She’d gone along with Jack’s plan in Prague and called the Russians because Jiminy Cricket here wouldn’t stop reminding her that her brother hadn’t acted in a vacuum and that, as much as she hated what he’d done and what he’d continue to do, she didn’t want him dead. But what Jack had asked of her wasn’t just a phone call. The Russians wanted an assassination, and until she knew Jack was clear, that meant following through, which meant going to the trouble and expense of sneaking back into the United States so she could put a bullet between the eyes of the goddamn Speaker of the House, all to support whatever he’d gotten himself into behind her back.

So much depended on if his explanation matched this bullshit.

“I don’t know,” she said, and she started forward again, frustrated, irritated at Holden, at her brother, at the world.

Holden said, “Hey.”

She stopped again. This time she turned.

He was still on the floor, on his back, where he’d fallen.

“What?” she said.

He propped up on an elbow, glanced at the fifth-wheel overhang, said, “There’s only one bed up there.” He nodded toward the sofa in the slide out. “If you’ve got extra sheets . . . ?”

She debated. Long and hard, she debated.

“Bed up there is big enough for two,” she said, “but keep to your side. Much as I want to shoot you, I don’t want to do it in my sleep.”

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 29

San Antonio Museum of Art
San Antonio, Texas, USA

HOLDEN

SHE TURNED THE FIESTA OFF THE STREET INTO A HALF-EMPTY LOT across from the museum, pulled into the nearest parking spot, and shut off the engine, then flashed a teasing smile, leaned over the center console, put her head in his lap, reached between his legs, and stuffed the keys up under the seat, somewhere in the cushion. She took her sweet time about it, too, as if she didn’t know what she was doing and as if trying to get a reaction wasn’t her idea of entertainment.

She was bad in that way, relentless, and he loved that about her, just hated that it came as part of another rotation through a revolving personality door.

That had started yesterday morning.

The farther they’d gotten from the border, the worse the cycling had become.

She’d been real, honest, and genuinely human one moment, shut off, brusque, and sullen the next, and twenty miles later out had come the flirtatious coquette.

Confusing as hell, but what he minded more was the way she’d also become evasive, doling out information as control and reward, twisting truth to where it became difficult to tell where the lie began, making it hard to figure out what exactly was going on inside that head of hers and even harder to trust her.