Free Gone by Annabel Wolfe Page A

Peter Hanes was tired. Like bone-fucking tired. He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced at the number on his phone. By now he was screening his calls—the fallout from Operation Vanish was about how he’d imagined, and truthfully, he’d imagined hell.
    Paperwork. God yes, loads of it, and he had to trust some of it to other people because there was no way he could possibly wade through it all, but his signature would be there on the bottom of the final page.
    The phone chirped again.
    Unknown number.
    No, thank you.
    The house smelled stale and disused, which was about right—how long had he been gone? He set down his bag and loosened his tie. Months. He’d been away for at least three, stuck in Washington for half of it, which he preferred less than being sent into combat zones.
    Then he caught it. A whiff of perfume, very faint but he knew it; in his gut, in his mind, in his very soul.
    Been there, or was there. That was the question. He’d left the bottle on the dresser when she’d moved out and not taken it, and it was always possible an intruder had just knocked it over.
    He dropped his bag and carefully took out his weapon. Sidearm, a .38, effective but not too heavy for a man to carry easily…and he released the safety as he slipped into the dark hallway.
    Why was it, he wondered, that people did not recognize the sense of smell was the most effective that even unsophisticated creatures like human beings possessed? If a person really thought about it, the perfume of cinnamon could conjure up the holidays more than almost anything else, and there was nothing like the smell of a locker room or a hospital to slam home a particular memory…
    Or the evocative scent of a woman’s favorite perfume.
    “Kathy?” He eased sideways along the wall and spoke quietly. “It’s me.”
    Taking a chance there. She wasn’t the only woman who wore that scent. If his enemies knew he was this susceptible every counteragent would slather him or herself in the stuff.
    Then someone in New York or Paris would get rich, he’d be dead, and the world would never remember his name…and that was a powerful incentive to stay alive.
    Someone had been in his house.
    “In here.” The words fell softly.
    Oh God, the sound of her voice. Peter froze for a moment, every muscle going rigid. Then he eased around the corner, stepped into the doorway of what had once been their bedroom, and saw her sitting there in the near darkness, the silhouette of her profile unmistakable.
    Without inflection at all, she said without turning to look at him, “I got an email notification about your flight. We probably need to change that.”
    He slipped the gun back into his shoulder holster as unobtrusively as possible. “I thought I’d changed everything over to my new account, but I guess I missed that one. I rarely fly commercial anyway.”
    “I know.”
    Two simple words.
    But here was nothing simple about the expression on her face.
    She went on unemotionally. “I am soon to be your ex-wife, but this is still our home in so many ways, so I took a chance you’d come straight here. You know, you never did make me give back my key.”
    He hadn’t had the heart, and besides, he’d been so damn busy he really hadn’t had the chance to process the disintegration of his marriage. A part of him wondered if he hadn’t immersed himself in this project so deeply just to avoid that reality.
    Because he still loved her.
    “I believe you took it with you when you walked out and we haven’t seen each other since,” he said coolly, striving for a dispassionate tone. “Besides, technically, this is still half your house until we sign those final papers.”
    “I need to talk to you about that.”
    That had an ominous ring to it. So far they’d been civilized to the extent they spoke through their lawyers for the most part, and besides, Peter had been gone, so there wasn’t much of a chance for them to actually speak to each other. He really