Текст книги "Reviving Izabel"

Автор книги: J. A. Redmerski

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

Today, I finally get to see her since I left with Eric and Dahlia for Los Angeles.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Victor

Sarai must be prepared, not just for the imminent threats, but for the life which lies ahead of her. She chose her path a long time ago, she chose it the day she met me even if she wasn’t aware of it at the time. I wanted to look the other way, as much as I fought with myself and my strange and unnatural need to be near her, I still wanted her to have a normal life.

I did not want her to end up like me…

But I knew the day that I left her eight months ago, I knew before I walked out of that hospital room with Mrs. Gregory at her bedside, that I would one day go back for her. It was never my intention or my plan, I simply knew that it would eventually happen, one way or another.

Twenty-eight years of the thirty-seven that I have been alive I have known only life in the Order. I have known only discipline and death. I have never known friendship or love without suspicion and betrayal. I have been…programmed to defy customary human emotions and actions, but I…It wasn’t until I met Sarai that I allowed myself to believe that Vonnegut and the Order were not my family, that they used me as their perfect soldier. They denied me all my life the very elements that make us human. And I cannot let that go unpunished.

One day I will kill Vonnegut and take the rest of the Order down with him for what they have done to me and my family. A family which they have destroyed. Sarai is my family now, and hopefully Fredrik will prove his loyalty in his final test. They are my family and I will not allow the Order to destroy them, too.

But for now, Sarai is my focus and she will be as long as necessary. She must be trained. She must absorb as much as she can as quickly as she can. It is impossible for her to ever be on my level. She will never be able to live the life of an assassin as I do because that would take half a lifetime to learn. It is why the Order recruits at such young ages. It is why Niklas and I were taken when we were just boys.

Sarai will never be like me.

But she has other skills. She has abilities that even after all of the years of training I have gone through, I could never match. Sarai’s life in the compound in Mexico gave her a priceless set of skills that cannot be taught in a class or read from a book. She is the perfect liar and manipulator. She can become someone else in two seconds flat and deceive an entire room of people who are not likely to be deceived by anyone. She can make a man believe anything she wants with very little effort. And she doesn’t fear death. But she’s better than an actress. Because one never knows that it’s an act until it’s too late. Javier Ruiz was Sarai’s true teacher. He taught her things that I would never be able to. He was her real trainer in learning the deadly skills that are now beginning to define her as a killer. And like all evil teachers, Javier Ruiz was also his favorite student’s first victim.

Like the abilities she already possesses, to learn to fight she must live it, breathe it, to fully understand it. My forcing her to train with Spencer and Jacquelyn is necessary to her survival because she must learn as much as she can as often as she can. But the skills she already has are what will make her a soldier in her own right.

They are what will make us the perfect pair.

But first, Sarai has to understand fully what she is capable of. And she must pass the tests. All of them, even the ones that may cause her to despise me.

I am confident that she will. Pass the tests, anyway. To despise me is still debatable.

We arrive in Phoenix just after dark and are greeted at the door of the tiny white house by Amelia McKinney, Fredrik’s liaison. She is a beautiful woman of voluptuous curves and long, blonde hair, though her more unattractive feature are her large plastic breasts that must surely give her back pain. And she dresses rather whorish for a woman with a PhD and who has taught a fourth grade class the past five years.

“Hello Victor Faust,” she says with a hint of seduction, holding the front door open for Sarai and me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“A lot? Interesting.”

Holding the screen door open with one hand she steps aside and ushers us in, a mass of gold bracelets hang from her wrist with dangling gold pendants. Several large rings adorn her fingers. And she smells of soap and toothpaste.

I place my hand on the small of Sarai’s back and let her go in before me.

“Fredrik has told me about you,” Amelia says, closing the door behind us. “Though I guess ‘a lot’ is an overstatement in your case, seeing as how he doesn’t seem to know much about you himself.” She twirls her hand at the wrist out beside her and adds, “But I suppose the fact I know so little about you is what makes you all the more intriguing.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Sarai says, halting our little single-file line and turning back to look at her.

Discipline, Sarai. Discipline. I sigh quietly to myself, but I admit, it makes me hard to see her so overprotective of what belongs to her.

