The Final Cut (A Brit in the FBI 1)

She was prepared, overprepared, but it was the only way she had the courage to try. Today everything would change. He’d either turn her away or take her back. There would be no in between. He wasn’t the type to stay friends.

Ignoring the lingering pain in her forearm, she packed her things and crawled down the slick roof. The wound was healing, but she’d have the long, thin scar forever.

The window on the tenth floor was still cracked, and she slipped inside, taking a moment to make sure nothing had been disturbed. It wasn’t just a stroke of luck construction had started on the building closest to the Tower of London. She’d bought the building and commissioned the renovation. Through a shell company, of course. She wasn’t about to let anything else get in her way. And she saw a profit down the road as well. She’d been able to observe unmolested for days.

She said a small prayer as she changed clothes, stashed her black camo that blended so perfectly with the nighttime rooftops, and became the young researcher from the University of Edinburgh again, jeans, trainers, jumper, and mac, hair in a ponytail, the false brown irises restored to their natural, startling blue, the odd genetic anomaly that should have led her to a career in modeling instead of the life she’d led. She wouldn’t change her old life for the world, but she’d bid it farewell back in Gagny.

She pulled the satellite phone from her bag, scrambled the signal, and placed a call to a mobile number she knew by heart.

His voice was deep, clogged with sleep. She’d woken him. She couldn’t blame him for sleeping late. He deserved rest after all they’d been through. And his life was undergoing a sea change as well.

“Drummond here.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, then ended the call before he had a chance to react.

Time to go.

With a smile, she gathered her bag, walked to the elevator, and disappeared.