The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Zoe had glass in her feet and water in her lungs, but the scariest thing was the look in her eyes when she said, “Put me down.”

“No.”

“I can walk.”

“You can’t walk.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“I’m . . .” she started again but couldn’t finish because her lips were blue and her whole body was shaking. Her hands gripped his neck so tightly that she could have strangled the life out of him and he wouldn’t have minded at all because that infuriating woman was still alive and Sawyer would never forgive himself if he didn’t keep her that way.

“I can walk,” she tried again, but he doubted she could even stand because she’d been in the water longer than he had. If he lived a hundred years, he’d never forget the terror of standing on the balcony for what felt like ages, trying to find them in the darkness before he dove.

What Sawyer didn’t admit—even to himself—was that he had to keep walking because the cold was sinking into his bones, too, and he knew the clock was ticking. Adrenaline was pounding now, keeping him moving, keeping him warm, but he was going to crash soon and if they hadn’t found shelter by then, well . . . there was more than one way to die in a freezing river.

Zoe wasn’t just shivering in his arms by that point, she was shaking—her whole body convulsing as it tried to warm itself from the inside out.

“Your coat . . . isn’t very . . . warm.” He heard her voice quake and knew she was trying to tease, but something in the sound broke him.

“My coat is wet and the only thing keeping you from being buckass naked.”

“You . . . don’t . . . happen . . . to have . . . a . . . dry . . . one?”

In spite of everything, he wanted to smile. “No. Fresh out of dry coats. If I had one, I wouldn’t share with you.”

“That . . . figures . . . And I’m not . . . totally naked. I have . . . panties.”

“Oh. I stand corrected.” She put her head on his shoulder then, and he shook her. “No. Stay awake. Zoe. Stay—”

“I’m too cold to sleep.”

“Good.”

Sawyer stopped. The good news was that they were out of the river; but the bad news was that they were in the path of the wind. They had to find shelter, build a fire. Get dry. Get warm. Stay alive. And it had to happen in exactly that order. So he stopped and shifted her weight in his arms as he searched the darkness for a light, for a building. For a larger-than-average hole in the ground. He wasn’t exactly in a position to be picky.

“Let me down. I’m heavy.”

“You’re annoying. Stay right there.”

“You just want me to block the wind,” she joked, but her words were getting softer—slower. They were running out of time. So he scanned the bank of the river and the dim outline of the trees and tried to think of all the ways it could be worse.

It could have been raining. Or snowing. Kozlov could have sent someone who didn’t work alone. Sawyer could have jumped overboard without the Go Bag strapped to his back. So at least he had three guns, six thousand euros, four passports, two knives, and one half-dead and mostly naked amnesiac twin shivering in his arms.

“Are we not walking because I’m too heavy or because you’ve been slacking off on arm day? And leg day? And cardio?”

“Do you want me to take my coat back?” he chided.

“I don’t know. Can I think about it?”

“The river is right there. I can put you back where I found you,” he said, but she shivered in response. In less than a minute he’d be shaking too.

“Okay.” She laid her head against his shoulder. “I was only wondering why we’re just standing here?”

“We’ve got to get out of the wind,” he said. “We need shelter.”

“I know.” She sounded annoyed, like the next time she got dragged out of a river she hoped it might be by someone a little more competent. “That’s why I was wondering . . . why . . .” shiver, shiver, shiver “. . . we aren’t going . . .” shiver, shiver “. . . there?”

The strange thing about nighttime in winter—especially when there’s snow on the ground and a clear sky overhead—is that nothing is ever fully black. It’s more a mix of grays and blues and glistening silver. So he couldn’t believe he’d missed the very small, very decrepit, very real castle that stood near the water, like it had grown out of the banks a thousand years ago and now the river was trying to drag it back, stone by stone.

“Will that do?” she asked, sounding far too smug for someone who was half dead and mostly naked.

“Yeah.” His smile was warm, at least, as he brushed a kiss to the top of her head. “That’ll do.”