Amelia puts up both hands, thankfully in a surrendering fashion rather than a challenging one. “No problem, honey. No problem at all.”

Sarai accepts her white flag and we continue into the house where we find Dina Gregory in the kitchen cooking what appears to be a Thanksgiving meal for about fifteen.

Sarai runs into Dina’s open arms and the smiles and heartfelt words of relief and excitement commences. I ignore it all for the moment, turning my attention to the more imperative issues: my surroundings, and this woman I’ve never met.

I trust no one.

Amelia, like many of the women acquainted with Fredrik Gustavsson, knows nothing of the Order or mine or Fredrik’s involvement with any such private organization. She is not like Samantha from Safe House Twelve in Texas was to me. No, Amelia and Fredrik’s relationship, though it can no longer technically be called that, is much more…complicated.

I begin to search the house for cameras and weapons, sweeping my fingers along bookshelves and plants and knickknacks and furniture, planting my own concealed surveillance paraphernalia along the way.

“Fredrik said that you might do that,” Amelia speaks up behind me, though I’m quite sure she didn’t see the tiny device I just stuck to the underside of the television stand. She laughs lightly. “I made sure to clean the house really good before you came. Where are the white rubber gloves?” she jokes.

I never turn around to look at her, or stop what I’m doing.

“Have you had any unfamiliar visitors here since Mrs. Gregory was brought to stay with you?” I ask, leaning over an end table beside a recliner and inspecting a lampshade.

“Wow, you and Fredrik really are the most paranoid men I’ve ever met. No. Not that I recall. Well, a satellite salesman came once last week wanting me to switch from cable. Other than that, no.”

She moves up behind me and lowers her voice, “How long is this woman supposed to stay in my house?” I notice from my peripheral vision she glances toward the kitchen entrance to make certain no one but I can hear. “She’s a nice lady and all, but…,” she sighs guiltily, “…Look, I’m thirty-years old. I haven’t lived with my parents since I was sixteen. She’s crampin’ my style. I had a man over last week and he thought she was my mother. It was awkward. I haven’t been laid since she got here.”

I turn around to face her fully. “And how long have you known the man that you brought here?”

“Huh?”

“The man? How long have you and he been sleeping together?”

Her thinly-groomed brows bunch together in the low center of her forehead. “What is that any of your business? Going to ask me how many positions he’s fucked me in, too?”

“How long?”

“I met him at a bar last Saturday.”

“Well, that constitutes as an unfamiliar visitor.”

She wants to argue the point, but she doesn’t.

“Fine. Whatever. The satellite man and the almost-lay from the bar. That’s it.”

“Before I leave I’ll need his name and anything else you can give me on him, including an accurate description.”

She shakes her head and laughs with displeasure. “I don’t know why I put up with Fredrik’s bullshit.” Then she pulls open a tiny drawer underneath the end table and retrieves a notepad and an ink pen.

“Because you can’t help yourself,” I point out, though not trying to be unpleasant, just simply stating a fact. Something else I need to work on: keeping my mouth shut when women say certain things that are not up for comment.

Her bright blue eyes widen with offense. She scribbles something on the paper, tears it from the notepad and shoves it in my hand. “What’s that supposed to mean?” But before she gives me a chance to dig myself further into the hole, she changes her tone and leans in toward me and whispers suggestively, “Hey…just how alike are the two of you, anyway?”

I know precisely what she’s asking—she wonders, probably hopes, that my sexual aptitude is as dark as Fredrik’s is—but she’s treading very dangerous territory with Sarai being in the other room.

“Not very,” I reply, tucking the paper with the man’s name and description into my pocket. I go back to my investigation of her house.

“That’s too bad,” she says. “What is it with him, anyway? Does he talk about me to you at all?”

Please make it stop….

I sigh deeply and stop at the mouth of the hallway, looking right at her. “If you have questions for or about Fredrik, please do me a favor and direct them at him.”

Amelia tosses her hair back in a pride-filled fashion and with the rolling of her eyes. “Whatever. Just find out from Fredrik how long I’m supposed to babysit, will ya’?”

She pushes her way past me and into the kitchen with Sarai and Mrs. Gregory while I use the opportunity to inspect the rest of the house.

