by Huss, JA
It’s only just occurring to me to ask. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. And I only asked now in order to change the subject. But suddenly I’m having a very negative set of feelings about the fact that we weighed the diamonds for Wallace before transporting them, but then when he weighed them himself, we were light. I’m having a negative feeling about the fact that at around the same time, Christine was being thrown off a roof whilst on a job that wasn’t the job I sent her to. And I’m having a negative feeling that there’s a new employee in my organization who wasn’t hired by Lars.
I don’t know if these individual feelings of negativity amount to something greater or not, and not knowing is causing an altogether unique set of negative feelings.
“Never mind, man. What are we doing to find out who fokken ambushed our girl?”
“We think there may be CCTV footage. We’ve got a call out to a source inside the local police to try to get hands on it.”
“Yeah. Good.”
I let it linger for a moment. I debate telling him about the assault at Danny’s apartment, but I only know for certain that I can trust two other people right now. And if you ain’t in this lorrie, you ain’t one of them.
“Call me when you see that footage,” I tell him.
“I will. Is there anything else I can—?”
“Ta, bru,” I say and hang up.
Danny continues looking at me. “Who was that?” he asks.
But I ignore his question as well, because I have to focus on this part very carefully. It’s been a long while since I’ve been here, and it can be tricky.
I approach the end of the road and let the car idle for a moment in front of a towering growth of trees. I’m not certain what kind they are. I’m not a fokken dendrologist. I just know they’re big, and daunting, and provide a curtain of safety for what’s on the other side.
“What the fuck?” asks Danny.
“Shhh,” I say. “I’m trying to remember…”
I count from the left, five massive trunks to the right. I think it’s five. Or was it to the right that I was supposed to start and count left? Aw, kak. I’m just going.
“Whoa,” says Danny, as I drive past the dead end and into the dominating tangle in front of us. “What are you doing? I thought we were going to some goddamn impenetrable fortress. Where are we?”
“We’re there,” I tell him, as I motor us forward into the looming blackness.
CHAPTER TWENTY - CHRISTINE
“What’s going on?” I rub my eyes. “Where am I?” I hate that hazy fog when you wake up and nothing makes sense. I have this weird out-of-body feeling like I’m still dreaming about…
Oh, shit. That was a weird dream. I think it was about—
“Apparently we’re here,” Danny growls, breaking that last lingering thread of recollection. “Wherever the fuck that is.” He’s holding his phone out the window. Trying to get a GPS signal, I think.
That makes me smile as I sit up and swipe the hanging strands of hair out of my eyes. It throws me into the past and brings me into the present all in the same moment. GPS coordinates were always his security blanket. He has a thing for maps too. When I was a kid I always got him something map-related for his birthday. A little globe made of stone. Or an old book of maps from a garage sale. Once I even got him a button-down shirt with maps all over it.
I laugh, mostly to myself. Because he even wore that ugly thing.
“What’s funny back there?” Danny rumbles.
“Nothing,” I say, scooting over to the window to see where we are.
It’s a forest. A very thick forest. And the road we’re traveling on is not a road. It’s almost not even a path. It’s sorta cleared or we wouldn’t be able to get through the thick undergrowth on either side of the massive trees that are so close to the car, I think this Range Rover’s paint job is fucked, but there’s no dirt or gravel. It’s mostly ferns and leafy shrubs that smack up against the grille and drag along the undercarriage.
Danny was always trying to track me back then. Apps on my phone and check-in times. Like a father. Or a big brother. Which pissed me off because I’ve had a crush on Danny Fortnight since the moment I laid eyes on him and getting him to stop thinking of me as family was a constant battle I fought hard.
But it also felt protective in that other way too.
That way a man has of making a woman feel owned. Or claimed. A possessive way.
And I did like that feeling.
I liked it a lot.
“Here we are,” Alec says, pulling the car into a thicket of overhanging trees and turning off the engine.
Danny shoots him a look that requires no words.
“Trust me, bru. Come on.”
We get out, Alec shouldering the bag of guns, Danny still holding his stupid phone up trying to get his precious GPS signal, and walk into the trees. I hug the pea coat close to my body because there’s almost no sunlight in here. Even in the late morning sunshine. Just darkness that smells like wet earth, and too many plants, and maybe the hint of an approaching storm.
A few minutes later we step out of the woods and into a valley with a choppy lake surrounded by mountains. There’s a little bit of misty fog hanging low on the water, making the whole place feel a little surreal.
“Finally,” Danny says, mostly to himself.
I guess he got his signal.
“Through here,” Alec says. So we follow, end up on a path of smooth pea pebbles, and stand before a large metal door the color of rust.
Alec places his hand on some kind of reader built into the exterior concrete wall, blinks his eyes at a screen, and then there’s a flash, and a click, and the door opens just a crack.
“Well, that’s not creepy,” Danny says.
But it’s kinda not. I mean, this is Alec. He’s very black and white when it comes to security. Either there’s none at all or it’s one hundred percent sci-fi military-grade shit.
We’re just getting treatment number two right now and after what happened back at Danny’s garage, that’s OK with me.
