Page 75 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

There’s something unsettling about hearing her describe the habits I’ve spent years perfecting. There’s also something deeply, painfully warm about the fact that Abraham made me nearly unrecognizable, yet Reese knew me from the way I shifted my weight.

“You texted me,” I say.

“I needed confirmation.”

“I thought you were checking whether I was ignoring you.”

She shakes her head. “I was conducting confirmation surveillance.”

“That’s… not a thing.”

“I’m new to the terminology.”

Despite everything, I laugh once. Her mustache lifts with her smile, then begins peeling again. She presses it back into place.

I study her face. She’s excited. Alarmed. Proud of herself. And underneath all of it, something else is gathering. I need to stop postponing this.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m an intelligence operative.”

Her pen stops moving. Even though she already knows, the confirmation changes something in her expression. “A spy.”

“An intelligence operative.”

“An intelligence operative? That sounds like something spies call themselves when they want dental insurance.”

“That may be true.”

She looks down at her notebook and writes CONFIRMED beside something.

I glance at the list. Moving away. Dying. Getting bangs. Angry mob boss. Found someone. My gaze catches on that one. “You thought I found someone?” For half a second, I think she means an assignment to locate a person. Then I see the way she looks down.

“You said at the engagement celebration that you wanted what Ledger and Zoe have. That you were ready to go find it.”

“I didn’t find someone.”

Her shoulders lower a fraction. “Good.” She says the word fast, then draws a firm line through that item on the list. “Because that would be too many major revelations for one evening.”

“Right.” I found the person I want five years ago in a university library. Abraham specifically told me not to tell her that tonight.

Reese taps her pen against the notebook. “So. Intelligence operative.”

“Yes.”

“Start with Lancaster Business Solutions.”

“Okay, it’s a cover organization for a government intelligence agency called the Clandestine Services Agency. The CSA.”

“The entire company is fake?”

“It legally exists.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“It doesn’t perform the services the public-facing company claims to provide.”

She turns to a clean page. “Charlie.”

“She’s a handler and technical operative. She supports operatives during missions. She’s on comms, watching cameras, opening doors remotely, things like that.”