by Toby Neal
Once the scooter was gone, Sophie turned to face the quiet street lined with ornamental orchid trees, their spreading branches bright with showy purple and white blooms. She walked down the mud brick sidewalk, scanning the spiked walls protecting gracious homes just off of the mighty Ping River. She could see the green gleam of the river and its community dock through the trees lining the street, and she felt her heart lift in spite of everything.
She hadn’t been here for close to twenty years, but a part of her would always recognize this place as home.
Her aunt’s and her parents’ former houses were adjacent properties sharing a fence line. Sophie walked to her aunt’s home. She stared longingly at Aunt Malee’s front gate, a wooden affair decorated with much native carving and scrollwork, inset within an elaborate but sturdy frame. A beaded chain threaded through a hole beside the portal would ring a bell inside the compound to request admission.
Sophie longed to pull that chain—to hear the chimes within her aunt’s home. She longed to see Malee’s dear, pretty face, feel her aunt’s loving arms around her in a hug, and smell her signature lemon and gardenia scent.
But she couldn’t risk making contact yet.
She had to assess for threats first, and the best way to do that was to go in the side gate. If only Auntie hadn’t changed the lock and her hidey-hole for the key . . .
Sophie checked the street. A battered Jeep rattled by; a row of duckling-like small children, holding onto a rope held by a servant, giggled and chattered on their way to some outing. Once the coast was clear, Sophie sidled her way along her aunt’s fence to a hidden side entrance used by the servants. A heavy brass lock inside a niche secured the door.
Sophie felt around a pile of rocks topped by a decorative stone orb beside the portal for the key her aunt used to keep there. Her breath whooshed out—the key was still there! Thank God some people didn’t have Sophie’s concerns about security.
Sophie unlocked the gate, pushed it open gently, and peered around it.
The aperture opened into her aunt’s gardens, a lush mix of flowers on one side, and practical rows of lettuces, tomatoes, bok choy, and staked runner beans on the other.
Sophie stared up at the house, searching for any signs of detection.
The dwelling was a smaller version of Sophie’s former abode, built high on wooden pilings in case of the nearby Ping River’s floods. The steeply peaked roofs and windows were of traditional design, and the exterior was brightly painted in charming contrasting colors.
The windows’ wooden shutters were closed. Sophie saw no signs of life inside or on the grounds, but the lushness and care given to the gardens belied abandonment.
Sophie adjusted her garments, hoping that none of her aunt’s servants were about—the last time she’d been here, her aunt had employed a couple of gardeners, housemaids, and a cook. If anyone confronted her, she planned to tell them the truth: she was Malee’s niece, come to visit. But no interference came as Sophie worked her way to the other side of the garden, moving along the fence between the two properties.
Sophie squeezed through the runner beans and bee-laden sunflowers to the loose board she remembered from the last time she had sneaked over to play with her cousins. As she pushed at the fence, testing each board, she couldn’t help smiling when the loose plank moved—it had appeared intact from the outside, and no one had nailed it back in.
Sophie was able to lift it away and peek through at her former home. Her heart thudded as she studied the large wooden house.
The shutters were closed and latched from the inside. Everything about the place had a neglected, abandoned look. She frowned as she took in the wild, overgrown grounds. Unlike her aunt’s place, the vegetable garden was a barren mound of leaves and yard debris, and the flower garden a sad morass of dried stalks and bent over seed heads.
The place looked like it had been deserted for years.
The property had been bought by a company, Mutual Imports, and the purpose on the documents she’d uncovered had been described as a “corporate retreat center.” Sophie wished she could go online now and dig a little deeper—the extreme neglect indicated the house had never been used for anything at all. She even spotted her father’s antique Mercedes, a project car he’d worked on during his brief times at home, still parked under the deck and covered with a filthy canvas.
Sophie tightened her voluminous garments and sucked in her stomach, wriggling through the gap in the fence. Her larger breasts and still-soft belly caught on the splintery wood; she had to work hard to squeeze through the narrow opening, grateful that a spreading berry bush concealed her vigorous movements from the house.
After replacing the board, Sophie hurried through the tangled undergrowth and slipped beneath the house. As soon as she was in the shadows cast by the building, she heard the creak of a floorboard overhead.
Someone was inside.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sophie caught her breath at the sound of footsteps from above. She slid out of sight to take shelter under one of the large peeled logs that held up the two-story dwelling. The space beneath had been kept uncluttered in case of flooding, but was used for storage of unimportant items: stacks of fish traps, gardening tools, her father’s old car, and even a small scooter, thick with dust.
Sophie’s heart squeezed at the sight of a large woven basket filled with discarded children’s toys. She remembered that red truck, that traditional doll with its face paint peeling and garments moth-eaten, the purple soccer ball faded to pink from sun exposure. Whoever this company was, they had not altered anything left behind in her childhood home.
She would use that knowledge to her advantage.
Sophie tiptoed forward to the storage shed built directly under the main living area of the house. Once inside the dark, musty-smelling space, Sophie unslung her nylon bag, setting it down on a heavy wooden project bench and startling a mouse that skittered away with a squeak.
