Girl of Lies (Rachel's Peril)

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  Carrie saw her reaction and said, “Mr. Wyden, is this necessary right now? I think she’s exhausted.”

  “It is, unfortunately,” he said. “At this point we don’t know who was behind the kidnapping, so there are significant concerns about your security.”

  Andrea said, “The kidnappers are dead.” But then she thought back to her earlier conclusion that the kidnappers were hired. She swayed a little on her feet. It was long past midnight at home, and she’d had little sleep the night before.

  Wyden said, “We’ll make this quick.”

  “Fine.”

  He led the way down the hall. “In here, please, the hospital’s provided a meeting room.”

  “We’re staying with our sister,” Carrie said.

  “No problem.” He held the door open and waved them forward. Then he said, “Are you Julia or Carrie?”

  Carrie jumped a little. “What?”

  “You won’t remember me, you were too young. But I was in charge of your family’s security detail in Brussels in the early 90s.”

  “Oh… I’m Carrie.”

  He frowned quickly. “I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t have much of a chance to brush up on the files before I drove up here, but I did read the Post’s coverage of Sergeant Sherman’s court martial.”

  Carrie was never off balance. Poised. Intelligent. Brave. But now she recoiled almost, and Andrea felt a flash of rage. How dare he?

  “We’re done here.” Andrea said it at the exact same moment Sarah said, “Will you just leave her alone?” Sarah’s face was flushed and angry.

  Bear looked between the three sisters and froze in place. Then he looked at Carrie and said, “My apologies. I… I’m very sorry.”

  Carrie sighed then said, “It’s okay. It’s just… very fresh.”

  “I understand.” His voice was soothing. “Please. Have a seat.”

  The three sisters sat, Andrea and Sarah flanking Carrie.

  “Let’s start over. And again, my apologies. My name’s Bear Wyden, and I’m a special investigator for the Diplomatic Security Service. Until three weeks ago I was assistant regional security officer at the Embassy in Pakistan.

  “Three weeks ago?” Sarah said. “Were you fired for insensitivity?”

  Bear smiled wryly. “Maybe I should have been. In fact, I’m moving on to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. But in the meantime, I’m heading the investigation into your kidnapping, Andrea.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know if there’s much to investigate. They gave the impression it was some kind of human trafficking ring?”

  “Oh?” he said. “What gave you that idea?”

  She thought back. Then said, “At some point one of them… the hairy one… said he was going to rape me before they… disposed of me.”

  Carrie reached out and gripped Andrea’s hand.

  “I see,” Bear said. “Why don’t we start at the beginning, then? Just tell me everything you remember. When did you first see the kidnappers?”

  “Well, the hairy one, he was on the plane.”

  Bear nodded. “Tariq Koury.”

  “That’s his name? He claimed he was a student.”

  He shook his head. “He’s no student. I can’t really say anything more.”

  “Koury… he’s middle eastern?”

  “Saudi,” Bear answered. “Had you ever met him before this flight?”

  Andrea shook her head. “No. Neither of them.”

  Bear asked her a series of questions. When did she first see him on the flight? He took her through everything Koury said on the plane, then back through it a second and then a third time. Then they moved on. The car. She described how she’d passed her phone up to the front of the car.

  “Wait,” Sarah said. “I got text messages from you when you got off the plane. I was waiting at Terminal C.”

  “You didn’t get any text messages from me,” Andrea said. “My phone was dead. In fact…” She froze. How could she be so stupid? “Wait. I went off to the bathroom pretty early on the flight. And left my phone in the seat. It was dead when I got back.”

  Bear made some notes. “It sounds like Koury may have switched batteries or SIM cards, then sent the texts to Sarah to keep her unaware of what was happening.”

  “This was all planned, then,” Carrie said.

  Bear met Carrie’s eyes. Then he nodded. “I think it best that we assign a security detail for now.”

  Andrea’s eyes widened. She didn’t need or want that. “I’m only going to be here a few days. It’s not necessary.”

  “I think it is,” Bear said. “And I’m certain your father will agree.”

