Read Online Burned (Vanessa Pierson series Book 2) by Valerie Plame, Sarah Lovett - Free Book Online
Authors: Valerie Plame, Sarah Lovett
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the truth about her relationship with her colleague David Khoury. The awfulness of her betrayal still stung. But their professional and personal relationship had survived. She respected Chris enormously and thought of him as a true friend—rare enough in general, but even rarer in her world.
She pulled a weathered Moleskine notepad from the drawer and found a pen on the floor. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and after a moment, her hand began to push the pen rapidly across the page, using her own version of shorthand to write down her conversation with Bhoot.
—
“ACTUALLY, YOUR ‘ONE MINUTE’ lasted eight minutes, twenty seconds,” Chris said, when she found him in the living room, seated on the worn silk loveseat.
She raised her eyebrows. “Glad you missed me.” She took the chair next to him, setting her now lukewarm mug of coffee on the antique side table between them. They were alone in the apartment, with the white-noise hum of computers punctuated by the syncopated drip from the leaky kitchen faucet.
Chris shifted position on the loveseat so his knees almost touched Vanessa’s. He studied her intently—Phi Beta Kappa and Mensa; the look lasted a matter of seconds, but still she almost squirmed. In her pocket, Bhoot’s phone pushed uncomfortably against her thigh.
Where to start?
He beat her to the punch.
“We’ve heard from the analysts who’ve been going over the video of your asset’s execution. Their very preliminary call: It was videotaped outside Paris, probably in a rustic outbuilding at a rural location where a gunshot would barely register—” He glanced at his watch. “Roughly twenty-two hours ago.”
Quickly calculating in her head, she asked, “How could they know that already?”
Chris eased his position, but he still stayed rod-straight; he worked out, pumped weights, kept more than fit and ready. He chose his words with care: “You know they can magnify the light in a subject’s eyes one thousand times and pick up all sorts of reflections . . .”
“So Farid was already dead when I was waiting to meet with him.” She wasn’t asking a question, so Chris stayed quiet.
She lifted the mug toward her mouth. “No report of a body dumped somewhere?”
“Not yet, no match.”
She nodded briskly, trying to convey professionalism but feeling empty. “Right.” She set the mug down again, coffee untouched. She let the painful feeling pass, looking back at Chris just as he shook his head.
He said, “I’m sorry that we’re here again—with another loss. Truly sorry, Vanessa.”
“One part of me thought the deaths would stop now that the Chechen’s dead, but another part knew . . . this is a nightmare.” She turned her face toward the French doors to the balcony that overlooked the front courtyard and the street. A slice of the rainy darknessbeyond the glass showed through where the drapery edges didn’t quite meet. When she spoke, her voice was a rocky whisper. “Have you noticed that everyone I touch turns up dead?”
“Don’t talk that way.” He lowered his voice. “You’ve proven who was behind everything that happened last year.”
“At what cost?”
Bhoot’s whispered question replayed internally:
“You do realize that we’ve both been betrayed?”
For much of the past three years, CPD had focused resources on Ghost Hunt—the operation aimed at unraveling Bhoot’s massive network and unmasking his identity.
And over the last year, she’d felt the heat and excitement of the investigation and the sense the team was drawing closer to identifying him. Following the Chechen’s trail, Vanessa and CPD discovered executions dating back years—and most important, they’d been able to find a money trail implicating Bhoot as the mastermind behind those assassinations.
But those wins were accompanied by human losses, which were pinned on her.
“Hey . . . Vanessa.”
It was Chris, prompting her back to the present.
She blinked,
She pulled a weathered Moleskine notepad from the drawer and found a pen on the floor. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and after a moment, her hand began to push the pen rapidly across the page, using her own version of shorthand to write down her conversation with Bhoot.
—
“ACTUALLY, YOUR ‘ONE MINUTE’ lasted eight minutes, twenty seconds,” Chris said, when she found him in the living room, seated on the worn silk loveseat.
She raised her eyebrows. “Glad you missed me.” She took the chair next to him, setting her now lukewarm mug of coffee on the antique side table between them. They were alone in the apartment, with the white-noise hum of computers punctuated by the syncopated drip from the leaky kitchen faucet.
Chris shifted position on the loveseat so his knees almost touched Vanessa’s. He studied her intently—Phi Beta Kappa and Mensa; the look lasted a matter of seconds, but still she almost squirmed. In her pocket, Bhoot’s phone pushed uncomfortably against her thigh.
Where to start?
He beat her to the punch.
“We’ve heard from the analysts who’ve been going over the video of your asset’s execution. Their very preliminary call: It was videotaped outside Paris, probably in a rustic outbuilding at a rural location where a gunshot would barely register—” He glanced at his watch. “Roughly twenty-two hours ago.”
Quickly calculating in her head, she asked, “How could they know that already?”
Chris eased his position, but he still stayed rod-straight; he worked out, pumped weights, kept more than fit and ready. He chose his words with care: “You know they can magnify the light in a subject’s eyes one thousand times and pick up all sorts of reflections . . .”
“So Farid was already dead when I was waiting to meet with him.” She wasn’t asking a question, so Chris stayed quiet.
She lifted the mug toward her mouth. “No report of a body dumped somewhere?”
“Not yet, no match.”
She nodded briskly, trying to convey professionalism but feeling empty. “Right.” She set the mug down again, coffee untouched. She let the painful feeling pass, looking back at Chris just as he shook his head.
He said, “I’m sorry that we’re here again—with another loss. Truly sorry, Vanessa.”
“One part of me thought the deaths would stop now that the Chechen’s dead, but another part knew . . . this is a nightmare.” She turned her face toward the French doors to the balcony that overlooked the front courtyard and the street. A slice of the rainy darknessbeyond the glass showed through where the drapery edges didn’t quite meet. When she spoke, her voice was a rocky whisper. “Have you noticed that everyone I touch turns up dead?”
“Don’t talk that way.” He lowered his voice. “You’ve proven who was behind everything that happened last year.”
“At what cost?”
Bhoot’s whispered question replayed internally:
“You do realize that we’ve both been betrayed?”
For much of the past three years, CPD had focused resources on Ghost Hunt—the operation aimed at unraveling Bhoot’s massive network and unmasking his identity.
And over the last year, she’d felt the heat and excitement of the investigation and the sense the team was drawing closer to identifying him. Following the Chechen’s trail, Vanessa and CPD discovered executions dating back years—and most important, they’d been able to find a money trail implicating Bhoot as the mastermind behind those assassinations.
But those wins were accompanied by human losses, which were pinned on her.
“Hey . . . Vanessa.”
It was Chris, prompting her back to the present.
She blinked,
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