Reckless

Not for the first time, Tracy was left with the unsettling feeling that nothing and nobody were what they seemed.

UPSTATE NEW YORK WAS beautiful at this time of year. From her bedroom window at the rehab facility, Kate Evans enjoyed glorious views across rolling countryside. Bright green fields and wildflower meadows stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with cows, picket fences, oak trees and the occasional white clapboard farmhouse. There was nothing ugly out here. Nothing noisy or unpleasant, no poverty or disease or filth or pain. Not a blade of grass out of place, in fact. Just the sort of sanitized, unthreatening, almost manicured beauty that occurred when human beings took nature in hand and bent it to their will. All was order and peace. It was the perfect place to rest, and Kate had rested. But now it was time to go.

“I wish you’d reconsider.”

Bill Winter, Kate’s psychiatrist, tried again to change her mind. Tall and thin, with a craggy face like a dried-up riverbed and intense, thoughtful brown eyes, Dr. Winter reminded Kate of her father. Owen Evans had died during Kate’s first year of high school—a massive heart attack had felled him instantly, like a lightning-struck tree. That was the first time Kate’s heart had broken. It hadn’t healed, not fully anyway, till she met Daniel.

“I know you do.” She smiled at Dr. Winter. “But I really can’t stay any longer. There’s someone I need to see. And I really do feel so much better.”

That last part was truthful. But most of what Kate had revealed to her doctors and therapists here at Westchester Meadows had been a web of half-truths, interwoven with outright lies. That was one of the benefits of a life spent working in intelligence. Once you knew what it meant to go into deep cover—to become somebody else, for your own safety and the safety of others—you learned how to hold on to that other self with an iron grip. Even under hypnosis, Kate could be whoever she needed to be. And yet when the time came to break cover, she could walk away without a backward glance.

Daniel used to say it was like a snake shedding its skin.

Althea had been a necessary cover, a role she had needed to play. But it was time to let her go.

Hunter Drexel’s phone call had started the process. Here, at Westchester Meadows, Kate had finished it. The drugs had helped. So had the therapy. And the sleep. But the biggest factor had been Daniel, coming to her in her dreams.

You must forgive yourself, Kate.

Everything you did you did for me. For us.

But you can let go now. Move on.

Darling Daniel! She still missed him so much sometimes, it was hard to breathe.

She could let go of Althea and what Althea had done. But she couldn’t move on. Not yet. Not until she’d seen Hunter Drexel face-to-face. Not until she’d closed the circle.

“Where will you go?” Bill Winter asked. “As long as you’re in New York I’d still like you to see me at least once a week. And you should start going back to Lucy Grey regularly as well. Don’t let things unravel again. It’s easier than you think.”

“I won’t.” Kate hugged him, zipping up her bag. “And I promise to come and see both of you as soon as I get back.”

“Back?” Dr. Winter frowned. “Where are you going?”

Kate smiled. “To Europe. Like I said. There’s someone I need to see there. He’s been waiting a long time.”

SALLY FAIERS HUDDLED UNDER her umbrella and lit another cigarette.

It was raining, and she wasn’t even in bloody England. The bad weather, clearly, was following her. Just like bad luck seemed to follow her. Or perhaps it was bad choices?

Bad pennies.

Bad men.

She knew she shouldn’t have come here. Standing outside Chimay Castle, a lone tourist in this historic but obscure Belgian town, just a few miles from the French border, she felt the full, humiliating stupidity of her decision.

What if Hunter didn’t show up?

Or what if he did show up, dragged her into a world of trouble—and not just editor trouble, but the deep, real-world, kidnap and torture and murder trouble he seemed to have got himself into lately—and then left her? For another woman? Another story?

Of course, Sally had her own story now. Tired of waiting for Hunter to let her in on his scoop, she’d spent the last couple of months doing her own digging into the murky world of global fracking. It would be the first thing she published on her own, assuming the Times sacked her for this latest extended period AWOL. Ironically, it was the best piece of work she’d produced in years. But Sally knew herself well enough to know that that wasn’t why she was here.

As usual it was not her head that had pulled her back to Hunter Drexel, but her heart.

Her stupid, weak, womanly heart.

I hate myself.

The worst part of it was, Hunter hadn’t even called Sally himself to ask for help. He’d had some girl do it—Hélène—no doubt the latest naive, trusting young floozy he was screwing.