Free Blamed by Edie Harris

throat. “Wendell Martin was a cover. I...told Beth my real name tonight.” He just hoped Casey didn’t demand to know why
she
had gotten his actual identity and he hadn’t.
    Luck appeared to be with him. “So your name is Vick.”
    “Yes.” He paused. “Raleigh Anton Vick. In case you want Adam to run a check on me.”
    Casey’s growl told them he intended to do just that, as soon as this call was over and done with. “Okay,
Vick.
Assuming not everything you’ve told me was a lie, you have tactical experience. True?”
    Very, very true. “I work—worked—for a unit of the Secret Intelligence Service known as Section T-16. We specialize in global terror prevention.”
    One of Beth’s hands rested lightly on her stomach, as if holding in a hurt. “What does that mean?” she asked quietly.
    It meant that every time Vick had bumped into Beth in a foreign country, he was trying to beat her to the punch. Their marks were the same, their goals aligned. “We quietly and methodically eradicate evil, worldwide.” He needed her to understand that they were, or had been, the same—the only difference being who signed their paychecks—their sameness soul-deep and undeniable. He wouldn’t dare set himself apart from her as some sort of moral paragon, wherein his kills were righteous but hers were murder. Life was too short and too messy for head games. “Yes. I have tactical experience.”
    Casey had already moved on. “So tell me, what’s safer for Beth—staying put or relocating?”
    Vick thought about what he knew of T-16, of the section’s management and of the agent who’d put a bullet in his gut tonight. “The fact is, SIS could’ve killed me tonight, but they didn’t. I’m going to choose to interpret that as a warning for me to get my act together and finish the job with Beth. If I don’t report back within twenty-four hours, they’ll mobilize another agent.” His palms tingled with the need to touch her, but he wouldn’t. Not yet. “By my estimation, we have no more than two days to determine how you wish to handle this.”
    “Then we’ll err on the side of caution and say we only have a day. Tobias is already in the air. He’ll land at O’Hare in eight hours, maybe less.”
    Beth scrubbed the heel of her palm over her forehead. “Where was he?”
    “Geneva. Handling pre-conference negotiations for the WeaponTek International showcase in Tangier this fall.” Casey sighed. “It would’ve been me heading your way, but I’ve got a job to finish here in the next day or so. If you’re still in Chicago when I’m done, I promise I’ll hop the next flight out.”
    “
If
I’m still in Chicago.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes squeezed shut. “Fantastic. You leave me alone for a year, all of you, and now you’re practically coming out of the woodwork. Let me guess—the only reason Gillian isn’t on a plane has to do with a certain FBI jackass.”
    Vick wondered if Casey could hear the slight catch in Beth’s voice as she spoke about her sister. He’d never bothered to review more than the most cursory details about Gillian Faraday, the head of Faraday Industries’ R&D division. Only two years separated the sisters, and it made a sad sort of sense that the closest female friendship a young assassin could maintain—through all the years of homeschooling and living cloistered on the Faraday compound—would be with her sister, who these days was continuously monitored by her FBI handler, a federal agent from Louisiana named Theodore Rochon, according to Vick’s file. Gillian was one of the few people who would know Beth’s deadly secret and not judge her for it.
    Protectiveness surged within him. He wanted to shelter her from the pain she felt at being a step apart from the only world she’d known, away from her family, ostracized through her choices
and
theirs. One day, he promised silently. One day he would have her tell him the story of how she fell into wet work so