Spy Games (Tarnished Heroes #1)(93)

“Sarah? Oh my God, you poor thing.” Irene hobbled into the hospital room Sarah had been locked in since the doctor had left.

“Did you get it?” Sarah slipped off the bed and to her feet.

“Yes.” Irene sat down in the padded chair against the wall.

A blonde woman followed Irene in and closed the door behind her.

“We don’t have much time.” Irene folded her coat around her. “There’s a transport that will be here in a few moments to take you, Rand, and the others to the camp, but you can’t go there.”

“Why? What’s wrong? What about Matt?”

“Your brother was quietly released to the rest of your family.” Irene sat forward, her expression grave.

“What’s going on?” Sarah glanced from Irene to the blonde woman. She’d thought it was over, but from the look on Irene’s face it wasn’t.

“Charlie burned you. He was the mole.” Irene’s brow creased and her gaze softened. She’d cautioned Sarah against getting involved with Charlie, but it’d been too late.

“But…he’s dead…?”

“Best we can figure, he got his brother to come visit him, and it was James Peterson who was killed in Hong Kong. Rand and the others captured Charlie alive, and he was taken to the camp straight from the marina, but someone got to him.”

“W-what?”

“I’m sorry, a lot is happening very fast. Someone within the company is working against us, and I don’t want to chance you ending up in danger. We’ve managed to eliminate the others from the first-person reports with the help of the Coast Guard, but doing so puts the focus on you. We can’t reveal that you’re a CIA employee without putting more focus on you, and as a civilian, you don’t receive the same kind of protections.”

“Wh-where—what are we doing?”

Someone tapped on the door, then it opened. Mitch McConnel leaned in. “Ready,” he said.

“Sarah, you have to go now,” Irene said. “Carol will help get you out of the building.”

“But…Rand?”

“He’s gone already.”

Gone? Rand had left her? Sarah stood there, stunned.

A piece of her was gone. Rand had always been connected to her and her family, but things had changed. He was more important to her than ever. She was in love with him, and he’d left her without so much as a good-bye.

Maybe she should have seen it coming. He did it to Matt, his best fucking friend, so what made her think he’d be different with her?

A blonde woman took Sarah by the hand and tossed a long coat over her shoulders. Sarah swiped at her cheeks, trying to fight away the tears, then shoved her arms into the coat.

“My name’s Carol Sark. I’ve heard a lot about you. You sound very brave.”

“You have to go now, Sarah.” Mitch’s expression was grim.

But…Rand.

Sarah let Carol guide her out of the hospital room. She gave Sarah a hat, which she dutifully put on. All the while, her heart screamed at her to go back. If she waited for him, he’d come for her…wouldn’t he?

She knew that answer, because she’d waited for years for him to come back and he never had.

“What’s going on?” Sarah asked Carol. She was tired, oh, so tired of it all, but she couldn’t stop now. Not even if Rand had left her and her heart was broken. She had to keep going.

“We’re working on that,” Carol replied. “Shh.”

Carol led Sarah through the hospital, past the security guards and out through a staff entrance.

Had Rand left this way?

Sarah covered her face with the cuff of her coat and sobbed into the material.

A SUV idled in a handicapped spot, the tinted windows disguising the people inside. Carol opened the back door and stood rooted to the spot, seeming as surprised as Sarah.

Rand leaned toward Sarah and grasped her hand. He pulled her stunned body into the SUV and across the seat, almost into his lap.

“What’s he doing here?” Carol didn’t wait for an answer. She closed the door and circled to the passenger seat.

Rand was here. All around her. What was he doing here? Why had Irene said he was gone?

“I thought you left again,” Sarah whispered.

“I did, but I realized there was an us after all. I figured I needed to come argue my point.” His lips brushed her ear, his words just for her.

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut. Was he telling the truth? Had he really come back for her?

“He’s not supposed to be here.” Carol twisted to stare back at them.

“You’ve never met Rand before, have you?” Hector shifted the SUV into reverse and they eased out of the spot. “He’s like a damn cat. You can’t tell him what to do.”

Sarah buried her face against his chest, wishing it was over. That they were going home to lick their wounds and put this behind them. She didn’t think that was going to be the case.

“What’s happening?” Sarah clung to Rand’s hand.

“Irene and I have been working on a theory that we have a mole within the company.” Carol glanced from Sarah to Rand. “Until now it’s been small hiccups, mistakes, things going wrong. When we identified the source of this leak was Charlie, we thought that was it.”