and treated her like his daughter. Something Leo and Cooper had spoken of a few times since it was Cooper’s intention to ask Claire to marry him and he knew he’d have to ask Neil’s permission.
Leo looked closer at the scene in the dining room, making observations. Sasha ate with her fork in her left hand, just like Olivia. Just like every European he’d met.
No one was missing Olivia.
The people who knew her were at the table eating dinner. Was Olivia an orphan as well? Was the school that Sasha and Claire attended a school for orphans?
Leo wished now he’d asked Claire more questions instead of catching a buzz with new friends the last time they all went out for happy hour.
Ultimately the question Leo asked himself many times over was . . . What kind of secrets could Olivia be hiding, therefore Neil and the others hiding for her, that Leo couldn’t ignore?
Something unlawful, that was a given.
But what?
The weather was turning from wet to cold. The morning fog blanketed the cabin and valley below, and frost had already started to kiss the ground and windows.
There were two fireplaces in the house, one in the grand room and the other in Olivia’s bedroom. Leo roped AJ into helping him split some firewood to add to their limited entertainment in the evenings.
The group had gotten into the habit of finishing dinner and pulling out one of the many board games the homeowner had stacked in a closet.
Neil and Sasha were making a run into town for supplies, Olivia and Pam were going through the physical therapy exercises the doctor had left behind well over a week ago, and Lars and Isaac were both in the situation room.
“Why the FBI?” AJ asked after they were in a few logs.
He was setting them up, and Leo was swinging the ax with the intention of trading off.
“I ask myself that question all the damn time,” he said with a laugh. But since AJ asked the question and opened up the “get to know me, get to know you” questions, Leo elaborated. “Started out with a love for action flicks.”
“Really?” AJ asked.
“Kid you not. There was always a theme . . . military heroes, cops, undercover agents . . . I told my parents I wanted to be a cop.” He swung the ax, waited for AJ to push the split logs away and stack a new one.
“What happened to that?”
“Nana. ‘Why the hell do you want to work that hard and get paid so little?’” Leo did his best grandmother impersonation. “Since she was the one footing the college bill, and I wasn’t ready to go out and adult at eighteen, I went. Took a lot of different classes and eventually ended up with a degree that gave me the opportunity to get a job with the feds.”
AJ set up a log, stood back. “Do you like it?”
He nodded. “I do. There’s a lot of diversity in my fieldwork.”
“Like pretending to be a high school teacher?” AJ asked.
“I tell you what . . . I liked that job.” He took a moment to reflect on it. “Early in my career we’d had extensive training on school shootings and profiling potential at-risk kids that do that kind of thing. Some of the videos . . . the stories . . .” Memories of those videos swam in his head. The images . . . the carnage and misery left behind would rip any sane person in half.
“I can’t imagine,” AJ offered.
“It’s awful shit. I found myself asking for casework at the high school level. I thought if I could stop just one kid, just one, from going there, I could go to my grave knowing I’d done something with my life.”
“Putting Mykonos away should feel the same.”
Leo pulled himself out of his thoughts. “Different, but yes. It does.” He took a swing, handed the ax over, moved positions, and switched the subject back to AJ. “What about you? Were you in the military like everyone else here?”
AJ shook his head. “No. I hated all authority growing up.”
“How did you end up with Neil?”
“Can’t say that I work for Neil. Yeah, I help out when he needs it. Like the night you planted the bug to flush out Claire. I followed you home, gave the intel to Neil.”
Claire had infiltrated the school Leo was undercover in, and after a few weeks he became suspicious of her and the people she spent time with. Leo had