Jake waved her response away. “If you’re here to ask me to return to the agency, I’ll save you the spiel — I’m not interested.”
“You can’t keep hiding like this.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m keeping Maddy safe.”
“The best way to ensure her safety is to kill or imprison Lonnie.”
“I already tried that. Angie warned me about returning to the agency to help hunt him down. I told her not to worry. I promised her that she and Maddy would be safe. See how that turned out? I should have listened to Angie, but you just couldn’t let me be. You had to drag me back into the agency. As far as I’m concerned, you’re the reason Angie is dead. I meant what I said in the hospital — I don’t ever want to see or hear from you again. You apparently have a comprehension problem.”
It was clear that Jake was still in an irrational state of mind, blaming Christine for Angie’s death when it was Mixell who had driven the knife into her neck. But she had to admit that he was partially right. If she hadn’t convinced him to join the CIA, enlisting his help to track down Mixell, Trish wouldn’t have died at Jake’s feet, and Angie wouldn’t have died in Jake’s arms. Christine decided to concede his point.
“You’re right,” she replied. “It’s my fault for dragging you into this. We’ve had some unfortunate setbacks, but we need to finish this.”
Harrison’s face lit up in anger. “Angie’s death was an unfortunate setback?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He leaned forward, his voice dropping a notch. “You destroy everything you touch.”
“Could you be more specific?” Christine asked tersely.
“Dave, dead on your kitchen floor. Brackman, dead at Ice Station Nautilus. And Angie—” His voice choked with emotion.
Harrison’s words evoked images of the confrontation with her ex-husband a few years ago, culminating with him straddling her waist while she lay on the kitchen floor, trying to drive a knife through her neck. Then of Captain Steve Brackman aboard a submarine torpedoed beneath the polar ice cap, sacrificing his life while closing a watertight compartment door, trapping him on the wrong side as the submarine flooded.
His accusation cut into her. “That’s so unfair, Jake, blaming me for their deaths. None of them were my fault.”
“What about Huan in Beijing and Gorev in Russia? I’ve known you my entire life and witnessed it many times — your tendency to turn vicious in the heat of the moment, remorseful for your actions the next morning.”
Images flashed in Christine’s mind, one of her putting a bullet into the head of a defenseless man kneeling at her feet in China’s Great Hall of the People. Then a scene on the coast of the Black Sea, where she had jammed a pistol into the mouth of Semyon Gorev, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, then pulled the trigger, blowing his brains out. In both cases, there had been alternatives. But in the first case, killing Huan had seemed the most effective, and the option chosen in the second case had been the most gratifying. Later, she had regretted her actions, taking the lives of defenseless men.
Jake’s words hit close to home, igniting Christine’s rage. Her voice followed her temper as it rose.
“If you want to play the blame game, the blood I’ve spilled is your fault!” She jabbed a finger at him. “You started it in China. You put a flash drive in one of my hands and a pistol in the other, then shoved me onto a ledge to finish the job. Everything I’ve done from that point on is your fault!”
She set her jaw and looked away. He had hit her where it hurt; he knew she was ashamed of what she had done.
There was a strained silence between them until Harrison replied in a softer tone. “I’m sorry, Chris. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Jake waited quietly as Christine’s temper ran its course. When she turned to face him, his eyes searched hers. As her anger faded, she noticed the plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies and the pie on the table.
“You’ve taken up baking?”
“A friend dropped them off.”
“Let me guess — Sarah from the diner?”
“Yeah. She had an altercation with her ex-boyfriend and I helped her out. This was her thank-you.”
Christine considered asking him how Sarah knew about the scars on his back, but decided otherwise. What Jake did in his personal life was none of her business.
“How’s Maddy?” Jake asked.
“As well as can be expected. She misses her dad.”
“It’s safer this way. When Lonnie finds me again, I don’t want Maddy anywhere near me.”
“Hanging out in Medina Falls isn’t the best way to handle the issue. Do you plan to spend the rest of your life hiding while Maddy grows up without her father? She’s already lost her mother. She needs you.”
Christine waited a few seconds for her last comment to sink in, then continued. “The faster we find Mixell and plant him six feet under or behind bars, the sooner Maddy can have her dad back. Come back to the agency. Help us find Mixell.”
He seemed to be considering her offer, so she added, “Help me track Lonnie down, and when we do, I swear this to you — if it’s within my power, we aren’t going to take him alive.”
Jake contemplated Christine’s job offer a moment longer, then nodded.
“Give me a few minutes to pack.”
Christine stood and started toward the door, then stopped beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be good to have you back.”
23
MEDINA FALLS, ARKANSAS
Walking home in the dark after her evening shift, Sarah’s thoughts dwelt on Jake and the woman who had come to town looking for him. That the woman was someone important and powerful was obvious, but her relationship with Harrison, and for what reason she had come to see him in Medina Falls, was unclear.
Sarah looked around at the strange houses along the street, suddenly realizing she wasn’t on her way home. While lost in her thoughts, she had subconsciously headed toward Jake’s cottage. She was only a block away now, so she decided to stop by, attempting to conjure a reason for her visit. Perhaps she could ask if he liked the desserts she had baked for him.
As the cottage came into view, she noticed that the only illumination inside was a night-light, faintly illuminating the kitchen and dining room. Perhaps Jake was already asleep or out somewhere. She knocked on the door in case he was home and still awake, reading or watching TV in his bedroom. But there was no answer. Peering through the window, she spotted her pie and cookies on the dining room table. He hadn’t touched the pie and it looked like he hadn’t eaten a single cookie.
There were several lights on inside Miss Potter’s house, so Sarah knocked, hoping she knew where Jake was. The elderly woman answered the door.
“Hi, Miss Potter. I was wondering if you knew if Jake was home or out somewhere.”
“Oh, he’s gone. He left this afternoon with another woman. He said he wouldn’t be back.”
Sarah’s heart sank, accompanied by a knot in her throat and ache in her chest. The physical reaction must have been evident, because Miss Potter’s face softened.
“My dear, I’m certain that Jake was quite fond of you. He gave me a message for you.”
Sarah brightened at the news. “What did he say?”
“He wanted me to thank you again for the pie and cookies, and tell you he was sorry that he didn’t have time to enjoy them.”
Jake’s message didn’t really help. He was gone and wasn’t coming back.
After bidding Miss Potter goodnight, Sarah headed home, fighting back tears of disappointment. She tried to turn her grief into anger, telling herself that her interest in Jake had been a fool’s errand. What had she been thinking, being interested in a man twice her age? She’d been fortunate that nothing had come from it. In fact, she wished that Jake had never come to Medina Falls.