The First

by A. Claire Everward

  “It's all right,” she said, tried to soothe him. “Don't speak.”

  But the man struggled frantically. “Keeper, you must find the Keeper—” He began coughing, and bubbles of blood appeared in the corner of his mouth.

  “Amalfi Coast”—he struggled to breathe—“the village in the mountains. Find her . . . find . . . Aeterna,” he whispered with his last breath, and his grasp on her hand loosened.

  Aelia looked at Kyle as he checked the man's pulse. He shook his head and she turned her eyes back to the young man who died on her living room carpet.

  Kyle stood up. “We need to get out of here.”

  She was staring at the body, tears streaking her cheeks. Kyle kneeled beside her and put his hand on her back. “Aelia, we have to leave. Whoever did this to him will come after you.”

  She looked at him, uncomprehending. He stood up, pulling her up with him. She was in shock, of course she would be. He'd forgotten for a moment that this was all new to her, that only hours before she'd been living an ordinary, unremarkable life. And now there were people chasing her, trying to kill her, and there was a dead man in the middle of her living room, a dead man whose blood was on her hands. She stared from the body on the carpet to her hands, looked around her, grabbed a towel, and began wiping her hands with focused intensity.

  He stopped her gently, took the towel from her and sat her down on the sofa, sitting down beside her. He took her hands in his.

  “Aelia, listen to me. This man was following you.”

  “What?”

  “In the park, I saw him when I followed you.”

  To his surprise she said, her voice hollow, “Yes, I know. He was there, and I thought I saw him yesterday at the supermarket, and in the cathedral, he was there too. I'm sure he was there. Why is he dead? He didn't do anything. Why is he dead?”

  Kyle frowned. “Cathedral? In Rome? Aelia, you met this man in Rome?”

  She looked at him, not comprehending. How could he know she had been in Rome? How did he know about the cathedral? She shook her head, her mind reeling, trying to latch on to something, to anything. “No, I just saw him there, he was looking at me, him and someone else, an old man . . . how can he be here? Why was he following me?”

  Kyle continued quickly, worried that she was overwhelmed, knowing he couldn't let the shock paralyze her. They had to leave. Now. “I don't think he came here to hurt you, I think he actually came here to guard you. That's certainly the way he was behaving. My guess is, if you hadn't stopped those people in the park, he would have gone right in there to help you.”

  She looked at him, confused. Kyle frowned. There was no time for this, and even if there were, he couldn't offer any further explanation. He was, in fact, as confused about what was happening as she was. All he knew was that they had to get out of there now and that they needed to find answers, fast. And the dead man had been their only lead.

  He breathed in, then took a leap. “Trust me.”

  She didn't react.

  He knew he needed to convince her, needed her to trust him so that he could save her life, that same life he himself had almost taken just hours earlier. “You knew I was watching you,” he said, and as he spoke, realization turned into decision and into acceptance, and he continued, the words flowing now. “You knew I was watching you outside your window this morning, you knew I was the one who started the brawl at the park, and you knew I was there at the parking lot.” He paused, then let the words out. “And you know me. Just as I know you.”

  Her eyes focused.

  “And you know you can trust me. Aelia, you know.”

  She breathed in deeply and nodded, her eyes on his.

  “Good,” he said, relieved. “Good. Come on then, pack a bag. We're leaving.”

  She stood up and began walking to the bedroom, then stopped. “Leaving for where?”

  “Italy.”

  She stared at him.

  He shrugged. “The Amalfi Coast. That's in northern Italy.”

  Chapter Six

  While Aelia packed a bag, Kyle checked the dead man's pockets and found a wallet and a passport. Italian national, Benjamin Laree. The face in the photo was young, smiling. Alive. He was only twenty-three. Kyle looked at him with regret, then put the passport and wallet in his own pocket, thinking that maintaining the guy's anonymity for a while longer might be a good idea.

  He then made a call from his phone and updated Neace at the house, but only partially. He wasn't about to let on what really happened in the past day, and certainly not what he was doing now. Neace was, after all, one of the organization's operatives, and on this mission he was taking his orders directly from Jennison, who was an intimidating figure. And Kyle's gut feeling told him to be careful. There were already too many unknowns in the equation for his taste, and this last one, the question of who killed Laree, disturbed him the most. Still, he had to check in to avoid suspicion.

  And he had an assumption he wanted to check.

  He told Neace succinctly that the target appeared to have left her apartment, that he'd broken in to learn more about her, and that a man had attacked him while he was there and the body had to disappear. He claimed to have no knowledge of who the man was but was dismissive about it, since—the way he told it—it didn't interfere with his mission, killing the target and disappearing as he'd done countless times before.

  The line was silent for too long a moment.

  “What are you going to do?” Neace finally asked.

  “Follow her,” Kyle answered. “There are indications here that she's gone to a friend's place up north. I'll get her there.”

  “Didn't she just return from a vacation or something?”

  Kyle let irritation into his voice. “We know she's taken an extended leave from work, so she can do whatever the hell she wants.”

  “You think she might be spooked?”

