Evie realized her heart was beating hard. Something was wrong. She could feel it.
She panned the camera and zoomed in on the back of the sign. There was something attached to it. She zoomed more and saw it was a small camera, probably with a magnetic mount.
It all came flooding back. Delgado, the syringe, the back of the van. His hands on her. His smell. The things he said as he—
He’s dead, she thought, the words mantra-familiar. You shot him. Marvin split his head with that hatchet. He’s dead.
She closed her eyes and for a moment just breathed. Okay.
She reversed the footage. There—the truck license plate. If she’d still been at NSA, she could have run it down in thirty seconds. And tracked the truck’s movements, as well. She suddenly felt helpless.
She thought of Marvin. He’d been gone for days, working on a construction site near Pittsburgh. He didn’t travel often, but there were crews who would bring him in for jobs involving built-in shelving, which was one of his specialties. Some had in return lent a hand when Marvin had built the house. She knew he wasn’t mixed up with the government anymore. She’d never even worried about it.
Although this time . . . he’d seemed not himself when he left. Stressed, somehow. Distracted. Still, they’d FaceTimed every night since then, and he’d seemed fine. Was he, though? Maybe she’d been trying to convince herself.
She tried to tell herself it was nothing. Just a coincidence. Marvin was fine, the camera on the sign was just a way for UPS to know when someone was home, so they could come back later and deliver a package that had been sent to the wrong address . . .
Her heart started pounding again, and she closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a minute, trying to calm down. It had been years. She’d really believed it was done.
A text message popped up. Dash. Practice is over. Should I come up? Or meet at the car?
The parking lot was well lit and there would be lots of people there. Parents waiting for their kids. Kids finishing soccer practice, cross-country practice, other after-school activities. But she was suddenly frightened.
Meet me up here? she texted back.
Sure. Be there in five.
She texted back a thumbs-up emoji. Though she felt anything but.
What were they going to do? She was afraid to go home. She hated to admit it. But she was afraid.
She FaceTimed Marvin. He didn’t pick up.
Shit.
She suddenly wished they had Find My Friends or some other cellphone tracking app enabled. But she knew too much about how exploitable those features were.
She texted him. Hey. I’m worried about something and I’m afraid to go home. Can you text or FT me right away?
She tried to tell herself again that everything was fine, that she was being paranoid.
But she couldn’t convince herself. Couldn’t even come close.
chapter
thirty-seven
MAYA
Traffic on the GW Parkway was moving at a crawl, and Maya realized she should have taken Chain Bridge to Canal Road. Her fault for not checking Waze first—an embarrassing lapse for a CIA Science & Technology specialist. Usually she left a lot later, when the Parkway was the fastest route. But at rush hour, apparently it was the slowest.
Maybe Key Bridge. You can still make it. And if you’re late, it’s okay. He’ll wait. Maybe it’s even better. You’ll seem . . . nonchalant.
She didn’t feel nonchalant, though. This guy was really hot. They’d been flirting for weeks on Tinder, and tonight he was flying in from touring in Chicago, and they were going to meet at Lapis, an Afghan restaurant not far from her apartment. At 6:00. Less than thirty minutes.