She opened her laptop and booted it up. While it was loading, she unwound the stiff fiber optic cable camera she liked to use for surveillance. A tiny node at one end was her eyes, a second, her ears.
Once again, she heard the creak of a footstep overhead. Now she could catch the murmur of voices.
And then, a sound that woke her entire system with a zap of pure adrenaline: the distinctive cry of a newborn baby.
The hairs on Sophie’s entire body lifted. Her breasts ached and her nipples tightened. She actually felt her uterus contract. Tears sprang to her eyes. That was her baby’s voice!
She had to stay calm and logical. She had to get audio and visual on whatever was going on in that room. She couldn’t rush in blind.
Sophie closed her eyes and took deep breaths until the urge to tear down anything between herself and her child had passed.
Sophie climbed carefully up onto the gardening bench. She took out the sound dampened, battery operated drill she had used on clandestine jobs for the FBI. She targeted a spot in the corner of the ceiling that she remembered being directly below a large armchair. If the new owners hadn’t even removed her old toys, perhaps they had left the inside furnishings of the house untouched, as well.
Sophie pressed her nose against her shoulder, trying not to inhale the wood dust that blew by on a warm stream from the drill as it whirred silently into the native hardwood floor above her. The last thing Sophie needed to do right now was to sneeze and give herself away. She felt the give of the drill as it punched through, and she withdrew it and set it down.
Sophie threaded a stiff fiber optic cable up through the hole she had made. The cable was flexible enough to bend and manipulate. She would look through it, using the window provided by her laptop.
She descended quietly from the workbench and plugged the cable into an exterior feed on her laptop. She pulled up the visual and plugged in an earbud to hear the audio.
The camera had, indeed, come up under the old armchair. An expanse of smooth dark wood floor in front o
f her was distorted by the convex surface of the camera’s eye. Sophie struggled to interpret what she was seeing, and rotated the cable slowly, looking for the people whose voices she had heard.
A rapidly moving bare brown foot passed by her vantage point, coinciding with a creak from above. Sophie twisted the cable to follow the pair of feet, and leaned it back to track upward.
She was looking at a petite woman dressed in a calf length, bright pink skirt and white leggings. A long black braid hung down the back of her blouse.
The audio came in suddenly, and too loud. “Here. Let me take her a moment,” in rapid Thai.
The woman turned. Sophie clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp.
She was looking at her beloved aunt Malee, her namesake!
And cradled in her aunt’s arms, wrapped in a soft cream-colored blanket, was her daughter. Though Sophie had not spent long with her precious Momi, she instantly recognized her baby’s profile topped by lush black curls.
This could still be a trap. Pim Wat could have sent the baby here to stay with her aunt, to be cared for.
But where was Armita?
Sophie had her answer as her aunt walked forward, putting the baby to her shoulder, and murmuring a lullaby to the fretful infant as she patted her back.
Armita sat on a padded bench against the wall. Her former nanny was dressed in simple black as was her wont. The flickering glow of an oil lamp lit against the gloom of the closed shutters lit her face.
Armita looked tired. Dark circles ringed her eyes and a scratch marked her cheek. She seemed sad too—disheartened. Perhaps she was about to give up on Sophie.
Sophie calmed herself with difficulty.
She forced herself to manipulate the camera, turning it three hundred and sixty degrees to survey the entire room, checking for anyone else in the space.
The two women appeared to be alone.
Sophie’s heart leapt with joy.
This wasn’t a setup after all! Armita had risked her life to get Momi away from Pim Wat and bring her to a safe place, so they could be reunited.
Sophie pulled in the surveillance camera. Shut down the laptop. Repacked everything into her nylon bag, her hands trembling with excitement.
In a moment, she would be holding her child.
Sophie picked up the nylon bag and did one more visual sweep of the grounds, looking for a sentry or any other sign of hostiles—but there was none.
Just the two women she loved and trusted, and her baby crying fitfully and refusing to be comforted. Crying for her mama.
Sophie’s whole body hummed with the need to get to her child. Some things were just elemental, biological, beyond understanding with the mind. Motherhood was one of those.
Hurrying on soft feet, Sophie climbed the stairs to the inner door that led to the kitchen, an open room off of the living area. She was not surprised when the door was locked, but she was undeterred. She took out her lock picks, and in moments, had the simple mechanism disabled. Sophie pressed down on the lever, opened the door—and found herself staring into the double barrels of a Remington twelve-gauge.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Day Twenty-Seven
Pim Wat stared out the bubbled glass window of the helicopter as it lifted off the stronghold’s landing and storage area.
She really hated helicopter travel—too loud for her sensitive hearing. Since there was no anticipated need for a comm link, she had put in silicone earplugs and wore sound-deadening earmuffs on top of them. Those measures still weren’t enough to screen out the loud, whirling roar of the blades overhead as they got underway.
Pim Wat had woken up that morning, sated but dissatisfied from her night of passion with the Master.
He had forbidden her any further contact with the prisoners, reiterating that he had a plan and he would let her know if help was needed.
