“How can you help if you’re a victim?” her brother demanded.
“If they make the attempt, you can close in and you’ll have your rogue agent. If—big if—I get kidnapped, you’ll have someone on the inside.”
Thomas shook his head. “No way. I won’t risk your life that way. Even if we wired you, this guy would either find it or jam the signal, rendering the exercise pointless.”
Cecelia held her ground, undeterred. “You can get creative and use me as an asset, or stop wasting your breath. Even if you put me in a safe house, I wouldn’t stay there.” Not this year. She had plans, a ticket to the Caymans and maybe even a new friend who might be encouraged to join her on a holiday getaway. But she wasn’t sharing that. As unsettled as these two were about her career change, she didn’t want to see how they would come unglued over her personal secret.
“If you were asset material, I’d have recruited you already.”
Casey gasped, but Cecelia gave her brother her most serene smile. “When is this kidnapping supposed to happen?”
“I don’t have a hard date. The analysts are working on it.”
“I see.”
“Who is the mole?” Casey wanted to know.
“I’ve narrowed it down to two people.”
Cecelia arched an eyebrow. He’d already avoided this question once.
“Has to be either my deputy director or his assistant. They’re the only ones who have the access to the information we’ve discovered that has been leaked to my enemy.”
“And your gut says who?” Cecelia pressed.
Thomas sighed, rubbed his temples. “My money’s on Deputy Director Holt. He’s the only one who would know where to start looking. I just don’t think his assistant could manage this alone. As much as I hate to admit it, it has to be Holt.”
Cecelia rode out the jolt of surprise, hoping the two people staring at her didn’t notice. She thought about it for a minute or two as Thomas went on about how he was still having trouble accepting the man would turn like this. Cecelia sipped her coffee, found it had gone cold. She dumped it out and poured a fresh cup.
Okay, reality check. What were the odds that two men named Holt would come to her attention within weeks of each other, one working for her brother and another through the online dating site?
Didn’t take a master spy to figure that out. Slim to none, she figured.
Might as well put it on the table. “Emmett Holt?” she asked.
“Yes.” Thomas scowled. “How do you know his name?”
“A man by that name was a last-minute donor to tomorrow’s gala fundraiser,” she hedged. And he’d been flirting with her online for the past few weeks. Those emails and text messages had been fun and full of life, but those feelings were fading quickly with Thomas’s bleak news.
She’d learned long ago that coincidences usually weren’t a matter of chance. She wouldn’t put it past her brother to encourage a member of his team to make a dating connection and set her up like this, just to keep an eye on her. And he’d be feeling pretty guilty if the man he assigned to such a task was working against him.
But Thomas didn’t look the least bit guilty, only stunned.
She moistened her lips and asked the question. “You didn’t know he contacted me?” If this wasn’t Thomas’s idea, she wasn’t about to clarify the precise manner of contact had been a dating service. They’d balked enough at her career plans.
She held her breath, a big part of her hoping there really were two Emmett Holts.
“How does this guy spell his name?”
She glanced to her daughter. “Casey, bring me my purse, please.”
“It’s right here.” Casey already had it balanced on the top of the suitcase.
“Aren’t you efficient?” Cecelia pulled out her tablet and brought up the details about the charity gala she’d organized for the pediatric children’s oncology unit in memory of William. “There.” She highlighted the line on the screen that showed donor names, addresses and emails, and then turned it so her brother and daughter could see it. “I was told he called the office yesterday morning, asked how close we were to the goal and then donated the balance.”
“Holt?” Thomas gaped at her.
“So it is the same man?”
Her brother nodded then growled. “Looks that way. Think about it, Lia, why pick your cause?”
“Generosity? Maybe he needed a tax write-off. That happens this time of year.” She could tell her brother didn’t put much stock in either possibility. Yesterday she’d thought it was the gesture of a wealthy man more than a little smitten with the gala’s organizer. Now... Well, now he had more than a few questions to answer.
Just her luck. The first guy who managed to stir any feelings in her and he had an ulterior motive.
“This would put him right next to you tomorrow night.”
“You’re being melodramatic.” Truth was she had asked for tomorrow’s seating chart to be adjusted when she learned he would attend. She’d had every intention of getting “next to him” and thanking him personally during their first real date, scheduled for this evening. She wasn’t about to mention those plans in front of her brother and daughter.
“He might not even show up.” She wouldn’t think twice about having him tossed out if he didn’t clear up a few things tonight.
“Oh, he’ll show.” There was a calculating gleam in Thomas’s eyes. “And he’ll find a way to kidnap you. It’s the perfect venue and it would be a terrible embarrassment to me if I’m not there to protect you.”
“That’s absurd. Tomorrow’s venue is perfect for raising money for the charity. Besides, I’ll be surrounded by the trained agents and retired spies who make up our extended family all night long.”
“Then it’s a scouting mission,” Thomas argued. “I’m telling you, Holt doesn’t do anything on a whim. Every mishap of the past two months points directly to his office. This is the beginning of the grand finale. I can feel it, Lia.”
Casey gave a thoughtful hum. “Wouldn’t a guy who’s made it to the second in command at Mission Recovery be more careful than that? Sounds a little half-baked to me.”
Cecelia could have hugged her daughter. She thought the same thing, but knew Thomas wouldn’t have entertained the suggestion if she’d offered it. It wasn’t that she blamed him—he only wanted to protect her—but she was weary of being overshadowed and underestimated.
As the wife of a CIA operative, she’d learned to support and assist her husband in the real world, she had her own security clearance and even though she’d spent her career to date in the completely safe admin side of the agency, she knew how to think through a problem like an operative.
Her daughter’s and her brother’s consistent underrating of her was her own fault, she supposed. She’d let it happen by design and circumstance. They were used to her in a certain role: sister, mother, head chef, cheerleader and most recently caregiver and occasional confidant. Change was difficult, and she hadn’t discussed her plans with them; she’d just put in the request to move to ops.
She’d told herself it was to see how she fared on her own merits, but it was just as much about delaying their inevitable resistance.
“Relax, Thomas. I’m safe and I’m perfectly capable of staying that way.” She infused confidence into her voice. “You’ll