“Alice,” he said, looking so sad and vulnerable standing there with flowers in his hand, “exactly what kind of partying did you do?”
I wanted so badly at that moment to invite him inside my apartment, but my mind was on the cab idling for me on the curb and Motley impatiently waiting for me at his home. “Are those roses for me?”
“Of course they are. Who else would they be for? You said that when you got back you would wear a dress and put a flower in your hair and let me take you on a real date. So I brought you the flowers for your hair.”
“I can’t go to dinner with you. Not tonight. I’m really tired.”
“I get it. You aren’t actually interested in me, are you?” He pushed the flowers into my hands. “It would have just been easier to tell me up front than to play these games. How could I ever think you were serious about us having a relationship? All you’re serious about is playing your cloak and dagger games, dressing up in vixen clothes, and playing your cards close to your chest, especially with mysterious alter-identities like Heather Gilmore.”
“Why do you keep dragging that name into everything? I explained already that Heather Gilmore is not me. I told you who she was.”
“Yeah, a girl from back home. A girl whose name you just happen to slug around Paris inside your shoe in some alchemistic confession note.”
“Ben, please stop.”
“Is it a crime for me to want to know who you really are? To want to get a straight story before I hand you my heart?”
“Ben, this conversation isn’t happening tonight.”
“You’re right, it’s not. It’s never happening.” He turned to give me one last look. “I was a fool to think you were ready for a relationship. I thought there was a spark between us when met at the hospital that night. Then over coffee and in the park, it felt like you and I were the only two people in Paris, like this whole city was put up with clay and spray paint by the gods, just so you and I could enjoy it together. I guess I thought it was the beginning of love. But I was wrong.”
As he walked away, I started to call out to him, I mean I opened my mouth to tell him to come back, but the words never formed because I knew that wasn’t an option. Motley was waiting on me. It might all be for the better, I would only break Ben’s heart when it came down to it. I hugged the flowers to my chest and watched him disappear into the stairwell.
Chapter Eighteen: The Morning After
DEFINITELY A TRAIN hit me while I was asleep.
That’s how I felt when I woke up in Motley’s guest bedroom the next morning. When I first opened my eyes, I didn’t even remember how I had come to be lying on a plush mattress, enthroned in 1000-thread count sheets, which smelled like freshly dew-kissed linen. I stretched my arms out into the air and slowly began to recall how I had come in late and gone straight to bed without even seeing Motley. I rolled over in the bed and felt something crunch beneath me.
I pulled the sheet down and saw Ben’s roses, now crushed, lying next to me. I had fallen asleep beside them. “Oh, geez,” I said, scooping up the dismembered petals in my hand. I decided to go down to the kitchen and hunt down a vase and some fresh water to resuscitate them. I climbed off the bed and peeked out the door of the guest bedroom, into the hallway. Everything seemed quiet, so I padded down the giant spiral staircase and walked past the main foyer towards the kitchen. The morning sun was casting a warm haze throughout the hallways of the vast estate. Motley’s house was as big as a castle and it was decorated like a museum, full of sculptures of Greek gods and brass lions, and abstract art, with plaster and pillars galore. It was a freestanding townhome that was in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, a ritzy and historical quadrant of Montmartre that was untouched by the Seine, or by the seeping sleaze of neighboring Place Pigalle.
When I got to the kitchen, Rabbit was already seated at the marble-topped breakfast bar, sipping coffee out of a cup from Motley’s collection of bone-white china. I zipped past him to grab a vase from a cupboard. I filled the vase with tap water from the sink and carefully set the flowers inside it. I sat down at the breakfast bar and placed the vase down on the counter in between myself and Rabbit so that it blocked out his face.
“Good morning, Alice,” Rabbit said. I rolled my eyes and tightly pursed my lips. Rabbit grabbed a new cup, poured coffee into it, and pushed it down the counter towards me.