She was dismissed. Discounted. Even though the Master had reassured her of his love for her, she felt the sapping grief of her losses—and the restlessness of having no outlet for her frustration. She was a cat denied her mouse, and she knew it.
Perhaps shopping and distraction would help. She was overdue for a visit with her dear sister, Malee. Every time Pim Wat left after visiting that boring, poky house right next to the one she used to live in, Pim Wat felt better about her choices: she was an exotic phoenix who flew free with a lover who was a dragon among men. Malee was a mere chicken, with a tiny coop and a rooster who was seldom home.
Malee would give her a listening ear, a comforting hug as she always did. Maybe they’d get their nails done or go shopping in Bangkok. There were no secrets between sisters. Well, except for Pim Wat’s entire life . . .
Pim Wat couldn’t help smiling, enjoying the thought of Malee’s ignorance. Malee believed Pim Wat to be an idle socialite, dabbling in watercolors and yoga retreats while spending her time on useless vacations and charity projects, interspersed with depression episodes that were a result of her delicate constitution. It would be so entertaining to tell Malee the truth someday, to list her kills and means of execution. She could just imagine the expression of shock and horror on her sister’s bland face. Malee was a simple, loving, unimaginative woman.
Pim Wat’s unseeing eyes tracked over the jungle mountains, rivers, and rice paddies below as she mulled over the conversation with the Master from the night before.
It was clear that she had been pulled off of the situation with her daughter. She knew better than to defy the Master; he might love her, but she had experienced his punishments before. He was an expert in the use of pain, but that had never been as effective on Pim Wat as the mere withdrawal of his presence, of his favor.
She suffered without him—it was that simple. “Curse it,” she muttered, unable to even hear her voice through all the helicopter’s racket. “I hate loving him.”
Loving the Master made her weak like nothing else ever had. But she couldn’t seem to turn off her emotions or harness them. Just the sound of his voice made her insides melt, made her turn herself inside out to please him.
Maybe someday she’d find a way to “wrap him around her finger” as Frank used to say, but until then, she would just take these trips when she needed to—to demonstrate her independence, to remind herself of the reasons she lived the way she did.
Frank. What a farce that marriage had been. Pim Wat had been so depressed by childbirth and her life with that big, loud American with his endless career demands, that she’d taken to her bed to escape it—which turned out to be a handy cover as the years went by—and then, she met the Master. He recruited her, and gifted her with the role of a lifetime, her true calling as an assassin for the cause.
Too bad Sophie had turned out to be such a disappointment—but Pim Wat really couldn’t blame her daughter’s rebellion, after the marriage Pim Wat had arranged to Assan Ang had turned out to be such a disaster.
And then Sophie gave birth to a daughter.
Beautiful little thing, too, with a gentle disposition. Pim Wat had a good reason to steal the baby, and then when the child wasn’t a match to the crown prince, she had seen a second chance to be a mother properly. She would have been, too, if that evil bitch Armita hadn’t stolen her granddaughter . . .
“Thirty minutes to landing,” the pilot said, and his voice vibrated obnoxiously through her earplugs. Pim Wat squinted irritably at him.
She would call her sister as soon as she landed. Wouldn’t Malee be surprised and pleased to see her!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Day Twenty-Seven
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot.” Armita’s voice trembled, but the shotgun aimed at Sophie’s midsection looked rock steady.
Sophie dropped her lockpicks and raised her hands. “Armita! It’s Sophie!”
“Show me your face.”
Sophie was the one with the trembling hand now, as she fumbled with the detachable face veil. The transparent black panel fell away, and Sophie pushed the headscarf back.
&nbs
p; Armita’s resolute face broke into a smile. She lowered the shotgun. “We were beginning to worry that something had happened to you. Your aunt and your child are in the other room, waiting for you.”
“I can hear that.” Momi’s crying had ratcheted up a notch to a screech that brought all of Sophie’s nerves rearing up. “I want to know everything that’s happened, but first I must see my baby.” She bent to embrace Armita’s petite form, feeling the woman’s wiry strength and slender bones. “There will never be enough thanks in the world for what you’ve done.”
Armita cleared her throat. “Go quiet your child before she wakes the neighborhood.”
Sophie hurried past her nanny to face her aunt in the living room. Malee’s face, much like Pim Wat’s but rounder and softer, was wreathed in smiles as she joggled the howling infant. “At last, you got here! We were beginning to wonder.”
Sophie put her arms around Malee, sandwiching the baby between the two of them as she greeted her aunt with a heartfelt hug. “I am so happy to see you.”
Momi’s shrieking stilled as she was pressed between the two women in their loving embrace. Her scrunched-up eyes opened, and she gave a little squirm and wriggle, snuffling around, clearly hungry.
Sophie backed away and held out her arms. “May I?”
“Of course! She is yours.” Malee pressed the wrapped bundle into Sophie’s arms with alacrity.
The world narrowed to the tiny face pressed against her breast, to golden brown eyes fastened on hers.
Curly black halo of hair.
Stitchery of tiny brows, more a placeholder than an actual feature.
Soft, velvety, tawny-skinned cheeks.