The Operator
Kim Harrison
Thriller
Pocket Books
November 22, 2016
Amazon
THE OPERATOR is the second installment in the brand-new
suspense trilogy from Kim Harrison, known as The Peri Reed Chronicles.
Following the success of the first book in the series, The Drafter, Peri
Reed returns bigger and bolder than ever in this highly anticipated
thriller.
Peri Reed’s job eats her
mind, but for a special task agent in hiding, forgetting the past can be a
blessing.
Betrayed by the man she
thought she loved and the agency who turned her into the very thing she fought
against, Peri abandoned the wealth and privilege of Opri for anonymity riddled
with memory gaps and self-doubt. But when a highly addictive drug promises to
end her dependency on those who’d use her as a tool for their own success, she
must choose to either remain broken and vulnerable, or return to the
above-the-law power and prestige she once had: strong but without will—for
whoever holds her next fix will hodl her loyalty.
Yet even now as then, a
love based on lies of omission might still save her life.
Excerpt
CHAPTER
ONE
“Ah, ma’am? Please don’t touch the car,” the man with the glass
tablet said, and Peri flicked her eyes to him, acknowledging his words as she
lifted the handle of the hundred- thousand-dollar car. Immediately it opened,
the door making a soft hush of sound that meant money well spent as she slipped
inside and let the leather seats enfold her.
“Ma’am?”
It smelled new, and her
eyes closed for a moment as she almost reverently set her hands on the wheel,
smiling as her shoulders eased and an odd relaxed tension filled her. It was
sleek, sexy without being over-the-top as if confident in its power and
comfortable under the spotlight. Its red color went deep, showing shadowed
layers that only an off-the-assembly-line paint could deliver. A two-seater, it
looked fast, with wide tires that had ample turning radius in the wheel wells
and an antenna array panel to plug in just about anything now or in the future.
The sound system was adequate at best, but the onboard computer display was big
enough to be useful and glass compatible. Much of it was plastic, though, and
Peri’s nose wrinkled.
“It looks as if it was made
for you,” the man said, the annoyed slant to his brow belying his smile as he
stood just outside and held his tablet like a fig leaf.
Peri tossed her straight
black hair out of her eyes, her smile real as she looked up at him. “I bet
you say that to everyone.”
He rocked closer. “No. Only
those who look like they belong in it.” He cleared his tablet, and the car’s
logo ghosted into existence on the clear glass. “Well?”
Angling her slim form, she
smoothly got out before he had a coronary. Immediately the chaos of Detroit’s
auto show beat anew upon her, the air smelling of ozone and popcorn, and the
rhythmic thump of ambient electronic dance music from the live stage pounding
into her. Content, she sent her gaze up to the multitude of cameras set to
record and identify, secure in the knowledge that the swirls of black smut
she’d painted on her face would keep her anonymous.
She wasn’t alone wearing
it—face paint had become to Detroit’s auto show what big hats and mint juleps
were to Churchill Downs. Both men and women sported well-placed dots and swirls
to disguise themselves as they checked out the competition or just avoided
being tagged and sent literature. As she was dressed in black leather pants and
a cropped jacket with a silk shell and six-inch black boots, the paint made her
feel especially flirty and powerful. Sexy.
She turned back to the
coup, thinking it was cheating to show it in a paint job that you couldn’t get
from the factory. “How do you get around the weight issue of the batteries?
You’ve got them in the front, but the drive tram is in the back. The weight
isn’t over the wheels, and it’s going to turn as if it was on pudding.”
His interest sharpened.
“It’s not an issue at posted speeds.”
Peri nodded, and he winced
as she ran a hand caressingly over the car’s sleek lines—all the way from the
front to the back. “Over posted speeds is when you need the control, though.
Acceleration?”
“Zero to sixty in
four-point-two seconds,” he said, tapping his tablet awake.
“Battery only, or warming
engine assist?” she asked, and he smiled as he brought up the literature. Ten
steps away, a printer came alive with the stats.
“Engine assist. You can’t
break four seconds on just battery.”
“A Mantis can.”
The man looked up. “I mean
a real car.”
Peri eyed him from under a
lowered brow. “You’re saying a Mantis isn’t a real car?”
“I mean,” he tried again,
flustered, “a car you can actually have. If you’re looking for speed, have you
considered—”
“Sorry. No thanks.” Peri
stepped out from under the hot spotlights and into the milling crowd, snagging
a tiny flute of champagne in passing. Her dress and attitude parted the way,
and her warm feeling of satisfaction grew as the tingle of alcohol slipped into
her. It was nice to know she still had the best. Ahh, life is good.
“Why do you tease them like
that?” a voice said at her elbow, and she spun, hand fisted.
But the man had dropped
back as if expecting it, mirth crinkling the corners of his brown eyes. The
brief protest of the surrounding people subsided as they pushed past and around
them—and were forgotten.
“Silas?” she questioned,
her gaze flicking to the messenger drones at the ceiling, worried a high-Q
might be hiding among them. Then her eyes dropped to his tall, body-building
form. His cashmere coat across his wide shoulders made him even more bulky, but
his waist was trim and his face clean-shaven. The white of salt from the street
rimed his John Lobb shoes, and he grimaced when she noticed. “What are you
doing here? How did you find me?” she said, shifting into the lee his body made
when someone jostled her.
