The cursor blinked under the last line. No signature. No sender. No trace.
Jupiter sat back. “I don’t trust that. Smells like a setup.”
Lark’s heart thudded as she digested the message… and its meaning. She glanced at the map on the smaller screen. “Route 14… that’s practically deserted. One way in, one way out.”
“Only three females on that mission, and based on the fact that the angle from that image was taken from where Mina was posted, I doubt our mystery sender is talking about me or Lark,” Specs said. “But they are implying Mina’s alive.”
“Or someone’s trying to make us think she is,” Jupiter said.
Lark didn’t respond right away.
Mina. Her easy grin. Her tea addiction. Her vegan lifestyle. The way she always tapped her boots three times before going on a mission, like some kind of silent prayer.
That angle… only three people could have accessed it. Mina, someone directly behind her, or someone with full pre-planning access to the mission who knew where Mina would be. That narrowed things down in the worst kind of way.
“Mina came to the team through Lorre, but I’d worked with her before. She was on my short list.” Lark stared at the screen. “They knew how to get our attention. And they want me there. That’s a message designed for me.”
“I’m going,” Kawan’s voice said behind her.
Lark turned to find him in the doorway. Arms crossed. Jaw tight.
“Of course you are,” she said.
Jupiter stood. “I’ll tell Thor and Lief. They’ll shadow trail. Eyes on the perimeter. You’ll have backup, even if they don’t want you to.”
Lark’s mind was already a hundred miles down that desert road. “Let’s gear up. No weapons, fine—but I’m not walking in blind.”
Specs looked up at her. Her voice was quiet but edged with steel. “Find out who sent it. But don’t go trusting ghosts. And if it’s Mina…”
“I’ll bring her home,” Lark said, and meant every word.
12
ROUTE 14—NEW MEXICO
Kawan guided the black SUV off the cracked county road and into a gravel pull-off beside the diner. The sun sagged low behind the hills, casting the landscape in a bruised shade of yellow and rust. Dust rose off the backroads like breath from scorched lungs, and the GPS had gone silent five miles ago—no cell towers, no data signal. The kind of place people didn’t stumble upon by accident.
The building looked like it had been peeled out of an old postcard—weather-worn siding, chipped blue trim, a dented Coca-Cola sign hanging crooked over the front door, and a screen door that wheezed on its hinges every time the wind hit.
Across the parking lot, a rusted-out pickup sat half-sunken in weeds. A couple of semis idled farther back near the diesel pumps—no other cars.
If they weren’t in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, his hackles would’ve been standing completely at attention. Currently, they were at half-mast.
He threw the gear into park and scanned the lot again. “I counted two cars on the ride in. Both were going in the opposite direction. Neither one appeared to turn and follow.”
Beside him, Lark was scrolling through the encrypted message again on her phone. “It’s a setup,” she muttered. “I don’t trust anything about this situation, and I don’t believe a word , especially the part about Mina working for the other side. I can’t see her betraying me.”
He watched her face—the set of her jaw, her narrowed eyes. She was dialed in, riding the razor’s edge between suspicion and hope.
“What do you know about Mina’s personal life?” he asked.
“She’s an only child. Her parents immigrated to the US from Colombia two years before she was born. She’s a proud person. Fiercely independent. Single. She’s also a lesbian, not that her sexual orientation matters.”
“No, it doesn’t. But I’m looking for a reason?—”
“I know what you’re fishing for,” Lark said with real bite to her words. “And I get it. Lorre suggested her for this mission. But he handed me a list of operatives. She was already someone I was considering. The only reason she wasn’t the first person I thought of was because of the location. Our op wasn’t in Colombia, but it wasn’t too far away. I couldn’t risk her being compromised. She still has family in the area.”
“And yet, she was on the op anyway.”
