Annica had him pinned against the parking garage wall with her eyes. Steely daggers now. “So what the hell?” she said. “What did he want? What did he say?”

Ethan took a deep breath, preparing himself for a careful explanation of how their boss essentially wanted to break them up. Break them up as a professional team, of course.

“Ethan, are you fired? Did he fire you?”

“Calm down,” he said, chuckling, trying to deactivate the bomb. “And quiet down, too. Jesus . . . could we do this someplace else?”

Annica looked around the garage, and then moved in closer for a more quiet interrogation. She said, “There’s rumors about one of us or maybe even both of us being let go.”

“‘Let go’? They’re willing to let go their star reporter?”

“I’ve actually given them a lot of grief,” she said. “Believe it or not.”

Ethan believed it. “You’ve also given them a lot of money.”

“And headaches . . . and you.”

“I’m not a headache.”

“Is that what he said?”

“Come on,” Ethan said, sidestepping out of her trap against the wall and moving toward his car. He unlocked it. “Hop in.”

“Where to?”

He waited until they were both sitting inside his ten-year-old rusted-out Suburban before he looked across to her and said, “I’m tempted to take you with me.”

“I know. Where?”

“He wants me to go to West Virginia and work on a story about the prescription painkiller business.”

“You mean, unprescribed ones.”

“You know, those old mining towns, it’s a whole business out there.”

“It’s a whole business everywhere,” Annica said. “You could do a story on that right here in D.C.”

“He wants me in Virginia for whatever reason.”

Annica sighed, her hand slapping down on the arm rest. “I’m not leaving the paper. I told him that. And if I was, I wouldn’t steal you away from him. Is that what the whole thing was about? Him interrogating you about me?”

“He wanted to see where my ‘allegiance’ was.”

“Jesus,” Annica said, chuckling. “So where is it?”

“Where’s what?”

“Your allegiance.”

“It’s to my work,” Ethan said, steering the car down the parking ramp, spiraling lower to ground level. To the outside world. “Whether it’s working with you or him, I’m just focused on my work.”

“You didn’t tell him that, did you?”

Ethan laughed. “Not exactly. He gave me no choice but to tell him exactly what he wanted to hear.”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve made yourself valuable to him,” Annica said. “All it took was a special assignment with me in Hawaii.”

“It gave me a lot of confidence.”

“I know. It was supposed to.”

“It made me feel like I was . . . for real.”

“You are,” Annica said. “So don’t worry about allegiances. Especially not with me. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me something, or that you have to follow me to whatever paper I go to, or start up.”

“So it is more than a side project. Are you really leaving, then?”

“I don’t know,” Annica said. “Maybe I will, but really, it can’t affect your decision, or your work. Okay?”

A few months prior, Ethan would have jumped at the chance to work with Annica, ditching whatever current work he was involved in. That was partly how he got started in the first place. But that was before the newfound confidence that the Hawaii assignment provided. And it was before he’d met Kalani, the local island girl security guard. He supposed she gave him some confidence, too. A different sort of confidence that Annica could not or would not provide. It was something that he’d spent so long wanting, and wanting so badly, from Annica. And it felt thrilling now, sitting in the car with her, and not even caring one bit about it.

Ethan stopped at a red light and looked at her. She was still gorgeous, no doubt. And perhaps more so than ever, she was not his. Annica had a recent development, too, back in Hawaii. His name was Cole.

“Hawaii made my career,” Ethan said. “But I think it was also good for us on a personal level. I mean, good for our . . . you know, work relationship.”

Annica smiled, too. “You mean, good for your puppy love?”

“God, yeah.” He chuckled, still feeling a little embarrassed by it. “No, I actually mean that a little space could be good. Space for me to stretch my wings a little bit. We could still be one hell of a duo sometime down the road.” But it also felt good to get it out in the open, and to laugh at it. He could laugh at himself, and it was a liberating. He was free.

At least free from Annica.

Kalani was a different story. He didn’t mind her type of entrapment. It was, at least, mutual.

After parking the car a few minutes later, strolling into a pub at the bottom of Embassy Row for an after-work drink as a platonic business partnership, he felt relieved. It was a lot less pressure to be around Annica. For once, it was actually fun. He would be okay if they had to work on two separate stories, or separate papers, or separate continents.

“So have you heard from her?” Annica said.

“Who?”

She rolled her eyes and took that first overflowing sip from her daiquiri.

“Kalani?” Annica just smiled sedately at him until he said, “Yes and no. Most of my contact is secondhand information through Jackson.”

“Well, that’s fine, right? You don’t want to blow her cover.”

“Never. But I’d still like to talk to her.”

“That’s exactly it,” Annica said. “That’s what Jackson’s worried about.”

“I’d be careful about it. I wouldn’t just call her on the phone.”

“Just keep in mind what it is.”

“What it is?”

“Witness protection.”

Ethan stared at his drink. “I just wish they wouldn’t protect her so much from me. Jesus . . .”

