Taylor’s whiskey came and Chilcott ordered the same. She left her drink untouched and waited for him to deliver the next line of his scripted walk-on.
“So,” he said, “in this small world we live in, you and I have been assigned to related cases.”
She thought about the Special Collection Service—the SCS—the joint CIA-NSA spy nest reportedly on the roof of the American Embassy. Had Trent been intercepting her and Brodie’s communications?Jesus…
Taylor looked at Trent Chilcott in the bar mirror. He was still annoyingly handsome, with a full head of dark-brown hair despite being on the far side of fifty, and he had piercing blue eyes. Kind of a Paul Newman quality, but with a more muscular build and no kindness in his eyes.
He was dressed in his usual CIA-casual—blazer, khakis, a button-down shirt, and no tie. A nice breezy style for a callous man, who looked the same whether he was returning from a yacht club or a war crime.
Chilcott leaned in and said, “Our interests here are aligned.”
“My interests are in having a drink alone and getting on my flight.”
He shook his head. “That’s not going to work.”
“Works for me.”
Some old feeling was bubbling up, a feeling Maggie Taylor hated, one ofthe bad souvenirs she’d brought home from the war. A kind of weakness… an unhealthy attraction to CIA Officer Chilcott, amplified by fear. But it was some other person who was feeling that, some stupid girl from the Tennessee hills who’d let her Georgetown degree go to her head and who thought she was smarter than she was. She hadn’t been prepared for this guy when she met him. And then that girl died somewhere in the craggy mountains outside Kabul.
Except a part of her was still there, and always would be. She asked, “What do you want?”
“Your help.”
“Put it in writing.”
He laughed. “I put nothing in writing, Magnolia.” Which reminded him: “Did you get the flowers I sent? I did write a note.”
“Get to the point. But understand that whatever you tell me is not in strict confidence.”
“Okay…” He thought a moment, then said, “I’m not going to ask you to trust me, because that’s a joke. But you know what else is a joke?” He pointed to the TV. “A fucking clown show.”
Taylor looked at the television, where the man at the podium—who must have been a senior BKA official—was now pointing to a picture on an easel showing photos of the three Syrian men who had died in the Neukölln bombing.
Chilcott continued, “You and your partner, Mr. Brodie, are here to investigate the murder of your CID colleague Harry Vance, and I’m here for a related reason.”
“You’re probably here for the wrong reason.”
Chilcott ignored that. “Our respective lines of investigation don’t coincide, but they might intersect.”
She really wanted a sip of whiskey, but left the glass on the bar. “Trent, you are the master of cryptic talk. And it’s not as good as you think. Say something that has a subject, verb, and maybe even a noun or two.”
“All right… You and Mr. Brodie have inadvertently stirred up something much bigger than you realize. And because of that, he—and you—are in more danger than either of you can imagine.”
She looked at him. Now and then she knew when this manipulative bastard was telling the truth. This was one of those rare times.
They made eye contact and he said, “I need your help, Maggie.”
“No you don’t. You need to seduce me again. And again. And again. Not this time, Trent.” She added, “I’m leaving.”
He moved closer to her. “If you go home now, you’re leaving something behind.”
Scott. That’s not what Chilcott meant, but it’s what Taylor was feeling. Except she wasn’t leavinghimbehind, it was the other way around. He was the one who’d gone rogue and blown up his career. She needed to stop blaming herself for the bad decisions of the psychotic men in her life.
As for Trent, he was right that it was a joke to trust him. But he knew just what to say. Scott Brodie was in danger. And if there was even a small chance that this historically deceptive man wasn’t lying to her, she needed to stay.
Trent Chilcott, who knew Maggie Taylor well, could tell she’d made her choice. He stood and threw some cash on the bar. “There’s a car waiting. If you checked a bag, they’ll pull it off the plane and hold it.”
She stood and they began walking out of the bar, then Taylor grabbed his arm and gripped it tight. She got close and said, “You’ve lied to me, you’ve betrayed me, and you’ve threatened me, and the worst things I’ve ever done in my life were at your bidding. And if you betray me again, or harm Scott in any way, I swear to God, Trent, I will kill you.”
