The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Sawyer peered through the crack in the draperies, looking over the banks of the Seine. The Eiffel Tower was far behind them by that point, the Louvre and the Ritz a million miles away. Hopefully they’d left Kozlov’s men in the Shimmering Sea’s glistening wake as well, but he wasn’t going to bet on it. He didn’t bet with anything but his life.

So Sawyer stayed behind the gauzy curtains of the honeymoon suite, listening to the sound of water. And humming.

In the five years he’d known Alex he had never heard her hum, but her sister did it all the time when she thought no one was listening. Also when no one was shooting at them. Which, to be fair, hadn’t been terribly often in the hours that he’d known her. But now she was locked away in a bathroom that looked like something from a very old movie about very rich people, so she must have felt safe because she’d been humming for five minutes.

But Sawyer . . . Well, Sawyer checked his Go Bag and his guns.

When the bathroom door opened, he had just finished reloading the Glock and was sliding it into his coat pocket.

“Good timing. You ready?”

He headed for the door. According to the ship’s itinerary, they wouldn’t dock until tomorrow morning, so they were either going to have to jump or hitch a ride on another low-hanging bridge. There should be one coming up and he didn’t want to miss it.

But the new Fake Mrs. Michaelson was stumbling out of the bathroom, looking a little more alive but a lot more exhausted and he had to remind himself that adrenaline might be a powerful drug, but the crash was a kick in the teeth if you ever let it happen.

So he grabbed the backpack and repeated, “You ready?”

“For what? To sleep a hundred years?” She threw out her arms and crashed onto the king-size bed and sighed. “Ooooh. Thread count . . . Can you make sheet angels?” She moved her arms and legs out and together over and over . . . soft sheets against bare skin. She sighed and moaned. “Ooh, this is nice. You’ve got to feel—”

“No!” His voice was rougher than he intended. “Come on. We gotta . . . Where are your shoes?” He started looking around for them. “Get up. Stay with me. Come on.”

“Noooo.” She sounded like a petulant child and he felt like a cranky stick-in-the-mud but that didn’t change things.

“We’ve got to keep moving.”

She pushed herself up on one elbow. “We are! We are literally moving right now. See?” She pointed to the countryside that was drifting past those gauzy curtains. And she was right; of course she was right. They were moving. And they were sheltered. But that didn’t change the fact that Kozlov was the least of their problems.

“We’ve got to go. Now.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Because Kozlov might not know where we are at the moment, but the guys who work for him? They’re not gonna give up. And if that’s not bad enough, any minute now a whole lot of agencies are going to retask a whole lot of satellites and, lady, once that happens, there won’t be anywhere to hide. So we can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” She sounded wide awake and ready for a fight. “Is this one of your safe houses?”

He looked around the opulent suite. There were mirrors on every surface and literal mints on the pillows. He’d never been more insulted in his life.

“No.”

“Is this someplace you’d come on your own?”

“No.”

“Someplace you’ve been before?”

“Of course not.”

“Is this something a seasoned undercover operative would do?”

He tried—and failed—to bite back a laugh. “Not hardly.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Then this is exactly where we should stay. Predictability is death, right?”

He prowled closer to the bed, but she just smirked up at him—like this was some kind of verbal Krav Maga and she could use his own force against him.

“Now look—”

She scrunched up her face and lowered her voice. “Streets bad. Shelter good.”

“Hey, I don’t sound—”

“I thought we were supposed to keep moving?” She climbed up on her knees as he leaned down, the two of them suddenly eye to eye, skin flushed, heat pulsing between them.

“We are!” he said a little too loudly.

“I thought we were supposed to find shelter?” She was shifting on her knees and inching closer, like she might launch herself at him at any minute.

“We are!” She was just right there—so close he could smell a hint of mint on her breath. Her lips were plump and the color of cherries, and for one brief moment he wasn’t sure if he should kiss her for real or smother her with a pillow.

But before he could do either she fell back onto the bed so hard she actually bounced. “Well . . . we are literally moving right now. And we’re sheltered. And—” She pushed up. “Maybe I am a spy!”

“You’re not a spy.”

“I’m good at this.”

“You’re not that good at—”

“Ooh! Tiny cheeses!”

He wanted to lecture her about countersurveillance and evasive maneuvers, but she had already plucked a plate off the bedside table and was taking a bite of a soft white cheese. She gave the kind of moan that should never be associated with dairy, and Sawyer felt his pulse tick up.

“Oooh yesssss.”

“Don’t—”

“Here. Take a little bite.” She offered him the plate. “Just a nibble.”

“No nibbling. There’s no nibbling in covert operations!”

She picked up an olive and took the world’s daintiest bite then looked at him from beneath her lashes. “Your loss,” she whispered, and Sawyer’s mouth went dry.

“Come on.” He coughed and choked. “We’ve got to . . .” But she was already pulling the bedspread around her and turning over and over before giving another long, low sigh.

“Oh, this feels good.”

“Stop. You’re messing it up.”

“Of course the bed’s getting messed up.” She flashed a cheeky grin. “We’re on our honeymoon.”

“No. We’re—”

“It’s so warm”—she kept rolling—“and tight and—”

He made a sound that was part groan and part moan and, suddenly, she wasn’t the only one feeling tightness in the lower half of their body. “We have to get off this ship!”

