Jill eyed the device with the hunger of permanent second place, and all those years under Clare’s hand—of Jack, the favored child, getting what little approval Clare dished out—left her wishing Dmitry had never found them and that they’d never come to Europe, because if he was real, this right here showed where the story went, and she hated him for it already. She said, “We were curious enough about Dmitry to make one trip. You’re insane if you expect us to follow you down this rabbit hole.”

Marinov smiled slyly. “Do you speak for yourself or for your brother?”

The provocation was a gut-punch trigger that sent anger to her fingertips and made her want to hop the table, straddle his fat lap, and strangle him blind.

Jack rested a hand on her knee before she could act.

He said, “The phone doesn’t substitute for a time, date, and place.”

Marinov raised a finger, as if chiding himself for a memory lapse, dug for another sheet, slid it in the same direction, and said, “Do you have a preference?”

A gust of wind lifted the page slightly.

Jack shifted the phone to weight it down, dropped his finger onto a nine-in-the-morning time slot three days out, and said, “That one.”

Marinov hesitated, as if this felt too abrupt to be the end, as if he expected more, an explanation perhaps, or to have to cajole or convince, and then, realizing that’s all there was or all there’d be, said, “I’ll pass along the message.” He waited again, understood he’d effectively been dismissed, wished them good day, and left.

They sat in silence long after he’d gone.

Jill, first to speak, said, “Do you trust him?”

Jack snorted.

There was relief in that, at least.

He flipped through the rail tickets and the hotel reservation.

Part statement, part sigh, he said, “Prague,” and she knew then that he’d already made up his mind, and that nothing she did or said would dissuade him, and that he planned to go through with this with or without her.

She said, “If you make this trip after being fed that line of bullshit, whoever is behind this will know you’re all in. You’ll just be trading one set of strings for another.”

He offered her the pages.

She waved them aside.

She’d seen the rendezvous time, place, and date. The rest was superfluous. She said, “Prague, John? Come on, seriously? They had us here in Berlin right now. They’ve got no guarantee we won’t vanish. That they’d abandon a sure thing for the risk of trying to lure us out of Germany is all the proof you need.”

Jack said, “Maybe.”