How can her own husband make that statement? That would mean they’ve talked about me.

But he said she loved me. It’s the one thing I’ve wanted to hear more than anything, but at the same time right now, I’m not sure I can handle it.

“Go to hell,” I grit out between breaths, starting to push myself up because I have a plane to catch, and if I catch it, then I can run away and pretend like this meeting never happened and that she’s still alive and I’m still going to come back in a few days and fight like hell to win her over. To make her understand that what we have is real and true and worth it.

“We weren’t married,” John whispers ever so softly. I stop midway to standing and look over to him for the first time as my heart stutters in my chest. His eyes mirror the grief in mine, the loss burning bright, but they are also saying something else that I can’t quite understand. “Can we talk?” he asks, using his chin to indicate a doorway over to his right.

I stare at him, wanting to know and yet afraid to know more. But I follow John inside and shut the door behind us, leery, uncomfortable and overwhelmed because so many things have been thrown at me that I can’t comprehend any of them.

“Sit?” he asks, and I just lean a shoulder against the wall. I’ve had enough things knock me to my knees right now; I don’t think there’s much more that can. Besides, I fear that once I process this all, once it all sinks in, I won’t be able to move anyway, so sitting? No, thanks.

“What I’m about to tell you is classified and could get me fired and you in trouble, but you deserve to know the truth.” I just stare at the ground, my eyes shut, and fingers pinching the bridge of my nose because I’m so afraid of hearing what’s next and at the same time a small part of me holds on to some hope that he’s going to tell me that was all a farce out there. That Beaux’s alive. That when I open the door, she’s going to be standing there with that smirk on her face and green eyes looking for me. “I’m Dane Culver. Nice to meet you.”

My head whips up at his extended hand. What the fuck? “Wha…?” I don’t even bother finishing the word or shaking his hand.

“Beaux was my partner. I’m an agent too. Our marriage was a cover.”

“Wait a minute, so —”

“So that means how she felt for you was real. She loved you.” His voice is soft, sympathetic, but all I can hear are the words “She loved you.”

I sag against the wall, another tsunami of emotions hitting the wave that’s already ebbing because I can’t focus on anything, my thoughts splintering into a million pieces as the questions try to bubble up to the surface. My hands are cradling my head as I double over because if I thought the news of her death was devastating before, it’s crippling now. Because now that I know she wasn’t married, hadn’t cheated on her husband, it’s like the veil of guilt that shrouded around the love I felt for her has been lifted and those feelings are a hundred times more intense and a thousand times more devastating.

“Oh. My. God.” They are the only words I can say, and I repeat them over and over as all of the things I doubted and questioned and berated myself for dissipate, so that what I thought I really lost, I really did lose.

And after a few minutes of trying to breathe underwater, all of a sudden it’s like I can draw in a breath for the first time when my thoughts line up together. “So this is part of it too, right? She’s really alive. The bombing wasn’t real either?” Even I find the hope lacing the incredulity in my tone pathetic, but I am holding on to threads here, and when that’s all you have, you don’t care how bad they cut you as your grip slips so long as you’re still holding them.

When I stare at Dane, I know my hope is fleeting, because his eyes well up with the tears that won’t come for me. He shakes his head slowly, sniffing his nose and clearing his throat. “I’m sorry… Goddamn it!” He pounds on the table and shoves up out of the chair he’s sitting in as he swallows back the emotion threatening to overwhelm him. “I was supposed to be at the embassy with her, might have been able to save her,” he says, unable to look at me, “but I wasn’t slated to leave for a few days while I made sure her cover remained intact.”

I swallow over the lump in my throat, hating him for not being there to protect her once again, because if she was his partner, that was his job, and at the same time knowing that this is my anger speaking, because there’s no way to protect someone from a bomb blast you didn’t know was coming.

“I’m so confused,” I confess, using the wall for support because it’s taking everything I have to concentrate on his words and not on the pressure in my chest.

“Beaux wasn’t just a photographer. She was an agent sent to gather intel for the agency on the high-level meet. Her job was to document figures in the game, watch their comings and goings, where they met up, who they spoke to. Cause some confusion amongst some of the local contacts so that we could make sure to take the targets out without them knowing.”

“Omid.” His name falls from my lips as I recall the look on his face the first time he got a good look at Beaux.

“Yes, Omid,” Dane says. “He was sharing info with both sides. Beaux called me one night, afraid that he had recognized her when they came face-to-face in enemy territory when she was out gathering intel. She wasn’t sure if he had or not, but —”

Dots connect for me. Her phone call in the hallway that night and how upset she was. Was that all about Omid? “He sent me a text about not trusting her that made no sense at the time. I just thought it was because she was a woman.” All I can do is shake my head at all of this.

“She wasn’t sure.”

“The photos with odd time stamps, the late nights out by herself, the —”

“All missions to gather information and meet with sources,” he says as pieces start clicking into place. Now things make so much sense, and yet I feel so stupid for not putting them together sooner, but how could I? This is like a Tom Clancy novel. Who would think this shit exists even though I live in its world on a daily basis? “We cleared her room out of all of her info while you were on your way to Germany,” he explains as I just sit there and shake my head in disbelief.

“So her cover was blown?” I ask him, trying to draw connections that still aren’t clicking solidly into place.

“In more ways than one,” Dane says, and stares sternly at me in a way I can’t read. “She called me one night while you were filing your report and told me she broke her cover with you. I was so pissed at her, told her she was risking everything, including her life. It was so hard having her there with you when I couldn’t be there to protect her,” he says, and for a moment I sympathize with him because I know that exact feeling, have failed twice in fact in doing just that. “She said you guys were talking and she forgot for a moment where she was, what she was supposed to be doing, but that she told you about her parents, her past… Fuck man, that’s like rule number one, know your backstory like the back of your hand, and she completely disregarded it.”

I blow out a breath as a small part of me grabs onto his comment because that means that I have something more of Beaux to hold on to, that regardless of the reason she was there, she still showed me the real her. I fell in love with the real person on the inside, not something she wasn’t.

“It was right then I knew something was going on between you two. She denied it fiercely, but I knew her well enough to know she was lying. I got her to admit in a roundabout way that there was something between you, but she told me that you guys weren’t telling anyone, that you’d honor the promise because the integrity of your work was so important to you and so if push came to shove, her cover would hold…” His voice fades off, allowing me to absorb what he’s said to this point, and while I still feel like I’m drinking the information from a firehose, at least I have information to drown in. And heartache. There’s definitely no escaping the weariness that assails me from finding this all out too late. Everything is just too late.

“The IED,” Dane says, pulling me from the riot in my head and heart. “Both Rosco’s and Sarge’s reports stated that they thought they heard someone call Beaux’s name. We intercepted radio chatter congratulating over a takeout. We couldn’t be positive they meant Beaux, so we immediately went into protective mode, because if someone called her name, that meant she might have had eyes on her, a bounty on her head for playing both sides.”

“So if her caring husband shows up at Landstuhl, makes a scene —”

“And she goes home with him and has a domesticated life in a house that they suddenly moved into and a fake background to reinforce it, then there’s no way she could be a spy. Eyes and ears everywhere, making sure that —”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” I say to no one as something dawns on me. “You guys were fucking listening to us that day?” The look on his face tells me what I don’t want to know, and now it’s my turn to pace the floor. The one last memory I have of her, the bittersweet and intimate moments between us were documented by who knows what kind of devices and the perverted fucks on the other end of them.

“They were turned off when we realized what was happening,” he murmurs, but the admission does nothing to stop the anger that eats at me. “She wanted to run after you, you know…”

“No, I don’t know!” I yell, at him, at her, at everyone because I feel so fucking in the dark right now, and while I don’t want to know another thing, I need to know everything. Then I can leave here and try to comprehend so that I can mourn the loss of her even though I still can’t believe she’s gone.

“She wanted to run after you,” he repeats, but this time with more compassion, “but we couldn’t let her. We were afraid for your safety too. Afraid that if your source was the one who ratted her out, they’d think you were spying too. So we had eyes on your house from the moment you got home.”

“William’s black Suburban blocking my view…” I say more to myself than to him. The believability factor of this whole situation has become almost too far-fetched, cloak and daggerish for my own liking. So much so that if I weren’t living it, I’d say it was a bogus story.

He murmurs in agreement. “You left the house in Kansas, and she was beside herself because she knew how much she was hurting you. I made her promise just a few more weeks to make sure everything was kosher before she could come to you, that the intercepts still weren’t clean of chatter yet. If you two had seen each other again, then she’d have been putting you in danger. She said you were going to come back, that you don’t give up without a fight,” he says, followed by an audible sigh, my own heart swelling despite the pain to hear this and know she was as tormented as I was. A misery loves company sort of thing.

And then I remember she’s dead. And now it was all for nothing.

“She filed a restraining order, called Rafe to warn you so you wouldn’t come back and be at risk… She just wanted you safe because she loved you. In all the years we worked together, I’d never seen her like this, Tanner. You have to know that. She really did love you.” He rests his shoulders against the wall and leans his head to look up at the ceiling. “She was going on a quick mission to the embassy to deliver some information and confirm a few things for a source we have there. She told me her return flight was going to be to San Diego so that she could tell you everything, beg for your forgiveness, and have a real life for the first time…”

I wince at the words, cringe at the realization of what will never be. He walks up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes it momentarily while my eyes look down at my shoes. I know I should apologize for punching him, since he lost his partner and probably feels much like I did when I lost Stella, but I can’t bring myself to say anything at all. Absolutely nothing because every single thing ricochets around in the numbed void inside me. I just can’t believe it all yet.

“I’m so sorry, Tanner. For everything… I couldn’t let you leave without your knowing the truth.”

I just nod my head ever so subtly, my eyes still focused on the floor. And I stay like this long after Dane leaves the room, reality slipping through my fingers like sand as I try to hold on to it.