I clutched it in my hands and puffed my nose before taking a sip. “Should I sniff this for engine fluid?”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is, you aren’t exactly very trustworthy, and you definitely have it out for me.” I pulled over the carton of creamer and brass sugar bowl.
“Alice, I want to apologize. I shouldn’t have freaked out when I saw you kiss that government guy. Motley explained the whole thing to me. You were just working an angle when you made out with Pressley. I get it now.”
“I suppose I’m willing to forgive your rush to judgment and brash overreaction.” I pushed the vase out of the way to glower at him. I quickly drank my coffee and got up from my seat to dump the empty cup into the sink. I leaned back against the deep farmhouse sink that had never bathed a single dish. I decided Rabbit was at least worthy of talking business with. “So, should we do some digging on our Olympic outlaw, Ophelia Le Fur?”
“I don’t think there’s much to discuss. Short of asking her why she wants the dynamite stick, we don’t have much of a lead on her motive than what we’ve already speculated. I’m not sure why she wants it even matters, we just have to focus on getting it before she does.”
“What I’m wondering is, how did she find that college kid, Jamie? And how did she know we would be at the library in Brussels?”
“You think someone fed her the information?”
“Rabbit, all we know about her is that she married some guy and dropped out of the public eye after being stripped of her medal.”
“So?”
“What if who she married is the key to why she wants the stick?”
“I’m not really seeing a connection,” Rabbit said, with his long, bony fingers scratching his crown of fleecy hair.
“Have you ever seen a photo of Motley’s ex-wife?”
“His ex-wife? The one he is bloodthirsty for? Alice, I think I know where you’re going with this and I don’t like it.”
“Answer the question, Rabbit. Have you ever seen her?”
“No, never. He hates his ex-wife so much, it’s not like he travels around with her picture in his wallet.”
“I’ve never seen what she looks like either. She could be anyone.” I perked an eyebrow. “Even a six-foot tall Olympian blonde.”
“Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“Think about it, Rabbit, if Ophelia Le Fur is Motley’s begrudging ex-wife, it explains why Cleopatra arrived on the scene, too.
“How so?”
“He could just be using Cleopatra to get back at his ex-wife. His wife comes back into his life, and he brings a seductive woman onboard to rub it in her face and make her jealous. It makes sense.”
“I don’t know, Alice. You’re really reaching.”
“But think about how much Motley hates his ex-wife.”
“You mean with the passion of a thousand fiery suns beating down on a million volcanoes on the hottest day of the year at the equator?”
“And based on our brief encounters with that wicked blonde, wouldn’t you say she would certainly be one to illicit such deep feelings of hatred?”
“If she really is Motley’s ex-wife, you think she just wants to get her hands on the dynamite stick as some sort of lover’s revenge to irritate Motley? And what about the guy she married, Dr. Coke? Do you think it’s Motley’s real name?”
“Dr. Coke could be a second husband, after her divorce from Motley. Or it could be Motley’s real name. I mean, don’t you find it strange that Motley hasn’t even bothered to investigate who she is, despite the fact that she’s kicking our butts?�
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“I think Motley has bigger fish on his plate at the moment than some cumbersome Barbie with a stun gun.”
“I would call a person who keeps scooping us a pretty big fish. I am going to find out how she keeps doing it.”
Rabbit poured himself another cup of coffee. “As interested as I am in unclogging this little mystery, it turns out we have to put that adventure on the backburner for right now.”
“Why is that?”
“Bigger fish. We had an interesting night last night after you fell asleep.”
I walked back to the breakfast counter and pretended to rearrange the flowers inside the vase. “What exactly does an interesting night entail?”
A creepy grin pinned his cheeks up and he announced, as though a coach boasting a touchdown, “We got Pressley Connard.”
“Got him?” A jump ridged through my bones, so that my elbow involuntarily jutted into the flower vase, knocking it over, shattering the glass, and unleashing a cascade of water all down the side of the counter and onto the floor. I cupped my fingers to my mouth and looked down at the mess.