We step through, but we don’t enter a house. It’s more of a… compound. We’re on the top of a hill and the lake is just barely visible over the roof of a house down below. Mountains flank us on all sides.
“Wow,” I say, the last through. I turn to close the door behind me, but it’s already closing on its own accord. “This is some setup.”
“Why the fuck is it here?” Danny asks.
Alec shoots him an annoyed look over his shoulder. Just like Danny’s earlier, it requires no words.
It’s here for us. Obviously.
If there’s one thing you can count on when you do business with Alec van den Berg it’s that he’s got a place for you to go when the job is done. And no, this isn’t quite the same. We’re not basking in the afterglow of a million-dollar robbery. But it’s close enough to that to feel normal.
There’s eleventy billion flat stone steps leading down to what ends up being the real front door to this place, and Alec repeats the security procedure.
The door opens a crack and we walk in.
“Holy fucking shit,” I whisper.
We’ve been to some spectacular places in the time we’ve known Alec. The Cook Islands were just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to fabulous exotic locations. And even though we’re probably only a couple hundred miles away from the city, this whole setup feels just as exotic as that beach off Crete where we used to vacation, or the volcanic island hideaway in Fiji where we lay low once after a major heist.
The entire west side of the house is made of glass and through that glass is the choppy lake, and the low-hanging mist, and the conifer-covered mountains all underneath a thick blanket of threatening storm clouds. It’s so pretty, in such a dark and foreboding way, I just can’t believe it’s real.
We walk down a flight of stairs to a large open living room, sparsely furnished with ultra-modern chairs, a slim, armless couch, and a ten-foot-tall sta
inless steel sculpture in one corner that looks like an ice cream cone, but probably isn’t.
All three of us end up standing in front of the window, silent for several moments, as we take in the beauty.
“We’re gonna stay here until we figure out what’s happening.”
“I think we all know what’s happening,” Danny says.
“I don’t,” I add.
“We don’t,” Alec says.
“Specifics aren’t necessary. When you’re in my life,” Danny says, looking at Alec, “everything that happens is because you planned it.”
“You’re free to leave any time you want, bru,” Alec snaps. “But Christine is staying with me.”
“Because you’ve done such a great job taking care of her so far, right?”
“Hello?” I say. “I’m right here.”
“Better job than you did,” Alec answers, ignoring me. “You walked away. Left her to fend for herself.”
“OK,” I say, turning to Danny. “Just… can we please just stop this?”
It takes him several long seconds to quit glaring at Alec and finally turn his gaze to me. “He’s got us into some shit again, Christine. You have to know that.”
“How do you know it’s him—”
“It’s always him.”
“—and not me?”
He blinks. “What?”
“I think the two of you have some catching up to do,” Alec says. “So I’m gonna go find the office and see if I can fit all the missing pieces back together.”
He disappears by way of a hallway and then Danny and I are alone.
Danny sighs.
“What?” I ask, a little edge in my voice.
“How much do you remember?’
“All of it, I think. Well, most of it.”
“Do you remember who he sent you to kill?”
I search for that. Partly because the answer is no—I don’t remember this Jimmy Sotoro at all—but also because it feels wrong. Not incredibly wrong, because Alec has sent me to kill people before. But enough that I can’t say for sure that’s how I got here. So I answer, “No.”
“He said something back in the car while you were asleep. He said…” But Danny stops and kinda shake his head.
“He said what?”
“He said the two of you haven’t been apart all these years. Is that true?”
It’s a simple question but confusing at the same time. “Would that surprise you?”
“Uh, yeah,” he huffs.
“Why?”
“So you’ve been in contact with him before this?”
“Contact? Danny, we lived together.”
“What?”
“Not like that.” Not exactly, anyway. I’m just not in the mood to dissect the complicated relationship Alec and I have. “But I’ve stayed with him a lot over the years. I mean”—I throw up my hands-—“where did you think I would go? When you left I had no one but him.”
Danny turns away. Faces the glass. Stares out at the lake. “So you’ve been his personal assassin this whole time?”
I have to laugh at that. “You know what I do. It’s not like I can just go get a job, Danny. How was I supposed to live?”
“You have money, you don’t need to do that.”
“I have money because I do that.”
He turns and leans back against the glass. Folds his arms across his chest. Takes a deep breath. Lets it out. Glares at me.
“Doesn’t work anymore,” I say. “That look of disappointment that used to have me begging for forgiveness won’t work anymore.”
Danny says nothing.
“You left me,” I say.
“You gave me no choice.”
“Bullshit.”
“You wanted him and I—”
“I wanted both of you. And you knew that. I made it very clear. So do not pretend like I was the one who made you leave. You did that all on your own.”
Silence as we stare at each other.
“Say something.”
But he just shakes his head. “I wanted more for you, Christine. I mean, think about it. Why would I save you from all that horrible shit that happened when you were a kid only to throw you back to the wolves?”
I deflate a little. “Danny—”
“I wanted you to go to school. To college. To be more than this.”
