But what about her? Didn’t she deserve to be happy, too?
She knew the answer, and she also knew that she wasn’t going to find it with Percy. Not if he didn’t want a child with her.
And not if he couldn’t do that to her with a kiss.
The conversation was painful but over quickly. For the first time, Kate told him how she felt. She wanted to adopt a child. Not in the future but now. As soon as they were married. If that wasn’t something he wanted, he needed to tell her.
He did. He didn’t want to be a father again. He loved George and Poppy, but he was ready for a new stage in his life. One that didn’t involve diapers and parent-teacher meetings. He wanted to enjoy all the benefits of his being in the diplomatic service. The travel. The parties. All the opportunities that wouldn’t be as easy with small children.
When it was over, Kate couldn’t help but think how civilized it all had been. There hadn’t been tears or accusations or anger. There hadn’t been slammed doors or yelling or any signs of emotion. It hadn’t felt as if her limbs were being torn from her body and her heart had been burned to an ashy crisp.
It hadn’t felt anything like before.
But in one way it had been brutally the same. Neither man she thought she loved had been willing to fight for her—or for them. They’d both walked away and not looked back.
In the aftermath of Percy’s departure, Kate took up residence in her home office. For the next few days, when she wasn’t working, she pored over everything she could find about Natalie Andersson, aka Natalya Petrova.
There wasn’t much.
She fell asleep on the sofa bed, and when she woke up, she made a pot of coffee and went at it again.
Calling in favors, she scoured every kind of record she could find. Credit card statements, utility bills, phone bills, employment records, medical records, social media accounts—especially social media accounts, which were usually a hotbed of information.
But there was nothing. Either Natalie was good or Scott was right—it was a coincidence.
But Kate didn’t believe in coincidences and something about it didn’t feel right.
It was only after Scott called her to tell her about the bungled sting and the PI who’d walked into it that Kate shifted her attention back to Brittany. She’d pulled Brittany’s cell phone records a couple days ago and decided to look at them again.
There was something niggling, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Kate scanned the numbers of the recent calls and stopped, the niggle turning to a fully formed buzz. 0125. The last four numbers of one of the calls. January 25th. Her father’s birthday. To remember important numbers—such as phone numbers—she’d used memory tricks like birthdays, anniversaries, or other important dates.
She’d seen that number before.
She pulled out Natalie’s phone records again, and halfway down the page of the last bill before she died, there it was again a few times in the weeks leading up to the Russia mission. The number matched. A few more hours of digging and Kate had the missing link that connected Brittany and Natalie.
She called the number Scott had left for her. He answered on the second ring.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“I found something.” She paused. “You aren’t going to like it.”
“If this is about Natalie, I told you—”
“I know what you told me and I know she tried to help you, but she was involved, Scott.” She quickly brought him up to speed. “Natalie and Brittany had texts and calls from the same number.”
She could hear the dead pause on the other side of thecall. “I assume you were able to trace the number and have more than a common phone number?” he asked, his voice flat.
“Yes. It belongs to a hockey player named Mick Evans. Brittany met him on a dating app. I haven’t been able to find out how Natalie knew him, but his number shows up a few times in the weeks before she was killed. I did some digging into his background. He was adopted as a child, too.”
Scott didn’t say anything for a moment, but then he filled it in. “From Russia?”
“It looks that way—I’m tracking down the records now.”
“So, what, you think there’s some baby-spy network with Russian orphans? That’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t think anything. I’m just putting together the information.”
