The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Zoe woke up to the feel of a cold fire and a bare back and the overwhelming sense that Sawyer wasn’t where he was supposed to be. She pushed up a little too quickly, and the room spun as she heard a deep voice say, “Good morning.”

He was sitting on the one chair they hadn’t burned—had it propped against the nearly rotten door, as if he could keep the rest of the world at bay through force of will alone.

He must have found some clothes somewhere because he was dressed in jeans and a cable-knit sweater. Mr. Michaelson’s coat—dry now—was draped over her layers of blankets. The designer tuxedo jacket was balled on the dusty floor beneath her head.

“You went shopping?” she asked, still groggy.

“I got you something.” He pointed to a pile by the fire. Jeans. A shirt and sweater. A pair of old boots. “The sizes are probably wrong, but . . .” He ran a hand through his wavy hair. “Hope you’re not picky.”

“I wouldn’t know if I were.” She gave a reluctant grin.

He didn’t smile back, but he got those deep creases around his eyes—the kind that made men look distinguished and women look old and proved that the universe is unequivocally unfair. But they sure looked good on him in any case.

“No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

That time she didn’t ask him to turn around. He just did it, pulling out two steaming cups of coffee and some food from a small sack as she tugged on the hodgepodge of clothes. The shoes were too big but he’d bought two pairs of socks and a big stack of bandages for her injured feet so she really wasn’t going to complain.

“Okay.” She tugged on the heavy sweater. “I’m decent.” She sat back by the fire and took a sip of the too-strong coffee, grateful for the warmth. “So did you conjure all this by magic or . . .”

He shook his head. “There’s a town about a half mile upriver. I figure we can walk there, catch a train. Maybe get a car.”

It was a solid plan, a perfectly viable option, but the fact remained that she didn’t know where they were going or what they were going to do when they got there. And there was something else, too—something she hadn’t had the nerve to think—much less say—until that very moment.

“Why’d she do it?” Zoe blurted while Sawyer examined the bottom of her feet. For the most part, the cuts were small and shallow, but he carefully layered antiseptic on each one before wrapping her foot in a thick bandage and helping her into the first pair of socks.

“What?” He looked up from his position on the floor.

“Alex. I get why she stole the drive from Kozlov, but why didn’t she take it to the CIA?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

But there was something in his tone—in the way he wouldn’t quite meet her gaze—that made her say, “You have a theory, though.” She was right, but he looked like he’d rather fight another assassin than tell her. “Sawyer? Why would Alex run?”

He put a glob of antiseptic on the biggest of the gashes and Zoe jerked when she felt the sting, but he kept her ankle in his hand, not letting her go anywhere.

“I don’t know.” His voice was hard, but his hands were gentle as he held her aching foot and, oh so softly, blew against the place where she was hurt. Which might have made her squirm for different reasons, but she couldn’t get distracted. She had to know.

“Why would Alex—”

“Because she went bad, okay? Because she got greedy? Because that drive is worth a small fortune to the right buyer and Alex has expensive taste? Because eventually . . .” He’d thrown the last of the wood on the fire and the flames were growing hotter, brighter, but somehow the room was a whole lot colder than it had been moments before.

“Because, eventually, this life breaks you. And you wake up one day and realize all you have to show for it is a body full of scars and a head full of ghosts and you start looking for a way out. Maybe . . . maybe it’s not a drive to Alex. Maybe it’s a parachute.”

Zoe didn’t know what scared her more: that Sawyer was talking about her sister or that, on some level, he was talking about himself. So she just said, “You’re wrong. I know my sister.” He huffed out a laugh that was more like a breath, soundless and borderline cruel. “I do! Alex and I are twins. Identical twins. We’ll be connected for the rest of our lives. We’re—”

“You’re not her!” He probably hadn’t meant to yell because, when he spoke again, his voice was softer. “You have the same DNA, but you’re not her. You walk into a room and everybody smiles. You hum and the world wants to sing. Yesterday I literally heard you use the term oopsie daisy. You’re good, Zoe. You’re good. People like Alex . . . People like me . . .” He looked away. “We can only do this job because we’re a little bit bad.”

She didn’t know what to say. You’re good too would have gotten her laughed at. You’re good to me would have made her sound desperate and lonely and all the things she didn’t want to be (but probably was anyway). Because at some point Sawyer had stopped being Mr. Spy Guy and started feeling like Her Guy, and that was just another lie. Just another cover. They weren’t really the Michaelsons, and they never, ever would be. Which was when she realized that she trusted Sawyer with her life. But she wasn’t strong enough to trust him with her heart.

So she cocked her head. She tried to tease. “Don’t you know? Sometimes villains make the best heroes.”

The smirk he gave her was warm and sweet and wrapped around her like a blanket. “Then, lady, I’m the hero of your dreams.”

She didn’t say what she was thinking: That’s what I’m afraid of.

“Come on. We need to get out of here before Kozlov sends someone to finish the job.” He stood and she started putting on her shoes. “Can you walk? I can go get a car.”

“I can walk.” Her feet didn’t hurt that much as she put pressure on them and slipped her arms into Mr. Michaelson’s coat and her hands into Mr. Michaelson’s pockets and—

“Wait,” Sawyer called. “I’ll take that coat and you can . . .”

But he trailed off as her fingers brushed against something and she pulled out a piece of plastic. It took her a moment to register what it was because that black card with the little golden C didn’t belong in such a dusty, ancient room.

“What’s . . .” And then she remembered. She laughed. “Oh. Well, we probably don’t need the key to my Paris hotel room.”

She started to toss it on the fire, but Sawyer was already lunging for her, shouting, “No!” There was panic in his voice she hadn’t heard before—like he’d rather lose every gun and knife and safe house he owned than part with that thin piece of plastic.

