Page 7 of Wasted Lust

“Yes, ma’am,” the attendant replies. “Would you like some?”

“Yes,” Sasha says, with a sigh. “With vodka, please.”

I smile at that. “Are you a rebel, Miss Aston?”

“I’m a paleontologist, Agent Jax. I spend my time digging in dirt for ancient bones, hoping to find some small scrap to give my day meaning. I live alone in a great big house, and all my friends are other diggers. So do you think I’m a rebel?”

I wink at her with a smile. She pulls her chin back, as if offended. Perhaps Madrid is right. She’s not that kind of girl. But what she lacks in social rebellion, she makes up for professionally. Not the digging. How boring that is. But she’s failing to mention her ties to hackers and killers. “I think you have potential, Miss Aston.”

She looks over at Madrid, and when I look at Madrid she’s mouthing something derogatory about me. “Agent,” I say, stopping her mid-word.

But when I look back at Sasha, she’s smiling at Madrid like they are sharing a secret.

Girls.

“Would you like to see a recent picture of Nick Tate, Miss Aston?” I ask, flipping the authority and control back to me. “I have one. Madrid, bring me my case.”

Madrid huffs a breath as she unbuckles her belt, walks over to a cabinet, gets the case, hands it to me, and then sits back down just in time to buckle up before the drinks are served and the captain begins to taxi the plane towards the runway.

Sasha stares at the case in my hands, then recaptures her composure. “How old is the photo?”

“Three months,” I say, and then add, “We think. This was the last thing this particular insider sent before she disappeared.”

“She?” Aston has a very hard time hiding her contempt for the gender of my insider.

“It could be because she’s dead or it could be because she’s turned on us. We’re not sure.”

“The picture?”

A few moments pass as I try to work out if she’s jealous, or if she thinks she might know who our infiltrator is.

“Yes,” I say, setting the case down on a small table as the plane accelerates for takeoff. I wait until we’re climbing before opening it and then shuffle around inside until I find the most recent picture and hand it out for her to take.

She does not touch it, but uncrosses her legs and leans forward with her hands in her lap.

So composed for someone so young. So disciplined. So careful. So passive.

“Take it,” I say, still offering.

“I see him,” she says. And then, like that picture is the last thing on her mind, she crosses her legs again and shoots me a smile. “I’m going to have to decline your offer, Agent Jax. I’m just too busy at school.” Her snob has been turned on, I realize. That thirteen-year-old assassin has been transformed over the years into a very classy lady. She lost it momentarily back at the airport. But she’s collected herself since then.

My interest is piqued. I allow a smile as I withdraw the photo and tuck it back into the briefcase. I’m going to enjoy playing high society with her. Not many women these days are interested in manners and polite conversation. “Would you change your mind if I told you what he’s been up to all these years?”

“No, Agent. I think if I knew…” She pauses here, I’m sure picturing the life he might’ve carved out for himself down in crime-ridden Honduras. “If I knew, I’d be very much inclined to run the other way as fast as possible.”

Hmmm. “I disagree. I think Nick Tate is the only thing you’ve thought about for ten years. The fact that he left you behind while he went out to meet his future wasn’t in the plan, was it? And what happened to you, Miss Aston? Did it break your heart? That he left you? That he chose that life over the one you imagined you’d live out with him?”

She swallows, but her expression remains solid. Stoic. Utterly unemotional. “Very few people know the details of that night. And you are not one of them.”

“Ah,” I say, and a small laugh that I can’t tuck down comes forth. “I know some of them. I know you didn’t want him to leave. I know you traveled around the west that summer with James Fenici—AKA Assassin Number Six—and Nick’s twin, Harper Tate. I know they dropped you off at Aston’s soon after. I know everything, Sasha Cherlin.”

She stiffens at that name. Her mouth becomes an angry line.

“Your next question isn’t how, Miss Aston. But who. Who told me these things?”

“No one told you anything,” she says, her calm back. She swings her sandaled foot a little and I can’t stop a quick glance at her tanned leg as it moves. When I look up she’s smiling. She knows she’s pretty and she’s using it against me now. “Because what you just said is like the icing on the cake. But the only thing that really matters is what’s inside. And you have no details about what’s inside, Agent. You have no idea what it tastes like.”

“Maybe,” I say back, using her metaphor as an excuse to picture eating her like cake. “But I’m close. And I’m gonna be tasting those details about you before you know it.”