Girl of Lies (Rachel's Peril)

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  “Of course,” Leah said.

  As gracefully as she could, Andrea made her way to the kitchen. A pot of coffee was already on the counter, still half-full. As she poured it, Carrie walked in.

  “Sorry we couldn’t warn you first. I figured you needed the sleep.”

  “I did.” Andrea mixed sugar into her coffee as she spoke. “It’s okay, this isn’t your fault.”

  Carrie smiled uncertainly. Then her eyes darted away at the sound of crying.

  “Rachel’s awake.” Carrie hesitated a moment, as if she needed to stay and reassure Andrea.

  “Go, I’m fine,” Andrea said. She opened up the refrigerator in search of milk for her coffee as Carrie slipped out. Carrie looked tired… exhausted really. The good news was she had help—a full time nanny their father paid for. Undoubtedly that helped. But it didn’t take away the worry gnawing away at her soul. It didn’t take away the trauma of her husband being murdered.

  Andrea didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want to be dealing with the police, the feds, and whoever it was who had attempted to abduct her. But no matter what, she’d be there for her sister.

  She stepped back into the living room. Sarah was still intently drawing a detailed outline around the lines of the scarring on her left leg. Andrea walked over, sipping her coffee and watched her sister. Hair draped over Sarah’s face, almost hiding it. Her eyebrows were scrunched together, a vertical line of concentration centered in between them.

  “Is it getting better?” Andrea asked.

  “I can walk again. That took months.”

  Andrea swallowed. “What about the scarring?”

  Sarah leaned her head back and met Andrea’s eyes. “Mom wants me to see a plastic surgeon next month to start talking about repairing it. For a while they thought I was going to lose the leg.”

  Leah Simpson sat forward in her seat. “This happened when Sergeant Sherman was killed last summer?”

  Sarah nodded. “Ray.”

  “You were in the back seat?”

  “Yes,” Sarah said. “I woke up two days after the accident. Ray died a few hours later.”

  Andrea lowered herself into her seat and sipped her coffee. Her emotions were roiling, confused. She had only met Ray Sherman once while he was alive. She’d flown to New York last summer for Alexandra’s wedding to Dylan Paris. Alexandra, the third eldest sister of six, had fallen in love with a boy who eventually ended up in the Army. Dylan and Ray were best friends and had married sisters in ceremonies two days apart.

  She thought back to that ceremony, and the reception that followed. Alexandra standing up, hand on her sister’s shoulder, and saying words that spoke of loyalty and love and intense, passionate sisterhood. Andrea suddenly wondered how Alexandra was doing. They hadn’t spoken in months. Nor had Andrea talked with Jessica, currently at their childhood home in San Francisco finishing her senior year in high school. She didn’t know how either of them were doing. She found herself wishing she’d talked with Jessica more. They’d been close once.

  Sitting here now, watching Sarah outlining her scars in black, she wished she knew them. All of them. She wished she’d been there to comfort Carrie after Ray died. She wished she’d been there for the thousands of big things and small things that had happened in their lives, and she wondered, for the ten thousandth time, why her parents had taken that away from her.

  Leah’s eyes shifted to Andrea like a pair of searchlights. “And you live with your grandmother? In Spain?”

  Mind your own business.

  Instead of vocalizing the thought, she said, “Yes.”

  “It must be beautiful.”

  Andrea shrugged, a short gesture devoid of any meaning.

  “Why do you live there?”

  The eyeliner pencil froze in Sarah’s hand, and her eyes swiveled up toward Leah. Andrea shook her head. “I don’t know. I used to go for summers, then they got longer and longer. When I was about six or seven, my mom sent me to live there permanently, and then I visited here on the holidays.”

  Leah Simpson looked troubled, her face reflecting ill-formed emotions. Andrea looked away. She didn’t need or want anyone’s pity. The one thing she was grateful for was Abuelita. Her grandmother didn’t just raise her. She filled her life with love. Abuelita made sure, every day, that Andrea knew she was loved, no matter what was wrong with her parents.

  “When was the last time you came home?”

  “Home is Calella. Spain.”

