“She’ll fire us.” If she lost this job, she’d be back to square one.It’s not like she could put “former undercover spy” on her LinkedIn page. She was not letting her ex-husband show up, wreck the mission, or anything else.
“We can get this done. I believe in us.” She meant as a spy team.
He chortled. “I’m not there yet.”
“You were this morning.”
“There’s been some backsliding on that front.”
“What now?” Gabby asked. She didn’t mean the mission, but he said, “Seems like our mission is clear: find Sheridan’s phone and the person who broke into her cottage. They will likely be together.”
So they weren’t going to talk about their relationship. Fine.
“What do you think about Sheridan’s theory about President Simon trying to kill her?”
“It sounds paranoid. It’s not like he can ask the military to assassinate an American citizen, and I find it highly unlikely that he’s hired some kind of off-books assassin to do her in.”
“But if she has dirt on him—” It seemed like the president of the United States would be able to figure out a way to make that problem go away.
“It’s more likely that whoever wanted her phone was willing to scare her to get it.”
“I believe her.” Gabby just wanted to disagree with Markus. With the way she was feeling at the moment, she had half a mind to head back to the room and write a report to Valentina about his secret meetings with Genesis. Not that she had room to criticize anyone with Phil and her mom showing up on their mission.
Back in their cottage, she and Markus called Valentina. They were both relieved when she didn’t answer the phone. Instead, they sent her an email:“We will not be evacuating Sheridan at thistime. The risk to her safety is greater in Washington than here. Will explain later.”
Valentina must have been in a meeting, but she had enough bandwidth to respond with a quick“WTF?”
“If there’s even a hint that things are getting out of hand, I’ll call for an evac,” Markus said.
“Fine.”
This morning had been so perfect, a fantasy, well, almost. A couple of hours later, and there was nowhere to turn. Markus was standing at a deliberate distance from her, cold and unflinching. They had skipped over all the usual arguments: the dishes, him leaving his laundry on the floor, or her stealing the covers. Nope, straight to whether the president had taken out a hit on a psychic.
“How do we find this person who was after Sheridan?”
Markus shook his head. “No clue. Search everyone’s rooms for her phone.”
“Use Sheridan as bait?” Gabby suggested. “Or me in a brown wig.”
“I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, show yourself at one of the classes. It probably looks like three people have disappeared right now. We need to get out there and act like nothing unusual is happening.”
He was right. The next step in this mission: act normal.
1400 hours, main resort
After a quick stop at the cottage to splash water on her face and scan the schedule, Gabby decided on meditation with Jasmine. She’d show her face, act normal, and then go search someone’s room. Feeling determined, she marched to class.
“Gia!” a voice called. She looked up to see her mother.
“Mom, what didn’t you understand about ‘stay in your room’?” Gabby glanced around to see if they’d been spotted.
“It’s fine. I didn’t fly all the way here to sit in a room.” Her mom tightened her fanny pack and said, “Have you talked to Phil yet?”
Gabby shut her eyes. What was this,The Parent Trap? That show was only cute from a kid’s perspective.
“It’s not because George is Black, is it?” Gabby side-eyed her mom. Her mom might be annoying, but Gabby never thought she was racist. Fingers crossed she was right on that one.
“No!” Elena sounded annoyed at the question. “It’s because you were married to Phil. You have children with Phil. He’s a good man.”
