The Blonde Identity: A Novel

The sun was almost up by the time they reached the Kozlov compound on Lake Como. Sawyer should have slept in the car, but every time he closed his eyes he saw Zoe disappearing in the darkness. Every time he moved he felt himself reaching for her and coming back with a fistful of empty air. Every time he tried to think, he heard her voice saying I was wrong. You’re exactly like your father.

Which was okay, Sawyer told himself. His father would know what to do.

The lake was still and the compound was silent, but Sawyer knew it wouldn’t last. Kozlov’s top lieutenant was flying in from Moscow with a special, highly encrypted laptop, and once it was there, Kozlov would open the drive and make a copy. And as soon as he no longer needed the drive . . . well . . . then he’d no longer need Alex.

Like all of Kozlov’s compounds, this one was a veritable fortress of guards and gates and fences, but it had been a late night and a long morning, so the house felt almost empty as Sawyer walked down the long hall toward the sound of . . .

Humming.

Just like Zoe, Sawyer thought as he reached the woman tied to a chair in the middle of the empty ballroom. She had a split lip and a black eye, but she looked as regal as a queen, even as he pulled the gag from her mouth and she kept singing, “I’m gonna kill you sloooowly. I’m gonna make it huuuuuurt.”

She’d do it, too, Sawyer mused, but the thought just made him smile. “You ready to get out of here?” he whispered.

“Fuck you.”

“Come on, Alex. Let’s— Shit. These are chains, Alex. They literally chained you to this chair.”

“Of course they did. If they’d used zip ties, I would have been highly offended.”

Sawyer looked up from the lock. “This would be a lot easier if your sister didn’t have my favorite pick . . .” He trailed off as he realized Alex was scowling at him.

“You do realize that as soon as you get me out of these chains I’m going to strangle you with them?”

And, suddenly, Sawyer wasn’t smiling anymore. It had been over a week since he’d started chasing, worrying, wondering . . . “I don’t know why you stopped trusting me, Alex, but we’re on the same side, remember? Would I be getting you out of here if I’d turned?” She honestly had to think about the answer, and Sawyer saw that for the opening it was. “Why’d you do it, Alex? We were supposed to get the drive together. Why didn’t you wait for me? Why’d you run?”

“I heard Kozlov and Sergei. They knew I was CIA.”

“So”—he started to snap, then realized—“You thought I told them.” Sawyer felt the words like a blow.

For the first time, Alex looked sheepish. “I didn’t know if I could trust you or not,” she admitted. Right before her gaze turned as sharp as a blade. “And then you showed up with my little sister and I stopped wondering.”

But something about the words—the indignant look in her eyes—made him chuckle. “Little sister? You’re twins!”

“I’m thirteen minutes older,” Alex said with more superiority than a woman chained to a chair should ever be able to muster. “It was a decent plan, I’ll give you that. Bring her to Europe. Slip her the card. Get her to be me at the bank.”

“I didn’t bring her here! I didn’t even know she existed until I found her half dead in Paris and thought she was you.”

“You used a poor, defenseless woman—”

Sawyer couldn’t help himself—he laughed, far louder than he should have before dropping his voice. “Your sister is many things. But defenseless?” He raised a brow. “Really?”

“What kind of psycho pulls someone like her into something like this?”

Suddenly, Sawyer didn’t feel like laughing anymore. “Someone like her? What does that even mean?”

He watched Alex morph from angry to confused to . . . heartbroken, the look in her eyes all but screaming do you really not know?

“She was two days old and weighed three pounds the first time they cut open her heart. They did it again six months later. And one more time before the age of four. Zoe can’t run. Zoe can’t fight. Zoe gets winded going down escalators.”

He heard the words. He knew they were true, but in his mind, he was tracing those scars in the firelight. He knew what they tasted like and where they led. Except he hadn’t known where they’d come from or why they were there. He kept waiting for this new information to change those old wounds in his mind somehow—to change her—but if anything, it just made him angrier.

“You have no idea what your sister is capable of.”

“And you do?”

