The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Maybe she was knocked unconscious by the fall. Or maybe she just slept. Zoe didn’t know—didn’t exactly care. All she knew was that she dreamed. She must have. Because there were voices all around, floating through her mind like ghosts as she remembered—

Alex standing on the mountain, shouting, This isn’t one of your books, Zoe!

A man in a surgical mask and cartoon-covered scrubs covering her mouth. Can you count backward from one hundred for me?

A woman with green eyes saying, No, sweetheart, you’re not strong enough to go with Alex. But look, I brought you a new book.

Her mind was a blur of faces and places, but the words were almost always the same.

Don’t run, Zoe.

Be careful, Zoe.

You’re too weak.

You’re too fragile.

You’re too frail.

Then a deeper, colder voice was in her head, saying, I told you I could get her to trust me.

The words cut through the fog in Zoe’s brain and pulled her from the dream, and she lay in the dark for a long time, certain of two things.

One: She had been born with a bad heart.

And two: That was the first time it had ever been broken.

The snow was cold and soft beneath her, and she waited for a surge of memory—a flash of recognition. But her whole life felt like a dream she couldn’t quite hang on to—scenes and lines and memories that were floating away on the wind.

She could remember hospitals and libraries and watching other children play. She recalled kind smiles and the sound of distant laughter. But mostly she just lay there, exposed and unprotected, wishing she could forget the past few days, just wipe them from her mind completely. But she wasn’t going to be that lucky ever again, it seemed. Because even though her memory was still a vast, gaping void, there were some things that she just knew—like the fact that she was lying in a snowbank . . . again. And she had no idea what she was supposed to do . . . again. And, most of all, she was alone . . . She was alone and she was going to stay that way. Again.

She’d come so far since Paris, but somehow Zoe had ended up right back where she’d started. Only worse. Because this time there would be no Sawyer. And the worst part was realizing that, in a way, there never had been.

It shouldn’t have felt like such a loss, losing one person. But Sawyer had been her only person. So she laid there, looking up at the stars, thinking about how some of them were so far away they were already dead before their light even reached earth.

Sawyer was like that.

He’d been lost for days—weeks. Forever. Long before his light even reached her, it was already out. And just because he’d been standing in front of her—kissing her, holding her—a few hours before didn’t mean he wasn’t already gone.

*  *  *

By the time the sun finally broke over the top of the tallest mountain, Zoe had been walking for an hour. Or two. Or twenty. Who was to say at that point? But as she reached a small town teeming with tourists, she had already laid out her thoughts the best way she could, and no matter what order she put them in she always came to one conclusion: Sawyer was a liar.

Which, actually, was a good thing, she decided. Because maybe he’d been lying about everything. Maybe it was perfectly safe to go to the US Embassy and explain her broken brain. . . . Maybe there were a few people who were actually on her side. . . . Maybe there was someone she could trust. . . .

Really, the more Zoe thought about it, the more it made sense. After all, if Sawyer wanted to keep Zoe away from the real CIA, what better way to do that than to convince her they couldn’t be trusted?

He’d had to keep her isolated. He’d needed to keep her alone. It was almost embarrassing how easy that must have been. She was so gullible and desperate.

And lonely.

It would have been so easy to blame the amnesia, but Zoe knew that wasn’t it. She would have been susceptible to his charm and his smile and his muscles—to whatever gravity kept her in his orbit—no matter what, and thinking about it . . . Well, thinking about it didn’t change it, so Zoe tried not to think about it at all.

Instead, she used a little of the cash she’d shoved in her pockets to buy some food and a sweatshirt that said SWITZERLAND IS CHEESY! Then she bribed a taxi driver into taking her all the way to Zurich. But, most of all, Zoe tried very, very hard not to cry.

Because even though she hadn’t gotten her entire memory back yet, she’d remembered enough to know that while Alex had spent their childhood learning how to kill a man with crayons, Zoe had been busy writing fan fiction about the hot Smurf with the pencil behind his ear.

Alex was the strong one. Alex was the tough one. Alex was the one who was made to take on international villains and lying hot guys, and Zoe was . . . not.

There was no way Zoe could write her way out of this one, so she’d go to the embassy. She’d turn herself in. She’d tell her story and get some help. The CIA could get Alex back. The intelligence services of the world could deal with Kozlov.

Maybe if she was lucky, they’d let her enter the witness protection program—get a whole new life because, the truth was, she wasn’t in a hurry to remember her old one.

But the closer the cab got to the embassy, the more the little voice in the back of her head began to whisper—like someone talking through your favorite movie, intent on ruining the kissy parts.

With every second, the voice got louder, asking, Then why didn’t Alex hand over the disk? And How did you get the bank card? And What were you doing in Paris?

Zoe could see the gates on the next block, the flags. The marines. Oh, how she wanted to run toward the marines, but the voice was right there, saying, Then why doesn’t Alex trust the CIA?

And Zoe could no longer ignore the fact that, if Sawyer being bad were the answer, then she shouldn’t still have so many questions.

He’d told her not to trust him. Not to believe him. He’d called himself a liar so many times that a tiny, traitorous part of her heart had to wonder if maybe Sawyer hadn’t been lying about everything—just the big things. Like who he was and why he was putting up with her and whether or not she could actually pull off leather pants.

“Hey, lady,” the driver said from the front seat. “You have euro?”

Yes. Cash. Of course. She’d promised half up front and half when they got here, so she leaned forward and dug into her jacket pocket.

And that’s when she felt the envelope.

And that’s when she remembered the second box.

And that’s why Zoe sat there, staring at her name in her sister’s writing, feeling like maybe she was tempting fate. Alex had given her access to that box in case she died, after all. And Alex was alive.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

There was a small chance that Alex was still alive, and if Alex was alive, then Zoe had to keep her that way!

But how was she supposed to do that? Exactly?

In the next moment, she was ripping open the envelope and pulling out a note. Maybe Alex loved her. Maybe Alex missed her. Maybe Alex wanted Zoe to know that she would never be alone as long as she kept Alex in her heart. Maybe . . .

Z,

A lot of people would kill for this. It’s the only copy. Keep it safe.

—A

Well, that was anticlimactic, Zoe thought just before she tipped the envelope and something fell into her palm and she looked down at—

The flash drive.

For a moment, Zoe thought she must have hit her head again, because she distinctly remembered pulling the drive from Alex’s box. She remembered handing it to Sawyer and—her stomach soured—Sawyer handing it to Kozlov.

But what if Alex made a decoy? What if Kozlov had a fake?

The drive felt like a visceral, living thing as it lay in the palm of Zoe’s hand. Like it was something that could hurt her. Or save her. She wasn’t exactly sure which. But one thing was certain: she wasn’t alone with nothing anymore.

Now, she was alone with everything.

“Lady?” the driver asked as they neared the embassy gates.

There was a billboard across the street—a picture of two mountain peaks rising above the clouds, snow-covered and almost mythical as a long bridge stretched between them like something made of ice, and Zoe thought of all the ways she could fall down.

“Lady?” the man sounded impatient. They were so close to the gates that she could practically see the marines’ eyes.

“Just keep driving,” Zoe said. “Just keep driving.”

*  *  *

Two hours, three taxis, and four stops later, Zoe had a cheap motel room, a large assortment of burner phones, two changes of clothes, and a plan. Because Zoe needed to be smart. Zoe needed to be patient. Zoe needed to think . . . like a spy.

But, aside from Alex, there was only one spy of Zoe’s acquaintance. Luckily, she knew just how to reach him.