A Thin Disguise by Catherine Bybee
EPILOGUE
Jax walked along the uneven crowded streets of Ubud. Her long hair was braided in a way that kept it out of her face. Her skin had been kissed enough to suggest she’d been in Indonesia for several weeks.
With mala beads around her neck, and flowing skirts swishing at her ankles . . . she blended.
This was the kind of assignment she liked.
Every day, she passed the entrance to Friedrich and Louis’s home.
From the outside, the colorful doors looked just like everyone else’s.
On the inside, a lush courtyard sat center to a private home with a personal chef and housekeeper that lived on-site.
Friedrich Schmidt was now known as Ted Miller, an ex-pat who had sold his small chain of fast food restaurants to retire at an early age.
If the man was itching for a different life, Jax couldn’t tell.
When it was her turn to pass the baton, she walked by Friedrich’s mail slot and left him a token and a note. Jax used a mixture of Russian and German, a code she and Claire had come up with at Richter and some of the other students had adopted.
The note simply said . . .
If information circulates among our joint enemies and your location has been compromised, another token will find its way into your home without explanation. If you are informed of a threat to “the team,” we expect the same in return.
Jax watched from a distance as Friedrich sat and read the note.
Afterward he burned the paper with the end of his cigar.
He looked around as if knowing he was being watched and smiled.
At that moment a Balinese monkey jumped up on the table beside him and grabbed a date from a bowl.
Friedrich reached to pet the animal before standing up and walking out of view.
Sven nudged Jax’s shoulder. “So this is what you’ve been doing all winter?”
“I’m working hard here.”
They both laughed and enjoyed their one day together before Jax headed back to the States.
Olivia stretched her cold feet toward the roaring fire that heated the Lake Tahoe cabin.
Neil had found a remote location for her and Leo to spend the remainder of the season.
The sting to shut Mykonos down and remove the possibility of parole had worked.
Even if the cost was Leo resigning from the FBI.
Working outside the department’s radar, regardless of the outcome, wasn’t tolerated.
For three weeks Olivia and Leo picked up where they’d left off before her memory returned.
They had snowball fights and ate a lot of mashed potatoes while they contemplated what they were going to do next.
“I think we should take it,” Leo announced.
The written description of Neil’s job offer solved all of their problems.
Olivia took the proposed contract from him to read it again.
“It looks more like we’d be working for his brother-in-law.” With her head resting in the crook of Leo’s shoulder, she read a few details.
The European arm of Harrison Shipping, specifically the Amsterdam offices, was in need of an investigative group. There had recently been a consistent loss of cargo, small at first, but increasing at an incremental pace. Harrison would need both Leo’s investigative skills and Olivia’s hacking and language abilities to get to the bottom of the missing cargo and money. It would, however, require relocation for the both of them for an undisclosed amount of time. The job came with a housing budget, travel, a company car, phones, computers . . . everything one could possibly need. And a six-figure salary and benefits.
“The only thing this offer is missing is bicycles,” Olivia announced.
“Excuse me?”
“No one drives a car in Amsterdam.”
Leo laughed and pressed his lips to her temple. “I think we should take it.”
“You’re ready to become an ex-pat?” she asked.
“I’m ready to take on all the new titles. Ex-pat. Ex-FBI. Ex-bachelor . . .”
“Ex-boyfriend,” she teased.
“No. I don’t like that one.” He kicked his foot next to hers as if dismissing her idea.
She sighed. “I still can’t believe what you’ve given up for me.”
Leo placed a finger to her chin and made her look at him. “I didn’t give up anything for you. Ask Neil. My cold house in Glendale provided temporary shelter for a workaholic that took on unending undercover assignments because I had nothing better going on. And in the end, it was Neil and his team that brought closure to that. I completely understand how Neil recruits so many quality employees. The hands of the FBI are tied up in so much bureaucracy that nothing gets done. Or if it does, it takes years.” He reached for the job offer, waved it in the air. “Not only does the private sector pay better, something tells me it’s going to prove a lot more fulfilling. Especially with my wife at my side.”
Olivia shifted into a sitting position, her eyes wide. “Who said anything about a wife?”
Leo smiled. “You didn’t read that part in the contract?”
She reached for the paper, but he pulled it away and scrambled off the sofa. He then pretended to read what she knew wasn’t there.
“Since Harrison Shipping is investing such a large sum of money for your services, we would like the guarantee that Leo and Olivia form a more permanent bond in the form of marriage to ensure no one gets cold feet and runs off.”
Olivia was smiling, and even though Leo’s words were a joke, the insecurity she’d created by running from him twice was in his voice. “I love you, Leo. I’m not going to leave.”
Every time she’d confessed her feelings in the past weeks, Leo rewarded her with a kiss and a devotion of his own.
He leaned over the sofa and pressed his lips to hers. “Prove it.”
“Olivia Naught is dead. She can’t get married.”
“We have a quiet ceremony, and I remind Mrs. Grant how much I love her every day for the rest of my life.”
Mrs. Grant.
A real name.
One Olivia could keep.
“The FBI agent marries the assassin. What could possibly go right?” she asked.
“The ex-FBI agent and ex-assassin . . . Our life will never be dull.”
She reached her lips toward his. And when he kissed her, she grabbed the contract from his fingertips and scrambled off the sofa. “It says here I don’t have to wear a ring.”
Leo was smiling. “Why not?”
A small ache in her chest was still there. “A ring tells the world there is someone’s life that is more important than my own and uses that knowledge against me.”
“Shhh,” he coaxed as tears threatened in the back of her eyes. “All anyone has to do is look at me looking at you to know what you mean to me. Rings are not necessary.”
Olivia closed her eyes and wished she could erase her past.
All she could do was move forward and live a life to be proud of from this moment on. “I love you,” she said to his chest as his arms circled around her.
“I love you . . . Mrs. Grant.”
She leaned back and smiled. “I’m wearing red at our wedding.”
Leo’s smile illuminated the room. “Never going to be boring.”
They sealed their agreement with a kiss.