  Simpson nodded. “Of course. I meant to say, when was the last time you visited the United States?”

  “Last summer. After the accident.”

  “Not the holidays?”

  Andrea rolled her eyes, but not quick enough to hide the sting.

  She remembered the phone call. A week before Thanksgiving, last fall.

  “Hello?” her mother had said.

  “Mother, it’s Andrea.”

  “Andrea, dear, how are you?”

  Andrea had leaned back at the question, staring at the ceiling, and said, “Bueno, mother. And you?”

  “I miss you, darling.”

  “I’m sure.” Her mother didn’t react to the sarcasm.

  “Mother…” she said.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “I think I want to stay in Spain for the holidays this year. Carrie is still grieving and I have final exams in January. I think I just need some down time.”

  Silence at the other end of the line. Her mother didn’t react. She didn’t say, no, you have to come home, or even no, please come home. She didn’t say that she’d miss Andrea. She didn’t say anything.

  “Mother?” Andrea had said.

  Adelina Thompson’s tone of voice had been uninterpretable. “I see. Well, then.” She had fallen silent again.

  A few weeks later, Christmas had come. Andrea spent Christmas Eve with her grandmother and two of her cousins in the old town centre, walking around the Nacimiento, a massive Nativity scene spreading over nearly the entire square. The town centre was heavily decorated with colorful fruit and flowers, candles in windowsills, Christmas trees and along the edge of the town centre, a bustling Christmas market. Across from the market, the Hogueras, a Christmas bonfire celebrated the shortest day of the year. Shortly after sunset the bonfire was lit. Later, some daring young people would jump over the bonfire. Javier would be among them, laughing and strutting.

  As the stars rose that night, families all over town lit oil lamps in their windows, leaving the entire town sparkling with the lights. She’d ended up spotting Javier that night, kissing a girl in the alley. She wasn’t jealous—Javier was someone to have fun with, and a good friend. But he wasn’t boyfriend material, no matter what he thought.

  At midnight, Abuelita served a Christmas turkey with truffles and a variety of other dishes. Both of Andrea’s uncles were there. Miguel—forty years old, married to the flighty and vain Maria Carmen. Their two children, both pre-teens, threw fits when Andrea wouldn’t let them play in her closet. Luis, her younger uncle, was thirty-five. Single, nattily dressed, he wore an easy smile and had a confident gaze as he talked of building his advertising business in Barcelona. They all talked and laughed until the early hours of the morning.

  Christmas morning was spent primarily at the parish church of Santa Maria in old town. The front of the building, with its rounded arches and tower, was faced with old tan and brown brick, and dominated the intersection of three narrow streets. The three alleys were decorated with lights and candles, creating a magical scene.

  Later, she spoke on the phone with Carrie, still silent and wounded from the loss of her husband, saving strength for the coming birth of their child. Sarah, on the phone, had been snappy and irritable, and her parents distant. Julia had been in Boston, and Jessica sounded stoned. In the end, Andrea decided that the magical Christmas she’d experienced was far preferable to the cold, often quiet holidays she’d grown up with in San Francisco with her parents.

  Staying in Spain for the
holidays had been the right decision. Increasingly as she’d come closer to finishing secondary school, she’d felt that Calella was home and the United States just a place she visited sometimes. Last Christmas hadn’t just reinforced it… it had solidified it. After discussion with Abuelita, she’d struck the American colleges off her list, confining her search to universities in Spain, Paris and London.

  Now, answering Leah Simpson’s questions, she felt awkward, unsure of herself. How do you explain to a stranger the hurts and rejections that you can barely even admit to yourself? Somehow she had the feeling this self-confident, mature woman who wore a sidearm wouldn’t be sympathetic to the sometimes overpowering sense of loneliness and grief Andrea felt.

  Whatever she felt, Simpson at least mimicked feeling some empathy. Her eyes softened, and she said, “As I’m sure you’re aware, Bear and his team are working to investigate your kidnappers. But… can you remember anything about them that might give us a clue what they were after? Is there anyone you’ve angered? Anyone have a reason to hurt you?”