Sawyer couldn’t help but think about the woman who had jumped off a bridge in Paris, shaken off a Russian assassin on the Shimmering Sea. She’d tossed a CIA agent off a moving train and performed minor surgery on him by firelight. Yeah, he knew Zoe. He knew Zoe. And he—

“You may think she’s expendable, but—”

Sawyer saw red. “Don’t call her that. Don’t ever call her that!” Sawyer roared, looking down at eyes that were just like Zoe’s, only harder, sadder.

“You don’t know her,” she told him.

Sawyer was wrong. They weren’t Zoe’s eyes at all. “Then neither do you.”

He almost had the lock open when he heard the commotion outside. Through the ornate windows he saw a seaplane bobbing on the lake. A guard was already running toward the house, a laptop under his arm, and Kozlov was shouting in the hall.

“Shit! Sergei’s here,” Alex said.

Sawyer almost had the lock. He was close. He was almost finished when he heard . . . laughter. But not the cold, cynical kind that filled his life. No. It was the kind of laughter that was pure and good and sounded like—

Zoe.

That was Zoe’s laughter, and it washed over Sawyer like music, lilting and sweet—up until the moment he remembered where they were, and panic surged inside of him. He had to get her out of there. He had to—

“You fell for her.” Alex was staring up at Sawyer, confusion and wonder on her face, as if starting to realize—“You’re in love with Zoe.”

Sawyer wanted to protest—to tell Alex she was delusional and stupid and wrong because that had to be better than admitting she was right.

“I . . .” He was aware of the laughter stopping, of shouting taking its place and filling the halls, but the inside of his head was even louder—words rattling around like That’s crazy. And don’t be ridiculous. Or I barely even know her. But what came out was, “I don’t deserve her.”

He risked a look at Alex, expecting her to tease or joke or for lasers to come shooting out of her eyes. But all he saw was pity. Because he was right. And she knew it. He didn’t deserve someone like Zoe. And he never, ever would.

“Where is the traitor?”

Sawyer barely had time to leap away from Alex before Kozlov stormed into the room, laptop open. But there were no files on the screen—just a home movie of two little girls who needed braces, one of whom was doing handstands in the grass while the smaller, paler girl lay on a blanket, reading. Laughing.

“What is this?” Kozlov shouted and Alex’s busted lips curved into the smile of a woman who was holding all the cards.

“Looks like you’ve got the wrong drive there, big guy. Oops.”

Kozlov roared and threw the laptop. It shattered against the wall as the compound turned to bedlam. Guards shouting. People running. And through it all, Sawyer stood there, thinking. The good news was that Kozlov needed Alex alive—now more than ever.

The bad news was that Sawyer still had to get her out. They had to go. Now! But they couldn’t go now. She was the center of a tornado—the eye of a storm—and she was staring at him through the chaos, a determined gleam in her eye and a subtle shake of her head as she mouthed two words.

FIND HER.

*  *  *

Sawyer was almost to the water before he found a place quiet enough to pull out a burner phone and try the number again. The call connected, but he wasn’t actually expecting to hear—

“You have two new messages.”

He was holding his breath when her voice came through the line a moment later.

“Hi. Hello. It’s me. Zoe. This message is for Sawyer. Or whatever his name is. If he gets this. If this is even a real number, which . . . nothing else was real, so . . .” Her voice cracked then trailed off and he heard the muffled words, “Shoot. Delete. Delete. Dele—” BEEP.

When the second message began it was still Zoe’s voice but everything about the tone was different, like she’d spent an hour on YouTube watching videos called How to Be a Badass.

“If this is Sawyer, listen up. There’s an outdoor ice rink just outside of Zurich. Meet me there at noon tomorrow. Come alone or you’ll be sorry.” The line was silent for a long time before she added, “This is Zoe, by the way. Uh. Bye.”

Sawyer noted the time and the place, but when the service asked if he wanted to delete the messages or hear them again, he deleted the second and saved the first. Kept his phone to his ear and listened to her voice again.

And again.

And again.