  “Why would she be?” Kyle lied. “I haven't actually tried to kill her yet, and this dead guy here made his move after she was already gone.”

  “Yeah,” Neace said after a silence. “Well, you're the boss. You do what you do, I'll take care of her place.”

  Kyle ended the call, his brow furrowed. He didn't know Neace that well, but he was a good judge of character and his instincts never failed him.

  And there was something about the operative's questions. No, not questions.

  Interrogation.

  He entered a code into his phone. When the designated software deleted everything from the device, rendering it useless, he took out the card and destroyed it. The dead, now untraceable phone he put in his pocket, he would get rid of it somewhere along the way.

  He wanted to make sure it couldn’t be used by the organization to track him down.

  “Rhys just asked for a cleanup at the target's apartment. Says he killed a guy there, that the woman’s gone and he's going after her. So, what, you think he's lying?”

  On the other end of the line, John Semner looked up at the light in the windows of the target's apartment. He ended the call without answering Neace and contemplated the situation.

  He had landed shortly before and had come directly here. He hadn't staked out the place long before he identified the other man who was following the target, as Kyle had updated when he’d checked in earlier in the day. He had to get the guy out of the way. He didn’t really care who the man was, but as long as he was there Semner couldn’t go in himself and take care of what he was sent here to do. So, once darkness had fallen, and after watching for a while and ascertaining that this guy, quite young and obviously not much of a professional, wasn't really expecting anyone to be watching him, Semner killed him.

  He then retreated a distance, intending to watch from afar to make sure no one had seen what he did, but no one even noticed. The car simply remained parked where it was, with the body inside. He finally began relaxing, thinking he'd gotten away with it, and was considering going into the building to get the target—targets, he should perhaps call
it as it was—when, to his shock, the car door opened and the dead man—well, not so dead, obviously—stumbled out and proceeded to enter the building. Semner cursed under his breath. Sloppy. This just made everything more complicated. If the man was seen all hell would break loose, and if Kyle was here to see him, that would certainly complicate matters immensely.

  Either way he had no choice but to proceed. If he failed because of a mess he himself made, there would be consequences, and Jennison wasn't known for being forgiving. There would be no second chance, especially on this mission. Which meant Semner would have to achieve what he came for, no matter what.

  He stayed where he was, watching, waiting to see if there would be any reaction to the man who was stumbling around all bloody before deciding what to do next. He had been contemplating his options when Neace called and had unknowingly provided him with valuable information. That Kyle was in fact there, and that Jennison's suspicion was in all probability well founded and he had turned, and was now helping the target. And of course, that the man Semner had failed to kill had managed to reach the target's apartment and Kyle was aware of him.

  The lie about the woman not being there shouldn’t have been obvious, but it was, at least to Semner, who was right there outside the building when Kyle made the call. After all, if she weren’t there, the man who’d been following her wouldn’t have been there either. So Kyle was hiding the truth about the target. And then there was the lie about Kyle killing that man. Or the fact that he had uncharacteristically provided Neace with so much information, or that he had called him in the first place—the target’s disappearance, if it had been true, would warrant a call directly to Jennison. So what was Kyle playing at?

  Still, none of it meant that Kyle would know who the dead man was or why he was there, especially if the guy died before he could provide any information. Nor would Kyle know who killed him. And he would not be likely to think that the organization was involved. Kyle had always been the organization and especially Jennison's pride, their most prized and protected asset. He would never think they would turn on him. True, there was the problem of exactly how the man was killed . . .

  Ah. So that was it. Of course Kyle would check how the man died, he would never overlook such a detail. That’s why the call to Neace, the lies. To try to ascertain if someone else from the organization might be there, after all. And Kyle would know who. Damn. Of course. Kyle didn’t get where he was by being stupid.

  Semner’s eyes narrowed. Whatever Kyle did or didn't know didn’t matter, nothing mattered, not anymore. Semner would not stop. He would get the job done. He should have been the one chosen to do it from the start, this most critical mission in the history of the organization. Him, not Kyle. That had been a mistake, he had known from the start. No matter. Kyle's failure presented Semner with a unique opportunity. Get both the coveted target and Kyle himself. He shook his head in disbelief at his luck. He wanted this badly. Jennison's precious protégé had finally slipped, and he, Semner, would be the one to pick up the pieces and show Jennison and the organization who its most valuable asset really was.

  Yes, he wanted this badly.

  Kyle was restless. His instincts warned him to leave, now. As soon as Aelia was ready he steered her to the door, not allowing her more than a last glance at the body in the middle of her living room. He made sure the corridor was empty, and led her to the staircase, directing her to stay behind him and constantly glimpsing up and down, his hand on his gun. But the descent was uneventful, and they reached the underground parking level undisturbed.

  They walked through the empty shadows without a word, but then Kyle halted and put a hand on Aelia’s arm, signaling her to stop. They stood quietly and listened to a commotion outside. Police sirens were approaching and cut off close, too close, and dogs barked. This had to do with the man in Aelia's apartment, Kyle thought. Laree had been covered with blood. Someone must have seen something.

