The Dead Drop

Elena checked her watch for the third time in five minutes. The coffee shop was warm, too warm, steam rising from ceramic mugs like ghosts of conversations past. She wasn't supposed to be here. Not anymore.

Three years undercover, and she'd become exactly what she hunted: a woman who lied so well she'd forgotten how to tell the truth. Her handler called it "deep cover." She called it being a zombie — walking through days that weren't hers, wearing a life like someone else's coat.

"You're brooding again," Marcus said, sliding into the booth across from her. He'd stopped shaving. The stubble grayed his face, made him look like the photographs she'd seen of his father: young once, then suddenly, terribly old.

"I'm not brooding. I'm caffeinating." She pushed her cup toward him. "You're late."

"The meeting ran long." Marcus's hand found hers across the table. His thumb traced her palm, and she didn't pull away. She never pulled away anymore. "They're offering me the London position."

London. The word dropped between them like a stone in deep water. London meant the European desk, meant security clearance meant —

Meant she'd have to burn her cover. Tell him everything. Or lie. Always, always lie.

"That's wonderful." Her voice didn't shake. She'd made sure of that years ago. "When do we leave?"

Outside, a dog trotted past the window, a golden retriever with a red bandana. Someone's pet. Someone who didn't have to fabricate a childhood, didn't have three passports in a safe deposit box, didn't check their reflection in shop windows to remember which face they were wearing today.

Marcus was looking at her in that way he had — like she was a puzzle he'd almost solved. "Elena. What happened to us?"

"We're happy," she said automatically.

"Are we?" He leaned closer. "Because sometimes I look at you and I don't know who's looking back."

The spy in her calculated distances, exit strategies, the time it would take to pack. The wife in her wanted to scream: I've been lying to you for three years and I don't know how to stop and I love you but I don't even know if that part is real anymore.

Instead she said, "London sounds nice. I've always wanted to see the Thames."

Marcus smiled, but his eyes stayed tired. "Yeah," he said. "London sounds nice."

The dog paused outside, lifted its leg against a lamppost. Even the damn dog was more honest than she was.

"I'll take the transfer," Marcus said. "We'll start fresh."

Fresh. She'd been starting fresh for twelve years. There was no fresh left. Only new names, new faces, new people to disappoint when they discovered the person they loved had never existed.

"Perfect," Elena said, and meant it, and didn't mean it, and wondered if there was a difference anymore.

The zombie drank her coffee and waited for London.