  This provoked nothing more than a sneer from Andrea. “I’m not terribly concerned about my father’s opinion. May I go?”

  Bear sat back. “Fine. Let me ride along behind, for now, until we’ve got the security detail in place.”

  Carrie gave him the address, while Andrea stood there rolling her eyes and wishing she could just go back to Calella.

  2. Carrie. April 28. 8:50 pm

  Carrie Thompson-Sherman looked in the rearview mirror at her much younger sister Andrea. Andrea sat in the middle row of seats, staring vacantly out the window. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she were suffering from exhaustion and shock. Which she probably was.

  Carrie understood shock and exhaustion. She put the Suburban in reverse, slowly backing out of the too small parking space and into the main area of the parking deck. Up until last summer, for years she’d driven a restored 1976 Mercedes 280S. Gleaming black, fully restored, she’d loved that car until it was destroyed in the same collision that killed her husband and nearly crippled her sister Sarah.

  When she finally got back on the road, her newfound fear of accidents drove part of her buying decisions. She’d purchased a new black Chevy Suburban. It felt like it weighed five thousand pounds. She felt safe behind the wheel, and it wasn’t often these days that Carrie felt safe.

  The clock on the dashboard said 8:55 pm. She glanced back at Andrea again. The poor girl was traumatized and exhausted. To Carrie’s right, Sarah didn’t seem to be in much better shape. Sarah liked to push herself and act like she could do anything, and, in fact, she could. But sometimes she pushed herself too much. Her injuries in the accident that killed Ray were severe, and it had taken months before she was even able to walk again. Today had been a very long day for her.

  “Tomorrow can you give me a ride back out to the airport to pick up my car?” Sarah asked.

  “Sure. Or we can send someone to get it.” Carrie didn’t want to say that she thought Sarah was much too tired to make the drive in the morning.

  “So…” Sarah turned to Andrea. In a completely deadpan voice, she said, “How was your flight?”

  Carrie held her breath for a moment, as silence descended on the car for just a moment. She swallowed. Then she looked in the rearview mirror. Andrea stared at Sarah in shock, her eyes wide. Then Andrea’s eyes darted over to Carrie. One second of eye contact was all it took. Andrea burst into laughter, and then all three of them were laughing.

  “Oh my fucking God,” Andrea said. Carrie bent over in her seat, resting her head against the steering wheel. Then a loud belly laugh burst out, uncontrollably.

  Gasping for air, she said, “Andrea, I was so worried about you.”

  “I was scared,” Andrea said, sobering a little. Then, in a mock-serious tone, she raised her left eyebrow. “Tell me, please. How was your flight?”

  All three of them rocked with laughter again. Carrie felt tears running down her face, at first slow ones, then quickly. She hiccoughed then laughed again.

  “Carrie?” Sarah had stopped laughing, and was leaning toward her now.

  “I’m okay,” Carrie replied, waving a hand in the air. “I just… it’s been a long time since I laughed.” She sniffed then chuckled again, at the same time as she fiercely wiped away tears. “Sometimes I just… I needed to laugh, okay?”

  She felt a slender
hand touch her shoulder as she put the Suburban back in gear. “It’ll be okay, Carrie. Rachel will be okay.”

  Andrea’s voice was soothing. But Carrie knew the dangers of soothing voices, the dangers of putting faith in anything you couldn’t see, the dangers of believing miracles could happen. Miracles didn’t happen. Not in a world where your husband could be exonerated the same day you told the doctors to pull the plug and let him die.

  So she got them out of Baltimore and onto 95 South headed for Washington. It was late enough they’d likely make it to the condo in forty minutes. And then Carrie could deal with the next big question of the day.

  Where the fuck was their father? And why hadn’t he come out to Baltimore the moment he learned of the kidnapping?

  3. Andrea. April 28. 9:05 pm

  Carrie, who sat in the seat in front of Andrea, gripped the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were white. Her hands shook every time she let go of the wheel, the occasional traffic light catching off her wedding ring with tiny tremulous sparkles. She was bordering so close to hysterical that Andrea almost wished Sarah would take the wheel. But Sarah herself wasn’t in the best of condition.