“What is it?” She stared at the face she no longer recognized because, in that moment, he was a stranger—a trained operative trying to pick the perfect lie. “Sawyer . . . Why do you have the key to a room we can never use?” But Sawyer just kept staring at the card—at her—as if he wasn’t sure which one was really worth saving. Which was how Zoe knew—“It’s not a hotel key, is it?”

She studied the card. Solid black with that little golden C. No chip or strip on the back, so it probably wasn’t a credit card. But it mattered. One look at him was enough to tell her that it mattered a lot.

“What kind of card is it, Sawyer?” She dangled it over the fire, and he cocked his head like we both know you won’t drop it—which she wouldn’t have, but she didn’t pull it back either. “What—”

“It’s a kind of . . . membership . . . card.”

“Membership to what?” she snapped, and Sawyer thought a long time about the answer.

He could have killed her, knocked her to the ground and taken it, left her there with her wanted face and her blank memory, but instead he told her, “A bank.”

“What kind of bank?”

“The Swiss kind.”

The card hadn’t touched the fire, but it felt hot in her hand anyway. “Ooh! Do I have a Swiss bank account?” She felt suddenly excited. “Whoa. Am I superrich? Is that why I’m in Europe? Do I . . .”

He shook his head, and for the first time since she woke up, he looked tired, like this whole thing was a river and he was swimming against a current that was just a little too strong. He ran a hand through his hair; it had dried by the fire and was sticking up and wavy and wild. It made him look younger, but his eyes . . . his eyes looked like he was a million years old. It was like they’d both lived a dozen lives since Paris.

Then a chill that had nothing to do with the cold went down her spine.

Paris.

She remembered falling snow and ice-covered streets, the way she’d stood with all her worldly possessions in her cupped hands and watched him change before her very eyes. He’d said something about the lip balm—about Alex. But the card had been right there—that little golden C glowing beneath the streetlights.

“This was why.” She saw that moment differently. She saw everything differently. “This was why you chased me.”

“Zoe—”

“You were willing to let me swim across an ocean until you saw this! Why?” And she knew. “You don’t think this is mine, do you? You think this is Alex’s.”

“It’s the kind of thing . . . It fits. From what I know about Alex, that fits.”

He nodded toward the card, and Zoe gripped it a little tighter then slid it back into the pocket of the coat . . .

Of Sawyer’s coat.

And, suddenly, the whole world went cold again.

“Why did you have it?” She was practically breathing fire, but he just looked at her like she hadn’t been paying attention.

“Because it’s not trash.” His voice was calm and matter-of-fact, but he couldn’t meet her gaze.

She limped closer and he inched back, like she was the one who could kill him with her bare hands, and in that moment, maybe she was.

“I left this card on the dresser when I emptied my pockets after Paris. So why was it in your pocket last night?” She asked like she didn’t know, like she wasn’t already begging, pleading, praying she was wrong.

And in his defense, he didn’t answer.

But in her defense, he didn’t have to.

She knew. She knew. And it broke her. “Because you were leaving me.”

“No.” Sawyer reached for her but Zoe pulled back.

“You were. You were going to ditch me. Abandon me.”

More than knowing he’d only offered to save her to get his hands on that card . . . More than being lied to and led on . . . More than being strangled and shot at and drowned . . . The thing that hurt her most was simple.

“You were going to leave me . . . on our honeymoon!”

“We aren’t actually married!”

He might have yelled.

She might have gasped.

And the whole world might have tilted on its axis as he shook his head, a softness in his voice she didn’t like at all. “You would have been better off without me.”

Is that what he thought? That she wasn’t in danger? That she didn’t need him? Want him? Did he really not remember . . .

“You killed a man with a negligee!” Zoe shouted, then headed for the door.

Outside, sunlight bounced over the icy landscape, and she had to squint against the glare.

“Zoe, wait!”

She didn’t dare slow down, but she risked a glance over her shoulder. Sawyer was pulling on the backpack and pushing a gun into his waistband at the small of his back, but he was looking at her like she was the most dangerous thing around.

“What’s in the bank box?” she called.

“I don’t know.” He caught up with her, lunging to block her path. “Nothing. Probably.”

And all Zoe could do was stand in the morning light, breathing hard, listening for all the things he wouldn’t say.

Like whether or not he meant it when he called her sweetheart . . . Like why he’d bought the ring . . . Like what was he thinking all those times she’d caught him looking, smirking, smiling at her . . . Like how had she been foolish enough to think she knew him when she didn’t even know herself . . .

“Zoe . . .”

“You know, for a good spy, you’re a bad liar.” She pushed past him, heading toward town.

“Zoe!”

“Actually,” she called back, “you probably aren’t even a very good spy!”

He threw his arms out wide. “I killed a man with a negligee!”

Zoe didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. She had to get to town. She had to get to Switzerland. She had to find that bank.

And then she had to find her sister.

“Zoe . . .” Sawyer was beside her again, his stupid long legs with their stupid long stride. “Can we talk about this, please? Can we . . . Where are you even going?”

“Oh, me? I’m leaving you. Because I don’t need you, remember?”

“Zoe, wait.”

And for some reason she stopped. She looked up at him. It hurt, but she did it anyway.

“Can we . . .” he started, but she reached for him, arms sliding beneath his jacket and wrapping around his waist, her head against his heart. For just one second, she wanted to savor this—remember this—so she closed her eyes and sank into all his strength and warmth because he was the best thing she had, but, turned out, she’d never had him at all.

“Hey.” His hands were warm on her cold skin as he tilted her face up to his. “I’m—”

She jerked the gun from his waistband—tossed it into the woods and stormed away.

“That’s my second favorite gun!” he called after her.

“Then go get it!” she shouted.

But she didn’t turn around.

She didn’t look back.

And she didn’t even think about slowing down.