Rabbit tossed a dish towel to me. “Yeah, Motley had Moonboots McCafferty and Xerxes O’Brien grab him after I spotted him busting down Avenue of the Americas holding those empty acid flasks. They cornered him a block from the Cibix building. You won’t have to worry about sucking face with that loser anymore. Motley has more precise ways of extracting information.”
“Where is he keeping him?” I asked, dropping to my knees, pretending to be busy soaking up the water so that he couldn’t see the panic on my face.
“Somewhere safe, but don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry?” I mouthed it silently while crouched and hidden behind the breakfast counter. At that moment, I wanted to stab Rabbit, cram his warm guts inside a pita pocket, and serve it up with a pickle on one of Motley’s bone-white china plates. “Well,” I said, “Motley would be stupid to cage a government agent in New York City. I mean if Pressley’s friends at the CIA start looking for him and manage to trace the breadcrumbs back to Motley, it’s going to be a headache.”
“There isn’t going to be any headache in New York because Motley flew him into Paris.” Rabbit pulled a vase from the cabinet where the fine china was kept and bent down to hand it to me.
“He’s in Paris?” I desperately tried to mask the spike of excitement in my voice. “What does Motley plan on doing with him?” I gathered the flowers in my hand and began blindly poking them into the new vase.
“I’m not sure. Probably get information from him and then kill him. If he hasn’t done both of those things already.”
I gripped the leg on one of the breakfast chairs and steadied to my feet. “I need to shower and get some clean clothes on. You know, before Motley wakes up and sticks me with a job. We do have some free time today, right?”
“For now.” Rabbit reached for a cereal box. “Until something else pops up.” As the last syllable floated from his lips, Rabbit’s cell phone chirped.
“Perfect timing,” I noted.
“Hello,” Rabbit answered. I tried to look occupied with refilling my coffee cup as I eavesdropped. “You’re kidding? I’m on my way.” I was so distracted with trying to listen in to his conversation that I poured the coffee creamer into the flower vase before realizing my mistake at the half-full mark. “That was Motley,” Rabbit announced when he hung up.
“You mean Motley isn’t upstairs sleeping?”
“No, he left early this morning. Turns out capturing Pressley Connard worked. Pressley knows where thee dynamite stick is.”
“He does?” I blustered. “Where is it?”
“It’s in Amsterdam. Motley is there already.”
“Motley went to Amsterdam by himself? This must be serious, because Motley never goes any place for himself. He usually sends us.”
“He’s staking out the guy who Pressley claims possesses the dynamite stick. He just told me I am to board a flight to Amsterdam immediately.”
“How soon does our plane take off?” I asked. “Do I have time to get dressed?”
“That’s the thing, Alice. Motley only wants me to go. He thinks you should just rest for a little while. He said you can stay here, in his house, if you want. Actually, he prefers if you stay here. We’ll keep in touch with you.”
I twisted my lips into a pout. “I’m fine. I don’t need to rest. I should be a part of this too. This has been my life for three years. You cannot cut me off now.”
“It’s not like that, Alice. Nobody is cutting you off.”
I was about to protest, but a rattling commotion began in the hallway adjacent to the kitchen. Rabbit and I turned our heads, and I recognized the sound of high heels clicking against the granite floors. Cleopatra presented herself in the doorway and rolled her luggage into the kitchen. “Are you ready to go, Rabbit?”
“Oh come on!” I blustered. “She gets to go, but I don’t?”
“Sorry, Alice,” Rabbit said. “These were Motley’s orders.”
“Motley’s orders were to leave me out and bring her instead? That is so unfair. She hasn’t even been with us a week and she gets to go and claim the dynamite stick?”
“Alice, you don’t have to talk about me like I’m not in the room,” Cleopatra broke in. She whipped out her compact mirror and started applying red lipstick. It blended perfectly with her black fur coat and matching leopard-print luggage set.
“Shut up,” I yelled to Cleopatra. “Nothing you say means anything to me. You lied to me when I asked you if you were my replacement.”