  The last time Andrea saw Sarah was the day after the funeral. Andrea went to the hospital and spent half an hour with her. At the time she’d been laid up in the intensive care unit. Her left leg had been crushed in the accident, and the doctors had performed a fasciotomy to prevent tissue death. But leaving an open and draining wound for days at a time had its own dangers, and she’d fought a days-long battle with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection that kept her in the hospital for nearly two months after the accident. It was a miracle, really, that she was up and around.

  Andrea knew for sure she wasn’t capable of driving. She’d been awake far too long and had one too many shocks. Right now it was all she could do to keep her eyes open, and the longer they drove, the more she had to fight the heaviness of her eyelids.

  She lost that battle. She didn’t know how long she was out, or when she fell asleep, but when she woke up, they were sitting at a red light in Bethesda, Maryland, and their parents’ condo was straight ahead of them. Andrea was groggy, her head still cloudy from confusing, messy dreams. Dreams featuring her father and Hairy Chest, dreams where she was being choked.

  She shook as Carrie pulled the Suburban to a stop in front of the doorman.

  It took Andrea’s brain several seconds to register that half a dozen news vans were parked in front, a line of reporters along the sidewalk.

  Carrie looked around, and Andrea followed her eyes. Several police officers were blocking the sidewalk, preventing the reporters from coming any closer. But that didn’t stop Bear Wyden, who had pulled up behind them, from approaching the vehicle. One of the county police ran to him, but Bear held up a badge. After a few words, the cop turned away and Bear knocked on the window.

  Carrie slid her window down.

  “I’ll escort you up, and the cops will keep the reporters from coming any further. All right?”

  Sarah looked a little panicked.

  “Don’t worry,” Carrie said. She put a hand on Sarah’s. “You’ll be fine. Andrea? You okay?”

  Her eyes met Andrea’s in the rearview mirror. Andrea felt panicked. She didn’t want to deal with reporters. That was never in the plan. But there was nothing she could do about it now.

  “I’m good,” Andrea replied.

  “Come on, then,” Bear said.

  The three of them burst out of the vehicle. Andrea and Carrie moving at a very fast pace. Sarah, who had to come around from the passenger side, and who was so tired she’d begun to move with a painful limp, was slower. The reporters began to shoot pictures of her, one of them shouting, and Bear quickly moved to her.

  “Put your arm on my shoulder,” he said, wrapping a sizeable arm around her waist.

  With his assistance, they crossed the ground to the doorman quickly.

  “Upstairs,” he said.

  “Let me be clear, Mr. Wyden,” Carrie said. “This is my home. I appreciate your concern, but I’m not sure we’re going to accept security guards from the State Department.”

  “Doctor Sherman,” he replied. “You’re a smart woman. We don’t know who tried to kidnap your sister or why, but I know Koury. He doesn’t come cheap. Whoever wanted her kidnapped or dead still does.”

  Carrie swallowed and took a deep breath. “Very well.”

  She turned and walked to the elevator, her sisters following.

  The four of them rode up the elevators in silence. Andrea felt her eyes wanting to close again, and she had to force them open. Finally, the bell rang and the door opened to the eighteenth floor and they were moving down the hallway.

  She remembered the condo, of course. Her earliest memories were here, when she was three, maybe four years old, before they went to Moscow for a year. Over the years she’d come back a few times, when the family had visited Washington, and most recently she’d slept here during the two weeks she’d been in Washington last summer. When Ray and Sarah were injured, and Ray died.

  So it didn’t come entirely as a shock when they walked in the door and she saw her father standing at the mantel, his eyes apparently resting on an ancient copper head. He turned around as they came in, and then he closed his eyes and said, “Andrea. Thank God.”

  A confused rush of emotions overcame her. For one thing, where was Jessica? Sarah’s twin. Or their mother?

  She looked at Sarah and asked, “Where’s Jessica?”

  Sarah shrugged, but her face guarded something, and Andrea didn’t know what it was. “California with Mom.”

