“Yes, she is,” he says, stepping into a clean pair of dress pants, leaving them unbuttoned and loose around the muscled V-shape between his hips. “And for now we have to play along.”
“Who do you think she is?” I ask. “She says that one of us knows her. It’s not me; that much I’m sure of.”
Slipping his arms into the sleeves of a dress shirt he says, “That might not be true”—I turn from the mirror and step into the doorway of the bathroom, looking across at him—“if she was someone obvious, we’d know already who she is—unless it’s Woodard or Fredrik who hasn’t seen her yet. But I think it’s more likely that she’s someone that one of us knows through someone else.”
Curious, I step into the room, dressed in my black panties and bra, my hair still wet from the shower.
“But what concerns me more than who she is,” Victor says while buttoning his shirt, “is how she knew about Mrs. Gregory, Tessa Flynn and James Woodard’s daughters. Or, how she knew that only six of us—and which six—sit in on meetings and run things behind the scenes.”
On the way back to Boston, with ‘Nora’ in the trunk, she told us that Dina and Tessa weren’t the only loved ones she got to—James Woodard, distraught over the disappearance of his daughters, is on his way to Boston as we speak.
“And how did she know that you, Niklas and Fredrik have no one you care for on the outside for her to kidnap?” I point out.
Victor sits on the end of the bed to put on his black dress socks.
He nods once.
“Yes, that’s disconcerting,” he says. “If she knows that much about us, I’m sure she knows a lot more. We need to find out what before I kill her.”
“You mean”—I narrow my eyes at him—“we need to find Dina, Tessa and James’s daughters, and whatever else she knows before you kill her.”
He looks up.
“Come here,” he says.
Reluctantly, I walk over to him and he fits his hands on my hips, pulling me to stand in-between his opened legs. His warm lips fall on my bare stomach.
“I have no intention in letting this woman hurt Mrs. Gregory,” he says and I run my hands through the top of his short brown hair. “We’ll do everything that we can to find her and get her back. Do you not trust me, Izabel?” He looks up into my eyes.
With my fingers still speared through his hair, I carefully tilt his head back on his neck. His hands squeeze my hips.
“Yes, I trust you, Victor, but I also know how you are. I know that you can’t just become someone you’re not simply because you’ve developed feelings for me.” My hands comb through his hair as he looks up at me, his neck arced backward. “And I know—.” I can’t finish.
“You know what?” he asks in a quiet voice.
“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head.
I take a step back, intent on getting dressed, but his hands tighten about my hips, holding me in place.
“Tell me,” he says.
“I can’t.”
And I won’t. I don’t even know what compelled me to bring it up like that.
“It’s nothing,” I say and finally he lets go, his hands falling away from my hips as I walk over to the closet. “We need to go talk to this bitch. I don’t care if she’s pulling all the strings. She’s going to start talking if I have to beat it out of her”—I shake my finger at him, turning from the closet—“And I couldn’t care less if she’s handcuffed to a chair with no way to fight back—I’ll still beat her to death if she hurt Dina.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less of you,” he says.
Victor stands from the end of the bed and tucks the tail of his white shirt behind the waist of his slacks, tops it off with a thin belt and then steps into his dress shoes.
As I’m slipping a thigh-length black dress over my head, Victor steps up behind me and kisses the back of my neck, his fingers trailing softly down the bare skin of my arms.
“I’ll see you in ten minutes,” he says.
He turns and starts to walk toward the door, but I walk quickly over to him and wrap my arms around his waist from behind, resting the side of my bruised face against his back. His big hands enclose mine.
“I do trust you, Victor,” I tell him in a quiet, intent voice.
He squeezes my hands one last time and leaves me to finish getting dressed.
~~~
Nora is sitting alone in a generously-sized room with thick brick walls painted white. A square metal table sits in the center with two black metal chairs—one on each side—and a row of dome-shaped lights running along the high ceiling, bathing the room in bright light. There are four vents set in the wall close to the ceiling to pump heat or air into the space, but it’s neither too hot nor too cold right now to need it. The floor is made of white tiles, blemished by scuffmarks and scrapes from the various pieces of furniture that were taken out of the room months ago, turning what was once some kind of storage space into a confinement and interrogation room. A heavy steel door is the only way in or out, unless one is the size of a toddler and can fit through the vents near the ceiling. Nora is not. She’s a little bigger than me; taller and heavier by a few pounds, and I know I couldn’t fit through an opening that small.
As requested, Nora was allowed a bath—Niklas was happy to volunteer to be the one to stay in the bathroom with her while she did, not because he wanted to see her naked, but because she hit him in the face and he hoped that watching her bathe would make her uncomfortable. It didn’t. I think he’s already beginning to hate her more than he hates me.
She was also given food and wine. And only because she knows where Dina is, I gave her some of my clothes to change into. A pair of black leather pants, long-sleeved black see-through silk shirt, and a pair of black six-inch heels. Her special request was a tube of dark red lipstick—I thought about giving it a few strokes across a toilet seat before giving it to her, but it would take too long to walk back to the restroom.
