Femme Fatale by Virginia Kantra, Doranna Durgin, Meredith Fletcher Page A

her glare intact, and jerked her squall parka on right over the shawl. She hadn’t expected to see that stuffed-shirt expression of his traded in for something more like chagrin and resignation.
    “Look,” he said. “I’ve made a real dog’s dinner of this. I lost Lyeta Denisov for a matter of moments, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t get killed on me. And you were there…”
    “Don’t remind me,” Beth said, feeling as sour as she sounded. “I was there, and she got killed anyway. I watched that spot for hours…they must have been in place before I got there. I don’t know how…maybe they had a bug on her. They seem to find me easily enough.” A broad path covered with chipped wood footing led away from the building; Beth discovered they had headed for it in silent accord, neither having given it much thought. Neat rows of grapevines stretched out before them, rustling slightly in the breeze.
    After a moment of silence, Chandler said abruptly, “I don’t believe it was you anymore. Who killed her, I mean.”
    “Well, thank you so much for that. I presume it wasn’t my offended protests that convinced you.”
    “No,” he said, a matter-of-fact honesty she could appreciate. With the entry light of the visitors’ center behind them, the moon provided their only light. It softened the hard lines of his face, and revealed his thoughtfulness as he glanced at her. “Your old CIA records. And what I’ve seen of you so far. You’re right…you wouldn’t have done such a sloppy job.”
    “Nice to have gotten that out of the way,” Beth said, but the moonlight had softened something in her, too. “But you’re still after me.”
    “After you?” he said. “No. Wanting a conversation with you, yes.”
    “Whether or not I want the conversation,” she said, and stuck to her original definition. “After me.”
    “Better me than your friends from the hotel.” He stopped walking, putting a hand on her arm so she turned to look at him. “What’re they after? If they wanted to take you out, they’d have done it by now.”
    She raised an eyebrow at him, counting on the moonlight to show him her entire excuse me? expression.
    He gave her a sudden grin, a damned charming, cocky grin. “They’d have tried harder, at least. No, they want—”
    “What you want, probably,” Beth interrupted, preferring it to the speculation. Charming and cocky. Just what she needed.
    He took a step closer to her, and the cockiness faded into something more serious. “Talk to me. This morning you said we were on the same side—”
    “I said we might be.”
    “And I think we are. Whatever you’re looking for, whatever they’re looking for…I’d rather they don’t get there first. How about you?”
    Beth put her fingertips against her closed eyelids, rubbing gently. To trust, not to trust… Barbara had said to work with him. But that didn’t mean at the expense of losing the keycard to MI6. Beth had to get the card to Barbara, and then Stony Man could decide what to share with its allies. Finally she said, “I’m not sure what they want. I’m guessing it’s just to confirm what I know, and what I’ve passed along before they kill me. They don’t need me—they seem to have their own information sources.” Egorov, no doubt. The advantage of being inplace before Beth got here, maybe even before Lyeta got here.
    “Do you know who they are?” Chandler said, pushing just a little too hard.
    She opened her eyes to give him a steady look. “No.” And she didn’t. Until she heard from Barbara, she had nothing but guesses.
    And for all she knew, she had a message waiting. Too much time had passed—getting here, fruitlessly searching the tables, wasting time in the most romantic setting known to man with the least romantic conversation she could think of. She gave a little shake of her head, knowing it would mean nothing to him. It was time to return to her snug little theater storage room and reassess where