  “She’s not coming?”

  Carrie looked sad and Sarah rolled her eyes. “I don’t know,” Carrie replied.

  Andrea looked back at her father. It was so confusing. To find him here, with his arms out like he meant it. To find their mother just… gone? It didn’t make any sense. She had thought Jessica and her father had gone back to California together. Everything was mixed up, and no one had told her anything.

  Richard Thompson stood for a moment more, then put his arms out stiffly in front of him. “Come here, my daughter. Welcome home.”

  She shook her head and gave him a look of disdain. Then she brushed past him and down the hallway.

  1. Andrea. April 29. 12:10 pm

  ANDREA THOMPSON WAS awakened by a shout, and she didn’t know if it was real or a dream.

  She lay in the unfamiliar, too-soft bed, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling. Her heart was thumping, adrenaline flooding her system, her pulse urgent at her throat.

  From the angle of the sun in the brightly lit room, it was nearly noon. She lay there, letting her heart calm down, listening. Listening. A murmur of voices from beyond the bedroom door, but no shouting. Whoever it was, sounded calm. Engaged.

  A dream, then.

  She sat up, eyes falling to the clock at her bedside. Noon or so. Six in the morning back home. She generally didn’t have problems with jetlag—Andrea traveled far too frequently for that. But given what she’d had waiting for her on her arrival in the United States this time, it was no wonder she’d slept so long.

  Foggy, she stood, eyes scanning for her bag, before she remembered that her bag was in the custody of the police. She’d have to go shopping today, because she couldn’t wear the same clothes every day. In the meantime, she’d ask Carrie for something to wear. They were close enough to the same size.

  When she walked out of the bedroom and down the hall, she immediately identified the voices. Carrie. Sarah. And another voice, a woman, clipped and professional.

  Andrea listened for just a second, then walked out into the living room.

  Carrie and Sarah sat on a couch, facing the mantel and fireplace. Carrie looked serious and attentive. She was a scientist, a systems ecologist working on infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health. She hadn’t gone back to work yet after her pregnancy, but she always dressed elegantly and professionally.
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br />   Sarah, on the other hand, was busy outlining the crosshatch scars on her legs with black eyeliner. She’d already outlined her eyes in the heavy black eyeliner curling up in cat’s eyes. The very pale blue of her eyes was startling against the dark circles around them. Her clothes were all black: a torn t-shirt, black Dockers shorts and combat boots. The scars on her left leg stood out in stark relief underneath the black outlines.

  The woman was across from them in another chair. Khakis, combat boots which ironically matched Sarah’s, and a black t-shirt with the logo DSS in gold letters across the left breast. Her tanned face was framed by dirty blonde hair. Somewhere in her early forties, she looked competent and probably deadly. Her wedding ring was a plain gold band. She stood up when Andrea entered the room.

  Andrea came to a stop, and the woman said, “Good morning. I’m Leah Simpson, with Diplomatic Security Services.”

  “Andrea Thompson.”

  “I’m in charge of your family’s security detail.”

  “Not Bear?”

  Simpson smiled at the use of the nickname. “Bear… uh… Mr. Wyden’s overall in charge of the investigation, among other things. You’ll be seeing a lot of both of us, I’m afraid.”

  Andrea nodded unhappily. Right now she wanted nothing more than to get on a plane and fly back to Spain. Instead, she had to deal with investigations into her kidnappers, parents who seemed to be missing—at least that was normal—and everything seemed to be out of control. She closed her eyes and said, “How long does this go on? When will I be able to go home?”

  Leah looked over to Carrie. Then she said, “I don’t know how long your family business will take, but unless we receive orders otherwise, a protective detail will accompany you back to Spain until we’re sure the danger is past.”

  Andrea closed her eyes. She tried to imagine Abuelita’s response to a bunch of armed agents in her flat. Then she snickered a little. Federal agents or not, Abuelita was a fierce old woman. She’d tear them to pieces.

  “Let me get some coffee,” Andrea said. “Then we can discuss all this?”