Speaking of Fredrik, I get a call from him just as I’m heading toward the spare bedroom.

“I have information on the New Orleans job,” he says on the other end of the phone. I hear traffic in the background. “The contact believes the target is back in town.”

“What makes her believe that?”

“She thought she saw him outside a bar near Bourbon Street. Of course, she could be seeing things, too, but I think we should look into it. Just in case. If we wait and he goes back to Brazil, or wherever it is he’s been hiding, it might be another month or two before we get another shot at him.”

“I agree.” I close myself off inside the spare bedroom. “I’m with Sarai at Amelia’s right now, but I’ll wrap this up sooner than I planned. Go on to New Orleans ahead of me and I’ll meet you there by early evening tomorrow. But don’t do anything.”

“Don’t do anything?” he asks suspiciously. “If I find him, I can at least detain him and start the interrogation.”

“No, wait for us,” I say. “I want Sarai to do this one.”

Silence ensues on the phone.

“You can’t be serious, Victor. She isn’t ready. She could ruin the whole mission. Or get herself killed.”

“She won’t do either,” I say calmly with every bit of confidence. “And don’t worry, you can still do the interrogation. I only want her to do the detaining.”

I know there’s a dark smile on his face without having to see it or hear his voice. Giving Fredrik the interrogation job is very much like giving a heroin addict a fix.

“I’ll see you in New Orleans then,” he says.

I hang up and slide the phone in the back pocket of my black pants and then finish the sweep of the house before joining the women all sitting in the living room with plates of food on their laps.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sarai

“You really should get a plate,” I say to Victor as he emerges from the hallway. “Dina is the best cook. Even better than Marta. But don’t tell Marta I said that.” I shovel a big spoonful of green bean casserole into my mouth.

Dina, sitting beside me on the couch, points to Victor. “She’s biased. But if you’re hungry you better eat while it’s there.”

“We need to talk,” Victor announces standing in the center of the room, now blocking our view of the television.

I don’t like the vibe he’s putting off.

“OK,” I say and lean away from the back of the couch, setting my plate on the coffee table. “What about?”

Victor glances at Amelia. She sits in the chair on the other side of me breaking apart a piece of cornbread with her fingers. I get the feeling he doesn’t want her here during this conversation.

“Amelia,” Victor says, reaching into his back pocket and retrieving his leather wallet. “I need you to go out for a while.” He fingers the money in his wallet and pulls out a small stack of one hundred dollar bills. He lays them on the table into her view. “If you don’t mind.”

She looks down at the money, setting her fork on her plate and then she counts it.

“Sure thing,” she says with a pleased smile. She gets up, taking her plate and soda can with her and disappears into the kitchen.

I hear the fork scraping the leftover food from the plate into the garbage and then the ceramic clanking softly against the bottom of the sink. Amelia walks past and begins to head down the hall.

“But I need you to leave now,” Victor calls out. “There’s no time for you to change clothes or to freshen up.”

“Can I at least put on some damn shoes?” she snaps.

“Of course,” he answers with a nod. “But please make it quick.”

Amelia moves the rest of the way down the hall, mumbling words of irritation as she goes. Minutes later she finally leaves the house and her car pulls out of the driveway.

Victor looks down at us.

“We can’t stay as long as expected,” he says.

Dina sets her plate down now, too, and sighs miserably.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Something has come up.”

I look down at my plate, the silver shine from the fork blurring into focus as I begin to contemplate heavily. I thought I had time to search for the right opening to begin to tell Dina everything that I planned to tell her. Now, I’m left scrambling to figure out how to even begin the sentence.

“Dina,” I say and take a deep breath. I turn to the side to face her fully, sitting to my left. “I killed a man months ago.” Dina’s face appears to stiffen. “It was self-defense. I uh…,” I glance up at Victor. He nods subtly, urging me to continue, letting me know that it’s OK, even though I know he doesn’t fully agree with me doing this. “…In fact, I killed a man in Los Angeles the night Dahlia and Eric were found dead.”

Dina’s weathered hand comes up and her bony fingers linger on her top lip. “Oh, Sarai…you…what are you—”

“Dahlia and Eric were murdered because of me,” I cut in because clearly she couldn’t figure out what to say. “Not only do I have the LAPD looking for me for questioning since I was with them, but the men who murdered them are looking for me, too. And that’s why you’re here.”

