The Blonde Identity: A Novel

Zoe felt Sawyer pull her to the safety of the rocks. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you . . .” Ice clung to her hair and tears froze on her cheeks, but he was looking at her like a man who wanted to warm her with his lips and never let her go.

But then she saw something over his shoulder. The drive. Twenty feet away and still inching, slipping—“Sawyer!”—sliding over the edge.

He didn’t even turn around.

“I don’t care.” He traced her skin with his lips. “Let me warm you up.”

But she pulled back. “You chose me.” There was wonder in her voice. And love. But absolutely no surprise.

“Always.” And then he kissed her. Like she was oxygen and water and life itself. Like they could survive there—on their little island of stone—for eternity as long as they had each other. They could make it. They’d be okay. She really thought it was true. Right up until the shots rang out.

Impossibly, Zoe seemed to hear them first, because she dove, dragging Sawyer to the rocky ground. She felt his body over hers, protecting her. Warming her. But she could see Kozlov and the second guard standing on the unfinished bridge. Bits of ice and stone flew up as bullets landed way too close. Maybe forever wasn’t that long, after all, she thought, just before a cry pierced the air.

Alex was on the ground, pinned beneath the first guard’s lifeless body. Zoe heard her sister scream then watched her roll the guard away and shift and—

Suddenly, the guard’s gun was in Alex’s hand and Alex was aiming at the bridge overhead—not at Kozlov. At the bridge itself. And then she fired.

One after the other, the bullets pierced the thick glass. Zoe heard it crack. She saw it break. And then the bridge began to crumble and fall. A long, elegant line of destruction sweeping its way across the glacier. A lit fuse of shattering glass racing toward Kozlov and the second guard.

And then they were falling.

They were sliding.

They were gone.

The wind kept blowing and the snow kept swirling, but the loudest thing on that mountain had to be the sound of Zoe’s heart as it tried to beat its way out of her chest.

“I . . .” Zoe couldn’t get a deep breath. “Is it over? Did we win?”

“Yeah. I think we won.” Sawyer’s hand felt warm against her frozen cheek. Her skin burned and her throat felt like fire, but Zoe was alive, and Sawyer was safe, and Alex—

“Alex!” Zoe was on her feet and heading toward her sister when she felt Sawyer tug her back.

“Stay there, Zo!” Alex ordered, but her eyes were trained on Sawyer. “The drive! Did you get it?”

But Sawyer just smiled down at Zoe. “I saved everything that mattered.”

Zoe saw her sister start to argue—to roll her eyes and call them morons—but Alex’s scorn morphed into the world’s most reluctant smirk as she looked at Sawyer. “Hurt her and I’ll kill you. Slowly.”

And Sawyer said, “I know.”

It should have been over. It would have felt like The End, but Zoe realized that Alex was still creeping down the steep incline, closer and closer to the edge.

“Stay there!” Zoe warned.

Sawyer must have read her mind because he shouted, “It’s over, Alex. Kozlov’s dead.”

But Alex was shaking her head. “Kozlov’s network is alive and well.”

“It’s over,” Sawyer tried again. “You can come in. There’s a CIA mole at the bottom of the mountain along with the man he was working for. No one will suspect you now. Come in. It’s over.”

She turned, wind in her hair. “It’s over when I get that drive back.”

Sawyer lunged and Zoe screamed, “No!” But the word was nothing but an echo as Alex ran and leapt—arms and legs spread wide. Hanging on the air—weightless on the wind—before she reached for the little loop on her vest and tugged. A parachute sprang free a moment later and all Zoe could do was watch as her sister faded, disappearing into the clouds.

*  *  *

Sawyer dropped to the rocks beside her, both of them breathing hard in the high altitude and thin air, both of them looking like they weren’t sure whether they should laugh or cry. But Zoe knew better.

“Are you okay?” His hands were running over her face and her neck. His hands were everywhere.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you hurt.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you—”

“Sawyer!” She had to make him stop. She had to make him see. “I . . . I’m sorry.” She read the confusion on his face. “Don’t get mad. But . . . I have a confession to make. I might have . . . uh . . . lied.”

Sawyer looked at her, like why are we talking when we could be kissing, but he managed to raise an eyebrow and say, “What kind of lie?”

“I did have Marc turn off the live feed from the cameras, but I also had him send a link to MI6.”

Sawyer tensed. She couldn’t read his expression, and that’s what worried her. “You did?”

That time, when she pointed into the distance there really was a dark speck breaking through the clouds and coming closer. Just about ten minutes too late. But, well, better late than never, she supposed as a second dot appeared on the horizon.

“And Interpol.”

Sawyer raised an eyebrow when a third helicopter rose above the blanket of clouds.

“And that would be Mossad.”

He huffed out a sound that might have been a laugh—or a curse. She couldn’t tell over the roar of the helicopters that were now so close she could make out the disapproving glares of hot guys in expensive suits and dark glasses. Sawyer saw them, too. She felt him bristle or maybe shiver. Every muscle in his body went tense. Everything seemed to change.

“Sawyer?” she asked, but he was already pulling her closer and kissing her deeper, even as the helicopters circled and the ice blew and figures all in black literally started rappelling down on cables.

“You chose me,” she whispered again because it felt like the only thing that mattered.

He touched her forehead with his, the air thick with white breath and swirling snow. His voice was barely more than a whisper. Like an oath. “Always.”

Before she could kiss him again, a man landed on the ice in front of them, shouting, “Which one of you is”—he checked his notes—“the Denominator?”