Blake, in a navy suit, was seated at the right hand of the cartel leader with cold eyes.
As if he’d belonged there.
His face—the face she knew better than almost any face in the world—had worn an expression she’d never seen on him before. Not the golden-boy smile. A calculated, careful, and almost unrecognizable expression.
She’d been sketching people her whole life. She’d learned early that a face told the truth even when the person wearing it didn’t. She noticed the micro-expressions, the tells, the things people thought they were hiding.
She hadn’t let herself see them in Blake. Not for years.
The pencil remained still against the page. Her fingers started trembling again, and she closed the sketchbook.
The migraine was there when she came out of the bathroom—not full force yet, just a shimmer at the edge of her vision, a tightening behind her right eye that she recognized and did not welcome. She ignored it with the focused determination of someone who had been ignoring inconvenient things her entire life and pressed her fingertips briefly to the scar above her eyebrow before she caught herself.
Blake had given it to her during a climbing incident. She dropped her hand.
Mack was on a satellite phone when she entered the kitchen. He’d made coffee and the aroma was comforting. He held up one finger without looking at her—wait—and she would have objected to being managed except that his voice was doing that low clipped thing that meant the conversation was serious. The person on the other end had his full attention.
“Confirmed,” he said. “Civilian witness. No prior knowledge of the operation.” A pause. He spoke with the efficiency he used with people he respected. Not a subordinate—an equal, maybe. Or a friend. “I understand that, but the roads are—” Another pause, longer. “Tell them to stand down until morning. I’ll check in at zero-six-hundred.”
He ended the call.
“Your employer?” she asked, setting her sketchbook on the table.
“Yes.”
“Did you tell them what happened?”
A nod. “The FBI wants to debrief you when the roads clear.” He poured a mug of coffee and slid it across the counter to her. Black. “There’ll be questions about what you saw.”
She wrapped her hands around the mug—the warmth was immediate and necessary—and noticed that his own cup sat on the counter, already going lukewarm, untouched.
Old Alyssa would have offered to microwave it for him. New Alyssa did not.
Small victory.
She sat at the table, and after a moment, he sat across from her. The silence between them was a cavern. It had weight and texture, awkwardness. The grief of a future that no longer existed.
She opened her sketchbook to a blank page to give her hands something to do. It wasn’t until the shape was half-finished that she realized what it was.
Mack’s injured hand, the worn quarters beside it. She’d drawn the scar exactly right—the white line from the base of his thumb across his skin to his knuckles.
She’d drawn him and his capable hands dozens of times over the four years he’d been deployed, keeping him close the only way she knew how.
She looked up and found him watching her. She closed the sketchbook. “I’m still processing,” she said. “I know I’ve asked a lot of questions, some of whose answers were apparent, but my brain couldn’t wrap around it all. Seeing you, the cartel stuff. Blake.”
He glanced at the drawing, sipped his coffee. “There’s more you need to know.”
Her breath seemed stuck in her chest. “About Blake?”
He leaned back, and she recognized this too—the debrief posture, information organized and controlled, delivered on his terms. “Mateo Vega has put out a bounty on you,” he said.
She absorbed this. “Vega…he’s one of the cartel leaders?”
A nod. “He’s negotiating with Rafael Guerrero to create a partnership for running drugs and weapons from the Gulf to Canada.”
“They put a bounty on me because I saw their faces?”
“Because you can reproduce their faces.” His eyes were steady on hers. “Accurately from memory. Even with Blake covering for you, they must have figured out who you are and what you do. Sketch artists provide evidence that holds up in federal court.” He paused. “You’re not just a witness, Lyss. You’re a liability.”