“Why?” She tried to sit up, but she’d wound herself into the middle of a blanket burrito and now she was stuck. Which served her right. At this rate, Sawyer was going to need a cold shower. “Why can’t we stay right here?”

“We just . . . it’s not safe.”

“Fine.” She pulled her arms free and propped herself up on her elbows. She’d stopped making those erotic cheese and blanket noises and was, instead, staring daggers. He almost longed for the time when she was deeply in love with a piece of brie. It was better than being on the receiving end of a look that reminded him of Alex. “Do you know where my sister is?”

Because Alex. It would always come back to Alex and his mission and his job and his life. Beautiful women with pink cheeks and doe eyes had no place in Sawyer’s world, and he couldn’t let himself forget it.

“Well, do you?” She crossed her arms.

It was hard to make himself admit, “No. I don’t.”

“Do you know where we can find that flash drive?”

He was a little too quiet for a little too long before he swallowed. “No.”

“Do you have access to a nearby safe house that absolutely, positively will not blow up when we get there?”

That time, Sawyer had to think about the answer. There was a place they could go—a place that was secret. And safe. And a day’s drive away. But he hadn’t been there in decades, and he was really hoping to keep the streak going a little longer—preferably for the rest of his life.

“Well . . . is there?” she prompted, and slowly, he shook his head.

“No.”

“Do you have any idea how to stop this Kokopov—”

“Kozlov.”

“—person and end this thing?”

She sat there for a long time, willing to wait him out and make him say it. “No. I don’t.”

“Then where are we going to go? Huh? What are we going to do when we get there? We don’t know anything! Except my feet hurt. And my head hurts. And right now—at this moment—one hundred percent of my memories are about running, and I can’t . . .” Her lips quivered and her voice cracked and, with it, his defenses, his resolve—maybe even part of his soul. “I just can’t . . .”

“Hey.” He dropped down on the bed, but she was still too far away and wrapped up in way too many layers.

“I don’t know who I am!”

“I know.” He inched closer but she didn’t fall into his arms, which . . . well . . . he didn’t want her to anyway.

“I don’t know what happened to me or how I got to Paris or why or . . . I don’t know anything except this bed is very big and these sheets are very soft and those little cheeses are very good, and I just need something good, Sawyer. I just . . .” She wasn’t crying. It was like she’d lost her tears when she lost her money and her memories and her name. “I don’t know who I am.”

There were several hours of daylight left, but it was suddenly dark inside the honeymoon suite. Shadows lined her face, and he’d never felt more defenseless than when he sat there, watching her demons win.

Sawyer couldn’t tell her who she was. He couldn’t track down her memories. He might not even be able to track down her sister. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t do something.

He looked around. There was a pad of paper and a pen by the phone, so he got up and grabbed them, tossed them on the bed beside her. “Do me a favor and get this pen to work, will you?”

At first, she just sat there, looking up at him like he was very much a useless man. Then she pulled the lid off with her teeth and spat it halfway across the room, a do I have to do everything? look on her face, but he leaned against the table, crossed his arms, and tried not to smile and call her a smart-ass.

“So let’s say we go with your plan, what then?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she whined. “What were we going to do if you hadn’t blown up your second favorite safe house with a snowball?”

“The snowball didn’t actually . . .” He rubbed a hand across his face as he trailed off. “I don’t know. I probably would have kept checking safe houses. Called up some old friends . . . or enemies.” He gave an ironic laugh. “Maybe her archnemesis has heard from her.”

Her eyes went wide. It was her excited face and he was starting to fear it.

“Ooh! Alex has a nemesis? Are they enemies to—”

“They are nothing to lovers!” Sawyer blurted, and her face fell. “Besides. He got out of the game five years ago and Alex hates his guts.”

“But you think he might have heard from her?” she asked.

“I think she’s got to be somewhere,” he told her softly, wishing like hell he didn’t have to say the next part but knowing she needed to hear it. “But the clock’s ticking. The agencies have unlimited resources. And Kozlov? If she has a weakness, sooner or later, he’ll find it. And his guys will use it.”

“You mean sooner or later, they’ll find me.” He wanted to go to her, hold her, tell her it would be okay, but she just threw the pen and paper at him. “Here. It works. Weirdo.”

He looked down at the paper and didn’t try to hide his grin. “Watch who you’re calling a weirdo . . . Zoe.”

Maybe it was the adrenaline crash or just the aftermath of her quiet, indignant rage, but it seemed to take her a moment to hear it—to realize what he’d said.

He tossed the paper back onto the bed, watched her scramble for it then look down at the pretty writing in wonder.

Zoe.

“How . . .”

He didn’t want to smirk but that didn’t mean he was able to stop it. “Ask someone to test a pen and nine times out of ten they’ll write their own name.”

“I don’t remember my name.”

“Your muscles do.”

He thought he heard her mumble something about butt kicking but he was too busy watching the smile bloom on her face to ask.

“I’m Zoe.” She looked younger than she had five minutes before, and the light was back in her eyes, and Jake Sawyer, a man who had spent the past decade doing very bad things to very bad people, couldn’t bear the thought of putting it out.

“No, you’re not.” He looked from the banks of the Seine to the woman on the bed and resigned himself to what he had to do. “Until you’re rested up and we have some kind of game plan . . . You’re Mrs. Michaelson.”