Taking her empty flute and
setting it aside, he pointed to a nearby communal area set up with tall tables
and rentable connections to get a message outside the no-Internet-zone needed
for security. “I’ve never known you to miss the opening of the Detroit auto
show,” he said as they walked. His low voice at her ear slipped through her
like smoke, staining the folds of her mind and bringing a thousand unremembered
moments with him to hover just beyond recollection. “I like your hair that
length.”
It was quieter among the
tables, and Peri touched the tips of her jet-black hair just brushing her
shoulders. She’d let it grow. No need to cut it. Slowly she levered herself up
on one of the high stools. He’d been watching her. That was probably where her
itchy feeling had been coming from, not that she’d had to close her store on a
Monday to hit opening day.
The hot-spot connection
found her phone and chimed for her attention, and she turned the rentable link
facedown. Silas looked tired. There was a familiar pinch of worry in his eyes
as he levered himself onto the seat across from her. He laced his thick hands
together, setting them innocently on the table, but she could smell the hint of
gunpowder on him; he’d been to the range recently. A black haze shadowed his
jawline, and a memory surfaced of how it would feel if she ran her hand over
it, delighting in the prickly sensation on her fingertips. Behind him, people
in extravagant dress and having enough technology to run a small country
mingled and played. She’d come to lose herself among them, to pretend that it
was hers again for the day. She missed the feeling of being in control so
surely that the rest of the world seemed a fantasy.
I shouldn’t have come here.
I made a mistake.
A misplaced anger seeped
into her, pushing out the doubt. She’d made a place for herself, a new life,
found a new security that didn’t hinge on anyone but herself. “Are you
alone? Is Allen with you? Damn it, you do realize you might have blown my
cover?”
“It’s nice to see you, too.
Yes, I’m fine,” Silas said dryly, and she slumped, looking past him and into
the crowd for anyone watching without watching. Sighing, Silas scratched the
side of his bent nose, his focus blurring as if remembering a past argument. “I
might not have been the best agent, but I know better than to go to your coffee
shop. As for Allen, I don’t particularly care where he is. I’ve not been in
contact with him since”—he hesitated, lip twitching—“you quit.”
She had left, and he’d
found her. So not good. “Stay away from my coffee shop.” Heart
pounding, she slid off the stool.
“Peri. Wait,” he said,
voice weary. “I only came to give you your book back,” he said, reaching past
his coat to put one of her journals on the table.
Her breath caught, and she
stopped, recognizing the leather-bound tome. It had been painstakingly pieced
back together, the damage pressed out as best as possible, but it was still
obvious where the bullet had torn into it. Kind of like her life.
It was from her last year
in Opti training, an entire twelve months of memories intentionally erased from
her mind so she could successfully bring down the corrupt Opti from the inside.
The United States’ clandestine special ops program was gone, and the diary was
her only link to why she had done it. Her pulse quickened at the answers that
might lie in the pages. Why she hated blue sheets, why silver Mustangs made the
scar on her pinky itch, why the scent of chocolate chip cookies left her
melancholy. There were answers in the pages, guarded by demons she feared would
tear apart what little self she’d managed to pull back. Her ignorance made her
vulnerable, but it also made her safe.
Hand to her cold face, she
backed up, her footing unsure on the thick carpet. “I’m not that person
anymore,” she whispered. Damn it, she was going to have to rabbit. If Silas had
found her, anyone could.
“Peri.”
He pulled her to a stop.
Anyone else would have gotten her heel through his instep, but she hesitated,
letting him draw her back. Breath held, she looked up at him, her soul crying
out for what she’d left behind. She’d liked who she’d been, and the wrongness
of that still woke her in the night when all was quiet. Silas had been a big
part of that, not the worst, but a part nevertheless.
“I’m not asking you to
return to the person you were, just understand her,” he said. “It’s been almost
a year. You have to stop hiding from this. You won’t ever be free of it if you
don’t come to grips with what you’ve done, the good and bad.”
“Is that your professional
opinion, Doctor?” she said, yanking out of his grip. Her wrist stung, but she
refused to look at it.
Silas’s jaw clenched as
unknown thoughts flitted behind his eyes. Her chin lifted, daring him, and with
a frustrated grimace, he turned away. “Never mind. I made a mistake. I
shouldn’t have come. You take care of yourself, Peri.”
“You, too,” she said as he
walked away, hunched and unseeing. His tall frame and wide shoulders were tight
under his coat as he wove through the lights, bare skin, and beautiful people.
With a feeling of having won, she watched the crowd take him, but it shifted to
worry as her fingers traced over the book in indecision, until finally she
picked it up.
A business card from the
Georgia Aquarium slipped out, falling to the floor. It wasn’t Silas’s name on
it, but he’d likely be using an alias. Next to it was a hand-printed
phone number. She stared at the card for a moment before turning and
walking away, leaving it to be lost in the clutter.
To know what she had done
might destroy everything she had made for herself. It was easier to ignore it,
keep pretending she was happy and hope the lure to return to the power and
prestige would never be stronger than the loathing of what she’d turned herself
into to get there.
But she wasn’t sure she
could do that anymore.
About the Author
Kim
Harrison, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling
Hollows series, was born in Detroit and, after gaining her bachelor’s
degree in the sciences, she moved to South Carolina, where she remained until
recently returning to Michigan because she missed the snow. When not at her
desk, Kim is most likely to be found landscaping her new/old Victorian home, in
the garden, or out on the links.
Jaci Wheeler lives in
the Central Valley of California with her husband and two precious kids. 
