She tried to very silently breathe so she wouldn’t pass out.
“You’ve got the wrong flat?” Yardley replied in accented English.
Then silence again. KC straightened to her full height as everything she’d ever been trained to do in hand-to-hand without a weapon dropped like a warm blanket over her body.
Yardley would not get hurt. She would not. There had been times she might have, times she’d been within a hair of losing her life for her country that KC hadn’t known about, butthistime KC had a say in it, and it was not fucking happening. She did not run forty goddamned miles a week and work on gains in her stupid gym to let some morally bankrupt bottom feeder so much as leave a bruise on Yardley’s body.
KC eyed a sturdy table opposite Yardley. She could be on it and sting from above in seconds.
“Look, I’m here to talk to, um, KC Nolan?”
Oh, god. Not a British accent.Irish.
Unless KC was very much mistaken, Kris Flynn was at the door of their top-secret safe-house apartment.
“I believe I’ve got the right place?” the woman said. “I doubt someone else has been following me halfway across the world and breaking into my hotel rooms.”
Yardley opened the door a little wider and leaned against the frame, crossing her arms. “Flynn, I presume?” She’d dropped the accent.
“Yeah.” The woman sounded relieved.
Yardley turned her head to look back to KC. “Your friend’s here.” She pulled open the door wider, and KC scanned to the woman’s right and left first, unconvinced she’d come alone. But there was no one but her.
Kris Flynn was a heart-faced woman about her age with short, thick blond braids under a stocking cap. She wore a man’scoat. The arms were too long, but the coat wasn’t big enough for her to fasten around an obvious baby bump.
Kris clocked her standing behind Yardley and grinned. “KC, at long last.” She pulled off her hat while Yardley shut and bolted the door behind her. “Us keyboard jockeys are usually bringing up the rear, aren’t we?”
When she wiggled out of her coat, it was easy to see that Kris hadn’t come here from a good meal, warm bed, and stroll through a rose garden. The circles under her eyes were deep, her sweater had a rip at the shoulder, and there was mud on the hems of her jeans.
KC forced herself to push what Kris had interrupted into her darkest periphery. This was the last moment in her life she needed to be flooded with hormones and reactionary behavior. She’d hoped to get to Kris first. There had been an undefined plan to beat Yardley at her own game and find out what Kris knew before anyone else did. In the best-case scenario, generated while she pretended to nap on the Darkhorse, KC had imagined swearing Kris to secrecy and convincing her to cooperate with the project of decommissioning the weapon. Then, later, she could report to Dr. Brown that all was well. Problem solved.
But Kris had found them first. KC had not prepared for that possibility, and so she was utterly fucked.
Given that she had no idea what she was doing on this mission, it didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her was that, beneath her fear and apprehension, KC was glad to see Kris.
She’d always wanted to meet her.
“Sit down.” Yardley pulled out one of the chairs. “And you won’t mind if I—” She held up a tiny scanner that checked for digital devices and signals.
Kris held out her arms. “Go for it. Don’t have so much as a mobile.”
When she’d completed the scan, Yardley put the device back in her pocket and nodded at KC. “She’s clean.”
“But how are you here?” KC shook her head. “Our driver took evasive maneuvers and triple-checked for a tail. This apartment doesn’t exist. You disappeared off the street an ocean away from here two days ago.”
“I’ve got a few friends yet.” Kris shrugged. “Long story short? I recognized your work in Toronto, and I knew you were with the CIA.”
KC’s heart stilled. What work had Kris recognized?
“It’s a right mess, I’ll admit.” Kris yawned. “I tried to be a good girl, but enough didn’t add up, and I missed Declan.”
“Declan?” KC’s spinning brain couldn’t place the name.
“Baby daddy. Dublin,” Yardley supplied.
“Cor! Jesus. We’ve been together for six years. I’m not doing this with any dickhead!” Kris pointed at her belly. Then her eyes filled with tears. “And god, don’t I miss him. He likely thinks I took off on him. I’d been such an absolute bloody knob lately. Hormones. He was taking good care of me, making me feel beautiful. Fixing up the nursery. And here I am talking to you lot, and it’s cold as fuck here, and I don’t have my good coat. I got this out of a charity box.” She touched the sleeve of the coat she’d taken off and put in her lap. “I don’t have anything, actually, thanks to that puffed-up wanker, Devon, and this ridiculous mess. I’ve missed two appointments, you know that? What if this baby’s growing a second head? I won’t know. I’ll be in some international prison with a two-headed baby in my lap.”
KC laughed. She couldn’t help it. The real-in-person Kris sounded so altogether likeKris.
