Secret Identity. Пола Грейвс

showers that mostly melted as they hit the concrete walkway extending along the bank to accommodate the tourists.

       Strange to think in a few short weeks, the cherry blossoms would be in bloom. And if he played his cards right, he’d be here to watch them bloom for years to come.

       Footsteps thudded toward him, too swift and determined to be a tourist’s. He didn’t turn right away. He didn’t want to look desperate. Play it cool. Stay in control. That’s how a kid from the streets of Philly had made it into the highest echelon at the Department of State. It would take those skills, and every favor he could call in, to stay out of prison.

       The footsteps slowed to a stop a few feet from him. Only then did he glance down the railing to see the stocky, dark-haired man he’d contacted a day earlier.

       “You’re taking a chance calling me here.” Salvatore Beckett had changed his look in the past couple of years, letting his dark hair grow out until it curled around the collar of his turtleneck sweater. He’d bulked up, and the definition of his muscles was obvious even through the layers of clothing he wore to ward off the mid-March cold snap.

       “You know they’re looking for you, yet here you are.”

       “I was led to understand there was a great deal of money involved.”

       “There is. And a favor to an old associate who may be in a position to help us in the future.” He waited for Beckett to ask the obvious question, but the man just shrugged.

       “You’ll pay what was offered?”

       “Absolutely.” More accurately, his associate would come up with the exorbitant fee. Reid was merely a middleman.

       “Anybody sees you with me, it’s going to blow your defense.”

       Reid didn’t have to be reminded of that troubling fact. But he had to weigh the potential for discovery against the certainty that his associate meant every word of his threat. He would connect Reid to the uprising in Kaziristan in a way that could put him in prison for the rest of his life, if he wasn’t executed for treason first.

       “Then let’s waste no more time,” Reid said aloud. “How do you feel about a trip to Tennessee?”

       “Is it warmer than here?”

       “I believe so.”

       Beckett smiled. “I’m in.”

       “You’ll need men.”

       “I have them.” Beckett’s voice rang with confidence.

       “Then here are your orders.” Reid reached into the inner pocket of his coat and handed Beckett a single sheet of paper. On it were terse instructions for carrying out the job he’d just agreed to do.

       Beckett’s eyebrows rose slightly. “I play this my way?”

       “Get it done, and you can play it any way you want.”

       Beckett nodded. “Nice talking to you again, Mr. Reid.”

       Reid turned his gaze back to the water. Along the path from the Jefferson Memorial, a young woman approached, her dark hair whipped by the icy wind into a silken halo. One hand was wrapped firmly around the hand of a little girl of three, who was laughing happily as she gazed up at the falling snow.

       “Your daughter?” Beckett murmured.

       Reid didn’t answer.

       “I’ll be in touch.” Beckett turned and walked slowly away.

       Reid watched Meredith’s approach, saw her smile as she spotted him across the distance. Anyone watching would assume he’d been waiting here for his daughter and his granddaughter.

       It was mostly true.

       Adrianna spotted him as they neared. Her face spread in a smile of delight that made Reid’s heart crack and bleed. “Papi! Papi!” She tugged hard at her mother’s hand, and Meredith let her go. Adrianna’s chubby little legs churned as they ate up the distance between her and her grandfather.

       He caught the little girl as she flew at him and lifted her high in the air, delighting in her giggles.

       “Hello, Addie my love!” He kissed her cold cheeks and smiled at his daughter as she approached at a more leisurely pace. She was still smiling at him, but he could see the worry in her green eyes.

       His life was still in flux, and unless Salvatore Beckett and his friends were able to accomplish the task he’d given them, his life was about to get more complicated still.

       But he still had cards to play, even if Beckett and his men failed. He just hoped he’d never have to play them.

      Chapter One

      Her name wasn’t really Amanda Caldwell.

       She hadn’t gone by her real name since she was twenty-two, fresh out of college and looking for adventure. She’d found her adventure in a very covert section of the CIA and had become a different person.

       A lot of different persons.

       Over the years, she’d learned never to trust a stranger—or a friend. Never sit with her back to the door. Never take the same route home twice in a row.

       In a place like Thurlow Gap, Tennessee, population 224, that last rule was hard to live by. Bypassed by the major state highways, the picture-postcard mountain hamlet had never become a tourist trap like other towns bordering the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, much to the chagrin of the town’s tiny chamber of commerce.

       But the seclusion suited Amanda’s needs very well.

       Today she’d chosen a scenic route through Bridal Veil Woods behind the town’s water tower. It added a few minutes to the normal ten-minute walk from town to her cottage in the foothills, but the sense of control was worth the extra time.

       From the woods she emerged onto Dewberry Road two hundred yards north of the small cottage she’d bought two and a half years ago. As she headed up the road, a warbly voice called out her name. “Hey there, Miz Caldwell, did you get the job?”

       Amanda turned to smile at the curly-topped little girl wobbling up to her on a bright pink bike. She’d grown up in a small town, but all the years and experiences since then had erased the memory of just how little privacy there could be in a town the size of Thurlow Gap. Everybody knew your business, even six-year-olds with scabby knees and gap-toothed grins.

       “Hey there your own self, Lizzie Jean.” She fell easily into the Southern accent she’d spent a couple of years losing when she joined the agency. “I did get the job.”

       Starting Monday, she’d be putting together the fall print ads for Gruver Hardware. It was freelance, like all the rest of the jobs she took these days, but it would pay a few months’ worth of bills, sparing her from having to dip into her emergency funds.

       Lizzie Hawkins slid off the bike and started walking next to Amanda. “Hey, some fella come lookin’ for you earlier. He left a box on your porch. Is it your birthday or somethin’?”

       Amanda kept smiling, but inside, her heart rate ratcheted up just a notch. She hadn’t ordered anything, and it wasn’t likely anyone in town had sent her something when they could have easily dropped it by in person.

       These days, she didn’t much like mysteries.

       “What did the fella look like?” she asked.

       “He had on a brown shirt and shorts, and he smelled sweaty.” Lizzie wrinkled her nose. “He looked a little like Mr. Fielding, only a lot younger.”

       John Fielding was a Cherokee of indeterminate age who ran a produce stand on the edge of town. So the man who’d dropped off the package was dark-skinned and dark-haired. Maybe American Indian. Maybe…not.

       Amanda’s muscles tensed. Just a little. “What about his voice—anything strange