Niklas has been standing guard inside the interrogation room for the past hour while she ate her meal—lamb with rice and mashed potatoes—and drank her wine all as if she were on a date and enjoying a night out that she didn’t have to pay for. Dorian was persistent about getting his turn to sit in the locked room with her, but seeing as how he wants to beat on her as much as I do, Victor told him to stay out.
Victor is inside the room now, sitting in the empty chair across the table from her when I finally make my appearance. I push up on my toes to look into the room through the small square window, covered by thick Plexiglas.
“Has she said anything?” I ask Niklas.
He’s standing outside the room with Dorian now. The tall steel door is closed and locked from the outside. There is no way to hear anything being said inside, except from the video surveillance room located two floors up.
Niklas shakes his head, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.
“I don’t like not being able to hear what they’re saying,” I say, pressing my ear to the door, knowing it’s too thick and I’m wasting the effort.
“The only thing she’s said to me really,” Niklas offers, “is that she’s not pleased with the accommodations.”
Dorian paces the brightly lit hall, his black boots moving heavily across the floor, a look of anger glazing in his features. A thick vein is visible near his temple. His jaw constantly moves as if he’s gritting his teeth.
“We’re going to find them,” I tell him, trying to sound optimistic, even though I’m not so sure I feel that way myself.
He glances at me, but continues to pace.
“I don’t like being out here,” he says, “when I should be in there finding out what she wants.”
“Victor knows what he’s doing,” I say.
He nods. “But I still want to know what she’s saying.”
Just then, there’s a knock at the door from the inside. When Niklas sees that it's Victor, he punches in the code on the panel on the wall and there’s a clicking sound. Th
e door opens and Victor steps out into the hall and then closes the door behind him.
“So what’s the word?” I ask, growing more anxious by the second.
Victor shakes his head.
“She won’t start telling us anything until we’re all in the same room with her,” Victor begins. “And she wants a larger room, preferably something with a couch.”
“Picky little bitch, isn’t she?” Niklas chimes in.
“I told her she wasn’t getting another room.” Victor looks at each of us briefly. “We’re not going to give her everything she wants. It’s unacceptable. And it will also make her think that there are no boundaries, no limitations to what we’ll do. She may be the one with all the cards, but she’s also sitting in a room handcuffed to a chair—she’s not completely in control, and I won’t give that kind of control to her. No matter whose lives are on the line.”
I bite my lip and remain quiet.
Dorian grits his teeth harder.
Niklas licks the dryness from his lips and looks nonchalantly down the long hallway—the only part of any of this he cares about is what this woman might know about the organization.
James Woodard; short, stubby and balding in the back center of his head, comes walking briskly down the hall, his too-long khaki pants shifting underneath his loafers as he walks. He wears a blue and white plaid shirt, short-sleeved, and tucked sloppily behind a belt underneath his oversized belly. Sweat glistens in his hairline and in tiny beads under his nostrils.
“Is she here?” he asks, winded, “the woman who kidnapped my daughters?” He points to the steel door. “Is she in that room?”
“She is,” Victor says with a slight nod.
“So what are we waiting for then?” Woodard says, looking at each of us in turns.
He presses the tip of his index finger in the center of his glasses and moves them back on his face.
“Apparently, we’re waiting for Fredrik,” Dorian says with acid in his voice. “But we’re gonna be waiting a long damn time.” His bottom lip is swollen and a blue-yellow bruise runs along his jaw.
“No,” Victor says, clasping his strong hands in front of him, “that’s something else I refused to give her. She didn’t like it at first, but she agreed to start talking when Woodard arrived. But she won’t tell us everything until Fredrik is here, so we’ll need him eventually.”
“It shouldn’t be hard to find him at all,” Niklas cuts in with disapproval. “You’re his employer. And last I checked we didn’t have vacation schedules and 401k plans. If he doesn’t pick up the damn phone when you, of all people, call him, his ass should be dealt with.”
Victor looks to Niklas. “Fredrik will be here. Of that I have no doubt, Niklas. For now, let’s find out what this woman wants. And what she knows.”
Woodard’s pudgy hand comes up and wipes sweat from his bushy brows. Moisture is already seeping through the armpits of his plaid shirt.
“Woodard,” Victor says, “I’ll say the same thing I said to Izabel—no information on this organization will be given to this woman. Is that understood?”
A knot moves down the center of Woodard’s thick throat and he nods uneasily, wiping more sweat from his brows. “Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”
That one will have to be watched, for sure. He seems unstable, afraid and desperate—three of about five ingredients needed for someone to cave and spill everything they know. But I understand his fear and I can’t help but feel sorry for him instead of worried what he might give away.
Victor punches in the code on the door and all five of us head inside the room.
4
Izabel
Nora’s dark red lips stretch into an enormous close-lipped smile when we enter the room with her. Her long, white-blonde hair is like a milky wave of silk down the sides of her face and over both shoulders, stark against the color of her lipstick. Her dark eyelashes and groomed brows seem set artistically above and around the light brown of her irises. High cheekbones give her creamy skin even more definition. And although, I admit, mesmerizing to look at, she’s not without flaw. A thin half-inch scar runs along the left side of her chin; another one, about two inches long, runs horizontally across the center of her throat. And, the most noticeable, she’s missing the tip of her left pinky finger.
