“Let’s not make any assumptions just yet.” Josiah rubbed at the bridge of his nose, looking down at the pile of ash. He could still feel the drag of flesh against the knife in his hands and the sudden imploding as a body turned to this fine, glittering crystalline dust. “We could all be having some kind of hallucination.”
“A mass hallucination? Now that’s ridiculous.” She blew out a long, soft breath. “Hassan’s having trouble with this. So am I. I don’t think we should separate.”
Josiah thought this over, staring down at the distorted bullet. A thin curl of steam lifted from it; the metal was still warm and the house was chilling rapidly due to broken windows. “This will probably get messier than I thought.”
“You need someone to herd the fräulein. Not only that, but you can’t untangle this and keep her out of it at the same time.” Willie avoided the pile of grit on the carpet as she stepped away from him. “Just think about it.”
“You’re right. But I don’t want to drag you and Hassan—”
“How safe do you think we’re going to be, when they dig into the records on your staff and find his history? Not to mention mine.” She waved her hand over her shoulder, disappearing into her room.
Damn her. She’s right. As usual. I hire a butler and get a goddamn den mother. He took a deep breath, turned on his heel, and headed for the stairs. He’d given them ten minutes, and they were going to be ready in five. He had an armful of clothes that might fit Anna, and they would have to get to a transfer point and change to clean vehicles.
Then he had to settle down for a little while and think clearly. His head was getting a little odd inside, things shaking loose and nasty assumptions rising to the surface.
They turned to ash, dammit. Like a bad fucking special effect. What the hell is going on?
It didn’t matter. The important thing was, if he shot one of these things, they ended up dead. What happened to their bodies afterward, he decided, was academic. And bodies that turned into gritty dust were easier to get rid of than the other sort.
With that thought to keep him company, he trudged up the stairs, bracing himself to face Anna again.
Chapter Twelve
Anna huddled in the backseat of the dirty, primer-spotted Taurus. It looked like a heap from the outside, but it ran very quietly. Willie sat next to her, Hassan was in the front passenger seat, and Josiah—who hadn’t said much since bringing her back an armful of clothes and telling her to get dressed—drove.
Silence. Not even the radio broke the sound of tires on pavement. She stared unseeing out her window, orange streetlight paling with the gray advent of false dawn.
A pair of jeans fit if she rolled them up, and a soft cashmere sweater in pale gray was too big for her but still warm and comforting. The shoes were all too big, but there was a pair of boots that weren’t bad if she wore bulky wool socks. At least she was warm. She had her purse—her ID, her useless bank card, ten dollars in cash, and all the other detritus that accumulated inside a woman’s bag. There was ibuprofen in there, and she wished suddenly it was Valium. Or something stronger.
Tasha always swore by Ativan. It makes me care fuck-all, she’d often said, and took one before every opening night. Thinking about leggy, beautiful Tasha, who lived for ballet and moaned if she gained even an ounce, could have been consoling, under other circumstances. As it was, Anna just kept hoping whoever was after her hadn’t gone after her friends, as well.
Anna shivered, crossing her arms and wishing she could pull her feet up, curl into a ball, and forget all about this.
I know what I saw. Something was bobbing up and down outside the window. She had peered out the window, pushing the drapes aside and ignoring Josiah’s warning. It was a two-story drop, and she couldn’t see how anyone could hang off the roof and break into the room. She supposed it was possible, sure. It just didn’t seem very likely, especially with the bits of whispered argument she’d overheard.
I’ve gone crazy. I have to be.
Bodies turning into ash? Things floating outside windows? Crazy was a polite term for it.
Totally fucking nuts was probably the proper description. She was beginning to wonder if maybe she should have taken her chances going to the police anyway, despite Eric’s warnings.
Every time she thought so, though, the vision of Eric’s throat, the necklace of a bright red slash across it like a wide clownish smile, rose up in front of her.
