Page 59 of The Agent
He caught Portia’s nod in the scant porch light illuminating the room from the other side of the cheap blinds. “Are we going on the run?”
“Not quite,” he said, although they damn well couldn’t stay here, in this house. People in this neighborhood kept to themselves, but that didn’t mean they were blind—or stupid. If anyone had seen Thorn and connected the dots with the partial image of him being wallpapered all over the internet right now, he and Portia would be hosed. But they still had business in Remington, so he said, “We need to find a safe place to hole up for a while so I can come up with a plan to finish this, once and for all.”
“Finish this how?” Portia asked, flattening a hand over one hip. “I don’t want to be in the dark anymore, Archer. If you’re going to kill anyone else, I want to know.”
For a brief second, Archer contemplated lying. But Portia was tougher than she looked, and she was already in for a penny.
So he said, “I didn’t do all this work just to have the payday I earned yanked out from under me. Thorn was right about one thing. Camila Garzaisa witness. She can tie you to the robberies, which means she’s too big of a threat to ignore. I’m going to kill her.” Resolve filled his chest. This was necessary, and he wouldn’t hesitate to fucking do it. No matter how long he had to wait. “I just have to figure out how.”
19
Camila sat back at the tiny kitchen table in the safe house and put her pencil down. Over the past two days, she’d drawn three detailed images of the man who had tried to kill her, two of which she’d sent to Sergeant Sinclair and Special Agent Calloway yesterday. Camila had thought that digging deep to remember the man’s face, his cold, flat stare and the sharp set of his jawline that had marked his determination to kill her, would freak her out. In a way, itwasunsettling to see his likeness right there in front of her rather than in her mind’s eye—after all, she was human, and the man had tried to bury a bullet in her head. Roman’s, too. But getting the man’s likeness on the page so the Intelligence Unit could track him down and bring him to justice for what he’d done to that police officer—what he’d tried to do to her—had brought Camila a sense of strength she hadn’t expected. The Intelligence Unit’s response to the drawings had further bolstered her. Even Matteo had been visibly impressed with the details she’d been able to put on the page. Creating one last drawing that allowed her to face the man, even if it was only on paper, gave her power.
She felt strong. In control. And all of it had started with Roman’s belief that she was brave.
Camila’s heart tripped behind her T-shirt, and she was helpless against her smile as she pressed a palm over the rapidthump-thump-thumpthat rattled her chest (annnnd a few other, more delicate parts of her) whenever Kai Roman popped into her thoughts. Under a different set of circumstances, she might be tempted to believe all that bliss was the result of the toe-curling, breath-stealing sex they were having, because orgasms that good?Definitelycause for a perma-grin. But when he’d opened up to her about his past, Camila had felt his fear and pain in her own heart. She’d thought her response might be flimsy—he’d lost not only his beloved mother far too young, but his wife on top of it, to the point that he’d been too scared to let anyone in for six years. How could anything she’d offer bring him comfort? Somehow, though, when she’d wrapped her arms around him and he’d clung to her right back, they’d formed a wordless connection she still felt now, days later.
She trusted Roman. She cared about him. And if she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall for him.
“Hey.” A bottle of water appeared from over her shoulder, and she looked up just as Roman leaned down to plant a quick kiss over her mouth. “You’ve been in here for a while. Thought you might want some water.”
“You’re taking my safety very seriously,” she said, arching a brow at him as he sat down beside her, looking hotter than anyone wearing track pants and a T-shirt had a right to.
The sexy little grin he sent in her direction did nothing to ease the heat brewing between her thighs. “According to you, I take everything seriously, remember?” Roman dropped his gaze to her sketchbook, his expression growing serious. “I thought you sent the drawings Sinclair asked for to Intelligence yesterday.”
“I did,” Camila said, shifting her focus to the nearly done sketch in front of her. “This one is extra. I know it sounds weird, but it’s kind of therapeutic to have one that I can face.”
“That’s not weird.” He looked again, then measured her with a glance she couldn’t quite read. “This drawing is incredibly accurate.”
While the cameras at her apartment building had only given the Intelligence Unit partial snapshots of the man, both Camila and Roman had seen his face in that hallway. It had only been for a few seconds, but she was never going to forget what he looked like.
“I guess everyone has a party trick,” she said with a shrug. “Mine is remembering faces well enough to draw them.”
Roman opened his mouth, but before he could respond, the satellite phone they kept on the kitchen island rang, making Camila jump.
“God,” she murmured, taking a deep breath to counter the spike in her pulse. “One of these days, I’m going to stop startling at every little thing, but today issonot my day.”
Roman shook his head, already halfway to the phone. “That’s weird. It’s after hours, and we’re not supposed to have a check-in until tomorrow morning.”
Well,thatdid nothing to ease her nerves. But there was a whole protocol for what would happen if there was an immediate threat to their safety, and it involved a hell of a lot more noise than a call on the sat phone. “Oh, God,” Camila said, a thought hitting her on a delay. “Do you think the Intelligence Unit found him?” Why else would they call at—she checked the clock on the microwave—seven in the evening?
“Let’s find out,” Roman said, answering the call with a gruff, “Roman.” He listened for ten seconds that lasted roughly fifty years in Camila’s head, then reached for the laptop they used for all of their video calls. A few seconds later, Sergeant Sinclair’s face appeared on the screen, the rest of the Intelligence Unit seated behind him at their desks, and Roman lowered the phone in favor of standing beside her at the kitchen counter.
Sinclair didn’t waste any time with small talk. “Roman. Camila. I know we weren’t scheduled to meet until tomorrow, but there have been some developments, and we wanted you to know as soon as possible.”
“Did you catch him? Tell me you caught him,” Camila said, unable to fight the adrenaline-tinged anticipation filling her veins.
“We don’t have anyone in custody,” Sinclair said, “but we do have some actionable leads and an update that will change things significantly.”
Roman straightened. “Start at the beginning and tell us everything.”
“First thing’s first,” Sinclair said. “Camila, this is A.D.A. Tara Kingston.” A pretty, curvy redhead appeared on the screen, smiling politely, and Camila smiled back even though she was a little confused. “We’d like to show you a photo array to see if any of these people’s eyes look familiar to you. Would that be okay?”
Camila’s confusion disappeared, her heartbeat speeding up. “Sure. Of course.”
“There will be six images total,” Capelli said, beginning to type. “I can enlarge any of the images, if you’d like. Take as long as you need with each one, and just let me know if you need to go back for another look at anything.”
“Okay.”