No. I knew it hadn’t been in the things I’d unpacked at Coop’s. I would’ve known right away what it was.
“Hey, are you sure you didn’t throw it out? Maybe in a rough moment?” Lark’s voice was gentle. “Sometimes when we’re hurting, we do things and don’t remember?—”
“I would remember throwing away six years of my life.”
Lark didn’t flinch at the sharpness in my voice. She just nodded and started checking places I’d already looked. Under the bed again. The hall closet. The kitchen cabinets, which made no sense, but she checked anyway.
I stood in the middle of the bedroom, watching her search, my mind running in circles.
The box was gone. It didn’t make sense. I hadn’t moved it, hadn’t thrown it away, hadn’t taken it anywhere. Boxes didn’t just vanish.
I froze. Unless someonetookit.
The thought surfaced slowly, dragging cold dread behind it. The books out of order. The drawer slightly open. And now this.
Someone had been in this apartment.
My laptop sat on the desk, untouched. My backup camera was still in its case. The emergency cash I kept in my underwear drawer was exactly where I’d left it.
Someone had searched my apartment and taken only one thing.
The only thing that connected me to Ryan Cooper.
Oh no. Travis had been keeping tabs on Coop’s cover story to make sure it held if Oliver was digging deeper. But if Oliver had figured out who I was and come here…
“Oliver.” His name spilled out like poison.
Lark’s face went pale. “What?”
“He knows about Coop and me.” My legs felt unsteady. “Oliver broke in here. He found that box—and that told him the truth about Coop and me. The real history. Not the cover story about finding me at the barn. He knows Coop lied.”
“Mia, are you sure? Maybe?—”
“Nothing else is missing. Just the one thing that proves Coop and I have a connection. Not just a connection but an intimate and important past.” The words came faster, the panic breaking through. “If Oliver knows that, he knows Coop lied about everything. About claiming me. About the whole cover.”
And Coop had walked back into Oliver’s operation this morning.
I lurched toward the kitchen, nearly tripping over boxes we’d packed. My phone. I needed my phone. Travis was the only one who could reach him—the only one with the equipment, the connections, the ability to do anything from his fortress of screens and satellites.
I found my phone on the counter. My fingers were clumsy, uncooperative. I nearly dropped it twice pulling up the number Coop had programmed in before he left.
For emergencies,he’d said.Just in case.
This was just in case. This was the worst case.
One ring. Two.
“Mia?” Travis’s voice came through sharp, alert.
“Oliver knows.” I couldn’t slow down, couldn’t organize the words into proper sentences. “My apartment—he broke in—there was a box, letters from when Coop and I dated six years ago, and it’s gone. He took it. He knows about us, the real us, not the cover story. He knows Coop lied?—”
“When?” He was typing already, rapid keystrokes through the phone. He didn’t make me justify my concerns. If anything, Travis was way more paranoid than me. “When did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Recently. But the box is gone and it’s the only thing missing, and Coop is back there right now and?—”
“I’m alerting the team.” His flat, professional tone interrupted my spiral. The voice of someone who’d handled impossible situations for agencies that didn’t officially exist. “Beckett, Hunter, everyone. We’ll get him out.”
“You have to hurry.” My free hand gripped the counter, knuckles white. “If Oliver figured it out before Coop got there. Oh God, you guys were talking about how this buy was unusual. What if Oliver?—”
