“I want to be with you,” Bailey said. “I really don’t care where we eat, you choose.”
“You’re such a big softie,” Piper said bumping her with her hips. “Let’s go in there,” she added pointing to a shoe store.
“Alright,” Bailey said and followed her in with another sigh, resigning herself to twenty questions and at least half an hour.
Piper immediately went into browsing mode, and five minutes later Bailey found herself sitting next to her waiting on the salesperson to bring out the four pair of shoes that had struck her fancy.
“Piper, why do you ask for three different sizes? I think you would…” Bailey trailed off when she caught sight of an Asian man looking in the store window as he passed by.
“Bailey, what’s wrong?” Piper asked in concern as the little smile faded from Bailey’s face and she abruptly stopped talking.
“Nothing,” Bailey said tonelessly. “I need to make a phone call.”
“Is everything alright?” Piper asked, her anxiety growing at Bailey’s rapidly changing demeanor.
“Yes. I’ll be right back,” Bailey said as she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and walked several paces away.
“What’s up?” Josh said when he answered.
“Any changes?” Bailey asked quietly.
“Not that I’m aware of,” Josh said all business when he caught her tone. “Two suits followed you to the mall. I’m watching them right now.”
“No one has joined them?”
“Just the two as far as I know,” Josh said. “Is anything wrong?”
“I don’t know yet,” Bailey said. “Ring me if the two outside move and I’m not visible.”
“Will do,” Josh said. “Take care.”
“Thank you,” she said as she hung up and walked back over to Piper who was looking at her with a concerned expression.
“Everything okay?” Piper said as the saleslady arrived with her shoes.
“Yeah,” Bailey said distantly.
Piper started to grow nervous as Bailey remained standing, her attention focused on the activity in the mall outside.
“Ma’am, would you like me to show you anything else?” the saleslady asked.
“I’m sorry,” Piper said taking her attention from Bailey. “I’ll try these on and get back to you, if that’s alright.”
“That’s fine,” the woman said pleasantly. “I’ll be right over there.” She gestured toward another customer.
“Okay.”
Piper looked back at Bailey just in time to see her eyes flash. “Piper, we need to go now,” she said taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.
“What’s going on, Bailey?” Piper asked worriedly as Bailey fairly dragged her to the front of the store.
“I’ll explain later,” Bailey said tonelessly. “Just do as I ask, please.”
“You’re scaring me,” Piper said worriedly as Bailey led her by the hand toward the mall exit but stopped abruptly.
“Go to the car and wait for me.”
“No,” Piper said. “Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded.
She didn’t say anything so Piper followed her gaze to an Asian man about seventy feet away who was returning Bailey’s stare.
“Piper, please do as I ask,” Bailey said emotionlessly.
Piper opened her mouth to speak but Bailey snapped her head around to glare at her. “Please,” she repeated.
She looked at her for a long moment not recognizing her at all. “Are you coming too?” she asked agitated.
“Shortly,” Bailey replied and turned her attention back in the direction of the Asian man.
Bailey watched the man carefully and as soon as Piper started to walk away, he moved in her direction. “Piper,” she said as she turned and caught up with her. “Stay with me,” she said as she took her hand and began to lead her in the opposite direction.
“Please tell me what’s going on,” Piper pleaded.
“I can’t right now,” Bailey said unsympathetically as she led Piper into the crowd milling around the food court.
Bailey suddenly took a turn and quickly led them through an employee entrance into a long service hallway. She hurriedly dragged Piper to the end and around the corner into a shorter, but almost identical hall that ended with another door. Piper opened her mouth to speak but Bailey brought a finger to her lips in a shushing gesture and she subsided. She waited for almost five minutes, growing more frantic by the second as Bailey continued to stand quietly with an emotionless expression and flashing black eyes.
The door at the end of the hall suddenly opened and she had to bite her lip not to scream as the Asian man stepped into the hallway and stopped about fifteen feet away. His dark eyes landed on her fleetingly before they focused intently on Bailey and he started walking in her direction.
“Piper, step away from me,” Bailey said in monotone.
“No,” she whined, pulling on Bailey’s hand. “Come with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Bailey…” Piper started, still tugging fearfully on her hand.
“Step away from me,” she interrupted harshly, turning her eyes on Piper. “Step away, don’t run, don’t scream,” she said and abruptly removed her hand from Piper’s.
Almost in tears and closing in on panic, she reluctantly backed away a few steps and watched in extreme agitation as the man stopped about six feet away from Bailey and ran a gaze over her from head to toe.
“Wraith,” the man purred. “This is an honor,” he said with a slight respectful nod of his head, slowly producing an oriental blade about sixteen inches long from under his suit jacket.
Bailey said nothing and stood calmly until the man suddenly lunged at her with frightening speed.