“You’re a public name. A media personality. And you’ve not only written about her story, but you lived it with her. You stole her away from the bad guys, for God’s sake. You can’t see why Jackson might want a little distance between you two?”

Ethan shrugged and finally picked up his glass. It pained him a little to play dumb like that. It pained him a little more to lie to Annica and the rest of the DARC team. But he’d been careful about Kalani. So damned careful . . .

“Tell me you get it,” Annica said, her face suddenly freezing as still as the slush in her drink. She glared at him until he spoke.

“I get it,” he said.

“You’ll just have to be patient with her. You’ll get your story soon enough.”

Screw the story. He wanted Kalani sooner.

“And the whole thing with DARC, you have to sort of earn your way in.” Annica continued as if she hadn’t noticed his sudden decision. “I know you pulled off some crazy stuff in Hawaii, some brave stuff that they all really admire. But this is the kind of situation where it really counts, where you’ve got to be disciplined and serious. Where you’ve got to avoid temptation.”

He laughed at that last part, but declined to elaborate as to how well he’d been avoiding temptations for Annica for the last several years. He had a good track record, but perhaps it wouldn’t be worth the awkwardness in bringing it up. Their friendship could only handle so much. Instead, Ethan raised his glass to hers for a quiet clink. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re on the right path.”

Annica smiled faintly. Something about it made Ethan remember that, like him, she had also found more than just a story in Hawaii. He wondered how similar their situations were. Cole was also newly involved with DARC Ops, but he wasn’t off-limits and in hiding like Kalani and her sister. He decided to just go for it and ask. “So, how’s Cole doing?”

She wore a different, more relaxed smile now. “He’s great.”

“I’m sure. Where is he?”

“In hiding.”

“No, he’s not. Isn’t he training?”

“Yeah,” Annica said. “He’s out with some of Jackson’s boys, and some new recruits. Have you met Matthias?”

“Where is he training?”

Annica chuckled.

“What,” Ethan said, playing dumb again. “Where is this training thing? Is it Maryland? Virginia?”

She took a long drink.

Ethan said, “West Virginia?”

“I’m not telling you where it is.”

He shook his head. “So much secrecy . . .”

That’s what happens in times like these. Jackson splinters us up in the four winds.”

“I believe they call it compartmentalization,” Ethan said.

“I believe you’re right.”

“And I believe you’re withholding information from me.”

“Right again,” she said.

“Why?”

“Jackson’s orders, again.”

“That wasn’t very smart of him,” Ethan said.

“Why?”

“Because that tells me where Kalani is.”

“Okay,” Annica said. “So where is she, then?”

Ethan chuckled and said, “Wherever the hell that training camp is being held.”

Annica made a little zipping-up motion across her lips.

“I had a hunch that she’d be there,” Ethan said. “She’s a great shot. Fearless . . . Security background . . .”

“More like foreground. You didn’t see how she dealt with Cole and me back in Hawaii. She’s a tough cookie.”

“I saw enough to know,” Ethan said, the imagery of Kalani shooting across his mind. That stealthy little ninja of his, half-dressed after surviving a tsunami, her smooth skin glistening with ocean water. The glint of the blade when she held a knife to the throat of her captor. That’s how Ethan had found her, already taking care of business in a half-demolished shipping facility at Hilo Harbor, rescuing herself and her sister from the clutches of the Khan Brothers, an international smuggling ring—and Blackwoods, their crooked security contractors who kept the operations moving. It was a big mess that had been sorted out with a tsunami, along with DARC Ops intervention. But there was still some more work to be done on the American mainland.

Kalani’s sister had the testimony to put the Khans and Blackwoods away for good, bringing a bit of safety back into everyone’s lives. But since the federal investigation was still ongoing, there had been no trial date set. Until then, people like Kalani and her sister, and Ethan, would have to sit on pins and needles.

“Well, at least she’s busy with something productive,” Ethan said.

“Who and what are you talking about?”

“Kalani.”

“Of course.”

“She’s busy at the training—”

“Wait, no,” Annica interrupted. “No, I’m not substantiating those claims.”

“Annica,” he said, trying on a bit of that sly smile he’d learned from watching her interact with her leads and assets. For when she wanted something . . .

“Ethan,” she said, sounding bored and maybe slightly annoyed. She reached over and began to stir what was left of her drink.

“So, tell me about Cole,” Ethan said. He might as well lure her into a more pleasant conversation—at least pleasant for her. He had seen the way she’d transformed with the addition of Cole into her life, the man who began as a whistle-blower for the Khan story, who transformed somehow into an enemy, and then her savior, and ultimately, her lover. At that point, she was done hiding the progression, and it was obvious even when they were hundreds of miles apart.

She was smiling.

Ethan liked seeing her smile, whether it was from himself or Cole. After they finished their drinks, he wished her luck, with Cole and her new startup project. She had been such an important asset to his career, a steady hand plucking him out of the wilderness of recently graduated journalism school students. She had set Ethan on his path, and it was time for him to follow it to whatever end. A great story, a horrible death, or Kalani. Perhaps all three.