anyone was shadowing her. If that turned out to be the case, Marnie was off the Airbnb job for obvious reasons. She’d started to suggest conducting a surveillance-detection run or whatever Devin had mentioned in their previous conversations about his work—but cut herself off.
Even though it didn’t sound terribly complicated, particularly if he talked her through it, she figured it would probably feel the same as him suggesting he could land a helicopter with someone giving him directions. A little insulting. Above all, she didn’t want to take the chance that she’d screw it up and put him at risk. If they grounded her from the Airbnb mission, she’d accept the decision and somehow try to go about her normal life, knowing that Devin was in enough trouble that he’d hired a countersurveillance team to do a job in which he specialized.