Chapter 23

23

Eva

He smiles at me across the Hall of Mirrors. I look both ways— You mean me? —then march directly to him.

"What are the odds?" I ask. A lot higher than he might think.

Up close, I notice that his suit is perfectly tailored. I'm guessing his sense of style is part of what makes him lethal.

"You look less pukey," I say.

"Yes." He adjusts his suit but it's already perfect. It falls perfectly. "Sorry about that. Bad time to meet someone." I can think of a worse one.

"You never came back…" I try to sound like I don't care, but all that comes out is the trying.

"I'm so sorry." His intensity catches me off guard. We've met in the middle of the hall. People have to walk around us. He doesn't even seem to notice, he's looking so directly at me.

Not to state the obvious, but he has no idea why I'm here. To him, this is probably fate. He has no idea that the agency has been searching for him for days, that I've been sitting around in my hotel room waiting for their call. Painting my toenails, experimenting with makeup, taking long, creamy baths. I was actually in the middle of a makeup tutorial when Sherri called me and asked, "How fast can you get to Versailles?" Which is why I look like a neon starlet right now.

He swallows. "I passed out in the WC. Literally fainted. I didn't wake up until long after the train had stopped."

"Oh." It's a pretty good excuse, but I've been mad at him for so long that it's too late to undo.

And anyway, for all I know, he's lying now. I definitely can't trust him. Not only did he ghost me, but he's been classified as extremely lethal.

"Totally cool," I say. "I didn't even notice." He gives me a look. I really didn't pull that line off.

"I regretted not asking for your number," he says. "Or your full name."

"I think we're blocking the path," I say, because I'm not touching that .

"Of course," he says. "Should we go out to the gardens?"

"Sure," I say. "Why not?" He can tell I'm annoyed. He seems a little sad about it.

He's different than I remember. I surreptitiously study him as we wind quickly through the crowds. He feels more present, for one thing. He was big on the train, but he seems bigger. He seems sharper, too, like nothing escapes his attention. And faster, lither. I'm not sure if I'm giving him these predatory traits because I've been told he's a predator, but he seems more dangerous, more intimidating and, honestly, kind of hotter.

"I'm really so very sorry," he says once we're outside, standing beside a fountain filled with vomiting frogs. They're gold, so it's classy.

"It's really not a problem," I say.

His Adam's apple throbs. He's staring at me, like he did on the train. "I've thought about you. A lot. I liked you." If he wasn't my job, I would probably find a way to run from this feeling—this good and painful feeling.

"I liked you, too."

His mouth turns up a little, like he's relieved. "I was face down on the floor, thinking, If I could just get up …" He's lying. He has to be. But what if he's not? What then?

I force myself to break eye contact. To look out at the beautiful bushes or whatever. The fountains and the statues and all that historical crap.

I have to keep my head on straight. I have to focus on the job. This isn't real life. This is work life.

My mission is to find his weaknesses. Everyone has them. In this job, any predictable habits can be weaknesses. He always shoots from the hip. He loves to gamble. He brushes his teeth in the shower. Even strengths can be weaknesses, from the right angle. Everything is usable as long as it's predictable. The enemy of murder is surprise.

To find out his weaknesses, I need to spend time with him. As much time as possible, in as many ordinary situations as I can. We need to hang. We need to be friends. We need to trust and reveal our most sacred selves. Or at least our most intimate ones.

I'm going to have to put aside my feelings. All of them.

I was offered the job over champagne with Sherri. We were celebrating my thirty-third (really my thirty-sixth) when she told me the agency had a special job, just for me. The kind of job I'd always dreamed of: high profile, high paying.

"Remember, you don't have to take it," she said, reaching into her purse.

"Why wouldn't I want to take it?" I asked. We were drinking black velvets in a private booth in a dark corner of a bar in Dublin.

"He's been classified as extremely lethal."

"Why?"

"Apparently he's very good with a sword. And a gun. And pretty much anything." She slid me the first photo. I flipped it over, then dropped it immediately. "Handsome little fucker, isn't he?" she said.

"It's not that." I could feel my face go white, the blood draining.

Sherri registered my shock. She tilted her head. "What is it?"

"It's Jonathan. My Jonathan." I felt a peculiar ping, like he belonged to me because I said it. "That's the guy from the sleeper train."

She hissed through her teeth, stretched back in surprise. "The guy you—"

"Yes." It had been months since I'd seen him, but probably hours since I'd thought of him. Every time I saw a train go by, or someone wearing glasses or carrying luggage. My mind could really reach , apply him to any situation. See him everywhere, as if the whole world were just echoes of him. "He had all those weapons," I remembered. It added up, that he would be good with pretty much anything. He had everything in that suitcase, which was now sitting in a storage facility in Paris. "Who is he?"

"He's essentially a henchman for a very dangerous man," Sherri says. "He travels around Europe killing people. He's completely psychotic. Soulless. Deranged." But he seemed so nice.

Still, there were many things I overlooked: the weapons, the blood. Maybe because I liked him. Maybe because I'm a little dark, too. Did I really think he was one of the good guys?

"You don't have to take the job." Sherri reached across the table and squeezed my hand.

I wanted to reassure her that I would. I loved Sherri.

We were two dark girls in a too-dark world. I texted her sometimes at three o'clock in the morning, after a particularly brutal nightmare, and not only did she answer me at that time, but she called me back . She walked me through the bad dreams, assuring me over and over that it wasn't too late to talk. We had weekly watch parties for all our favorite reality shows where we savaged all the men and made every excuse for the women, to redress the societal imbalance. We exchanged holiday and birthday and thinking-of-you gifts. Sherri was the perfect gift giver, always managing to buy me the exact thing I had always dreamed of having but would never feel worthy to buy for myself. I tried to do the same for her.

She was my ride-or-die, and when you work as an assassin, that's pretty fucking serious.

But our friendship was also a little tangled up in this job—this weird and dangerous job. It brought us closer, but it also kept us apart. Sherri was my handler. It was her job to handle me. Even if she was also my friend.

Right then in the bar, I wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear, but first I wanted another drink, and then another one, and another. Within hours, we were both drunk. And then I assured her, "Of course I want the job. I can do it! He's a bad guy, right?" I also wanted to see him again, which was possibly the worst reason to agree to a hit.

"It might be a good thing," Sherri said, a little wobbly. "Therapeutic. He practically ghosted you. This could be your revenge!" An odd look crossed her face, and then she burst out laughing. "It's perfect! You can kill your ghost!"

I started laughing, too, slightly hysterical.

"It's what he deserves for not asking for your number!" Sherri said.

"I'm doing it for women everywhere!" I declared.

It seemed hilarious then, but now it seems like it was delirium, maybe even a little fear. Isn't that the word for when you have a crush on someone?

Looking at Jonathan now, I try to see the person Sherri said he was. Psychotic. Soulless. Deranged. I can see how other people might think he could fit into that mold—physically, at least, he's intense. But he was so sweet on the train. Possibly because he was drugged. Possibly because he was ill.

I take a deep breath. I remind myself that he's the bad guy. I remind myself of what it felt like when he ghosted me. I have a job to do. I'm going to crush it.

"And now here we are in Versailles," I tell him. "Here's to second chances."

He nods slowly, as if uncertain. "Have you eaten? There's a restaurant, uh, near here. Farm-to-table. No one knows about it. Can I make it up to you?"

I cock my head. I doubt upper-level management expected this. He wants to take me to a restaurant, alone, that no one knows about. It's like he's setting me up to murder him.

I smile. "Sounds perfect."