She raises her arms as far as the chains will allow at about shoulder height, her palms up, and then tilts her head to one side.
“Glad you all could make it,” she says with a big, confident smile and then lowers her hands on the table, the cuffs rattling against the metal. “With one exception, of course.”
“Let’s skip the dramatic monologue,” I say icily, stepping up ahead of the others. “None of us care to hear how witty you can be, or what kinds of cheesy fucking lines you can come up with while you dangle the meat in front of our faces. What the fuck do you want?”
Nora sighs dramatically, pursing her red lips on one side, but never really loses that confident smile of hers that I want to slap right off her face.
Victor steps up next to me, but he doesn’t force me away, or tell me to be quiet. He won’t go that far in front of her unless he thinks I’m making a mistake, and I admit, sometimes it’s warranted because I have a hard time controlling my anger.
Nora’s brown eyes follow him and she looks him over from his shiny, expensive dress shoes, his black Armani suit jacket and to the top of his nicely-groomed hair. Surely she’s ‘looked him over’ in this sultry manner already, but now that I’m in the room with him she must be trying to push the jealous buttons. It doesn’t work because I know I have nothing to worry about.
“Shall we begin?” Victor says.
“Of course,” she says, as always with an air of sophistication. “I would say have a seat, but seeing as how there’s only one extra chair…”
“We’re fine to stand,” Dorian says with impatience, stepping up beside us. “Let’s get on with this.”
Niklas moves off to the side to stand against the wall. He’s as interested as anyone in what Nora has to say, but he appears bored. He crosses his muscled arms over his chest and brings one foot up, propping the sole of his boot against the wall behind him.
Woodard has barely moved the whole time. He continues to stand in the center of the room, sweating profusely and looking like he’s about to be forced on a rollercoaster and is afraid of heights—if any of us cracks under the pressure, it’s likely to be Woodard.
Nora’s eyes scan us all, one by one. Propping her elbows on the chair arms, she interlocks her fingers over her lap dressed in black leather, her hands dangling there.
“As I’ve said,” Nora begins smoothly, confidently, “one of you knows who I am, or at least will realize who I am by the time this is all over.”
We all look at each other, all except for Victor who keeps his eyes trained on the enemy—always focused, always disciplined, always absorbing every miniscule detail, always the one of us who has his shit together at all times no matter the situation.
“This is how the game will be played,” she goes on. “I want information, and if I don’t get the information that I came here for”—she smirks and points her index finger upward—“yes, I said came here, because I wouldn’t be sitting here in this room if I hadn’t let you bring me.”
“I suppose you wanted to be chained to a chair, too,” I cut in sarcastically.
She raises her wrists as if to show us the handcuffs.
“These little things?” she says mockingly.
“Get to the point,” Victor cuts her off.
Her brown eyes move from me to Victor and then after a pause, she goes on.
“Each one of you will give me information. Privately—“she points her finger upward again—“except the one of you who I’m here for. That particular person will have no choice but to give me the information that I want in front of everyone else. And if he or she refuses, your loved ones will be executed.”
I swallow nervously and picture Dina’s fa
ce in my mind.
Dorian steps closer, his hands balled into fists at his sides, his teeth grinding, and rage in his face.
Victor puts out his arm without moving any other part of his body, stopping Dorian in his tracks. Dorian doesn’t go any farther.
Nora’s eyes pass over Dorian as she warns, “And if I die, they will also be executed.”
She interlocks her fingers over her lap again.
“Lastly, if my contact doesn’t hear from me in forty-eight hours, that will also get your loved ones killed. So, are you willing to play?” Her gaze falls on all of us once more.
“It’s going to depend solely on what kind of information you want,” Victor speaks up. “And you seem to overlook the very clear fact that you are my prisoner. What makes you think that we won’t simply use you to get these people back? If you know anything about me, and apparently you do, then you should know that I will not give up information on my organization, nor will I let anyone else”—he places his hands on the table and leans over, looking her dead in the eyes—“and I have no problem killing a woman.”
My gaze falls toward the floor; the glare of the light on my black boots the only thing visible in my unfocused vision.
“Proud of that, are you?” Nora mocks, and I can’t be sure, but I thought I felt her eyes on me momentarily.
She cocks her blonde head to one side as I lift mine.
“You must like killing women, Mr. Faust.” She smirks, but is quite serious—and I know she’s trying to get under my skin.
“Killing is what I do,” he answers, sliding his hands off the table and returning upright. “I neither like nor dislike it. But I don’t kill innocent people, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Oh, not at all,” she says, her tone laced with mockery.
Her eyes do meet mine this time, and I can’t help but feel like there’s something hidden in them, something that has to do with me. Or maybe—and very much a possibility—it’s my paranoia at work again.
“But to answer your question,” Nora goes on, “you can use me all you want to get your people back, but it will do you no good”—she leans forward over the table, her long hair laying against the metal—“you see, I’m not afraid of death, and I have nothing else to live for other than the information that I came here to get. So by all means, use me all you want, but you’ll only risk their lives further by doing so.”