If my house is tossed, I’m not calling the police. You get me? Back when he had been alive. Why hadn’t she tried to stop him, demanded to know more? Suggested he get a hotel room or something? Would he be alive if she’d asked some questions?
A spiny mouse made of guilt lodged in her chest, nestling in and nibbling at the empty place where her brother used to be. Anna’s hands twisted themselves together, tighter.
When Josiah finally pulled over and stopped on a quiet residential street, he and Hassan got out of the car without a word. Hassan carried the files, and Anna’s heart leapt into her throat.
Willie laid one long, slim hand on her arm. “There’s a twenty-four-hour copy place right around the corner. They’ll be back in under ten minutes, and we’ll be on our way to a transfer point; there’ll be clean cars and a cache of supplies. It’s standard procedure, liebchen.”
“So this is normal?” Jeez, what do you do for fun? Rob a few banks, invade a foreign country?
“Not so much normal as a matter of training, just in case.” The woman’s eyes glittered as she glanced out her window, then peered at the rearview mirror. “Just watch. Jo wants to get through this without any of us dying.”
That would be nice, wouldn’t it. Anna pulled her hands back inside her sleeves and studied Willie’s long, pale face. In the dim gray almost-dawn, the tall woman looked ghostly, and now Anna could see pitted scars under her makeup. It looked like she’d had really bad acne. “I’m sorry.” The car ticked as metal cooled, shrinking.
Willie shrugged. “Hassan and I both knew there was a chance. It was almost a given.”
“Because of what he does?” Murderer. She closed her eyes, wishing her heart would stop pounding. What does that make me? I’m just as bad as he is. Worse, I’m a hypocrite.
“It was a good career. Very…lucrative.” Willie’s tone, at least, was kind. Out of all three of them, she seemed the most approachable. The most…well, normal. “You knew?”
Only what Eric dug up. “My brother was suspicious. He…well, he got pictures. He had a contact somewhere in the government and he…I saw the file. Pictures of things, horrible things.” Almost as horrible as what happened to him, as a matter of fact. God. “I broke up with Josiah. We were just about to elope.”
“Ah.” Willie sounded as if a private hypothesis had been confirmed. “I see.”
“He didn’t tell you?” I never told anyone. Even Tasha. Only Eric, and he…
“I didn’t ask. Hassan knows a little, I think. All I knew was that Jo carried that phone with him everywhere, and he was always listening for it.”
“Which phone?”
“The one you called him on.”
The darkness behind Anna’s eyelids turned hard, uncomforting. She looked out at the quiet street. There were houses, lawns, mailboxes. People sleeping behind dark windows. Normal people who hadn’t run through a manicured garden, listening to bullets thud into the ground and zing off rocks as they fled for their lives.
I wish I was home. Click your heels together three times, Annie, and see what happens.
Willie shifted a little, glancing at the passenger-side mirror. “I used to tease him. Tell him that I would find him wife like good matchmaker should. He would only smile. One day Hassan took me aside and told me that there had been a girl, and something had happened. I didn’t tease him again, but I wondered. And now, here you are.”
Here I am. Wonderful. The number was the same, from Josiah’s cell phone. He’d kept it all this time, for some reason. It was only a few dollars and some
hassle to change a number, right? Maybe he just didn’t want to go through all that.
Anna closed her lips firmly over the urge to ask more.
The two men returned, Hassan carrying two crisp new manila stretch folders. The burst of night air, as they got into the car, was laden with cold and the iron tang of potential snow. “How are we doing?” Josiah asked quietly, buckling his seat belt. The light inside the car didn’t go on when the doors were opened, which gave Anna a faint funny feeling.
“No sign of anything out of the ordinary.” Willie buckled herself in, too. “You?”
“Nothing but a sleeping clerk behind a counter. God bless coin-op machines.” The car started with a swift, sweet purr. “Anna? You okay?”
No, I’m not. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay again, dammit. “Fine.” The word tasted bitter, chopped short, hard. I don’t even have any clothes.