“Oh, good Lord.” She shakes her head over and over, her fingers finally falling away from her mouth, her eyes outlined by crow’s feet, shrinking underneath her distressed features.

I take a hold of her hand, it’s cold and smooth underneath my touch. “There’s a lot you don’t know. Where I really was that nine years my mom and me went missing. What really happened to me. And to my mom. And I wasn’t shot by an ex-boyfriend when Victor brought you to the hospital in Los Angeles. I was shot by…,” I glance up at Victor again, but I take it upon myself to keep this information from her. She doesn’t need to know about Niklas, or anything about what he and Victor are involved in. “I was shot by someone else,” I say. “It’s really a very long story that I will tell you someday, but right now I just want you to know the truth about me.” I brush my fingers softly across the top of her hand. “You’re the only mother I’ve ever truly had. You’ve done so much for me and you’ve always been there for me and I owe you the truth.”

Dina encloses my hand with both of hers. “What happened to you, baby girl?” she asks with such pain and worry in her voice that it chokes me up inside.

I begin to tell her everything, as much as I can without giving any information about Victor and Niklas away. I tell her about Mexico and the things that I saw and experienced there. I tell her about Lydia and how I tried so hard but couldn’t save her. I leave out mostly the sexual relationship that I had with my captor, Javier Ruiz, a Mexican duglord, weapons and slave dealer, and just tell her that I was there against my will and made to do things that I never wanted to do. She breaks down in tears and holds me close to her, rocking me pressed against her chest as if I were the one crying and who needs the shoulder. But for once I’m not crying. I just feel terrible having to tell her any of this because I knew it would hurt her immensely.

Minutes later, after I’ve said all that I can say, Dina sits there on the edge of the cushion in a mild display of shock. But she’s more worried than anything.

She looks up at Victor.

“How long do I have to stay here?” she asks him. “I would really like to go home. And I want to take Sarai home.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Victor says. “And as far as Sarai, she is going to have to stay with me. Indefinitely.”

I swallow hard at his words, knowing that Dina won’t take them well.

“Then…but then what does that mean?” she asks nervously and turns her attention on me only. “Sarai, are you never coming home?”

I shake my head carefully, regretfully. “No, Dina, I can’t. I need to stay with Victor. I’m safest with him. And you’re safest without me.”

She shakes her head solemnly. “Will you visit me?”

“Of course I will.” I squeeze her hand gently. “I would never leave you permanently.”

“I understand,” she says, forcing herself to accept it.

She turns her attention back to Victor. “But I can’t stay in this woman’s house,” she argues. “If you only brought me here to protect me, then I’d rather just go home. I’m not afraid of these men.” She stands up and looks at me. “Sarai, honey, I would never tell the police anything. I hope you believe that.”

I stand up, too.

“No, Dina, I know you wouldn’t. Trusting you has nothing to do with why you’re here. You’re here because I want you to be safe. If something were ever to happen to you, especially because of me, I would never forgive myself. You’re all that I have left. You and Victor. You’re my family and I can’t lose you.”

“But I can’t stay here, honey. I’ve been here long enough. Amelia is kind to me, but this isn’t my home and I don’t want to be here any longer than she wants me to be here. I feel like a burden. I miss my plants and my favorite coffee mug.”

“Mrs. Gregory,” Victor says, getting impatient but remaining respectful of her feelings. She looks over, but he pauses as if contemplating an idea. “Sarai cannot be safe if she’s worrying about your safety. I’m telling you right now that if you go back to your home they will find you and they will either kill you the second they see you, or worse, they will take you hostage and torture you and put you in front of a video camera that they will use you to get to Sarai. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

Dina’s stiff, resolved expression falls under a veil of suffering and submission. She turns to me, pain twisting her features. Maybe she’s looking to me for validity of his words, hoping I can soften the blow, tell her that he was only being dramatic. But I can’t. What he told her, although harsh and to the point, was exactly what she needed to hear.

“He’s right. Listen, we’re going to take care of these men very soon, OK? I just need you to stay put for a while longer until we can.”

