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.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN