involvement can screw up your thinking.”
Jamie took a silent, bracing breath. Might as well go for broke. When Noah refused, which she now had no doubt he would, she could get up and leave, and go on to her second choice. “I’m giving you an opportunity, Noah.”
“What do you mean?”
“With or without your help, I’m going to get what I need to stop the man. If you want to be involved, this is your chance.”
Only by a small, subtle shift in his body could she tell that she had surprised him. “And if I don’t agree …?”
“LCR is my first choice, but there are other organizations and people who would be more than happy to assist me. I wanted to give you the first right of refusal.” She leaned forward and said, “What’s it going to be?”
Jamie watched coolly as McCall pondered her challenge. Hiding behind a mask had been her way of life for years, so she wasn’t worried that he could see the emotions jumping through her like popping corn in an overheated popcorn machine. Dylan Savage was one of the few people who had the ability to destroy her carefully built façade. Thankfully, he wasn’t here to challenge her.
Her ability to hide her thoughts from others was one of the biggest reasons she knew she could do this job. Being someone else would be no problem. Defending herself if something went wrong was most certainly an issue. She was just hoping that Noah would see fit to offer her a solution.
As she waited for his answer, her sister’s face came to her mind. McKenna was going to kill her. Okay, probably not kill her, but she was going to be very upset. Her sister had risked her life to save her. How was she going to react once she learned that Jamie planned to pursue the devil in his own backyard?
Noah thought she wanted to do this for revenge. No way would she deny that she wanted revenge. That would be disingenuous; plus, she was human enough to want to make sure the bastard paid. But what he’d done to her was barely a ripple in the man’s dark pool of evil.
“Tell me what you’re suggesting.” McCall’s grim voice was a reminder that she still had some major hurdles to jump before she could even get to that point.
“I have no real concerns about being able to get inside or about getting the information I need. My biggest problem is, if I’m caught, I need to know how to survive. I’ve had no training. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have been taken in the first place. I need LCR to teach me what I need to know.”
“You’re not afraid that he’ll recognize you?”
“No, he only saw me a few times, at the beginning. My face was so bruised and swollen, even I didn’t recognize myself.” Odd that she could speak of something so painful and humiliating as if it had happened to someone else. Though the memories lingered, they were covered with a determination so strong, a need so fierce, that the hurt was buried. And if she achieved her goal, she could bury it so deep with satisfaction that anything remaining would be like a bad dream.
“What about his son Lance? He saw you after you healed, didn’t he?”
She didn’t even flinch at the sound of the disgusting name. “The prosecutor told me he’s been sent to live with a distant relative in Germany. He’s going to school there and has apparently been told not to return for a long while.”
“You’ve already told me you’re untrained, so what makes you think you can get anything? What qualifications do you have to get inside and get this information?”
The truthful answer would be “None.” However, she had something that trumped experience. She had inside information that could get her into the midst of Reddington’s family. She spoke fluent Spanish and had no doubt that she could play her role well. Last, and probably the most important: she had the sheer determination to do this job. To anyone else, it might be just another mission. To Jamie, it was her life’s goal.
“My lack of experience is a
Pattie Mallette, with A. J. Gregory