“Don’t like that reminder.”
“Why I told you right off.”
Tackle said the same thing about Tara’s name sounding familiar when I met him in the bar and told him about the job Striker had offered me.
“She’s one of Razor’s wife’s best friends.”
“Right. Mercer’s wife’s too.” Both men were K19 founding partners.
While on the flight home, Tackle helped me craft a plan of action to find Emsworth and offered to help.
“You wanna come in?” I asked when he pulled up to my parents’ house in the car he’d left at Logan when he last flew to DC.
“I’ll be over later.”
“Right.” I got out of the car, hoping that after a few days here, our friendship would get back on track.
4
Tara
It had been almost three years since I was in Europe, and there were so many places I wished I could visit—cities I’d been to before when the tribe and I backpacked all over the continent during college. We were five then. Now, they were four, since I had no idea when I might be returning to the States and, even when I did, whether I’d get in touch with them.
I was still pissed at Penelope for saying she thought I was “on something.” What I was “on” was the same thing I knew she was—anti-anxiety medication. I hadn’t asked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ava and Aine were on it too.
After what had happened to us last year, how could they not be? Who could survive being kidnapped and then not fear it might happen again?
It was shortly after Quinn’s wedding that Aine, Penelope, and I had been taken hostage by a group of Armenians. Who they’d really wanted was Ava, but got her twin, Aine, instead. Since Pen and I were with her, we were collateral damage.
The kidnappers kept us drugged and moved us from San Francisco to Seattle. We were rescued after three days, but the nightmares still remained. I’d never been so terrified in my life. The medication I took helped a little, as did therapy. Not that I’d be able to continue with either now that I was operating under an assumed identity.
I was sure my therapist would be worried when I didn’t show up for my appointment next week, and maybe Pen would be as well when she got home from the West Coast and discovered I took most of my things out of the apartment we shared.
After the plane landed and I’d gotten through customs without incident, I went to the train station and bought a ticket to Heidelberg.
My plan was to head to Stuttgart after a few days and then go into Switzerland through Zürich. There, I would withdraw money from the bank account set up in the name of Catarina Benedetto—my alias.
I’d been in Euro
pe almost four weeks, and tomorrow was Christmas. I’d be spending it in a pensione in Bellano, a small town on the eastern shore of Lake Como.
I’d been invited to join my hosts and fellow travelers for a holiday meal, but I’d declined. I was in no mood for socializing or trying to pretend I wasn’t heartbroken to be spending Christmas alone.
5
Halo
I didn’t start my search for Tara Emsworth in earnest until after New Year’s Day.
She’d been missing since Thanksgiving when she got on a plane to fly from Los Angeles to JFK. The manifest said she was on the flight, but no one had seen or heard from her after it landed. At least no one willing to come forward.
She was the victim of a messy divorce between a mother and father who, it appeared, didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to her other than to give her money. Attempts to reach her father had gone unanswered. When I contacted her mother, the only thing she could tell me was that Tara had always been daddy’s little girl and she had no idea where her daughter was. Probably gallivanting around the globe with her ex-husband.
Classic poor little rich girl except, now, she was missing, and God knew how long she’d been gone.
In the last week, I’d checked jails, hospitals, and morgues, along with interviewing her friends and reviewing social media accounts.
I was sitting in a coffee shop across from the building where Tara’s father kept an apartment when my cell rang with a call from one of my contacts still at the CIA, Money McTiernan. I’d contacted him a few days ago to see if he could help me get access to Tara’s financial records.