Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

T he marine assigned to drive Kira home walked through the two-story house and basement, ensuring it was empty of intruders before leaving her alone. She reset the alarm, then went straight upstairs. Sleep was in her immediate future.

Before changing into her favorite oversized T-shirt, she unlocked the gun safe and pulled out her Sig Sauer, which she'd purchased in the weeks before her father died. She rammed the magazine into the grip and racked the slide.

She knew how to shoot. She'd received lessons at Raptor's Virginia compound as soon as she was physically able. She didn't usually sleep with a loaded gun in her nightstand drawer, but knew there was no way she'd get the rest she needed tonight without the peace of having a piece at the ready.

If only she could bring the gun to Malta. She'd have to look into gun laws there. See if she could legally acquire one. But if she couldn't, she had also taken hand-to-hand combat lessons from Raptor operative Chase Johnston, which was akin to taking dance lessons from Baryshnikov.

She hadn't told Morgan or Freya about the lessons. They would ask why she didn't train with them, and she wasn't ready to share with anyone her secret desire to be a real Valkyrie. No, when she was ready, she'd surprise them with her skills. She was facing down forty, but she wasn't too old.

The FBI and CIA didn't take applicants over thirty-seven. Not that she had ever wanted to join those ranks, but she had to admit consulting with the FBI on art crime had always held a certain appeal. But that door had been closed because she couldn't get a passport. Not without risking her mother's citizenship status. And the background check required to work for the FBI was certainly out. She'd always understood why her father didn't want her to have a passport, but it had been pure manipulation that he'd withheld her birth certificate from her so she couldn't get one on her own.

She'd been a home birth, and he'd lied to her about the city and state where she was born. But now she knew the other reason she couldn't find herself when searching for the certificate was because her legal last name was her mother's maiden name—which, she suspected, was fake. All part of the subterfuge to hide her mom.

Her father was listed on her birth certificate, so he'd likely had no problem getting her a social security number with the surname Hanson when he'd applied for her SSN when she entered public school in seventh grade. He'd handled the paperwork for getting her learner's permit when she was fifteen too. He'd always been at the ready when she needed to legally prove her existence, but then the certified copy would disappear before Kira ever had a chance to see it. Or had a clue where he hid it.

As an adult with a driver's license, SSN, credit cards and scores, she'd never needed the certificate. What would he have done if she'd announced her intention to get married?

Send emails warning prospective suitors away, she supposed. Not that Rand would ever consider her marriage material. Or that she'd want that from him.

The idea was extreme to the point of being ludicrous. Especially given that her mother was no longer in danger of being deported.

Still, her father had done it, and she'd probably never know why.

Her dad's subterfuge no longer mattered. Her mother was gone and couldn't be harmed. Kira finally had a passport. Next step: passing a background check. In the meantime, she was checking off boxes, learning how to fight. When to attack and when to retreat.

She placed the loaded gun on the nightstand, then donned her T-shirt and brushed her teeth. Before sliding under the covers, she confirmed the wooden baseball bat she slept with was under the covers on the right side of the bed.

It was a good thing she didn't have a lover because she wasn't ready to give up the bat. Especially after today.

The singsong voice saying her name haunted her thoughts. Eerily and creepily familiar.

My name was his last word.

She pulled the bat closer and smiled grimly as she stroked the hard wooden length. If only it had a vibration setting.

It was short enough to fit diagonally in her suitcase. It was coming with her to Malta.

She wouldn't be caught off guard again.

The house was utterly silent. She'd turned off the air conditioner while the marine searched the house. She would rather be hot than allow the noise to mask the sound of an intruder.

She'd moved into this house directly from the hospital, staying with her father in those first weeks of recovery. She'd never slept in her apartment again. Had only entered it to direct movers to pack her things.

By the time the move was decided, her father was in the hospital, and she didn't have time or energy to move herself. So movers packed up everything she owned, most of which was now in boxes in the basement. Her furniture was in the garage.

Her parents had bought this house when Kira was in grad school in DC. Her father had retired from the small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania where he'd taught since she was ten years old, and they wanted to be near Kira. It had felt stifling at the time, her parents' protectiveness of their adult daughter. But Kira hadn't been the most mature of new adults and her mother also suffered from anxiety. She knew her mom's need to be nearby was as much for her mental health as it was to be present for Kira.

