“Is it working?”
“Ha!” KC rubbed the rim of her champagne flute. “A little. Show me your work on this one so I get it right when I impress my international diplomacy prof. He’s such a wannabe, and I got a C on the last term paper. I need some meat to feed him.”
Kyle leaned closer. “You can tell your prof that this spy’s selling something Miz Ashley thought could help her win a seat. Of course, she could buy a seat, but this would reduce the price. A power coupon, if you will.”
“Information?”
Kyle shrugged. “Someone knows, but not me.”
“But can you tell me whose spy it was?” Excellent. KC was probing to find out how much Kyle could tell her.
“Devon Mirabel. British-born, but he’s a free agent.”
“Never heard of him.”
Kyle took a drink of whiskey a server had placed at his elbow. “Used to be a high-level government advisor. No credentials. Shows up in too many rooms and at too many meetings.” He waved his hand around the dining room. “There’s a dozen spieshere right now. Anybody who speaks Russian. Foreigners who live in hotels. Men who call themselves consultants.”
Kyle was showing off. The only spy in the room at the moment was KC.
“So who was the dude who tackled our future congresswoman?”
“I’m guessing a Swede.”
“What?” KC’s voice rose an octave in her surprise. Yardley winced, but Kyle only reached over to drink from KC’s champagne flute, having drained his whiskey.
“What I heard is Mirabel headed to his mansion in Lidingö—incredibly gauche, by the way—and he was in a hurry. He was supposed to be staying in the District for a while, but not anymore. So there must be business.”
Lidingö. Stockholm. “Bounce,” Yardley said.
“Gotta find the ladies,” KC purred.
In the alley on the way to the comms van, KC picked up speed. “That was embarrassingly easy,” she said over the comm as she walked. “You sent me on a baby mission. For babies. Itty-bitty spy babies.”
“Wally’s is tedious, but it tends to deliver.”
“Do you have to play solitaire in your head to keep yourself entertained? Because I’ve seen men offer you free appetizers in exchange for a single dimple—the good kind of appetizers, with things like truffle oil and individual table smokers. I have to imagine the men in there have handed you a great deal of useful information for our country.”
Yardley watched an agent help KC into the comms van, her dress shining madly, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright.
Mission high. It looked good on her.
“Kyle Bornakov is one of my favorite mean girls,” Yardley said as the van pulled away from the curb. “He’ll talk behind anybody’s back, which means he hardly has to watch his own, because no one knows who they’d piss off if they stabbed him in it.”
KC pulled a face. “His breath is one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me. Like the breath of a leathery old tortoise.”
The laughter burst out of Yardley before she could stop it, loud enough in the small van that everyone turned to look at her.
“And that place stinks,” KC added. “Same as your hair after you’ve come back from your book club night.”
Then, KC went still, staring at the ceiling of the van. When she looked at Yardley again, her mouth was grim. “There’s no book club, huh? That’s a shame. You loved the idea of that book club when you brought the flier home from the library.”
“I do think I would love it, if I were ever able to go.” Yardley slid off her bench and reseated herself next to KC as the van moved through the dark streets. She was dimly aware of the background chatter that had taken over her headset, arranging transportation and a route to Sweden. “Look. Doesn’t it make you wonder…”
“What?” KC’s profile was half in shadow, the pink bob covering too much of her face for Yardley to tell what her expression was.
“If it might do us good.” She cleared her throat. “Give us closure, maybe. I mean, if we tried looking more at what was true instead of everything that was a lie.”
When KC turned to her, her brown eyes were fathomless with a sadness that made Yardley’s heart pinch. “The truth is a lot.” She turned away. “And we’re spies. Not a good idea to stop searching for the lies.”
