The Revenge (The Insiders Trilogy #3)(73)

“Was she in shock? She didn’t know what she was seeing.”

“No. She said his name.”

His name?

I wanted to ask, but I didn’t.

“There was no fear. Her body didn’t lock up. One agent had been holding her pulse, it was just habit, and he said there was no spike. How she said his name, it was as if she was worried about him.”

I turned to inspect my twin once more.

His head was back down.

They wouldn’t get anything from him. He was good. Too good. And there were things happening I didn’t know, and I needed to know. So, weighing the pros and cons, I decided to pull my card.

“I want time with him.”

Both agents reacted. Bright’s head snapped around to me, her eyes wide and unbelieving. And I heard Wilson’s swift intake of breath.

“No.” Bright shook her head.

“Yes.” I leaned toward her. Before she could make more protests, I laid out my argument. “You will get nothing from him.” They didn’t know he could hear us, but I did, and so this message was twofold. I wanted him to know what I knew, and then I would go from there. “I had him before.”

Neither knew.

I felt the tension fill the air.

They were not happy to hear that.

I kept on. “I did not know about him until he showed up at my apartment. He broke in. We caught him, but he let us take him. He was testing us. He was testing me. We waited to que stion him. I wanted to see Calhoun’s reaction to his disappearance because all three of us know that he came from Calhoun. There is no other explanation for his sudden appearance and his identity not being known before now. Once I ascertained what I needed to know, I went in. The questioning lasted five minutes, and he was gone. He’s remained hidden until his move on Bailey. He had Chrissy Hayes in his possession. He’s good, and you all know it. You won’t get anything from him.” Now was my card. “But I will. Let me talk to him.”

“No!”

I looked at Wilson. His gaze was wide and alarmed. He was skirting from Bright to myself, and back again.

“Wilson?”

He hesitated.

Bright turned to him, her arms folded over her chest. “No, Wilson. No. No way.”

His phone buzzed.

Wilson pulled it out.

Bright stepped toward him, her hand outstretched. “Don’t answer that. We can’t let them near each other. Not any more than this.”

I studied Bright, hearing her wording: “Them.” “Near each other.” She spoke as if … I frowned. She was talking as if we were together? A team? Or was it the twin thing? Did she believe in twins?

Was she a twin?

But he answered. “Wilson.” He waited, listening. It wasn’t a long call. He sighed, hanging up, and looked at me.

I saw the capitulation at the same time Bright started sputtering, “No!”

I smiled.

Wilson nodded behind me. “Go ahead.”

I hesitated for just a second .

Chrissy Hayes wasn’t scared of him. I knew Bailey’s mother enough to know this was not enough time for her to be brainwashed, so if Chrissy wasn’t scared, that gave me hope.

The second was up.





FORTY-SEVEN

Kash


Each time I’d been in the presence of my twin, something new was revealed. The first was just that he existed. The second was the first inkling of a connection. It shouldn’t be there. We didn’t grow up together. He was a stranger to me. And yet it’d been there.

He knew I was coming.

I knew he knew I was coming, and when I opened that door, his head was up.

I came in, and this time he was wary of me.

Roles were reversed somehow. Maybe he had heard me earlier, on the other side of the wall, and he knew that I knew more than he wanted me to know? Or maybe it was because he was caught in a way that he couldn’t get out of here?

Was that it?

Still, as I stepped inside and shut the door, neither of us looked away.

“Was he going to have you undergo plastic surgery?”

I bypassed the chair, content to lean against the mirror behind me. My head was down, and I watched him steadily.

There was no reaction, but I knew, I knew in my gut, he knew what I was referring to .

“Yes.”

My nostrils flared. “What were you doing with Chrissy Hayes?”

Why wasn’t Chrissy scared of you?

He darted a look to the mirror, then shrugged, his head lowering. “I was getting to know my future mother-in-law.”

He looked up, a small grin at that, and he saw my eye-roll.

He snickered, then sobered. “I’m kidding.”

“Ass.”

Another grin from him. “I know.” He swallowed, looking at the door. “We can’t, you know.” Those eyes—my eyes—came back to me.

Yeah.

I nodded. I knew what he was talking about.

“But I would. If…” His eyes darted behind me again. “You know.”

Well, this was anticlimactic.

He was telling he would talk, but not here. And that was putting me in a position I didn’t want to be in.

I pulled out the chair and sat. Rubbing my jaw, I dipped my head and raked my hand through my hair before I leaned back. “What’s your main goal? You have to tell me that.”