you tell us what we want to hear.”
And without awaiting a reply—or a dagger in his back, which was the most likely response from Lila Moreau—he left the room.
“NOW, LET’S TRY this again, Lila, starting five months ago. We know you went to the Nesbitt estate to make contact with your partner after knocking Romeo unconscious and taking his clothes. But that was the last time anyone saw you. Where did you go after that?”
Noah bit back a growl at hearing Zorba ask the question again. Four hours after bringing Lila to the OPUS interrogation facility, she was still insisting she was someone named Marnie Lundy who’d grown up in Cleveland and held down two jobs, one for the department store where he’d picked her up tonight and one teaching piano to schoolchildren.
He’d actually laughed out loud at that. The only reason Lila would get near a kid would be to have it for breakfast. And the only way she’d get near a piano would be to cut the wire for garroting someone later. Not that OPUS had ever called on her to be an assassin. But she sure as hell had all the right moves and qualities to make a good one.
During a break in the interrogation, when Noah and Zorba had stepped out of the room, the other man had suggested they bring in an OPUS shrink, on the outside chance—the way outside chance—that Lila really had gone off the deep end this time. She’d been out in the cold for five months, all alone, without any of her usual tools or contacts to help her. She’d lost her mother just prior to her disappearance, and although Noah knew there was no love lost between the two women, the death of a parent could still have a powerful impact on a person. Lila’s past was troubled—to put it mildly—her background unstable—ditto. Throw all of that into a pot and it made for a toxic stew that might undo anyone. Even Lila Moreau.
Reluctantly, Noah had called in not just a shrink, but also his superior officer from OPUS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Although Noah headed up the Ohio unit, there were interstate implications with this, and he felt obligated to alert the big guns to what was going on. Especially the biggest gun of all, He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say—mostly because nobody knew what it was. After all, he was the one Lila had reportedly tried to kill.
Now, both No-Name and the shrink had arrived and been briefed on what was going on. The psychiatrist, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, code name Gestalt, had joined Noah and Zorba in the interrogation room, and He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say was watching from another room on the closed-circuit TV.
“My name isn’t Lila,” Lila said wearily for what felt like the hundredth time.
She was sitting with her arms crossed on the table, her forehead resting on the top one. She was clearly exhausted, and they’d allowed her no food or drink, nor breaks of any kind, since her arrival. Anyone else would have rolled over by now. But not Lila.
“My name is Marnie Lundy,” she said again. “I live at 207 Mockingbird Lane in Cleveland, Ohio. I was born and raised in Cleveland. I’m thirty-three years old. I graduated from Moore High School in 1991, and from Ohio State University with a B.A. in music in 1995. I earned my master’s in music from OSU in 1996. My work record has been varied and eclectic since then, but I now work at Lauderdale’s Department Store, and I teach piano to kids after school and on weekends.” She lifted her head and met each of her inquisitors’ gazes in turn. “I don’t know who you people are or why you’re keeping me here. But I swear, if it’s at all within my power to do so, once this is over, I will hunt down every one of you like dogs and call you Rover.”
Well, at least she’d been honest about her age, Noah thought. And maybe the part about hunting them all down like dogs. Except that she’d do a lot more than call them names once she found them.
“Perhaps you should let me ask a few questions.” The comment came from Gestalt. “I’d like to speak to Ms. Lundy alone for a bit.”
Noah was about to decline, but one look from the psychiatrist stopped him. Fine. If she wanted to call Lila Ms. Lundy, hell, who was Noah to stop her? It wasn’t like he and Zorba had had any luck all night. And they could watch from the closed-circuit TV, too.
“All right,” he said. “Zorba and I will go for coffee. And I think they put out some doughnuts, too,” he added, looking at Lila. “Anybody else want anything? Except you, I mean?”
If looks could kill, Noah would have been atomic fallout about then.
“We’ll be fine,” Gestalt told him. “Ms. Lundy…Marnie,” she said, softening her voice, “and I will have a nice little chat, I hope.”
Whatever, Noah thought.
He and Zorba left the room, locking the door behind them, just in case Lila decided to ditch the compliant, complacent role and return to her old badass self. Then they strode to the next room to join their boss. Also present was Noah’s secretary, Ellie Chandler, a slim brunette on the tall side wearing a dark suit similar to the ones the men favored. Only instead of a necktie, she’d closed the collar with an understated bit of jewelry.
Normally, Noah wouldn’t include his secretary in something like this. But Ellie was ninety percent finished with the instruction and training required to become an agent, and he did his best to include her in things that might be helpful to her education. He was confident she would be an excellent agent. He was, after all, the one who had recommended her to the program.
“All set for your first field assignment?” he asked her now.
It was a rhetorical question. She’d be going undercover in three days, so she’d damned well better be ready. Not to mention she’d made clear her desire to become a field agent on the first day she’d been assigned to his office. The fact that it would only be a training assignment, and therefore not particularly dangerous, didn’t seem to make any difference to her at this point. He just hoped her enthusiasm didn’t ebb when she discovered the particulars of what her assignment would involve.
“I am so ready for it,” she told him. “Bring it on.”
“Funny you should say that,” he replied. “Because I just so happen to have the dossier with me. You can take it home with you after we’re finished here and start going over it. Since you’re working tonight, take tomorrow at home. Get a few hours of sleep before you dive in. You need to be fresh when you review everything.”
She looked slightly disappointed to be taking a day away from the office, and Noah tried to curb yet another grin. Honestly, if even half of his agents were as gung ho as Ellie, OPUS would have ensured world peace ages ago.
The room in which they had all gathered was outfitted more comfortably than the interrogation room, but was by no means luxurious. In addition to a metal table and chairs, there was a long couch and two upholstered chairs. Along one wall was a kitchenette of sorts, with sink and refrigerator and countertops—upon which whattayaknow, were some doughnuts—and a coffeemaker.
That last was coughing out the final drops of a fresh brew, so Noah made his way over and removed the pot, filling a white ceramic mug. Over the speakers, he could hear Gestalt’s voice as she spoke to Lila, a low, indulgent, monotonous tone clearly meant to be soothing. It put Noah’s teeth on edge. He moved to stand next to the others, his attention fixed on the television. His boss, too, a man of indeterminate age and average everything else, had his attention focused entirely on the TV screen.
Gestalt had seated herself at the end of the table kitty-corner to Lila, a less adversarial position than Noah and Zorba had held sitting across
