None of that seemed accurate, though. If he had really been put into an ambulance, why hadn’t they taken him to a hospital?
He moaned as pain shot through him again, setting him trembling.
And with that movement, he realized he was tied down.
Suddenly, he sensed the presence of another person beside him. With all the strength he could muster, he turned to his side and looked over to see Penelope Morrison sitting in a chair next to him, her body haloed in light from a door slightly ajar behind her. Half a dozen guards stood spread out around the room. She observed him as he struggled once more against the bonds that held him down.
“I wouldn’t move too much, if I were you,” Penelope said. “That was a glancing blow, but you’ve got enough damage in your shoulder muscles to bleed more than you can handle. You might be dead before we even reach open water.”
Open water?Were they out at sea?
His mind continued to clear. Now he was aware of the rough cut of rope against his wrists and ankles, and the feeling of a hard table underneath his body. Beyond the slit in the ajar door, he could see a sprawling deck lined with stacks of shipping containers, the metal grid holding them in place rising eight stories against the blue sky. A lone seagull perched high on the edge of the structure. The unmistakable smell of salt and sea wafted inside. Waves crashed in the distance.
“You’re on board my cargo ship,” Penelope explained, guessing what he wanted to ask her. She glanced back once at the open door, her eyes as wide and innocent as he remembered from their first meeting. The contrast with her words was jarring. “The North Sea is quite choppy at this time of year. Forgive the unsteady ride.”
On board a cargo ship.Winter was headed with Morrison’s shipments to Cape Town.
“No one will be looking for you here,” Penelope added.
He struggled to understand what was happening through his clearing mind. There was nothing on Penelope Morrison. She had a blank slate, a public image so sparse and clean that not even Panacea had suspected her of being anything more than a young heiress unfortunate enough to have a late mother and criminal father.
Wasn’t that who she was? Just an unfortunate young heiress? Who was this girl sitting beside him, observing him in his wounded state with a calm face and a cold voice? It made no sense.
He gritted his teeth as the pain washed over him again. “Who—” he managed to ask after the agony ebbed slightly. His voice came out hoarse and broken. He tried again. “Who are you?”
“Penelope Morrison,” she answered matter-of-factly.
“You’re not the Penelope I knew yesterday.”
“I’m exactly the same.” She blinked at him, almost shyly, as she did when they first met. “You just didn’t notice.”
His mind swam at her words. This version of her didn’t match her previous self at all. Who had been the girl who’d been such a fan of his that she could barely look him in the eye, who’d quoted Shakespeare with him, who’d curled up on the sofa beside him and confessed her insecurities, who’d fought back tears over her father’s death? Was that all an act?
“Wait.” He closed his eyes again before opening them. “Last night in your apartment. The bullet.”
She gave him a nod. “The bullet through my window was meant for you, Winter, not me.”
Of course it was. The entire reason why Penelope must have led him back there was to take him out.
His muscles trembled from the exertion of having been held in place for hours. The pain in his shoulder throbbed. How long had Penelope known about their entire plan? How had she kept everything hidden for so long? He looked at her now and wondered how he could have ever thought she was a shy, excited, blushing fan, someone anxious and naïve. The girl staring back at him had the calm demeanor of a killer.
Of her father.
His gaze went again to the canisters of chemical weapons around them.Paramecium. The hackles rose on his neck.
He could still feel the subtle weight of the tiny vial of toxin in his pocket that Panacea had given him. Could now hear the echo of Sauda’s voice, telling him he might need it someday. Well, would it be today? If he managed to twist his arm enough, he could pull it out and bite it open, could drink the contents. The possibility made him tremble.
“Why would you want me dead?” he croaked out. “Why are you doing this?”
She turned her eyes down, and for a second, he saw a flash of real grief in her. “Why do you think you were really invited to my birthday celebrations?” she said quietly.
“All I came here to do was to put on a private concert for a fan,” he responded.
She gave him a penetrating stare. “Is that so? Because I was under the impression that a covert organization called Panacea sent you and another agent here to take down my father.”
Winter stared back at her, frozen in disbelief. Penelope knew everything. She had been aware from the start.
She sighed. “If Panacea were responsible for the death of my father, thenIwouldn’t be, right?”
