Behind Closed Doors (Rochester Trilogy 3.50)

“Listen to what I’m saying. There is no evidence. I’ve searched high and low. It’s not here.”

Chapter Twelve

Sam

“It exists. We know she has it.”

I don’t like the anxiety in my handler’s tone. I don’t like it at all. Anxiety is not an everyday part of the job. A handler never displays fear. This one especially. He’s usually gruff. Demanding. And detached. This job shouldn’t be any different.

Except it is different. Marjorie’s different, for fucking sure. That shouldn’t extend to the handler. He knows I’m a good operator.

It’s making me suspicious. I don’t like that feeling when it comes to the chain of command. Suspicion is useful in the field. You get an inkling about something, you follow it. Everyone above me should be dead sure of the job.

“I’ve searched every inch of this place. There’s nothing.”

“The intel on this was good.”

“It wasn’t that good or else I’d have found it already.”

Because I have searched. When Marjorie was deeply asleep, I made trips to her workroom. I opened every file. I’ve gone through every drawer and cupboard in this place. No guest room has been left untouched. No linen closet.

“Is there a complication?” he asks flatly. All the anxiety is gone from his voice. All the emotion. He’s snapped back to his usual persona. “If there is, report.”

“There’s no complication. It’s not here.”

I don’t like this line of questioning. Obviously, there is a fucking complication, but he’s deciding to go above my head. He’s deciding to send someone else in. “This is contrary to your record.”

“This is contrary to quite a few fucking things,” I argue. “The intel has never been this flawed.”

“The next step is to eliminate the target.”

My blood runs cold, then boiling hot. “That wasn’t the assignment.”

“I have authorization to change the assignment parameters.”

“Why the fuck—” I grit my teeth together and get a handle on my tone. If I fight with him too much, he’ll assume that I’ve gotten emotionally involved. And maybe I have. Who the hell cares? Marjorie hasn’t done a damn thing. She runs a bed and breakfast, for God’s sake. Nothing she has in this building is hurting anyone. “That isn’t necessary.”

“If you can’t locate the evidence, there are concerns about future behavior from the target.”

This is the same language we’ve always spoken together. Hits and targets and elimination and evidence. It’s all code for death and suffering. I thought I was used to it. I’ve had to be used to it. That’s the fucking job. But I want to reach through the phone and kill him when he talks about Marjorie as a goddamn target. When he causally mentions eliminating her for some vague future behavior.

“If those concerns are based on the same intelligence that pinpointed the evidence, then it’s an incorrect conclusion. I want it reviewed.”

“Do you have additional data?”

Yes. That I fucking searched the Lighthouse Inn, and there is no evidence of anything involving Marjorie’s father. That I have kissed her and fucked her and tasted her, and she is sweet and warm and kind. That all she’s ever wanted is safe harbor. She doesn’t want anything to do with the CIA or the night her father died or any of this bullshit.

“Lack of evidence. There’s been no mention of any documentation.”

“Subsequent review will need approval.”

“This woman should be left alone.” The edge of my phone bites into my palm. I’m holding the damn thing too tightly. It’s cheap as hell, the way all my phones have been. They last for an assignment or two and then I get a new one. “She’s an innocent.”

“We have no confirmation on that.”

“I’m confirming it. She’s fucking innocent.”

“What’s the basis for your assessment?”

“I’ve interviewed her.”

“Comprehensively?”

This heartless bastard wants to know if I’ve tortured her. If I’ve put her under physical pressure to answer me.

“A comprehensive interview wasn’t in the orders. I’ve had numerous one-on-one conversations with her since my arrival.”

A keyboard taps in the background. He’s making notes for the file on Marjorie. It’s a familiar enough sound, but it makes my teeth grind together.

“Your request for review has been noted.”

“That’s not enough. I want a guarantee that she’ll be left alone until the review is complete.”

“I’m not able to guarantee—”

“I want the guarantee,” I insist. He’s above me in the chain of command. The handler is supposed to have the final word. “She’s innocent.”

More tapping in the background. He’s probably writing that he suspects emotional attachment. He’s probably reporting that the mission has been compromised. In all my years in the service, I’ve never been the one to compromise anything. There have been fucked-up jobs before. Interference from the outside. I’ve had to call in reports like that.

“Hold your position,” he says.

“Give me the time frame.”

There’s nothing on the other end of the line. Only silence. He hung up on me.

I almost press the button to call him back. Almost. But what the hell else would I say? I lean over the bathroom counter and stare at the call log on the phone. If I lived here with Marjorie, the screen would be filled with her name. Other people from Eben Cape. It wouldn’t be a string of numbers I don’t bother to memorize. They change too much and mean almost nothing. They only mean work.