“Though I agree with you, Mrs. Gregory,” Victor speaks up, “I don’t think you should stay here any longer, either.”

Dina and I both look over at the same time.

Victor goes on, “Stay put too long in the same place when you’re hiding, you’re certain to be found.”

“Then where is she supposed to go?” I ask, my head spinning with possible scenarios, none of which seem plausible. “Surely you don’t mean to take her with us. As much as I’d love that—”

“No, she cannot go with us,” Victor says, “but I can set her up in a place of her own. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

Victor did, after all, get the house in Lake Havasu City for Dina and me.

“But I thought you said something came up, that we need to leave sooner than expected. There’s no time to find her another place. That would take days.”

“I have a house,” Victor says. “Though it’s far from Arizona, I think it will be best that you were out of Arizona for the time being, anyway. Fredrik’s contact, the same man who brought you here, will take you to that location. Are you willing to relocate?”

Dina sits back down on the couch, pressing her palms flat against each other and wedging her hands between her legs covered by a pair of tan slacks.

I sit down beside her.

“Please do this,” I say. “I will feel so much better knowing you’re safe.”

It takes her a long moment, but Dina finally nods. “I’m too old for this kind of excitement, but all right, I’ll go. But I’m only doing this for you, Sarai.”

I lean over and hug her. “I know and I love you for it.”

* * *

“Where is the house?” I ask after we leave Dina at Amelia’s place and get back on the road. He didn’t want to say it out loud in Amelia’s house, probably because he didn’t trust our surroundings.

“Tulsa,” he says. “It’s one of a few that I keep. Nothing fancy like the house in Santa Fe, but it’s livable and cozy and only we know about it.”

“Who is this contact of Fredrik’s, anyway?”

“He’s not part of the Order, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s just someone that Fredrik knows, somewhat like Amelia.”

“If they’re not part of the Order, then who are they?”

Victor glances over at me from the driver’s seat. “Amelia is just an old girlfriend of sorts, of Fredrik’s. A lot like the safe-houses run by the Order, Amelia’s house serves the same purpose. Though there’s much less to worry about with someone like her since she doesn’t even know what the Order is. All she knows is that she has an unhealthy obsession with Fredrik, and she’ll do just about whatever he asks her to do.”

“Ah, I see,” I say, though I’m not so sure that I do. “She sounds clingy.”

“I guess you can say that.”

“What about the guy? The one taking Dina to Tulsa?”

Victor watches the road, one hand resting casually on the bottom of the steering wheel.

“He’s one of our employees, per se. One of about twenty contacts we have recruited since I left the Order. None of them know more than they need to know. Fredrik or I will give them an order and like any job, they fulfill it. Of course, working for us is far from being like any job, but you get the picture.”

“They don’t know the danger they’re in being involved with you and Fredrik? And how do you get them to do whatever you want? What do they do exactly, besides driving Dina around to some random location on a whim?”

“You are full of questions.” Victor smiles over at me. A semi rushes past in the opposite direction, nearly blinding us with its headlights. “They’re aware of the dangers to an extent. They know they’re working for a private organization and that they are forbidden to speak of it, but none of our recruits are strangers to secrecy and discipline. Some are ex-military, and each of them are hand-picked by me. After I’ve done extensive background checks on them, of course.” He pauses and adds, “And they do whatever we ask them to do, but to keep their noses clean and our outfit protected, we usually only pay them to do simple things. Surveillance. Purchasing real estate, vehicles. And driving Mrs. Gregory around to random places on a whim.” He smiles over at me again. “How do we get them to do whatever we ask? Money is a formidable means of influence. They are paid well.”

I rest my head against the seat and try to stretch my legs out onto the floorboard, already dreading the long drive.

“One of our men was at Hamburg’s restaurant the night I found you.”

Just as quickly as I had laid my head down, I raise it back up again and look over, needing him to elaborate.

“Mrs. Gregory didn’t call me until after you had left for Los Angeles,” he begins to explain. “I was in Brazil on a job, still searching for my target after two weeks. I left the second I got the call from Mrs. Gregory, but I knew I likely wouldn’t find you in time so I got in touch with two of our contacts who were in Los Angeles, gave them your description and alerted them about watching the restaurant and Hamburg’s mansion. I knew you’d go to one or the other.”

