Page 8 of Shadow Burn

Hell, his personal read didn’t just say walk away, it said run. Whatever was happening behind his sternum after twenty minutes in her kitchen was not the kind of thing he had time for. Katherine Townsend was not the kind of woman a man with his set of unresolved questions from his past needed to be in close proximity to. He’d built a quiet life at the compound for reasons. The reasons were still there.

Both reads agreed: Don’t take the case.

He started the engine and pulled back onto the highway, fully prepared to drive to the compound, walk into his office, send Vivi a polite email refusal, and forget the smell of Katherine’s clean, citrus scent and her damn good coffee.

CB caught him crossing the gravel lot and called something teasing about the speed at which Jasper had driven past the gate cam, but Jasper waved him off and kept walking. He went straight to office, dropped his leather bag on the desk, then turned around and headed to Vivi’s office. She deserved more than a quick email.

Her door stood open. He knocked anyway.

She looked up from a stack of files, took one full breath while she scanned his face, then set down her pen. “Sit. I’ll make tea.”

“Don’t bother.”

She stood and crossed to the small electric kettle on the side table. “I’m bothering. Sit down.”

Her office was the same as it had been every other time he’d been in it. Bookshelves crammed with psychology texts and the latest crime novels. A framed photograph of her and her husband Ian on a hiking trail. The ridiculous Costco couch she’d defended for four years. The sound machine on the credenza, currently silent.

As her two parakeets tweeted in their cage behind her desk, she handed him a mug with something that smelled like cinnamon and clove. He took it without drinking and watched her sit down across from him.

“So,” she said. “Ms. Townsend.”

“Yeah.”

“You came directly here after your meeting. You haven’t even taken off your jacket.”

He looked down. He hadn’t.

“Taking the case then,” Vivi said.

He shook his head and gave her a brief rundown: the flagged 2019 memo, the reassignment, the two Vance letters, the second one dated the day Vance died. He laid out his suspicions with the second letter at the center, because that changed the shape of the case. A retired Station Chief writing about an active spy who was officially dead, then dying himself before he could finish the letter—that wasn’t a coincidence Jasper was prepared to let live.

Vivi listened, and when he finished, she nodded once. “You think Vance was killed.”

“I think a rational person in our business would assume so until proven otherwise.”

“Katherine doesn’t suspect that?”

“Oh, she does. She’s not saying it out loud yet because she’s careful and has no one else to turn to.”

Vivi sipped her tea. “What’s your assessment of her?”

“She’s unusual.”

Vivi’s brows rose. “How so?”

“The notation system she built is the kind of thing analysts spend a decade refining. She’s also angry, although she’d call it something more dignified. The Agency dumped her here, and she reads it as if it’s Siberia.”

Vivi made a small noise of acknowledgment. “What does your gut say?”

“Don’t take this case.”

“Why?”

He turned the mug in his hands. The tea was the kind Vivi liked, something like chai that he never quite got the appeal of, and he drank it anyway because she’d made it. “Because if I take this on, the people who buried her flag are going to find me. They’re going to find SPS. Eventually, they’re going to find her family, friends, whoever they can leverage.”

“That’s a tactical answer.”

“What else is there?”