This was the second time since Frankfurt that he’d asked about Clare, and it wasn’t like Clare hadn’t been worming around in her head, too.

Clare was a problem.

Jack had always been the favorite—was still the favorite—and being the favorite meant it’d taken him longer to rebel, and meant Clare had fought harder against letting him go. Nonviolent resistance had been his way of breaking free. She’d watched him take a knife to the gut, a bat to his knees, a bullet to a thankfully Kevlar-protected chest, and so much else in his absolute refusal to let Clare bait him into engagement. Not that Clare had deliberately done those things herself. Jack had refused to play war with the combatants she’d sent, and the damage had been done before Clare could call them off. But at least she had called them off. If he thought this was Clare now and it wasn’t, nonviolent resistance would truly get him killed dead.

She said, “You can’t have it both ways, you know that.”

His finger continued tracing circles.

“I’m serious,” she said. “This might be the only time you ever get serious out of me, John, so don’t screw it up. Look at me.”

He stared her dead on in mocking over-attentiveness.

She said, “If you think there’s a chance this is Clare, then we stop right here, right now. Because if you go forward harboring the slightest doubt in that pigheaded skull of yours, you’re going to get us both killed.”

His head tipped left and right, like he was half agreeing with her and half agreeing with whatever weird debate went on in his brain, which meant he wasn’t agreeing with anything.

She slapped him. “I will knock the shit out of you if that’s what it takes.”

He snatched her wrist. Gripped it hard. Glared.

She said, “That’s a little better.”

He let go and shoved her arm aside.

“I’ll put a line out tonight,” he said. “I’ll see if I can find her.”

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14

HOLDEN

FOUR DINING-ROOM CHAIRS PUSHED EDGE TO EDGE CREATED A PLATFORM that kept him off the floor and allowed him to angle off the kitchen window in a way that kept most of his heat profile shielded behind the wall. Fifteen hours he’d been on this improvised bench, waiting for this, brother and sister together for the first time since leaving Dallas, out in the open, easy marks for a long shot.

He had a clear view of the plaza, target in the crosshairs, and he breathed a slow in and out, finger resting beside the trigger guard, the whole of him suspended in the space that hung between kill and no kill.