I watch the emotions play across Naomi's face. After a long moment of silence, she speaks.
"I want to believe you," she says, her voice soft but steady.
Something tightens in my chest at her words. I want her to believe me, too. More than I should. More than makes sense. I've spent years not caring what anyone thinks of me, and suddenly, this woman's opinion matters more than anything. I keep my face neutral, saying nothing, letting her work through whatever's going on in her head.
"But what are the odds I stumble on an elite soldier who can help me not only escape but also clear my name?" The question hangs because it’s a very fair point.
I let out a slow breath. "I don't know. One in a million." I meet her eyes directly. "I could say the same about you. You and your story are perfectly designed to flush me out."
"Perfectly designed?" She raises one eyebrow, and that frustratingly tempting ghost of a smile appears on her lips again. The one that makes my heart beat faster than that gun aimed at my chest ever could.
"In a tactical sense." I lean forward in my chair. "Look, all I can promise you is that it wasn't a conspiracy that brought us together. It wasn't a plan of a government agency."
I don't say what else it could be. What other force might have drawn us to each other in the vastness of those Montana woods. The kind of thing I stopped believing in long ago. Fate. Destiny. Words that have no place in the life I've built for myself these past years.
But sitting here, watching this fierce, beautiful, frightened but determined woman weighing whether to trust me with her life, I can almost believe in something beyond random chance.
Almost.
Naomi puts the gun away, and both of us relax our body language. I sigh. “Now it’s your turn. You said you uncovered something. What was it?”
"I'm an analyst for the CIA. I specialize in tracking dark money. And keeping tabs on CIA money that mixes with that dark money."
Makes sense. Her training, her handling of the handgun but not the rifle, and her knowledge of procedures. Not field ops, but someone who knows the inner workings of the agency.
"I was tasked with closing out a balance sheet. Just cross some t’s, dot some i’s. But there was a line item. A thread. I pulled on it." She looks down at her hands, which are clasped tightly together. "I found large payments, shipments to a place along the border." She meets my eyes again. "Money is like a shadow on the wall. You can't see the crimes themselves, but you can make out what they are by the shadow they cast."
"And what did you find?" I already suspect I won't like the answer.
“Evidence of weapons and drug smuggling.”
“CIA has its fingers in some pretty messed-up pies.”
“I know. But bringing weapons and drugs into the country? Our country? The one we’re supposed to protect?” Naomi shakes her head, looking far away. Her eyes are a little glassy. “I lost my cousin to a fentanyl overdose. Did my agency bring that in? I just couldn’t let it go.”
I nod, understanding. “What did you find?”
"It was what I didn't find," she says, frustration evident in her voice. "It took forever to dig for a name. El Centinela. Butit doesn't exist. It must be a government facility, but I don’t know where.”
"But why were you arrested?"
Naomi runs a hand through her damp hair. "They erased whatever clearance I had to look at those books, then charged me with accessing classified material that I didn’t have clearance for. Also made it so it looked like I leaked it to a server that I’ve never accessed."
I frown. "It wasn't classified? I find that hard to believe."
"That's just it," she says, leaning forward, eyes intense. "I don’t think it was classified because it would have alerted people with clearance to its existence. They buried it. Made it boring. But the second I started asking questions, they retroactively classified everything I'd touched." She stops pacing the small space and approaches me. "Walker, I need your help. You were a soldier. You fought for this country."
I can't help the bitter laugh that escapes me. "I don’t know what I was fighting for.”
Naomi pauses. She must be thinking about my nightmare, the name I muttered in my restless sleep.
That’s not something I’m ready to talk about.
"I understand," she persists, turning to face me. "I joined the CIA to protect my country. To serve. This—whatever this is—it's not what I signed up for."
That dog don't hunt for me. I stopped believing in countries and causes a long time ago. What I believe in is the reality of what men do in dark places when no one's watching. And that reality is rarely kind.
“I don’t think you do understand, darlin’. The people you’re up against are part of the system. They know the system. And they’ll use it to bury you.”