“College? Danny, come on. I’m not that kind of smart. College is a death sentence for me. I have one skill, OK?”
“No,” he says. Loudly. “No. That’s not all you have to offer this world.”
“Well, what else is there? It’s a real question. I know how to open safes. I know how to shoot. I hit my target. There is literally nothing else I can do. I can’t even fucking waitress. I tried. Right after you left. I tried. I tried a million different things. I tried being a housekeeper, I tried being a waitress, I even tried driving a taxi in fucking Johannesburg—”
“So you were in South Africa this whole time?’
“Not the whole time.”
“When you weren’t killing people?”
“Why are you so fucking judgey?”
“Because Christine, the thought of someone blowing your fucking brains out just… fucking…” He exhales. It’s his turn to deflate. “I can’t. I can’t fucking deal with that. It hurts, OK? Being without you all these years hurt, yeah. But I thought you moved on. Found a new life—”
“A new life doing what? This is all I know how to do.”
“I never wanted this for you.”
“I never wanted this for me either, but—” But that’s not true. It’s such a lie I can’t even finish my sentence. “I just wanted you back, OK? And staying with Alec was as close as I could get to that.”
He’s frowning. Danny Fortnight is not a frowner. A scowler, almost all the time. He likes to grimace, and sneer, and every once in a while he pulls off a smirk. Danny doesn’t do sad. He’s always said it was a wasted emotion. But that’s what he’s wearing right now. Not just disappointment in me, but sadness. For me.
I take a few steps forward, slip my hands inside his leather jacket, place my head on his chest, and sink. “I missed you,” I say, listening to his heart beat faster. “I’m glad we’re together again.”
There’s a moment of hesitation. A moment when this could go either way. But then I feel the tension flow out of his body. I feel him relax. And when he finally gives in… when he finally allows himself to put his arms around me and hold me back…
I feel complete.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“What for?” He laughs.
“Finally admitting this is OK.”
“It’s just a hug, Christine. We’ve hugged lots of times.”
I lean back so I can look up and see his face. But I don’t withdraw. If he thinks he can bait me into getting angry with him so we can put this conversation off even longer, he’s wrong.
“I’m not taking your bait,” I declare.
“What bait?”
“You know, the one where you say things I don’t want to hear so you can avoid having the conversation I really want.”
“Christine—”
“No,” I say, cutting him off. “Your turn to listen to me. I love you. And not like a brother, or a father, or a friend.” I have more to say to that. Vulgar things about how I want his cock inside me, and how I want him to fuck me hard, and pull my hair and all that kind of shit. But it’s a shock tactic. A headline from a teen-girl magazine.
How to Make an Older Man See You As a Grownup.
That was a real headline in a real magazine that I picked up in a drug store in Auckland when I was sixteen. And the official suggestion went something like this: Just say, “I want your cock,” a lot to shock and awe him.
I mean, they didn’t say that. They said dirty-talk him to death and then hinted around that he’ll get hard and won’t be able to control himself because all men are nothing but their primal urges.
Voilà. You’re a grownup. An
d two seconds later he’ll be fucking your brains out.
It’s stupid. It doesn’t work.
I should know, I already tried it when we were in Sydney that one year. I mean, I tried everything that last year we were together. Every. Thing.
And none of it worked. In fact, I think that might’ve been what finally drove him away. He stopped seeing me as a kid, all right. But I replaced the image of sweet-faced little sister with the image of out-of-control slut.
And this might be my last chance to change things, so I’m not gonna fuck it up.
“Danny.” I sigh, placing my face against his chest again, squeezing him tight. “I just… missed you.”
I want him, he knows that. Has known that for a very long time. And he knows how I want him too. With Alec. And if we don’t all want the same thing then this is never going to work. It will always be nothing more than a series of meaningless, uncontrollable, primal urges.
And that’s not good enough. I deserve more. He deserves more too. I don’t want to trap him, I don’t want to lead him into this.
I want him to want it.
And that’s not something I can control.
He sighs, releasing yet another level of tension locked up tight inside his body. “I missed you too. I’m glad you’re here. Not glad Alec came with you—”
“Why not?” I ask, leaning back again so I can see his face. “Why do you hate him so much?”
“He…” But he stops. Just stares down at me with that scanning look in his eyes like he’s trying so hard to read my barcode. Then he smiles. Just a small one. “We tried. It didn’t work.”
“It worked,” I say. “It so worked.”
“Look at us, Christine.”
“We look pretty fuckin’ great! We’re not starving anymore. We’re not homeless anymore. We’re not in survival mode anymore.”
Danny smiles, sucks some air in through his teeth, and shakes his head. “We’re lying low in a bunker, Christine. Don’t let the view fool you. We shot our way through a gang of thugs at my garage and left behind half a dozen dead bodies. And if I didn’t make that old Jeep into a tank we’d all have holes in our heads the size of baseballs—”
“I don’t need a recap,” I say.
“—and I don’t know what you call that, but I call it survival mode. Two days ago I’d have agreed with you. Two days ago Alec van den Berg was nothing but a bad memory. And now he’s back—”