Page 84 of The Lazarus Protocol

“Elaina and Mitch Rourke are my parents. Years ago they left and never came back. I’d like to know what happened to them.”

“Rourke?”

“You remember them?” Noah felt it then. A flicker of hope like a candle igniting.

He stood at the bottom of the steps of this ramshackle house, wondering who he would be when he left here. And if the person who felt so close he could almost reach out and touch them was who he had always been meant to be.

Who he was now would be a thing of the past, and hereafter he would be a man in possession of the thing he’d always wanted to have—answers.

The shadow behind the screen door shifted. “I remember them.” After a few seconds of silence, Matthew Haserford said, “You should come in.”

Noah got the sense he’d moved back, deeper into the shadows inside the house.

He took half a step and realized Marina still had a hold on him, and it didn’t seem as if she was coming in. “You’re staying?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Noah waited until she lifted her chin. “I’ll be right back.”

He traversed the steps and eased open the screen door, wondering if this was going to blow up in his face, literally and figuratively. He’d hardly put it past this guy to have his front door booby trapped with C4. Could be the exact reason why Haserford didn’t come outside.

Noah stretched the screen door wide. When it didn’t explode, him along with it, he stepped inside.

The stale air in the house accompanied the dust that had collected in the corners. Threadbare furniture in the living room and pizza boxes on the coffee table. Wallpaper that was likely put up a generation ago, and carpet just after—now it was all faded.

“It ain’t much, but it’s home.”

Noah followed the voice into the kitchen, which he found tidy, even if it was as dated as the rest of the house. “Nice place.”

“You’re thinking it’s some kind of cover, or a double blind.” Haserford had a distended belly, over which he had buttoned a blue denim shirt. Jeans with oil stains, boots, and a comb-over. His eyes had dark shadows, and his skin was clammy. “But I hate to disappoint you, this is it.” He laid the shotgun on the tile counter.

“You think I came in here to judge where you live?”

“No, you want information.” Haserford huffed.

“You probably treated a lot of patients at the CIA and talked to a lot of people during your time there. I’m not interested in any of them, except my parents.”

Haserford shifted, the movement barely visible.

Noah should’ve lifted his gun, but he left by his side. If finding out what happened to them cost him his life, he’d rather go like that than any other way. He’d survived war, multiple deployments, missions he could never discuss. Dying in a rundown house in North Carolina hadn’t been part of the plan—ever—but he was okay with it if he got the answers he wanted before he went.

His one regret? Leaving Marina outside to deal with the aftermath.

Yeah, that told him a lot about how he felt. But now wasn’t the time to get sidetracked.

Kind of like he shouldn’t get sidetracked trying to figure out if this was some kind of poor-investments thing. Or a case of Haserford leaving his finances with no margin for when life happened, and then it had.

“You wanna know about the Rourkes?”

Noah nodded, trying not to think about how much was riding on the answers he got here.

“Whoever told you where to find me…” Haserford shook his head.

Noah wasn’t drinking anything if this guy asked him to stay for tea.

“The Rourkes disappeared a long time ago.” His gaze drifted, and he seemed far away. “Sometimes the past is best left there.”

“They worked for the CIA?” It had never been confirmed, not officially. “Were they agents, or contractors, or what?”