now.” He heard the brief smile in her voice and smiled himself.
“Snowed in, huh? How many inches?” Right now he’d love to be snowed in anywhere with her.
“Close to a foot already. And not letting up much.”
“Where are you?” he asked. “There’s an echo.”
“Oh, ah, I’m in a garage. Sorta.”
It wasn’t her answer that put him on alert, but the worry he suddenly heard in her voice.
And it dawned on him. It had been six months since he’d heard from her. Six very long months. Just before she’d called the last time, he’d been considering a trip to upstate New York himself to make sure she was all right. Which he knew was the last thing on earth he could do.
“Kat, is everything okay?”
“I…”
Her slight hesitation was all he needed to know she was in trouble. “Something did happen. What’s going on?”
“I…I ran into a small problem tonight. In New York City.”
His nerves coiled tight as she ran through the events at the auction house, as she relayed the drive through the Pennsylvania countryside in the midst of a major blizzard. He heard, clearly, just why she’d finally come out of hiding and risked her life. And knew, even before she said it, who she’d dragged along with her.
A string of curses whipped through his head, but he bit them back.
None of this should surprise him, but for some asinine reason it did. It wasn’t like she was going to beg him for a second chance after he’d been the one to break things off with her so long ago in Egypt. Not when she’d fallen for Kauffman shortly thereafter. And especially not when she was legally dead and her old friend Marty Slade was the rogue CIA operative who’d put her there.
Damn. He was screwed no matter how he looked at it.
If he went with his instincts right now, she was better than dead. No way he could protect her, and some small part of him felt he owed her for how he’d used her when they’d been together.
But knowing she was with Kauffman right now? Yeah, it set off a strange protective surge in his chest. And reaffirmed the fact his day was heading straight for the shitter.
“I can’t get to you, Kat. I’m too far away.”
“I know. I…I messed up. I just didn’t know what to do next.”
Okay, think. She’d just changed everything by coming out in the open. Her cover was blown, and there wasn’t anything he could do about that now, but he’d help her where he could. He owed her that much at least. Reports he’d seen over the past few days confirmed Minyawi was on the move, which—now he realized—meant news of her appearance had already spread back to Egypt.
Could he protect her and finally wrap up that goddamn op? If he did, he was going to take a serious hit. The agency would come down hard on him for what he’d done six years ago. And there was a chance she was going to be in some serious trouble herself. But keeping her alive at this point was more important than what came after.
With his mind running a mile a minute, he kicked off the covers, rose and reached for his secure PDA from the dresser across the room. She’d just blown the whole thing wide open. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do.” He paged through screens until he found what he needed. “I’ve got a colleague where it’s always sunny. Can you get to Philadelphia?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“The truck’s in the garage. Tank should be full. If not, there are a couple red gas cans on one of the shelves, at least enough to get you to a service station. I want you to call this number.” He read off a name and contact. “When you get close to the city. Not before. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll get in touch with David and let him know what’s happened. Don’t say his name over the line, just tell him you’re a friend of mine.” He paused, looked out the window toward a bicyclist speeding down the middle of the street and knew his career was headed for the toilet with what he was about to do next. “Kat, you realize you have to come in, right? We’ll put you in protective custody. There might be consequences.”
“I know.”
“It’s different now,” he said, hearing the quiver in her voice. “You’re in the States, we can finally finish this. We can protect you.”