Aria was pouring her first cup of coffee when a knock sounded from the door of the house on Kythnos. She was debating whether she should answer it when Cole appeared at the back door like a bloodhound on the scent of prey.

“How did you hear that in the guest house?” Aria said as he drew his gun and started for the front door.

“I heard it,” he said.

He parted the curtains an inch and peered out the front window, then opened the door slowly, the gun still in his hand.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

Aria couldn’t see the person on the other side of the door, but she knew it was a woman from the voice that drifted into the house as they exchanged words.

“Wait here,” Cole said, closing the door and turning to Aria. “Did Damian or Locke say anything about a woman coming today? Someone named Nora Murphy?”

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but her head was still fuzzy with sleep. She shook her head.

Cole removed his phone from the pocket of his jeans.

“Shouldn’t we let her in?” Aria asked.

“Would you want to let her in if she were a man?” Cole asked.

He had a point. It was totally sexist to assume someone wasn’t dangerous because they were female. Aria had gone to Velvet to make sure Malcolm was dead, would have killed him herself if she’d had the chance.

“It’s me,” Cole said into the phone. “A woman is at the door, name of Nora Murphy. You know anything about that?”

He listened, then sighed. “Fucking-A. Thanks for the warning.”

Aria assumed he was talking to Locke, because Cole would never in a million years talk to Damian that way.

He put the phone back in his pocket. “She’s legit. Part of Locke’s team, delivering intel on Gatti.”

He opened the door. “Sorry about that.”

A woman with glossy blond hair and striking blue eyes stepped through the door. “I understand,” she said. “I’m sorry if I surprised you. I should have known Locke wouldn’t mention that I was coming.”

Cole shut the door behind her. “Yeah, communication isn’t his strong suit.”

Her laugh was short but warm. “That’s putting it mildly.”

She held out her hand. “Nora Murphy.”

“Cole Grant.”

They shook hands and the woman turned to Aria. “You must be Aria.”

Aria nodded. She needed way more coffee.

Nora approached the kitchen and set her bag on the counter that divided it from the living room. She held out her hand.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Aria said, shaking her hand. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I’d kill for some coffee,” she said. “Not even a private plane can make that flight pleasant.”

She slid onto one of the stools at the counter as if she’d been there a hundred times before. Maybe she had.

Aria poured her a cup of coffee plus one for Cole, who had retreated to the guest house, probably to change out of the rumpled clothes he’d obviously thrown on in a hurry.

“So you’re working on Malcolm?” Aria asked.

Nora nodded. “And Anastos, though I haven’t gotten very far with either of them.”

“Very far?” Aria asked. “I thought they were completely off-grid.”

Nora took a sip of her coffee. “More or less, but I still have friends at the Bureau.”

The Bureau. The FBI.

Now Aria remembered; Nora was the woman Damian told her about in La Jolla: a former FBI agent dating another former FBI agent, both of them now working for Locke.

“How does the Bureau help us at all if Malcolm and Anastos are off-grid?” Aria asked.

“Two words.” Nora reached for the bag she’d set down. “Incidental collection.”

“Incidental collection?”

Nora removed a laptop from the bag. “The Bureau doesn’t have to surveil Anastos or Gatti to pick up their conversations or movements — they just have to surveil people who might be talking to or meeting with Gatti or Anastos.”

Aria immediately understood.

“They picked one of them up making contact with someone else who was under surveillance,” Aria murmured.

“Exactly. They can stay off-grid all they want, but everyone has to eat, and from the sound of things in New York, Gatti and Anastos have also been coordinating bombings and executions in the city. That means contact with someone, or multiple someones, as it were,” she said, opening the laptop. “No guarantee you’ll be able to trace either of them from what we got, but Locke said to bring it all just in case.”

A flare of hope sparked to life inside Aria. After nearly a week of making contact with people she knew in New York, she’d begun to despair of ever finding out anything that might help them track Gatti.

Damian wasn’t faring much better with Locke and Derek. They’d been pounding the pavement in Athens every day, but even with the large amounts of cash they were pushing around, no one was talking

Either everyone in Athens was extraordinarily loyal to Anastos — or extraordinarily scared of him.

This was the first break they had. Aria didn’t know how helpful it might be, but it had to be better than what they had.

Which was nothing.

“You came all the way from California to bring this stuff to us?” Aria asked.

“On Locke’s orders,” Nora said, her gaze straying to the ocean beyond the house. “Although I have to say, it’s not a bad gig.”

Aria laughed. She had a feeling she was going to like working with Nora Murphy.

“Tell you what,” Aria said, turning to the fridge, “let’s have breakfast. After that, we’ll go over the intel before we hit the beach for a break.”

Nora grinned. “Intel and the beach? I like you already.”

She was already tapping at the keys on the computer when Aria started cracking eggs into a bowl.