Super Read Online Free Page B

would’ve been dead already.
    “It has to be her. And now that I’ve fucked this up,” she says, pointing at me, then her chest, “I could use your help.”
    And the truth comes out. That’s why Charlene is really upset—and good Lord, who wouldn’t be—with Dallas, as long as she’s the real snitch, and now that I’ve had a second to process, I’m starting to think that Charlene’s little “uh-oh” wasn’t so accidental at all. She doesn’t give a crap about Dallas stealing my glory, she just wants to watch her burn. Plus, if she’s working for DPS, then it’s easy to see how she could’ve potentially learned that the Patriotman job was mine, but there are some seriously gaping leaks if that level of interdepartmental sharing is going on. I’ll need to have a discussion with Kelly and Carter as soon as possible. Who knows what other details about me are floating around out there?
    This is not good.
    This is not good at all .
    But it’s Charlene , though. If there’s one person in this group who I would be slightly okay with knowing what’s happening on the back end, it would be her, but damn, it’s dangerously close to breaking Rule Number One.
    Yet again, I repeat another question from earlier. “Who’s your handler?”
    “Two of them, actually. Crenshaw and Hawthorne. You know them?”
    “No, just my two. Carter and Kelly. Kelly’s lead and Carter…well, I don’t know what he does other than sit around and look pissed that I made him the first time we met.”
    “Older guy? Should’ve hung the gloves up thirty years ago?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He’s a teddy bear if he likes you.”
    This doesn’t surprise me. I’d bet that Charlene captivates most men. And I say this without the slightest hint of sexism or chauvinism, but that’s probably how she got in so close to all the men in tights that she’s eliminated. If everyone in the group is telling the truth about their number of recorded kills, then Charlene is first, I’m second, Tara and Mara are third, and so on and so forth. I consider myself top-notch in the skill department, but Charlene, she’s something else.
    Back before Charlene became the nearly incapacitated paranoid recluse that she is now, if she approached me in a bar wearing a cocktail dress and a smile, and had murder on her mind, I’d be clawing at a garrote wire around my neck before the end of the night. So they say. As the story goes. Blah blah blah.
    She adds, “Deke’s the one that told me about the Maldives.”
    “Figures.” I nibble on another fry, trying to gauge her facial expressions, wondering what’s actually going on here. Study people long enough, you can pick up on all these little micro-movements that will tell you more about them than an all-access autobiography. A twitch at the corner of an eye, a wrinkled nose, a smile ever-so-slightly dipping into less of a smile…they all tell you so much.
    If I’m reading her right, so far this is legit.
    “Why’d he tell you about that?”
    “He’s not your biggest fan.”
    There it is. There’s what I’m looking for: briefly, it’s that almost imperceptible flinch of the fatty skin tissue residing above her cheekbones, or, in layman’s terms, a squint. It’s a microscopic hint that she’s focusing on what she’s trying to say to me, as if she’s forcing it to sound true and get past my defenses.
    It could be innocent. It could be the dust particles flying around in here because I can feel the air of the ventilation system gently puffing against the back of my neck.
    Maybe, but I don’t think so.
    What she’s saying isn’t quite true because, while Deke Carter isn’t my biggest fan, I can tell that I’m growing on him, and I doubt he’d betray my cover.
    Charlene, Charlene, Charlene…what are you up to?
    I haven’t survived this long by being an ignorant fool. It’s not time to start now. I have to remember, absolutely have to accept the fact that this woman is a highly trained assassin.