  Andrea shook her head. “No… I… I don’t have any enemies. Nothing like that.”

  “When did Tariq Koury first approach you?”

  “He was in the seat next to me on the flight. He was… creepy. I knew something was wrong because he lied to me about where he was going to school, and he was too old for that anyway. But I figured he was just a creep… not a kidnapper or whatever.”

  “Koury was much more than a kidnapper.” Simpson shifted in her seat, as if debating how much to say.

  “Don’t hesitate,” Sarah said. “Andrea needs to know what she’s up against. We need to know what we’re up against.”

  Andrea flashed a grateful look at her sister.

  Simpson said, “Koury’s fairly well known. He’s Saudi born. Not religious, he’s been involved in various sorts of intelligence work for a long time.”

  “Spy stuff?” Sarah raised her eyebrows.

  Andrea frowned. What did that kind of thing have to do with her?

  Simpson nodded unhappily. “More often mercenary. Koury did some contract work in Iraq, Afghanistan, plenty of other places not all that safe for Americans. We’re not sure who he was working for in this case.”

  “But you’re certain he was working for someone?” The words came from Carrie, who had returned to the room with a baby clutched to her chest.

  Andrea’s eyes were drawn instantly to the small figure in Carrie’s arms. Tiny. She stood up and moved to Carrie in deliberate motions.

  Carrie met her eyes and smiled. “Andrea, this is Rachel.”

  Andrea swallowed. Her chest was tight, stomach clenched, throat closed up to the point she felt as if she was going to have difficulty breathing. She whispered. “May I… may I hold her?”

  “Very carefully. Have you held a baby before? Cradle her head.”

  “I have,” Andrea replied. Carrie wouldn’t know, of course, but Andrea had spent much of the last four years babysitting for two young couples in her building. She knew how to handle babies.

  But this was different.

  She took baby Rachel in her arms, sliding her left hand up behind Rachel’s head. For just a second, Rachel’s face began to go red, and her toothless mouth opened. Andrea pulled her a little closer then rocked on her feet.

  Rachel quieted. Her skin was very pale, like Carrie and Andrea’s, and her eyes were a faint blue. A diaphanous fringe of hair showed on her head.

  “She’s beautiful.” Andrea said it in a reserved voice, not demonstrating any of the storm of emotions she felt. Inside, it was as if a gale had been unleashed. Her emotions on holding the infant were confused, conflicted. More than once she’d sat at home in Calella and felt a cold knot of resentment in her stomach. Not for her parents, who she knew were shits. But for her sisters, who knew it too, but who didn’t seek her out. Except for Julia, she knew about the rest of her sisters’ lives through Facebook, or in Carrie’s case, through the newspapers.

  She didn’t want to feel that way. And this infant drew her in. Instead of disdain, or separation, or anger, what she felt was fierce protectiveness. She looked in those eyes and knew that if it came down to it, she’d give her life to protect that baby. It was a difficult, confusing emotion, and her eyes flooded with tears as she thought about it. She looked up at Carrie, and saw in Carrie’s expression the mirror of what she felt. Except that Carrie wasn’t looking at the baby. Carrie was looking at Andrea.

  She swallowed. That naked protectiveness and love felt raw and dangerous. She held Rachel out to Carrie, her hands suddenly shaking.

  Carrie took the baby without hesitation. “Are you all right?” she asked. Her eyes dropped to Andrea’s shaking hands.

  Andrea nodded. In her peripheral vision, she saw Leah Simpson stand.

  “I’ll be going. For the time being, until we have more permanent arrangements made, two uniformed officers are stationed in the lobby and one at your door twenty-four hours a day. If you need to go anywhere, please talk with the officer outside so you’ll have an escort.”

  Andrea nodded, desperately wanting to get out of that room.

  “Here’s my card,” Simpson said. Andrea reached out and wordlessly snatched it. She needed this woman to leave. She needed to step out of this room.

  Sarah was staring at her frankly now, eyes filled with curiosity.

  “I… I need to… I’ll be back.”

  Clutching the card in her hand, she ran down the hallway to the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. She barely made it to the toilet before the nausea forced her to her knees.

