Free Tell Me No Spies by Diane Henders Page A

details.
Just enough to carry out the order. Your husband… Robert had been
deep undercover for twenty-four years when they discovered he’d
gone rogue. Intel said he would move that day, so I had to act
fast. I slipped him a drug at a business dinner.”
    He met my eyes then.
“I’m sorry, Aydan. We knew his habits. He was supposed to go and
work out at the gym like he always did on Tuesdays. The drug would
cause a heart attack as soon as he exerted himself.”
    The empty juice box
collapsed with a hollow crunch in my clenched hand. “But he didn’t.
He came home to me instead. We started to make love. And he died in
my arms. I’ve been living with that ever since.”
    “I’m so sorry.” He
opened his mouth as if to say something else, but sighed instead.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
    “It doesn’t matter.
Too late to be sorry about anything now.” I dragged myself up off
the couch and wobbled toward the door.
    Kane stood quickly and
placed a firm hand under my elbow. “Where are you going?”
    “Home.”
    “You’re in no shape to
drive right now. I’ll take you. We still have something else to
talk about anyway.”
    I looked up into his
troubled face. “No, I really don’t think we do.”
    “Aydan,” he said
urgently. “What we had… this summer… that was real for me.”
    I shrugged.
“Whatever.”
    “Aydan, you have to
believe me. I would never do anything to hurt you. I’ve never lied
to you.”
    I pushed down my anger
and pain and kept my voice level. “No, murdering my husband
wouldn’t be likely to hurt me, would it? But I agree, you didn’t
lie to me outright. When I think back to it, you gave me the whole
‘do you love me’ speech this summer, but you never once said you loved me . You just made it sound like you
did.”
    I shrugged again.
“That’s my favourite trick, too, when I don’t want to actually lie
to somebody. Tell unrelated truths, ask questions that sound like
they’re answers. You talked about love, but you never lied to me in
so many words. So thanks. At least I don’t have to worry about
hurting your feelings anymore.”
    I turned away.
    “Aydan…” The rawness
in his voice made me turn back to see what looked like anguish in
his eyes.
    I blew out a breath
through my teeth. “Jesus, John, the Oscar’s in the mail already.
Can the act, okay? It’s getting old.”
    I left him standing in
my office and hauled myself down to my car.

Chapter 9
    I drove home without
seeing the familiar road. My mind yammered ceaselessly, trying to
find grounding in a worldview that had been completely upended. My
Robert, so quiet and unassuming, so dependable. An undercover agent
for twenty-four years. Twenty-four years! That was as long as I’d
known him.
    I slowed to take the
corner onto my gravel road, autopilot guiding my hands while I
thought back. How I’d met Robert right after I’d begun dating my
first husband. How he’d determinedly pursued me until I told him
I’d already promised to marry Steven. The way he’d hovered in the
background for the next miserable years of my life until my
marriage ended. How he’d been there for me. How he’d patiently and
persistently wormed his way into my heart over the next six years.
How I’d finally agreed to marry him, not because I wanted to be
married, but because I just couldn’t bear to hurt such a sweet
man.
    How much of that had
been lies? Spies lied. It was what they did. But why would he
expend so much time and energy on me?
    The car skidded,
crunching to a halt on the gravel as I braked hard at my driveway.
Icy horror slithered down my throat and coiled itself around my
heart.
    Oh, God. Oh, God,
no.
    I sat paralyzed with
my foot jammed on the brake as the monstrous thought flared into
sickening suspicion. Sam Kraus. Working for Sirius all these years.
Brainwave-driven networks a specialty. The tests, three times a
year since I was four years old.
    They couldn’t.
    They wouldn’t.
    I sucked in