They reached another parking lot, this one for the golf course. Sweating and out of breath, Zane finally released his grip long enough so Eve could double over and suck in air. Her stomach rolled all over again. And then the burn started low and bubbled up.

She stumbled for a bush and retched what was in her stomach. Pain consumed every part of her. Dead. Both of them. All because of her.

“Come on. I got a car.”

She registered Zane’s voice. Not the words or the tone. Just that it was familiar. He tugged on her arm. “This way.”

Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she stumbled after him toward a Honda. A back window was broken in. He popped the passenger door and helped her in. Tossing the pack in the backseat, he moved to the driver’s seat, pulled the panel off the area below the steering wheel, and yanked out a handful of wires.

She wanted to ask him where he’d learned to hot-wire a car but couldn’t find her voice. Her throat burned. Her stomach ached. And when she thought about Carter and Natalie . . .

“I’m going to be sick.”

Zane shoved her head between her knees. “Breathe.”

Seconds later the ignition started. Zane leaned back in his seat. “Hold on.”

Time rushed by with the scenery. Eve didn’t know how long they drove or in what direction. She heard Zane on his cell phone but didn’t know who he was talking to. Couldn’t seem to focus on any one thing. All she could see was Natalie hefted over Carter’s shoulder, Carter running the wrong way, and then the world burning in a fireball like the one in Seattle. Closing her eyes, she tipped her head against the window and tried not to get sick all over again.

She awoke sometime later. The car had stopped. It was raining. It was always raining somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Cool air washed over her when the driver’s door opened and closed. “I changed the plates,” Zane said, settling behind the wheel. Water droplets stuck in his hair and on his shoulders and arms. “And I don’t think anyone’s following us. At least not yet.”

Her eyes slid closed again as he pulled back onto the highway. Tipping her head away from him, she focused on the hum of the windshield wipers. Back and forth. Back and forth. Her stomach hurt, and her head throbbed. She didn’t want to think. Didn’t want to feel. The hum of the wipers grew louder.

It was dusk when she felt the car stop again. Blinking several times, she looked out the windshield at the monstrous log cabin with its multitude of porches and windows and different levels in surprise. “Wh-where are we?”

“Safe house.” Zane popped the door and stepped out into the rain. “Come on.”

In a daze, she climbed out of the car and moved for the front porch. Rain ran down her cheeks and beaded on her clothes, but she barely felt it. She climbed up the steps and moved onto the porch after him, waiting while he checked the pots along the side of the house for what she suspected was a spare key.

He disappeared around the corner of the house, and Eve slowly turned to look around. Tall pine and Douglas fir trees rose toward the dark sky. They were obviously in the mountains, though at what elevation she couldn’t tell, and since she hadn’t paid attention to the direction Zane had been driving, they could be in Canada for all she knew. There were no other vehicles anywhere close. No other homes that she could see, either. Just dense forest growing darker by the minute, and ominous clouds that mirrored her mood.

Dead.

Her stomach rolled again. Pain wrapped knotted, gnarled fingers around her chest. She closed her eyes and breathed through her nose to keep from getting sick once more. Carter was dead. Because of her. Carter and Natalie. Probably Olivia too. If those were the same men who’d taken her sister, there was no hope for Olivia’s return now.

She’d dealt with death before, but this hit too close to home. This was too real. This was her fault.

Footsteps echoed close, and Eve managed to open her eyes just as Zane came around the corner. He held something shiny in his hand. “Got it.”

Seconds later they were in the house. Light pine floors ran from the massive entryway toward a two-story family room and, beyond that, an industrial-sized kitchen. A curved staircase rose to the second floor. Wide windows covered the entire back wall of the great room, looking out over the enormous back deck, the grass, and the pristine blue lake.

He closed and locked the door behind him, then grasped her hand. “Come on.”

He led her into the great room. Plush furnishings surrounded a huge rock fireplace that ran to the ceiling. An elaborate mantle stretched from one side to the other. Above, an enormous flat-screen TV was mounted to the wall. Past the kitchen on the right, a large round mahogany table sat in a bay of towering windows, looking out toward the lake. He pulled out one of the ten chairs around it and pushed her to sit. Then grabbed the arm of her left sleeve and pulled.

