CHAPTER 31 - SKY
“OH. YOU’RE BACK.” The words just slipped out.
Emmy sat up on the weight bench and wiped the sweat off her face. “You sound disappointed. Worried you might have to do some work now?”
“I’ve been doing work.”
“With Rafael, apparently. What exactly happened to Alex?”
Rafael hadn’t given her the low-down? I thought he’d have recounted my failings in excruciating detail. Or had he, and Emmy just wanted to see if my story matched up?
“Uh, Alex was kind of…sitting on me, and Rafael thought I didn’t look too comfortable, so he hauled Alex off and threw him against the wall.”
“So it was Rafael who broke Alex’s ribs? I thought it was you. Now I’m disappointed.”
Chances of me damaging Alex myself? Zero. The guy was built like a tank.
“It was an accident,” I mumbled. A King Kong versus Godzilla accident. Please, don’t ask any more questions. “How was your trip? Did you get the paintings back?”
“We sort of got one of the paintings back.”
“Sort of?”
“We know where it is, but Alaric promised we wouldn’t return it until the person died.”
“Is it with that senator?”
“Yup.”
“I saw the news this morning. They said he’s dead.”
“Not quite, but he hasn’t got long left.”
“So I guess the painting can go back soon?”
“It can.”
“What about the other one?”
“The investigation stalled again. I expect we’ll let the dust settle for a day or two and then take another look.”
“What dust?”
“You said you were watching the news—did you see Kyla Devane died?”
“Some crazy employee kidnapped her and shot her.”
“Yeah, well, long story but he thought she was me. It’s been an interesting week. But it’s done now, so we can get back on track. How’s it been going with Rafael?”
“I can’t wait for Alex to come back.”
Emmy barked out a laugh. “That bad?”
“Alex is brutal. Rafael is more…sneaky.”
“In what way?”
“Last week, he made me go running. And after we’d slogged through the woods for about ten miles, he just vanished. Poof. Gone. I had to find my way back by myself. Hey, it’s not funny.”
“I’m laughing because Black did exactly the same thing to me. And you found your way home, didn’t you?”
Home. Hearing Emmy say the word hit deep. This was my home, more so than any of the squats in London, and it certainly beat the time I’d spent with my father and my years in foster care. The question was, how long would I be able to stay?
“Yeah, I got here.”
Took me a few hours, a bunch of wrong turns, and a twisted ankle. I’d jumped into a truck for the last couple of miles. The driver didn’t know—I just climbed on board when he stopped to move the branch I’d dragged into the road. Getting off was a bit dicey, but I’d managed to tuck and roll onto a grassy verge when he slowed for a corner.
And that wasn’t the only stunt Rafael had pulled. Yesterday, he’d challenged me to a shooting match, and the arsehole swapped my ammo for blanks. Lesson learned: always load my own gun, or at least check the magazine.
“How about the rest of your training? The non-physical stuff?”
“I can swear in Spanish, and I’m never eating salad again.”
It was far too easy to switch the rocket—or arugula, as Sofia kept calling it—for water hemlock, or the spinach for belladonna.
Emmy laughed. She knew exactly who’d been giving me lessons.
“I hate to tell you this, but Fia could just as easily slip ricin into your mac and cheese.”
“In that case, I’m gonna buy all my food from McDonald’s from now on.”
“Good luck with that. You’ll have to get it past Toby first.”
“I’m training to be a spy. Sneaking junk food past a nutritionist should be easy.”
“You think? He’s got a sixth sense when it comes to saturated fat.”
“Can I at least go out for dinner with Hallie one evening? I know I’m meant to be studying, but I can do extra the next day.”
“One night a week, as long as the work gets done.”
“Will there be a test?”
“Sure. I’m gonna drop you off in Uruapan with no money and no passport and let you find your way home.”
Was Emmy joking? I hoped so, but I had a worrying feeling she was serious. And I already knew from Carmen that Uruapan was a hotspot in the Mexican drug war. Rival cartels had been taking it in turns to behead people and leave the corpses strewn around the city.
“Did you have to do that?”
“I got dumped in Acapulco.”
Shit.
“It’ll be a very quick meal. No alcohol whatsoever.”
“You’ve been spending time with Hallie, then?”
“She’s been staying here while her roommate’s away. We’ve been looking at cold cases together.”
“Really?”
“Just over dinner in the evenings. Don’t worry, I haven’t been skiving off all the other stuff. But it beats watching TV while I eat.”
“What cases have you been looking at?”
Emmy added another weight to the stack and lay back on the bench. Fuck, she was pressing a hundred and ninety pounds. I could only do a hundred and ten. Plus she managed to talk while she did it rather than sucking in air like an asthmatic.
“The murder of Jaden Haan, the kidnapping of Mila Carmody, and the Emerald theft.”
“The girlfriend killed Jaden. We’ve just never been able to prove it. And Emerald, huh? Find anything new?”
I had to agree with her on the Haan case. The girlfriend was as cold as liquid nitrogen. I’d watched videos of her police interviews, and she gave me the creeps.
“Not new, exactly. We just talked over all the evidence.”
“And?”
I laid out the first theory we’d come up with. “There are two FBI agents we couldn’t find out much about—Alaric’s old boss and another guy. What if one of them was in cahoots with a member of the boat crew and gave them the combination so they could get an identical briefcase? Or another colleague who didn’t have the combination could have told them what the briefcase looked like, and they could have jammed the lock on the fake so it would
