LITMIR.BIZ

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country and its people from further acts of terrorism.”

      “But you were,” she said. “A government operative.”

      “At one time.”

      He didn’t elaborate. He wasn’t willing to discuss why he had left the CIA.

      It had had nothing to do with the disbanding of Cabot’s elite counterterrorism team. Ethan had left on his own almost a year before that edict against the External Security Team had come down. And only at the urging of someone he respected as much as he respected Griff Cabot would he ever have become involved in clandestine operations again.

      “But he will be all right, won’t he?”

      She meant Gardner, he realized.

      Your guess is as good as mine. That answer was no less mocking than some of those she’d made to his appeal. He didn’t offer it, however.

      Despite his distaste for almost everything he had learned about Raine McAllister, he couldn’t shake the notion that he owed it to the old man to treat her, and this entire bizarre episode, with at least some degree of respect. Professional courtesy for a former DCI? Or guilt over the possibility that his and Griff’s visit had played a role in the attack that had injured Montgomery Gardner?

      “From what everyone says he’s a tough old bird,” he hedged.

      “You don’t know him?”

      “Not really. I’ve only met Mr. Gardner a few times. Mostly on social occasions at the home of the owner of the agency, Griff Cabot, and his wife.”

      She smiled. “As a child, I was always so jealous.”

      It took him a second to make the connection. “Of Claire?”

      “She was his granddaughter. We’re about the same age. And she had a right to his time and his interest.”

      Which she had wanted for herself?

      “I always wondered if she knew about me,” Raine continued. “And if so, exactly what she knew.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      He didn’t. Not her relationship with the old man or her remarks about being jealous of his granddaughter.

      “After it was over…” She paused, her eyes again seeming to contemplate a time other than the present. “He paid for my schooling. First, at a very fine girls’ boarding school in Virginia, and then later at Wellesley.” Her eyes lifted to Ethan’s. “I’m afraid I didn’t fit very well at either. I always thought Claire would have.”

      There was no doubt about that, Ethan acknowledged, remembering the poised and beautiful woman who had married Griff Cabot when he’d literally come back from the dead. Despite the very real ideological differences each had brought to that union, theirs seemed to be one of the most successful marriages he’d ever seen.

      “When do you want to leave?”

      Raine’s question, totally out of context in their discussion of Claire Cabot, caught him off guard.

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Or were you just planning to point to some names in a copy of Who’s Who?”

      He’d been doing better in the role of stiff-necked bureaucrat, he realized. Playing straight man to her mockery wasn’t nearly so appealing.

      “You’re coming to Washington,” he attempted to clarify.

      “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

      He had come expecting to be provided with information that would give him a handle on the inner circle of The Covenant. It was obvious now that was something this woman didn’t possess. What she did have was a supposed psychic ability Monty Gardner believed in strongly enough to have sent him down here.

      And now, because she thought she owed the old man something or maybe because she considered him something of a father figure, she was offering to use her “gift” to help Ethan break the code of silence surrounding the dark heart of an organization he’d spent the past six months investigating. The problem was, no matter what the old man believed about her abilities, Ethan himself didn’t think she was capable of doing anything like that.

      “I don’t—” he began and then stopped. “Actually, I hadn’t thought that far.”

      Back to idiotic straight man, trying to come up with some way of letting her perform her mumbo-jumbo that didn’t involve hauling her back to D.C. He didn’t even want to think about how her act would be greeted by the hard-nosed ex-intelligence agents of the Phoenix.

      “I’ll try not to embarrass you, Mr. Snow. I promise you that I’ve learned a great deal since my Tarot-reading days. And I’d really like to see him,” she added softly, her voice more subdued than it had been at any time during the course of their conversation. “It might be my last chance to tell him how much he’s always meant to me.”

      “Of course,” Ethan said.

      No matter the fallout from this, he realized, given his guilt over the timing of that attack, there really was nothing else he could say to that particular appeal.

      RAINE SLIPPED THE CHAIN into the slot on the front door and turned the dead bolt. Normally, despite the isolation of the house, she never thought about those precautions. With all that had happened tonight, she did them automatically.

      As soon as she heard the sound of the car’s engine kick over, she turned off the outside lights. She stood a moment in the darkness, listening as Ethan Snow backed his car out of her driveway and onto the two-lane, blacktopped beach road.

      When the noise of his automobile had faded into the distance, she retraced her steps to the back of the house. The studio was exactly as she had left it, the figure of the runner still draped under its cloth covering.

      For a moment she avoided looking at it, allowing her eyes to move around the room instead, focusing briefly on the completed sculptures. Trying again to find the peace this place had always given her.

      Despite her avoidance of the statue that had precipitated the vision, that peace still eluded her. Moving decisively, she crossed the room, intending to uncover the runner. As she approached the figure, however, her steps slowed, almost without her conscious volition.

      Although she took a fortifying breath as soon as she reached the pedestal, she didn’t allow any other hesitation. She quickly lifted the cloth, revealing the sculpture.

      There was no repetition of what had occurred at sunset. Nothing at all unusual happened.

      The flowing lines of the figure seemed as pleasing to her as they had last night. Proportioned. Graceful. Displaying exactly the strength and athleticism she’d been trying for.

      She circled the stand, examining the statue from every angle. When she reached the front, for almost the first time since she’d shaped the features, she looked at the runner head-on.

      Her heart seemed to falter before it resumed beating, but at an increased rate. Although she moved closer, there was no doubt at all about what her eyes had told her.

      The straining face of the runner she had fashioned two days ago, the figure that had metamorphosed into the vision of that dark, bottomless pond, was clearly that of the man with whom she had just agreed to travel to Washington tomorrow.

      Chapter Three

      Ethan almost didn’t recognize her. And when he did, he realized he had again misjudged her.

      Despite the size and regional flavor of the local airport, she had dressed in a two-piece cotton knit dress in a deep shade of turquoise. The color set off her tanned skin and dark hair. Although she was wearing sandals, they had low heels and matched the calfskin purse slung over her shoulder. A black wheeled suitcase stood beside her.

      She watched his approach, her expression unrevealing. Her eyes,

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