Page 72 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

6. Secret billionaire.

7. International criminal.

8. Joined a cult that uses phrases like “read you in.”

9. Government spy.

10. No. That’s ridiculous.

11. It is significantly less ridiculous than it was this morning.

I stare at number nine. Then I open a browser and type signs your best friend is a spy. The first results are about fictional characters, party games, and detecting spyware on a phone. I adjust the search.

How to know if someone secretly works for an intelligence agency

It lists frequent unexplained travel, being evasive about their employment, high situational awareness, unusual language skills, unexpected physical abilities, and being guarded about personal information.

I stop reading. Miles has never been guarded about personal information. He told me about the time he cried while watching a documentary about migrating geese. He told me which brother broke his arm jumping from the garage roof and which brother took the blame. He told me he hates tapioca pudding because it feels like eating sweet frog eggs.

But his work? I’ve never been to his work. I know they house secure data for clients, so it’s not open to visitors. I don’t totally understand what he does there. I don’t know why he comes home injured. I don’t know why he had someone else’s nose today.

And nearly everyone I know works at the same company. I’m not sure whether to laugh or gasp, so I do something between the two.

Then I climb out of the car and go inside. I have two hours until seven. Two hours to decide how a person appropriately responds to discovering that her best friend is a government spy.

CHAPTER 15

OPERATION: EXPLAIN YOURSELF

MILES

The meeting at the hangar doesn’t go as we had hoped.

Rooke’s people put Maxwell through what amounted to a criminal job interview. Then the woman in the camel-colored coat checked her phone, the man dressed as a mechanic suddenly went alert, and she ended the meeting without explanation.

We still don’t know what spooked them.

We also don’t know whether Maxwell passed.

The one thing I do know is that sometime during the meeting, the woman planted a tracking device inside my jacket. I found it and returned it to her bag before she left, which will hopefully be interpreted as Maxwell Shaw being observant rather than Maxwell Shaw being annoyingly pleased with himself.

Partial success.

I pull into my garage at six fifty-two, wearing my own face, with eight minutes to review how I’m going to tell Reese the truth. I park and sit behind the wheel for a moment.

Tell her plainly. Don’t bury the truth beneath explanations. Don’t try to control her reaction. Don’t tell her how difficult the secrecy has been in a way that makes her feel responsible for comforting me.

And don’t tell her I’m in love with her tonight.

Abraham’s advice sounded calm and reasonable while I was sitting in his workshop. Now it feels like a list of instructions for dismantling an explosive device with my bare hands. I take one slow breath, then another.

Reese will be here in seven minutes.

I have time to put away the operation gear, change clothes, and possibly spend some more time thinking through how to start the conversation with Reese.

Reese, there’s something about my job I should have told you a long time ago.

No.