She shrugged. “Nowhere in particular, but I was planning on working out of the CTC tomorrow.”
“Davidson has the laptop,” Kealey said, referring to the head analyst at the DST. “Do me a favor and check it out, will you? I really need to know if anything’s on there.”
“Sure. I’ll look at it first thing in the morning.”
“Thanks,” he said distractedly. He looked at his beer and seemed surprised to find it had hardly been touched. Watching this, Naomi couldn’t help but wonder again what was going on with him. He was the same in so many ways — the same neat movements, the same slightly distant personality that others might mistake for arrogance — but something was definitely wrong. Whatever it was, she didn’t have long to figure it out. Her curiosity wouldn’t allow her to wait another day for the answer, but he was clearly exhausted and ready to call it a night.
“So… what else have you been up to?” she asked.
He seemed to hesitate, then cast her a wary glance. “How much did Harper tell you?”
“Everything.”
With her one-word response, some of the tension dropped from his face, as though they had narrowly avoided some dangerous topic. Still, she noticed that he remained on edge, as though he expected her to say something more. Once again, she felt herself wondering…
“What’s it like over there?”
“Iraq?” He shrugged in a way that suggested he didn’t want to discuss it. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“Do you have to go back?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.” Kealey didn’t expand on this, but the truth was that a return to Iraq would be extremely dangerous for him. If the leaders of the insurgency were to learn of his involvement in the kidnapping of Arshad Kassem, they would stop at nothing to get their hands on him. From a broader perspective, things could much worse; if it ever came out that the CIA had been directly involved in the death of a leading Sunni cleric, Kassem would suddenly look like a saint on both sides of the Atlantic.
“So,” Kealey said, trying to shift the burden of conversation. “What about you? How do you like living in England?”
She went on for a short while, warmed by the wine, talking about Liz Peterson and the other people she’d grown close to in London, as well as the resurrection of old friendships. It became clear after a few minutes that, despite her love of the city, she was desperate to get back to the States on a more permanent basis. He followed the more interesting things she had to say, nodding along on occasion, nursing his beer in the process.
After a while his attention wandered, his eyes roving around the bar. Naomi took the opportunity to shoot another quick glance at his bare left hand. Once more she forced the question down, but it kept coming up. She knew it would be completely inappropriate to ask, but she had to know, and there was only one way to find out…
“So, how’s Katie?”
She tried to pass it off as a casual question and began to look away, as if the answer was only mildly interesting, but his reaction caught her completely off-guard. His head whipped around, his dark gray eyes finding hers with the first real look he’d given her all night. Taken aback, she only caught part of what happened next: he started to hunch over slightly, as if he’d been kicked in the stomach, and his face contorted in a way that defied the rules of human expression. Belatedly, Naomi realized that she’d missed something important.
“Ryan, what is it?” Her voice was high and panicked, not her own. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer as he got to his feet in one jerky movement, his knee catching the edge of the table. The glasses crashed to the floor, wine and beer spilling everywhere. Naomi was standing a split second later, but rooted in place. She called out after him, but he didn’t respond, and all she could do was watch as he walked away.
Once he disappeared from view, Naomi looked around in helpless confusion, trying to draw some insight from her spare surroundings. The bartender looked annoyed at the mess, but she barely noticed and cared less, shocked to her core by what had just transpired. Still not seeing it, she reached into her purse and pulled out her cell phone, then punched in the DDO’s direct line. She knew that Harper wouldn’t want to give her any answers over the phone, but she didn’t intend to give him a choice.
Kealey had only made it as far as the men’s room. The room was otherwise empty as he hunched over the sink, eyes squeezed shut, his hands gripping the sides of the basin. He was trying his best to force down another wave of nausea and failing badly.
He had managed to keep it locked away for so long. Maybe too long. Even after he’d learned that Vanderveen was still alive, he had somehow managed to block out that terrible night, mostly by focusing on the task at hand. None of that mattered, though, because in the end, all it had taken was one innocent question to bring everything crashing back to the surface.
He straightened slightly and shook his head unconsciously, refusing his own conclusions. None of that was true; he was making excuses, and it wasn’t Naomi’s fault. The truth was that he was tired of fighting it. He was tired of trying to hold it all back, and now, for the first time in weeks, he allowed himself to think of Katie Donovan.
Her features sprang to mind on a whim, but they were all peripheral: the way her golden brown hair framed her face, her teasing grin, the way her nose scrunched up when she laughed. It was the way he wanted to remember her, the way she deserved to be seen, but it couldn’t last. The image dissolved without warning, replaced by something else entirely: the expression she’d worn in her last fleeting seconds of life. She had not been able to talk in those final moments, but the look in her panicked blue eyes had said everything. She had begged him for help, begged him to somehow undo what had happened, but he had been helpless. By catching him off-guard, by finding his one true weakness, Will Vanderveen had stripped away everything Kealey had ever cared about: the chance to break free of the things he had seen and done — the chance of a new life with the woman he loved.
He took a deep, unsteady breath and looked up, staring into his own haunted eyes. For a split second, he was tempted to put a fist through his own reflection. He might have done just that a year earlier, but the rage had started to slip in recent months, replaced by the guilt and despair that comes with prolonged grief and the passage of time.
He was suddenly aware of a second face in the mirror. Naomi could have been standing there for hours on end; he wouldn’t have known either way. She looked to be on the verge of tears, and for a brief, bitter instant, he wondered if they would be tears of sympathy or embarrassment. Neither would have surprised him.
“Ryan, I’m so sorry.” She was fumbling for words, her voice little more than a whisper. “Harper just told me. I didn’t know, I swear…”
“That’s what you said before, Naomi. You said that he told you everything.”
She hesitated; his voice was too calm. “That’s not what I… I mean-”
“Don’t worry about it.” He turned unexpectedly, and suddenly he was like a different person, his face assuming a tight but neutral expression. “I’m fine, okay? Listen, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She paused again. “Ryan, I’m here. If you want to talk-”
“I don’t.” He met her gaze; the message was clearly conveyed. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Finally, she left reluctantly, the door easing shut behind her, and Kealey returned his gaze to the sink.
CHAPTER 19
DORDOGNE, FRANCE
The Loire Valley passed by in a colorful blur, the scenery enhanced by the onset of fall. The sky was cold and contradictory, a flat, gunmetal gray, but the air inside the Mercedes was almost too warm, the heater going full blast.
Vanderveen stifled a yawn and lowered the window a few inches, trying to ignore the ache in his back. Only now was he beginning to feel the effects of the constant travel and stress over the past few weeks. He was grateful that the woman’s SUV had comfortable seats and plenty of leg room. Turning his head, he could see that she was still staring absently out the passenger-side window, just as she’d been doing for the last several hours. They had passed through Rocamadour, the cathedral city of Tours, and Sarlat, a town that had scarcely changed in the eight hundred years since its inception. The views were impressive, but Yasmin Raseen had failed to remark on any of