“I told you, Alice, I’m not here to replace you. The job I do is significantly different than yours.”
Chapter Nineteen: The Cellar
I WAS STANDING inside the slashes of sunlight which were breaking through the stained glass arched window in the foyer. A bead of blood plunged up from under my fingernail. I had been nervously chewing my nails like grass as I watched Rabbit’s A4 drive away with only him and Cleopatra onboard. I dragged myself up the giant staircase to the master bedroom suite and drew a scorching hot bath from the elegant brass levers. While the water filled up, I took off all my clothes and sat on the toilet lid and cried my eyes out as I pictured Cleopatra, diamonds radiating from her ears, and her long legs folding over themselves as she sat next to Rabbit in the car. I told myself that maybe some alcohol would help. That’s when I got the idea to go down to Motley’s wine cellar and get a bottle of wine. I got up off the toilet and draped myself under one of Motley’s cloud-like white guest robes that was embroidered with an M, and I traversed to the lowest level of the house.
I only knew Motley had a wine cellar because he bragged all the time about his vintage whatevers. It wasn’t just wine Motley enjoyed collecting, he had tons of overpriced collector’s items on display all over his house. His prized possession at the moment was currently mounted to the wall of his poker room. It was a foot-long Samurai sword and he was always bragging about it to guests. It had been forged during the seventeenth century just before some epic battle where everyone’s head ended up on the ends of long sticks lined up like fence posts. I didn’t find it particularly impressive myself, but if it turned out I couldn’t find a corkscrew, I would probably just grab the sword and use it to free my wine.
I couldn’t quite remember which door led to the wine cellar, so I went through all the rooms on the lower level. The left side of the hallway had a door to the large screening room, meant for watching movies. Further down was a room with a regulation-sized indoor pool and attached hot tub. On the opposite side of the hallway was the game room with a professional poker table, which was the room where Motley displayed the large sword.
I padded down the hallway. I tried the handle to an unmarked door diagonally across from the poker room. As I pulled the door open onto the hallway, a chilly blast of air vapored out and the musty smell of a cellar hit my nose. Even against the dimly lit entrance, I knew I had found the wine cellar. I sauntered th
rough the rows of wine bottles and felt a little uncouth to admit to myself that I didn’t know a Merlot from a maggot. But red and bubbly under any label sounded good, so I indiscriminately slipped one out from the rack. The label featured a lattice of red roses and the dreamy moniker of Strawberry Blush. I was about to turn back towards the door when I heard footsteps coming from the other side of the rack I had just pulled the bottle from.
Deep heavy breaths were coming from somewhere in the cellar.
I got perfectly still. I raised the bottle like a club over my shoulder. I crept to the corner of the wine rack and prepared to swing, but there was nobody there. I eased my shoulders and brought the bottle of wine down to my side with one hand. I stooped down and peered through the space in between the levels of wine, and that’s when I saw a set of eyes, dark and unblinking, watching me. I let out a scream and firmed my grip on the wine bottle clutched in my hands.
“Alice, it’s me,” said a voice, raspy and exhausted.
“You’re alive?”
“I’m immortal.” Pressley emerged and came out towards me from behind the wine rack.
“Don’t even think about asking me to share.” I hugged the bottle to my chest.
There were clots of blood, thick and jellylike, dotting the corners of his lips. The skin around his left eye was sooty, painted in bruises the shade of ripe plums. “Oh freaking hell, Alice, can you stop trying to be cute for once?”
“What are you doing here, Pressley?”
“I got trapped down here by your boss. I was grabbed on the street in New York by two seriously scary guys. One was a giant, and he had this beard that was red, I’m talking bright as a freaking Easter egg.”
“That’s Moonboots McCafferty.”
“And then there was that other one. He was short a few brain cells, not to mention nearly all of his teeth.”
“Xerxes O’Brien. He’s harmless once you get to know him, charming, even, if you catch him on a good day.”
Generation of Liars Page 17