  2. Leslie Collins. April 29. 12:30 pm

  Leslie Collins looked around the relative darkness of Assaggi’s on Bethesda Avenue and took a bite of his tortelli di zucca. Organic whole grain fresh pasta filled with pumpkin and glazed with a butter sage sauce, it was surprisingly good. Despite the fact that his job frequently forced him to eat in sometimes inconvenient and occasionally downright awful locations, Collins preferred to eat at home, with his wife.

  Today that wasn’t an option. For one thing, the planned topic of discussion would ruin her appetite.

  Filner was late. Again. Collins would have preferred to have met somewhere more discreet, or not at all. Or that he’d never been forced into his uneasy business relationship with Mitch Filner in the first place. He often wished none of this had ever happened.

  But since it had, he had no choice but to see it to the bitter end. He took a sip of his Dewar’s and Soda, breaking yet another of his own informal rules. He didn’t drink in the middle of the day. But then again, he’d never ordered the kidnap and murder of a teenage girl before, either. No matter what most Americans thought—especially the liberals and conspiracy theorists—his agency was scrupulous about law virtually all of the time. Unfortunately, this was one of those times when extraordinary measures became necessary.

  Filner seethed as he scanned the headlines on his tablet. Daughter of Secretary of Defense escapes abduction attempt. That was the front page of the Washington Post. The New York Times said Police Identify Suspect in Kidnap Attempt. This was a real shit-show, one that had been turning Collins’s stomach all morning. It took the feds no more than an hour to identify Tariq Koury. One hour. His identification was bound to lead to plenty of uncomfortable questions to several agencies in Washington Koury had freelanced for at one time or another. Not to mention the private military contractor where he’d found a home.

  Collins was relatively sure nothing would find its way back to him. But relatively sure wasn’t good enough. Too much rested on Wakhan staying buried forever. Anything threatening to bring it out in the open needed to be dealt with.

  Mitch Filner arrived fifteen minutes late. Collins spotted him walking up the street from the direction of the Apple Store, then crossing Bethesda Avenue behind a gaggle of mothers with drooling and bubbling children in their strollers. When Filner crossed the street, he was hidden from view for a moment, but Collins knew he would rea
ppear.

  Collins mentally catalogued once again the people who knew about Wakhan. Thompson… soon to be Secretary of Defense. Roshan al Saud, the head of the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency and brother to the King. George-Phillip Windsor, the appallingly nosy busybody who saw himself as an intelligence professional and found himself in a game he couldn’t have imagined. Windsor was a dilettante, a distant cousin of Queen Elizabeth who owed his position as Chief of the Special Intelligence Service to his family name. Senator Chuck Rainsley, retired Marine Corps Colonel and now Senior Senator from Texas. Before the Marines had their heads handed to them in Beirut in 1983, he’d been a nobody, an obscure man assigned to an obscure position. Somehow he’d turned the massacre of his own troops into political capital that fueled his powerful career in Washington. Finally, there was Vasily Karatygin, who had disappeared for much of the 90s, only to turn up as a prominent “businessman” after the Northern Alliance swept the Taliban out of Kabul.

  Karatygin could be eliminated without anyone knowing or caring. But the rest were prominent in their own countries and agencies. With the exception of George-Phillip, they all owed their careers to maintaining their secrecy. And Windsor knew the consequences of letting the secret out would be especially dire.

  Another variable he couldn’t control was Thompson’s children. The moment Collins received the report that all of the children were getting genetic testing to find a match for the baby, he scrambled. The results of those genetic tests were going to raise questions that might fuck everything up. If Collins could have gone back in time and retroactively sterilized Thompson’s slut of a wife, he would have done so without hesitation.

  Filner appeared in the doorway and made his way through the restaurant, scanning everyone in the crowd. An Army veteran, he’d been with the CIA Directorate of Operations through most of the 90s and into the early part of the 2000s. Filner was a bit of a roughneck and didn’t fit in well with the buttoned-down Ivy League culture at CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. But he’d been an ace at some of the ugliest operations, until a rape accusation in Singapore ended his agency career.