Spy Girl (Spy Girl #1)

MISSION:DAY SIX





After my meeting with Terrance, I snuck back into my room and quickly fell asleep. I’m awakened a few hours later by Ari.

“We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Our mission, duh.”

“Oh, sorry. Not really awake yet.”

“This can’t be helped. With the Prince constantly at your side, it doesn’t give us time to talk. Ellis said you requested information on the cousins and their boyfriends. I have that info and have been over it.” He drops a file in my lap. “Read it and destroy it.”

“You want to give me the condensed version? Is there anything you thought was important?”

“I think it’s important we both read it. There may be something you catch that I don’t. You read. I’ll order breakfast. What sounds good?”

“Don’t laugh, but I’m dying for a cheeseburger. And hash browns.”

“Done,” he says, picking up the phone and ordering us two, along with a couple fully-caffeinated sodas.

He sits on my bed, messing around on his phone, while I read.

“I heard you slept with Allie again.”

“Because she snuck into my bedroom the night they arrived. Last night, I was working on getting close to Clarice.”

“How did that go?”

“It didn’t. But I did get the impression that it might, tonight.”

I keep reading, nothing catching my attention until . . . “Wait, their father was killed six months ago? In a hunting accident that may have been a suicide? Wouldn’t he have been in line for the throne after Lorenzo?”

“Yes, he was.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Well, here’s an interesting little tidbit to go along with that. The accident happened the day before I was pulled out of Special Forces and sent into my training with the CIA, or whoever it is that I’m working for.”

“You don’t think we’re working for the CIA?” I ask.

“I’m starting to wonder if it’s something more. One of those organizations that is more covert.”

“Like we could be working for the bad guys?”

“No, but I get the feeling they operate outside of the usual boundaries.”

“Does the CIA have boundaries?”

“You tell me. You were trained for this too,” he says, and I realize he doesn’t know about Black X. And it makes me wonder about them—who they are and what they do. I try to remember where I first heard about them. It comes back clear as day. Sitting in the Dean’s office—talking about my future—he told me about an agency so covert even the President didn’t know of its existence. He told me it was small, elite, and powerful. And that they would understand my need for revenge. It immediately became my goal. My focus. To be good enough for them to want me. Because deep down I knew that the CIA would probably not allow me to go rogue and kill my mother’s assassin.

“You’re right. It feels a little different—but I think it may be due to the excess.”

“How is it any different from them buying information in the Middle East after the Gulf Wars? They supposedly had bags full of millions of U.S. dollars. All for info.”

“Maybe this is the new CIA?”

“Yeah, maybe. So back to the cousins,” Ari says. “Do you think they could have killed their own father?”

“Ophelia is bossy, but I think she’s harmless.”

“I’d say the same thing about Viktor.”

“He’s part Russian, though. Just like the guy who tried to poison the Prince last night. Do we know anything about him yet?”

“Mercenary,” Ari says. “Works for the highest bidder. Just like the gunmen.”

“None of whom have lived to enjoy the money. Do you think that will mean others will be less likely to try?”

“I expect the ante to be even higher. Although our government has picked up nothing relating to this.”

“So three dead ends and we’re back to where we started.”

“Not really. I think we have to focus our efforts on Clarice.”

“She just seems so sweet. Annoying as hell, but I just don’t picture her killing people. She doesn’t want animals to die.”

“Maybe she doesn’t feel the same way about people? And you can’t dismiss the fact that she may want to make the Terra Project come to life here in Montrovia.”

“Which means she’d not only kill her father, her cousin, and her sister, but she’d kill the monarchy, too.”

He nods.

“What do we know about the cousins’ life? About their relationship with their father? And where is their mother? Was she not at the Queen’s party?”

“That’s further into the file,” Ari states. “Their mother and father were only briefly married. After an ugly divorce, their mother took the girls to live with her in France. They lived comfortably but were not raised with the same affluence as Lorenzo.”

“So how do they feel about him?”

“Maybe that’s something you should ask them. When Clarice turned eighteen, both girls moved into their father’s Montrovian mansion.”