  He frowned. They had to get out. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain the dead man in the apartment, and he himself certainly couldn't afford to get caught. Worse, the chaos that would ensue following Laree’s discovery would be the perfect setting for the killer to get to Aelia, no matter how many law enforcement officers were around. He himself would be able to get to her no matter who was around, and he knew that Laree's killer could, too, if his suspicion about who the man was, was correct.

  He glanced at Aelia and found that she was looking toward the sounds outside. He realized just then that she might choose to run, go to them to get away from him. I wouldn’t blame her, he was thinking when she turned to him and her gaze was calm, trusting. The realization that she was in fact putting her life in his hands, choosing him over them, awakened in him a fierce reaction, adding to the already unfamiliar sensations he felt around her which he couldn’t begin to explain.

  He had been planning to steal a car in the parking lot, knowing they couldn't use Aelia's car, which would in all likelihood be familiar to her new pursuer. But that was out of the question now, since they could not risk being stopped by the police or whoever was out there when leaving the building by the underground vehicle exit. Instead, he was contemplating the best way they could leave on foot when Aelia spoke.

  “There's a service entrance at the side of the building that goes down straight to this parking lot. I don't think it's used much. The one that leads into the main lobby is the one that's normally used.”

  He nodded, and she led the way to a side door that opened to a narrow, dusty corridor, and up some steps to another door that opened just under ground level, to the far side of the building outside. There were no police out here yet, although they could see red and blue lights reflected on the pavement a distance away, at the front of the building, and it sounded as if police officers were being deployed. Kyle led Aelia hurriedly away in the opposite direction, then into the park and out again in a more isolated area, taking care to remain concealed in the darkness.

  He chose a dark blue coupe standing in a small parking lot adjacent to that same pub where the protest took place earlier, now shut down. Aelia waited in a dark corner while he swiftly broke in and started the car, then she ducked in and huddled in the back seat. After a while she sat up and began to ask Kyle if it was all right to move to the front seat, but he cut her question short. “Stay down.”

  She frowned at the urgency of his voice and settled back down.

  “We’re being followed—”

  She didn't hear the shot, but she felt the car swerve as a tire blew. Kyle muttered a curse and steered the car expertly to the roadside. “Stay inside!” he called out again as he opened the door and jumped out, gun drawn. Aelia sat up and looked through the window. A car passed them and stopped with a screech of its tires, standing halfway across the road, blocking their way. The driver's door opened, and a man came out, poised to shoot again. Without hesitating Kyle took two steps forward and shot him point blank in the forehead. Then he turned around, putting his gun back in its holster, opened the coupe’s back door, and pulled Aelia out.

  “Let's go.” He led the way to the dead man's car, and they got in and drove away.

  Someone had seen the open car door and the blood inside and had called for help. Semner was increasingly displeased with every passing moment. An ambulance was now standing close by, its lights flashing, and the police were scurrying all over the place, looking for the person whose blood they had found in the car. Semner clenched his fists. There was no way he would get into the building anytime soon. But then Kyle and the woman wouldn’t be able to get out either. A couple of squad cars were blocking the gate to the underground parking, and he could see the police in the lobby, talking to the night doorman and standing at the elevators and at an open door to what he assumed were the stairs. The crime scene people were there too, with luminol lamps. Which would of course help them trace the injured man's bloody path. He looked on in frustration. It was too late for the cleanup, which meant more consequen
ces. All he could do now was wait for them to find the dead man and finish their work. He trusted that Kyle at least would find a way to hide, keep the police away from him, him and her. Otherwise, things would become even more complicated.

  Though not impossible. He'd worked with worse. And nothing would stop him getting to his coveted targets.

  Nothing.

  The dark blue eyes that looked through the windshield at the road as it whipped by were ice cold. Experience had brought him face to face with so much over the years that he was rarely surprised by anything, yet human nature never ceased to amaze him, and greed most of all, the greed for power. Which was why the fact that Jason Neace had decided to take matters into his own hands and go after them himself didn’t faze him. Neace must have thought that if he managed to stop them himself, Jennison would see his worth, and he would be accepted into that select club of the organization's elite. And it was no wonder that he thought he had a chance. He knew more than anyone where and when Kyle was on this job, and thought he knew his plans. But he didn't know anywhere near enough about Kyle himself, or else he wouldn't have dared go against him.

  Kyle's hands tightened on the steering wheel. He had no compunction about killing Neace. He'd learned long ago that it was best to dispose of problems at the earliest possible convenience and with finality, otherwise they just returned to complicate things. And since complicating things meant in this case further attempts on Aelia and himself, and having to deal with someone in addition to Semner, getting rid of Neace was the best way for him to deal with this.

  Semner. He would have liked to be wrong, but he knew he wasn't. He had known Jennison had turned on him from the moment he'd heard just that slightest bit of hesitation in Neace's voice earlier, when he spoke to him on the phone. Neace was there to obey Kyle, not question him as he had. And that feeble attempt Neace had just made on their lives just confirmed it for Kyle beyond a doubt. Neace never would have dared do this unless Jennison had led him to believe Kyle was fair game, even if he didn’t exactly know why.