He traced a finger lazily along the top of Tracy’s thigh. In a tropical-print bikini, her long legs glistening with oil, and with her wet hair slicked back, she looked even sexier than usual.
No one was more surprised than Cameron by his feelings for Tracy—both how quickly they’d happened and how intense they were.
Then again, Cameron Crewe’s life had been one long string of surprises. Some wonderful. Some terrible
. He’d become a master at expecting the unexpected, or at least of adapting to new realities.
“You’ve nothing to feel guilty about,” he told Tracy. “Paris isn’t going anywhere. You’ll be there in a few days. And in the meantime, it’s not as if you haven’t been working. This is the first time I’ve seen you without a laptop in your hands since we arrived.”
This was true. Though Tracy wasn’t sure what good it had done her. So far there was nothing at all to link Althea to the Neuilly attack. With the exception of Bob Daley’s execution—and perhaps Nick’s “accident”—Althea’s actions for Group 99 had all been sophisticated, slick and nonviolent. After each one she’d left a clue of some sort, a virtual calling card, not because she was careless, but because she was proud to take responsibility for her work.
Neuilly was different. Sending gunmen into a school to massacre teenagers, simply because their parents were rich? That wasn’t Althea’s style. Her deafening silence online and everywhere confirmed it.
It seemed to Tracy that Group 99 was becoming ever more like the mythical hydra: strike at one head, and two more grew before your eyes, each more lethal than the first.
And meanwhile, Hunter Drexel was still out there, holding on to his secrets until he could find somebody brave, or reckless, enough to publish them, to snatch away all the masks and mirrors and show all the players in this dreadful, violent drama as they truly were . . .
“Come here.”
Cameron pulled Tracy onto his lap and slipped his arms around her waist. “Please stay a little longer. I need you.”
FROM A VILLA ACROSS the bay Jeff Stevens watched the scene on Tracy’s balcony through a high-power telescope.
A range of emotions flowed through him, none of them good.
Jeff tried not to hate anyone. But he was finding it extremely hard to warm to Mr. Cameron Crewe.
What’s a billionaire fracking magnate doing sniffing around Tracy? Who just happens to be working for the CIA in their fight against Group 99? Who just happens to view billionaire fracking magnates about as positively as the rest of the population views pedophiles?
And how convenient that he’s whisked her away to Maui just as the shit’s hitting the fan in France.
Jamie MacIntosh had informed Jeff yesterday that Hunter Drexel was definitely in Paris and that MI6 were “very close” to apprehending him. The Americans, according to Jamie, were still stabbing around in the dark.
Jeff knew he should be cheered by this news. And by the fact that Tracy was safe on the other side of the world, at least for now, and out of imminent danger.
But he was finding it increasingly hard to focus.
According to Google, Hawaii suffered an average of three shark attacks per year.
Was it too much to ask that Crewe be one of the three?
TRACY SAT AT HER computer, cross-referencing French intelligence files on Henri Mignon, the dead Neuilly shooter, with CIA data on known Group 99 operatives working within the United States. A number of survivors from Camp Paris had confirmed that one of the masked gunman had an American accent. So far Tracy had failed to find a single link.
Rubbing her eyes tiredly, she decided to take a break and try something else.
Hunter Drexel. If the sightings were accurate and he really was in Paris, he was doing a good job of living under the radar electronically. He wasn’t using a credit card or a mobile phone or any of his known email addresses. He’d also managed to cross a number of European borders without a passport, or any ID. That meant one of two things was happening. Friends were helping him. And/or he was living on cash.
“Poker.” Tracy said aloud.
“Hmmm?” Cameron wandered in from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. He’d spent most of the afternoon in the hotel gym while Tracy worked, and had just taken a long shower prior to dragging her away from her computer and out to dinner.
“Hunter Drexel plays poker. I’ll bet that’s where he’s getting his cash.”
“Maybe,” Cameron said. “Does that help us?”
“It might.” Tracy looked up at him excitedly. “I could go to Paris, posing as a dumb Texan divorcee with a gambling habit and money to burn. Get myself invited to all the high-stakes games in town.”
“And what, run into him?” Cameron asked skeptically.