Piper bit down on her hand to keep from screaming when the man moved for Bailey, but she moved at the same time, her knife flashing into her hand. She sidestepped the blade streaking toward her with an explosion of reflexes and backhanded her knife under the man’s extended arm to bury it to the hilt in his armpit. The man grunted loudly in pain as his blade dropped from his hand to clatter on the concrete floor and he fell to his knees with a mixture of surprise and pain on his face. Her knife flickered across his throat in a quicksilver motion as soon as his knees hit the ground and he fell face first to the floor in a rapidly spreading pool of blood. She knelt and quickly used his pant leg to clean the blood off of her blade before rising to take Piper’s hand without comment, brusquely leading her around the corner and back down the long service hall.
Piper let Bailey pull her back through the mall and into the parking lot before she spoke.
“Are we going to call the police?” she asked roughly.
“No,” Bailey said quietly. “Give me the keys.”
Piper took the keys out of her purse and handed them to her quietly. Bailey unlocked the passenger side door and waited until she was seated before she walked around to the driver’s side, getting in behind the wheel and starting the car.
“He called you Wraith,” Piper said softly, beginning to sniffle.
“Yes, he did,” Bailey said emotionlessly.
“Where are we going?” Piper asked distantly.
“To my place,” Bailey said. “There are some things you need to know.”
Piper just nodded as the tears began to come in earnest.
Bailey let out a ragged sigh and was surprised when Piper took her hand and squeezed it tightly.
II
Sometimes I’m an angel and sometimes I’m cruel,
When it comes to love, I’m just another fool.
—M. Cohn
By the time Bailey led Piper into the elevator, her chest had tightened to an almost unbearable degree and her eyes had begun to water. She wiped at them in puzzlement as the elevator stopped and she walked down the short hall to open the door to her flat. Piper had been extremely quiet for the last ten minutes and she had been afraid to say anything to her.
She led her to the ki
tchen and seated her at the table. “I’ll be right back,” she said quietly.
Martin was heading for the kitchen when he heard Bailey’s voice and he stopped dead in his tracks, just short of rounding the corner. Knowing that she had been speaking to someone, he leaned against the wall to eavesdrop.
Piper looked up as Bailey returned a moment later with a leather document bag that she placed on the table in front of her.
“Everything about me is in this file,” Bailey said, her voice cracking on the last two words. “My bedroom is down that hall, you’ll need to come and get me when you’re ready to leave,” she said with difficulty. “I’ve a man staying here, kind of an ex-coworker; don’t be surprised if you see him,” she finished struggling and turned to go.
“Wait,” Piper said. “Stay with me.”
Bailey didn’t turn around and it took her several seconds to reply. “I can’t,” she rasped, walking away quickly and finally breaking into a jog as she disappeared down the hall.
Piper watched her go with a sniffle and slowly turned to the case, apprehensively pulling out the very thick file. She opened it hesitantly and looked at the first page, it took less than twenty seconds for her to burst into tears.
Martin slid down the wall he was leaning on until he rested on his haunches. He had heard the whole conversation and he closed his eyes when he heard the other woman start to cry. He rearranged himself until he was sitting flat on the floor with his legs stretched out in front of him and his back against the wall. He looked at his watch and listened to the crying woman for the next three hours. Finally, he got up and stretched painfully to work out the stiffness in his joints. With a deep breath, he rounded the corner to enter the kitchen, noticing as he approached that she had evidently gotten to the end of the file some time ago, and had just been crying. He had to clear his throat several times to get her to notice him.
“Hi, Piper,” he said pleasantly and her eyes widened at the mention of her name. “I’m Martin.”
She looked at him for a long moment without speaking.
“There are some things you should know that aren’t in that file,” he said softly.
“I don’t if I can bear to know anymore,” she said hoarsely.
“If you love her, you need to know these things,” Martin said kindly and she started to cry again but got control of herself long enough to nod in the affirmative.
“Come on,” he said, gesturing to the hall and led her to the library where he walked over and removed a book from one of the shelves.
“Do you know about her family?” he asked.
“Vaguely,” Piper said, sitting down on the sofa and wiping at her eyes.
“Her family thinks she’s dead but her whole adult life she’s been fighting for their survival. Everything you read in that file she did because she didn’t have a choice,” Martin said speaking slowly. “They hid her family from her and held them over her head. She’s the best because she had to be, not because she wanted to be. If she had tried to run or had she died, they would have instantly killed her family. Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live the life she has and to know that if you made any mistakes your family would die? That’s what she’s lived with for all of these years,” He stopped and went over to sit next to her on the sofa.
“She’s seen things and done things that you and I could never imagine. She’s taken risks that pass belief, but I think the biggest risk that woman ever took was letting you in,” Martin said as he opened the book he held and handed it to her. “I want to show you something, I caught her scribbling in this not long after she started dating you.”
Piper took the book from his hand with a puzzled expression upon noticing that it was dictionary. She looked closely at the displayed pages to see that the word ‘love’ was circled with red ink and drawn next to it on the page was a little heart that had the initials P.T + B.C written inside. She closed the book with a snap and was assaulted by another wave of tears.
Martin waited patiently until she subsided. “A thirty-one year old woman shouldn’t have to look up that word in the dictionary,” he said softly. “And what she wrote is the work of a teenager, not a woman her age. For fifteen years she’s just existed from day to day but when she met you...” He paused, “…you gave her hope.”
