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her. She wasn’t going to just drop this investigation. She’d do it on her own if she had to, no matter what the CIA or her father said. Whoever had kidnapped her father had to be found and be brought to justice.
    â€œIn the meantime there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” her father said with a forced smile. “How would you feel about making a new start?”
    â€œWhat kind of new start?” Gaia asked slowly, still adjusting to his new attitude.
    â€œShould I—” Jake asked, motioning toward the bedrooms.
    â€œNo, stay,” Tom said with a laugh. “I just wanted to ask Gaia if she’d like to do a little shopping this weekend.”
    Gaia’s jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly and snapped it shut again. That was definitely a phrase she never thought she’d hear. Not from her father, anyway. The things she heard most often from him were phrases like, “Stay off the radar,” “I’ll try to be in touch sometime next month,” and “Aim for the solar plexus.”
    â€œShopping?” Gaia asked, slumping back in her seat. “For what?”
    Please don’t let him say bras or something like that, Gaia thought. Like he suddenly wants to make up for not being there and for my not having a mother.
    Gaia didn’t blame her father for his many disappearing acts over the years—at least not anymore—not now that she knew what he was doing on all those excursions and why. He was fighting the good fight. Protecting her. Protecting the free world. It had taken Gaia a long time to accept that and move on. She couldn’t handle it if he decided to take on the role of guilt-ridden father now.
    â€œNew furniture,” Tom said. “Everything in this place belongs to Natasha and Tatiana. I think it’s time we get some of our own things, don’t you?”
    A little stirring of excitement came to life in Gaia’s chest, quelling the determination for revenge ever so slightly. She hadn’t thought of it that way, but her father was right. This place was going to be their home. Their home. She and her father hadn’t hadone of those in years. Why would they want it to be decorated by their evil archenemy?
    â€œReally?” Gaia said, too unaccustomed to the idea of doing something as normal as furniture shopping with her father.
    â€œYes, really,” Tom said, standing. He moved over to the end of the hallway and looked off toward the opposite end—toward the room Gaia once shared with Tatiana. “We can get rid of those two beds and get you a double . . . move out that old-fashioned desk—I’m guessing it’s not your style,” he added with a grin.
    Gaia liked what he was saying, but the way he was saying it was still odd. Almost manic. He was too excited about the prospect of shopping.
    He wants to be at work, she thought with total certainty. He wants to find his kidnappers as much as I do, but they’re freezing him out.
    Well, maybe her father needed a little normalcy after everything he’d been through. And if so, she’d help him get it. But in the meantime, she’d do a little digging of her own.
    Gaia sat up straight and squared her shoulders. “Okay, I’m in,” she said. “Actually, we can go tomorrow. We have the day off for some teacher’s conference.”
    â€œGood. Tomorrow it is,” her father said, squeezing both her shoulders from behind. “We’ll go over to Seventh and hit the stores.” He turned, hands in thepockets of his khakis, and looked around the living room. “It’ll be a whole new start. Out with the old, in with the new.”
    Gaia smiled slightly and looked up at Jake, who was staring right at her. She felt a flutter in her heart as their eyes locked. Maybe Jake could help her with her investigation. She was clueless as to where to start, but maybe they could figure that