She longed to go back to her apartment, crawl into her familiar bed, and pull the covers over her head. Let the world do whatever it wanted outside her door. If she did, maybe this would all turn out to be a bad dream. She didn’t even know what all these people wanted to kill her for.
Well, Eric was always a pest. Someone decided to shut him up after he came across something big. I know that much. “Josiah?”
“What?” He pulled away from the curb. Hassan stared at his lap, and Willie let out a soft sigh.
“Can I ask a question?” One of their old games—next he’d say, you already did, and they would both laugh.
Except those days were gone.
“You can.” He sounded, of all things, amused. His hazel eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror. Was he watching her?
I hope not. He’s driving. “What’s in the files?”
Hassan’s dark, curly head jerked up. He half-turned, looking over the seat at her.
“Information,” Josiah said steadily. “I’ll go through it with you when we’re safe, okay?”
I thought I was safe, but someone broke into your house, too. Now you’re running away. And there were other people, too—his friends, if that’s what Willie and Hassan were.
Now they were in danger. All because she hadn’t been able to think of anything else, and still couldn’t.
Except Eric’s discolored face, and that horrible slashed necklace. Her brother, who had held her hand on the couch one night while the policeman said there’s been an accident, and gone white as a sheet, but never broke down. Eric, who had just shook his head when they wanted to send her into foster care.
She was beginning to suspect she’d never feel safe again. Ever. “Fine.” Another short, sharp, bitter word. Her cheeks turned hot, and she was glad it was dim inside the car. She closed her eyes again, leaning back. The car kept moving like an oiled ball bearing, sliding along with a sound that threatened to crawl into her head. “Where are we going?” Am I allowed to know?
“To a transfer point. Everything’s taken care of. Try to rest.” Josiah said nothing more, but Hassan made a small snorting sound, as if choking on laughter.
Anna didn’t care. She just kept her eyes firmly shut.
* * *
The “transfer point” was a warehouse in the industrial part of town; Hassan pulled the garage door shut behind the car and Josiah cut the engine. A flurry of activity ensued, with the three of them working and Anna feeling foolish and useless—Josiah just handed her the original files and told her to sit in a new car, a sleek, anonymous white sedan. She did, resting her too-big boots on cold concrete, the open door creaking slightly when she pushed at it.
Willie and Hassan, after a long sotto voce conference, took the other car, a dark blue Jeep. They drove away through another door, Josiah silhouetted for a moment against the pale light of a cloudy winter morning as he pulled it closed. He came back to the car she was in, put a few more things in the trunk from boxes on the concrete floor, and finally got in on the driver’s side. “You still okay?”
“Fine,” she repeated. Just dandy. Will you quit asking me that?
He studied her for a long moment as she pulled her legs in and slammed the door. She arranged the messy pile of paper in her lap, settling her feet on either side of her purse; he started the car but kept it in park, still watching her.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I shouldn’t have said that to you.”
You’ve said a lot of things to me lately. I guess we’re about even, when it comes to verbal nastiness. “Said what?” She patted the papers into neatness, suddenly very concerned with their edges and creases. Eric’s notes were always coffee-stained and reeking of burning tobacco; for someone with such a logical, organized mind he was chaotic at best and hideously messy at worst.
The image of Eric’s office, paper and coffee cups everywhere, his shapeless battered plaid jacket hanging on a peg by the door, rose inside her head. Hot water scorched her eyes. She swallowed twice, quickly.
Josiah was silent for a long moment. The engine thrummed along under that dangerous quiet. “There’s a whole list of things I shouldn’t have said. I’m sorry about your brother.”
Her vision blurred, came back. The entire world wavered, uncertain. An iron fist closed around her throat. “Eric,” she managed.
“I’m sorry he’s…dead.” He did sound sorry, too. Not calm or ironic or just slightly amused. Josiah actually sounded like it mattered to him. “My job is to make sure you don’t join him. Revenge is pointless, Anna. There’s no profit in it.”