Fabric ripped. Startled by the sound, Eve looked down where he was kneeling next to her. “What are you doing?”

“You’re hit. Hold still while I see how bad it is.”

The white sleeve was stained with soot and blood and dirt. She stared at the jagged wound across her biceps, swollen and red, not even feeling it.

“It’s just a scratch.” He pushed to his feet and disappeared. “Stay here.”

She looked around the room, feeling numb inside. She should get up. She should be trying to find her sister. She should be tracking those men who’d blown up that park and killed her friends. But she didn’t have the energy. Didn’t have the drive. Didn’t have . . . anything anymore.

Dead.

Zane knelt next to her again. “This might sting.”

Something cool brushed her arm, but she barely registered the sensation. He cleaned and bandaged the wound, then pushed to his feet. Seconds passed before he said, “I need to move the car. You gonna be okay for a few minutes?”

Was she okay? She didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. She didn’t answer.

Footsteps echoed across the floor. Then the door opened and closed. Minutes later he was back, shaking the rain from his hair and locking the door once more. When he moved back into the room, she heard him mutter, “God, you’re a mess,” but she didn’t have the energy to fight with him or even look his way.

“Whose house is this?”

He moved into the kitchen and flipped on a light. “A high-profile client. It’s a vacation home in the Cascades. No one will find us. We’re safe for the time being.”

For the time being. That didn’t do much to bolster Eve’s mood. She turned and looked out at the water. “I thought you weren’t speaking to your boss at Aegis.”

“I am now.”

He didn’t elaborate, and Eve couldn’t help but wonder what else had happened in the hours she’d been out of it, but she still didn’t have the desire to ask.

“Is there”—she swallowed the lump in her throat—“any news about Olivia?”

“No, none. I’m sorry.”

None. She didn’t expect there to be. Olivia was dead. Just like Natalie. Just like Carter. Just like that child in the street in Seattle.

All because of her.

She closed her eyes again. Focused on the sounds. The fridge opening. A cupboard door slapping shut. A pan landing on a burner. Familiar, normal sounds.

Just don’t think. Just don’t feel.

A click echoed in front of her, and she opened her eyes to see a plate of scrambled eggs on the table.

“Eat,” Zane said.

She didn’t feel like eating. And just the sight of food made her stomach roll. He went back into the kitchen and returned with his own plate and two glasses of water.

Water. Water she could manage. She picked up the glass and downed the entire thing.

“There’s something you need to know.” He waited until she put the glass down before going on. “Jake Ryder, the CEO of Aegis Security, and ADD Roberts went to school together. I don’t know all the details, but they don’t get along. Aegis was passed over on the defense contract for the Guatemala mission. Ryder got pissed and told the government they could go fuck themselves. He makes enough money off private security where he doesn’t need the State Department’s kickback. But it was a big deal at the time. And then, surprisingly, a few weeks later, Aegis was awarded the contract.”

Slowly, Eve turned to look his way. And a tiny part of her brain kicked into gear. “You’re telling me the assistant deputy director at the CIA is the one who set Aegis up to take the fall for Humbolt’s death.”

“That’s the way it’s looking.”

“And by that theory, ADD Roberts is the one after Humbolt’s formula.”

“Yes.”

“My boss.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed. “In counterintelligence.”

Zane exhaled a breath and rested his forearm on the table. “Think about it. If he really did set Aegis up because of some vendetta against Ryder, and he sent you in to get the drop from Smith, then his hands are all over a lot of sticky shit.”

Eve considered for a moment. She worked for the world’s greatest spy agency. She knew there were double agents in the organization. Knew there were compromised agents. Hell, her job was to find them. And though there were a variety of reasons a person could turn, usually they were focused around money, ideology, coercion, or ego. ADD Roberts was, as Carter had pointed out, a mover within the Agency. Eve couldn’t see any of the above four reasons compromising his chance at one day being director of the CIA.

“How did you know the op in Guatemala was compromised?” Zane asked.

Eve’s brain was suddenly spinning way too fast. She pushed her untouched eggs away, rested her elbow on the table, and rubbed her throbbing head. “I got a call from Langley. A researcher who’d originally helped me pull info on both you and Carter before I went to Beirut.”