Express Male. Elizabeth Bevarly

together. Her eyes, an incredible aquamarine that Noah had never seen on any human being but her, were wide with what looked like fear—yeah, right—and her entire body seemed to be shaking now.

      For the first time, he noted her attire; the slim gray skirt, the pale blue top and sweater. Her hair, darker blond than it had been the last time he saw her, was wound atop her head in a loose bun, except for a few stray pieces that had fallen free, probably during her scuffle with Sorcerer. She wore no makeup, and her legs were bare, her feet encased in chunky, ugly shoes. It was a remarkably bland getup, worn obviously because she didn’t want to attract attention. Noah had seen her outfitted in everything from black camouflage to designer evening gowns to perform her job. But never had he seen her try to carry off a persona like this. Mild. Unobtrusive. Compliant. It didn’t suit her at all.

      “Good to have you back, She-Wolf,” said the second man, an agent whose code name was Zorba, thanks to his Mediterranean heritage. “Though it would have been better if you’d come in on your own, instead of having to be dragged back.”

      Lila’s expression changed at the man’s use of her code name, a slip Noah noticed with some satisfaction. Maybe she was finally going to give up the lame pretense, and then they could start talking in earnest about why she’d taken off, where she’d been and what the hell she’d been doing while she was gone and prior to her disappearance.

      “She-Wolf?” she echoed, her voice edged with irritation.

      “I thought you people were convinced I was this Lila person. What’s with the She-Wolf? What kind of name is that?”

      Noah almost smiled. Oh, yeah. Lila was about to reveal herself. Even backed against the wall—literally—she could still snarl.

      Zorba looked at Noah. “Gonna be a long night, I see.”

      “Don’t sell yourself short, Zorba,” Noah said, not taking his eyes off Lila. “If anyone can make her crack, you can.”

      Her eyes went wide at that, and he smiled with satisfaction. She’d been out of the game too long if she was revealing herself that easily. Then again, this was probably all part of her game. Since she kept insisting she was someone else, she had to pretend to be scared of what was happening to her. Smart agent. Excellent actress.

      “Go ahead and get started without me,” he told Zorba.

      “I need to get cleaned up and find something to eat. I’m starving. You hungry?” he asked Lila.

      She didn’t seem to know what to make of the offer. After a small hesitation, she said softly, “A little.”

      “Too bad,” he told her. “You’ll get nothing until you tell us what we want to hear.”

      And without awaiting a reply—or a dagger in his back, which was the most likely response from Lila Moreau—he left the room.

      “NOW, LET’S TRY this again, Lila, starting five months ago. We know you went to the Nesbitt estate to make contact with your partner after knocking Romeo unconscious and taking his clothes. But that was the last time anyone saw you. Where did you go after that?”

      Noah bit back a growl at hearing Zorba ask the question again. Four hours after bringing Lila to the OPUS interrogation facility, she was still insisting she was someone named Marnie Lundy who’d grown up in Cleveland and held down two jobs, one for the department store where he’d picked her up tonight and one teaching piano to schoolchildren.

      He’d actually laughed out loud at that. The only reason Lila would get near a kid would be to have it for breakfast. And the only way she’d get near a piano would be to cut the wire for garroting someone later. Not that OPUS had ever called on her to be an assassin. But she sure as hell had all the right moves and qualities to make a good one.

      During a break in the interrogation, when Noah and Zorba had stepped out of the room, the other man had suggested they bring in an OPUS shrink, on the outside chance—the way outside chance—that Lila really had gone off the deep end this time. She’d been out in the cold for five months, all alone, without any of her usual tools or contacts to help her. She’d lost her mother just prior to her disappearance, and although Noah knew there was no love lost between the two women, the death of a parent could still have a powerful impact on a person. Lila’s past was troubled—to put it mildly—her background unstable—ditto. Throw all of that into a pot and it made for a toxic stew that might undo anyone. Even Lila Moreau.

      Reluctantly, Noah had called in not just a shrink, but also his superior officer from OPUS headquarters in Washington, D.C. Although Noah headed up the Ohio unit, there were interstate implications with this, and he felt obligated to alert the big guns to what was going on. Especially the biggest gun of all, He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say—mostly because nobody knew what it was. After all, he was the one Lila had reportedly tried to kill.

      Now, both No-Name and the shrink had arrived and been briefed on what was going on. The psychiatrist, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair cropped short, code name Gestalt, had joined Noah and Zorba in the interrogation room, and He Whose Name Nobody Dared Say was watching from another room on the closed-circuit TV.

      “My name isn’t Lila,” Lila said wearily for what felt like the hundredth time.

      She was sitting with her arms crossed on the table, her forehead resting on the top one. She was clearly exhausted, and they’d allowed her no food or drink, nor breaks of any kind, since her arrival. Anyone else would have rolled over by now. But not Lila.

      “My name is Marnie Lundy,” she said again. “I live at 207 Mockingbird Lane in Cleveland, Ohio. I was born and raised in Cleveland. I’m thirty-three years old. I graduated from Moore High School in 1991, and from Ohio State University with a B.A. in music in 1995. I earned my master’s in music from OSU in 1996. My work record has been varied and eclectic since then, but I now work at Lauderdale’s Department Store, and I teach piano to kids after school and on weekends.” She lifted her head and met each of her inquisitors’ gazes in turn. “I don’t know who you people are or why you’re keeping me here. But I swear, if it’s at all within my power to do so, once this is over, I will hunt down every one of you like dogs and call you Rover.”

      Well, at least she’d been honest about her age, Noah thought. And maybe the part about hunting them all down like dogs. Except that she’d do a lot more than call them names once she found them.

      “Perhaps you should let me ask a few questions.” The comment came from Gestalt. “I’d like to speak to Ms. Lundy alone for a bit.”

      Noah was about to decline, but one look from the psychiatrist stopped him. Fine. If she wanted to call Lila Ms. Lundy, hell, who was Noah to stop her? It wasn’t like he and Zorba had had any luck all night. And they could watch from the closed-circuit TV, too.

      “All right,” he said. “Zorba and I will go for coffee. And I think they put out some doughnuts, too,” he added, looking at Lila. “Anybody else want anything? Except you, I mean?”

      If looks could kill, Noah would have been atomic fallout about then.

      “We’ll be fine,” Gestalt told him. “Ms. Lundy…Marnie,” she said, softening her voice, “and I will have a nice little chat, I hope.”

      Whatever, Noah thought.

      He and Zorba left the room, locking the door behind them, just in case Lila decided to ditch the compliant, complacent role and return to her old badass self. Then they strode to the next room to join their boss. Also present was Noah’s secretary, Ellie Chandler, a slim brunette on the tall side wearing a dark suit similar to the ones the men favored. Only instead of a necktie, she’d closed the collar with an understated bit of jewelry.

      Normally, Noah wouldn’t include his secretary in something like this. But Ellie was ninety percent finished with the instruction and training required to become an agent, and he did his best to include her in things that might be helpful to her education. He was confident she would be an excellent agent. He was, after all, the one who had recommended her to the program.