I recall the man behind the restaurant after I killed the guard. The man who mysteriously let me go.

“I saw him,” I say glancing over once. “I ran out the back exit and he was there. I thought he was one of Hamburg’s men.”

“He is,” Victor says.

I blink back the stun.

“He and the other man were two of my first recruits,” he goes on. “Los Angeles was my priority when all of this began.”

“You knew I’d go there,” I say, and although I don’t want to jump to conclusions and make myself look like a delusional girl, I know it to be true. My heart begins to beat like a warm fist inside my chest. Knowing the truth, knowing that I was on Victor’s mind all that time more than I ever could have imagined, it makes me feel both content and guilty. Guilty because I accused him of abandoning me.

“I had hoped that you would leave it alone,” he says, “but deep down I knew you’d go back there.”

Silence ensues for a moment.

“Is he OK?” I ask about the man behind the restaurant.

Victor nods. “He’s fine. He had been employed by Hamburg for months. He knew the layout of the restaurant and knew that the only other way out of Hamburg’s room on the top floor was the back exit.” He adds suddenly, “By the way, he wanted me to relay an apology.”

“What on Earth for?” I say. “He helped me get away.”

“The order I gave him was to make sure you never made it up to that room in the first place. It was the white wig. He knew you to have long auburn hair, not short platinum-blonde. By the time he realized it was you, you were already being escorted into the room by Stephens. He couldn’t get inside because the room was being guarded, so he went around to the back of the restaurant, hoping that by some chance he could get in from there, but there were two other men stationed in the back. They stalled him with conversation until he finally got them to leave the post duty up to him. Shortly after, you came out the back door.”

I inhale a deep breath and rest against the seat again. “Well, you tell him there’s no need for an apology. But why didn’t he just tell me who he was? Or take me to you?”

“He had to hold Stephens off to let you get away, and it helps that he’s still on the inside. He doesn’t know what Hamburg and Stephens have planned, or anything about their operations. He’s just a guard, nothing more. But he’s still on the inside and that’s valuable to us.”

I break apart my seatbelt buckle and climb between the front seats, very unladylike I admit, with my butt in the air, and crawl into the back. I catch Victor checking out the view as I squeeze my way past and it makes me blush.

“I just have one more question to add to that list,” I say.

“And what might that be?” he asks with a playful edge in his voice.

“How long will we be forced to travel like this?” I stretch my legs across the seat and lay down. “I really do miss the private jets. These long car rides are going to be the death of me.”

Victor laughs. I find it incredibly sexy.

“You’re sleeping with an assassin, running for your life every single day from men who want to kill you and you’re convinced you’re going to die of discomfort.” He laughs again and it makes me smile.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I say, feeling only a little bit ridiculous. I can’t deny the truth, after all, no matter how nonsensical it may be.

“Not too much longer,” he answers. “We have to lay low until I’m completely free of Vonnegut. He has his hands in many things, and easy, covert, expensive forms of travel are at the top of his list of priorities for obvious reasons. I’d be more off the radar taking an Amtrak than boarding a private jet.”

Satisfied with his answer, I don’t say anything else about it and I stare up at the dark roof of the car.

“For the record,” I change the subject, “I’m not just sleeping with an assassin. I’ve grown very attached to one.”

“Is that so?” he says cleverly and I know that he’s grinning.

“Yes, I’m afraid it’s true,” I jest as if it were an unfortunate thing. “And it’s a very unhealthy attachment.”

“Really? Why do you think that is?”

I sigh dramatically. “Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps because he’ll never be able to get rid of me.”

“Clingy. Like Amelia,” he says, trying to get a rise out of me.

And he gets it. I raise up halfway and gently smack him on the shoulder. He recoils subtly, feigning pain all the while with a grin on his face. “Hardly,” I say and lay back down. “He’s got no chance in hell that I’d do whatever he wanted, like Amelia.”

He laughs gently. “Well, I suppose he’s stuck with you forever then.”

“Yes, and forever is a very long time.”

He pauses and then says, “Well, for the record, something tells me he wouldn’t have it any other way.”

I fall asleep in the backseat a long time later, with a smile on my face that seemed to stick there the rest of the night.