Who cares about fucking profit? He’s my brother! “You won’t help me?” This is a fine time to tell me, Jo.
“I am helping you. This is bigger than we thought. We’re going to lie low for a little while, and I’m going to call in a few favors.” He paused. “You don’t have to pay me.”
What does that mean? Did I take all the fun out of it by agreeing to let you do whatever you wanted? “I said I would,” she insisted, stubbornly. “You were very clear about what you wanted.” Not to mention it was looking like the only bargaining chip she had, at this point. He could just tell her to get out of the car and drive away, really.
He started the car with a vicious twist of the key; Anna almost flinched. He chose yet another exit, this one with an automatic opener that made a ratcheting sound as it pulled the thin segmented metal plates up. “I was…upset, Anna.”
Oh. And now you’re not? “You said you’d help me.” Carefully, cautiously, she measured the distance between her hand and the door handle.
“I am helping you,” he repeated, maddeningly calm, easing the car out between piles of discarded, rotting siding.
“How?” It was out before she could stop herself, and she bit her lip. Don’t piss him off. He’s the only chance you have now, unless you do want to go to the police. How about it? Both Eric and George warned you not to.
“By getting you somewhere safe so I can work.”
“Oh, yes. Your…work.”
“Yes, my work. The only thing I ever lied to you about.” He braked smoothly, glancing in the mirror to make sure the door was closing, checked the deserted street, then pulled out and turned left. “I didn’t even really lie. I just didn’t tell you.”
It was probably good sense not to continue down this road. Unfortunately, something inside her was boiling, and she couldn’t help herself. “Oh, so omission makes it all right?” Calm down. Come on, don’t make him angry.
“Think about it logically for a minute—” His voice was rising.
So was hers. “Logically? You should have told me!”
“Oh, really? When should I have told you, huh? When I bought you coffee? On our first date? Maybe the first time we slept together, or that time you almost got mugged and I scared the guy off? When should I have told you? When would be a good time to say, Oh, by the way, I do contract work for domestic and international intelligence, I’m referred to as a liquidation consultant? You answer me that, when would have been a good time to tell you? Huh?”
She pulled into herself, crossing her
arms. Don’t make him even angrier. Jesus, Anna, you could make the Dalai Lama lose his temper. Scolding herself didn’t really work, because it sounded just like Eric.
“Answer me.” Josiah’s tone had gone chill. “When would have been a good time to tell you, Anna?”
Don’t respond. Suck it up. She scrubbed at her cheek with the back of one hand. Said nothing.
“That’s what I thought.” His voice was quiet, and quietly vicious. “Do me a favor and stop arguing with me. I have to think.”
It was hard work to keep the words neutral, even, and reasonable. “About what?”
He made a short, almost-annoyed sound, as if she’d changed to the Food Network during a documentary. “About my next move. This is just like chess; each move either narrows or widens prospective alternatives. Mostly narrows. I need to plan out my next few alternatives and contingencies, and you need to rest. We’ll get some breakfast on our way out of town.”
Wait, what? “I can’t leave.” Panic welled up inside her chest. “I can’t.”
“It’s only temporary. Right now I can’t be worrying about you being recognized somewhere.”
She studied the hood of the car, trying to name the exact Pantone color of the paint. There had to be hundreds of white sedans in the city just like this one.
Josiah’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. He stared at the road as if it had offended him; his eyes had lightened and were almost piercing green. Change-color eyes on a chameleon man, he looked different than he had in the warehouse, and more different still from in the lobby of the Blake. His profile was still clean and classic, but his mouth was drawn tight and his eyes blazed.
Her fingers relaxed. She had been clenching them, making a fist. She reached over, touched his shoulder under navy merino. “Don’t. Please.”
Well, now I sound like an idiot. Don’t leave me? Or don’t be mad at me? Or don’t leave me to the wolves, because I don’t know what to do?
He let out a long breath, then reached forward and flipped the heater on. Her hand dropped back down into her lap, limply.