Now this house was Kira's. Her inheritance. Mortgage free. It gave her the luxury to take a break from her usual work as she figured out what was next. She had savings too—her father's life insurance had been more than generous.

Malta was the first step in figuring out what was next. She would connect with her father's step-cousin. If she found what he'd spent his life looking for, her work could open doors with the Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab—aka the new Monuments Men—and maybe earn her Valkyrie wings.

But she would also enjoy Malta as the vacation she'd never had. She would swim in the Mediterranean and flirt with handsome strangers over fruity cocktails.

She would be bold. Brave. Strong. A Valkyrie in spirit, if not in association.

K ira checked her watch as she returned the box to the shelf in the basement. Freya and Cal would be arriving in fifteen minutes to give her a ride to Dulles airport. She didn't really have time for this last-minute quest, but she was sure her mother's jewelry box was down here somewhere.

She wanted to wear her mother's necklace. To feel her presence as she finally took the trip that might explain her father's odd behavior.

She grabbed another box and ripped it open. Her heart clenched as she saw the contents. High school yearbooks, research papers, and letters she'd received from a pen pal in Italy as a teen.

Plus it held the only letter she'd ever received from Apollo. She'd gotten a few emails from him when he moved to Paris, but only one actual, honest-to-goodness letter.

She slapped the box closed and opened the next one. And there it was. Her mom's jewelry box. There was nothing of real value. It was all sentimental. Her mom had loved her rings and necklaces and bracelets. She'd rattled every time she moved her arm, bangles bangling.

Like a cat with a bell, Anna Hanson couldn't sneak up on a person. When her mom died, her father talked about how much he missed the jangle of her moving through the house. It was more silence than he'd ever wanted.

Kira selected a few pieces, including the watch pendant locket with a Black Forest design. Her father had bought it for her mother in West Germany. Or at least that's what he'd always claimed. She suspected they'd been in the DDR—or as Americans remembered it, East Germany, a satellite state of the Soviet Union.

She twisted the crown to wind the watch and held it to her ear. A soft ticking sound greeted her. She smiled and pulled out the crown to set it to the proper time.

She then entered the back corner of the basement, where her mother's paintings were stored. Kira pulled the drop cloth from the largest one, which was also her favorite.

A nearly life-sized self-portrait that included Kira as a toddler, but it was done in a late Victorian style. The backdrop could be the lush drawing room of a British aristocrat or the mansion of a Gilded Age tycoon.

In the background sat an empty cradle, which her mother had explained was her sadness at not having more children. Kira had wanted a sibling when she was young, but her father had always declared he was content with having one perfect child.

Her father had loved her fiercely. Right down to following her to DC when she was in grad school. But even so, he'd never been smothering. Not in the same way her mom had occasionally been.

Her mom had homeschooled Kira until she was in seventh grade. She'd wanted to continue homeschooling, but Kira insisted she needed a life outside the house, and her father had backed her, in spite of Kira's immaturity, which was likely due to not being socialized with other tweens until she was nearly twelve.

As it was, she'd been awkward at school, but at least she was there. Freya, whose parents taught at the same college as her father, was tasked with introducing Kira around. She'd been intimidating even then.

She'd never been a mean girl, but still, she'd been a force. Pretty, popular, and very, very smart. Freya had been salutatorian to Kira's valedictorian, but in the end, only Kira had given a speech at graduation because Freya was in Greece, burying her parents and older brother, who'd all died in a terrorist bombing.

She returned her focus to her mother's portrait. Her mother's gaze was directed at young Kira. There was love in her eyes, even in paint.

Her mother had been an amazing artist. She could have been a master. Kira compared the pendant she now wore with the silver one her mother wore in the portrait. The detail was exquisite.

Her mom had insisted she didn't want fame or fortune, and at the point when Kira was clued in on the passport issue, she understood. Her mother flew beneath the radar because she might —in Kira's mind, it was a certainty—have left Soviet Germany without officially defecting.

And so her mother painted only for herself, her husband, and her daughter. And now her life's work—several dozen paintings—was hidden in a basement. When Kira returned from Malta, she would change that. These paintings would be seen. She had connections in the art world. They could grace a gallery wall.

But for now, she had a flight to catch. She kissed her mother's forehead, the lightest touch of lips to canvas, then covered the painting with the drop cloth and made her way to the stairs.