I find the alley again. Go invisible. And fly back to the lake house as fast as I can.
Mia is still waiting on the porch when I land, a black balaclava rolled up on her head like a beanie.
“Any problems?”
“None,” I lie. “Got the cash.”
I head inside and count out eight hundred dollars from the envelope—more than enough for the food and the clothes, but the Thompsons deserve it for unknowingly harboring two fugitives for a week. I leave it on the kitchen table with a note that just saysThank you.
When I come back out, Mia has pulled the balaclava down over her face. Only her eyes are visible, dark and watchful.
“How do I look?” she asks.
“Like you’re about to rob a bank. You should have come with me, maybe I could have gotten more.”
“Funny.”
“I thought so.”
I go invisible and scoop her up, one arm under her knees, one behind her back. She wraps her arms around my neck, and even through the coat and the sweater and all the layers between us, I can feel the warmth of her.
“Ready?” I ask.
She takes in a deep breath and nods. “Ready.”
We lift off into the darkness, heading west.
CHAPTER 47
MIA
I seeMoresby Island before Nate does.
It rises out of the black water like a memory I’ve been trying to outrun for years—dark Douglas firs, rocky shores, the faint glow of the facility’s lights through the trees. Six hours of flying through the night, my face buried against Nate’s chest to block the wind, then ten minutes of circling the Gulf Islands until I could pick it out from the others. Now we’re here.
Home. If you can call it that.
“That’s it?” Nate asks, his voice cutting through the rush of air as we descend.
“That’s it.”
He banks left, circling the island from a distance. I can see the main compound through the gaps in the forest—low concrete buildings, a couple of cottages, a helipad, the perimeter fence with its discreet sensors, the dock. The place where I learned exactly what I was and the cost it would have on my life.
My father works here. Has worked here for almost twenty years, ever since he packed up what was left of our family and fled across an ocean.
“Where do I land?” Nate asks.
“There’s a dock on the north side. Staff housing is nearby—a couple of cottages. That’s where my father lives.” I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “Where I grew up. After.”
He doesn’t ask after what. He already knows about the car accident.
What he doesn’t know is everything else. I haven’t told him about Toby, haven’t told him it was my parents that created the monster in me. I hope I don’t have to. If I did it would change his perception of my father at a time we need him the most.
We drop lower, skimming the treetops, making the branches of the shore pines and arbutus trees shake, and slow as we approach the dock that juts out into the water, a dingy, small powerboat, and a fishing trawler tied up along it. A single light burns at the end of it. And standing beneath that light, hands in his pockets, watching the sky?—
A figure in a white lab coat.
He knew we were coming. Of course he did. My father is ex-MI6. He has contacts everywhere. He probably knew we were coming before we even figured it out.