Piper wiped at her eyes. “She killed a man today right in front of me,” she said with a sniffle.
Martin’s eyes widened a little. “Piper,” he said gently, “they want her dead.”
“I don’t understand,” Piper said further agitated.
“You’d better let her explain that part,” Martin said. “Are you going to leave her?”
Piper took a deep breath. “Of course not, she needs me.”
Martin smiled in relief. “Then you’d better go tell her.”
Piper wiped at her eyes and rose from the couch. “Why are you here?” she asked bluntly.
“Because they want me dead, too,” Martin said. “She saved my life.”
Piper looked at him for several seconds, finally just nodding and leaving the room. She retraced her steps back to the kitchen and tentatively walked down the hall that Bailey had taken hours earlier. She noted several rooms on both sides of the hall but ignored them in favor of the last one that she could see had a light on.
She took a deep breath as she stepped through the doorway and her heart clenched painfully at the sight before her. Bailey hadn’t noticed her and was sitting cross-legged on the corner of a king-sized bed, her back was to her but Piper could see her rocking back and forth as if in pain, holding the teddy bear she had given her in her lap.
“Bailey,” Piper said softly and she stopped rocking and went very still.
“Please don’t leave me,” Bailey pleaded pathetically not turning around, her hand coming up to wipe at her eyes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Piper said coming over and sitting behind her on the bed.
“You’re not going to leave me?” Bailey asked roughly, her voice cracking.
“No, I’m not,” Piper said softly. “I love you, Bailey,” she added gently placing a hand on her shoulder, feeling the body under her hand buck a little and take several quick deep breaths.
“I love you, Bailey,” she repeated and Bailey turned to bury her head in her lap, embracing her around the waist.
Piper started to cry again as she watched her struggle with herself. “It’s alright, sweetheart,” she sniffled. “It’s okay to cry.”
The arms around her waist embraced her tightly and hands clutched at her back almost painfully as they clung desperately for purchase. It started as a sob that racked her whole body and gave way to an outpouring as she brought her knees up to her chest protectively and buried her head further into her lap.
The tears soon turned to raging and she held her tightly as she lost control of herself completely. She let the tears slide silently down her own face, realizing sadly that now that the wall had buckled and given way, everything that had been imprisoned behind was coming forward with a vengeance. She could only imagine how difficult it was for her and she felt her own heart break for the young girl who had loved her father and had given in to the madness of her loss, only to watch the slow death of her own soul.
She whispered words of comfort and started to rock her gently when her breath started to become forced as she attempted to keep up with the sobs she had no control over. Growing alarmed and afraid that she might hurt herself, she leaned over the head in her lap to brush her lips over the ebony hair.
“I love you, Bailey Ann,” she said quietly. “Come back to me.”
The raging tapered off gradually but the tears lasted until her muscles grew stiff and her body started to protest loudly. She put her body on hold and closed her eyes, awaking with a start to find Bailey asleep in her lap and having no idea how much time had passed or how long she had been in the same position. Gently disentangling herself from her embrace, she stretched out beside her, grimacing as her body complai
ned to the restrictions she had placed on it. Once circulation had reasserted itself, she made herself comfortable next to the vulnerable form of her lover and slowly, very slowly, drifted back off to sleep.
———
Piper awoke at almost three in the morning to find Bailey still asleep. She looked at her features carefully, noticing puffy eyes and dried tear streaks still staining her face. She tenderly brushed the hair out of her face and went in search of the bathroom.
When she emerged, she made a slow circle of Bailey’s bedroom and paused for quite some time when she found the knife that Bailey carried buried to the hilt in the top of a dresser, obviously placed there in anger or frustration, probably a mixture of both. It broke her heart to fully understand the life that Bailey had been forced to lead. She looked around and found nothing that gave the impression of home, finding the entire dwelling to be a very impersonal and almost antiseptic environment.
She ventured out of the bedroom and curiously entered what looked like an office because she could see the glow of several computer screens. She flipped on the light and found a large desk in front of the window and a smaller desk that was the operation center for several rack-mounted computers. She clicked off the light and walked across the hall into another room.
When she turned on the light, she was surprised to find only a loveseat in the middle of the room. When she entered, she saw that one wall was dedicated to a breathtaking mural that had been painstakingly painted upon the wall itself. She sat down on the loveseat that faced it and studied it carefully. The picture portraying the ocean as seen from someone standing on the bow of a ship adrift in a storm. The swells tall and furious, the ship itself cresting the top of a wave and looking down upon the violent cauldron of water that surrounded it.
She wondered if Bailey had painted it herself.
“I…uhm… come in here sometimes and imagine what it would be like to live on the ocean,” Bailey said quietly from the doorway. “To be so free and to go only where the current takes you.”
“It’s beautiful,” Piper said. “Did you paint it yourself?”
Bailey nodded to the affirmative and Piper patted the cushion beside her. She entered the room and sat down gingerly beside her.
Engravings of Wraith Page 39