by Jove Belle
“What about her?”
“Word is she’s newly single.” Remmy cupped her hand in front of her mouth, leaving an opening on the side closest to Sera, and spoke in a low, hushed voice that sounded louder than it would have if she’d just talked normally.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m being stealthy, of course.”
Sera shook her head. “You look like an idiot. Talk right.”
“Fine. You have no appreciation for production.”
What Sera had no appreciation for was idiocy, but she didn’t point that out. Remmy was, for the most part, an excellent roommate and study buddy. There was no reason to hurt her feelings.
Sera watched the girl. She had a serious look about her—studious, sincere. Her hair was a shade redder than strawberry blond, but not quite red enough to qualify her as a true redhead. She wore it pulled back in a loose bun with tendrils hanging down around her neck. It added a beautiful softness to her overall appearance. The girl next to her said something, and she wrinkled her nose briefly and then started laughing. The sweet sound reached Sera and she was mesmerized. Everything about the girl was feminine and fine, like lace, and despite her desire to not be a plaything for straight girls, Sera found herself thinking it might not be such a bad thing with this girl.
“I see you approve.”
“She’s pretty. But I’m not sure why you’re telling me about her.”
Remmy slapped her shoulder. “What? You can’t tell?”
“Tell what?” Sera looked a little closer, searching for signs of whatever Remmy was hinting at.
“Sheesh. So much for the mythical gaydar I’ve heard so much about. It’s not real at all, is it? Or maybe it’s you. Are you defective? Is your gaydar broken?”
“What are you talking about?”
Remmy laughed, that hard laugh that came from deep inside that resonated with true happiness. “Oh, Sera. You really are hopeless.”
“So, tell me already.”
“She’s a lesbian, dumbass.”
Sera looked at Remmy, then at the girl again. She checked for all the surefire signs. She hadn’t missed a rainbow tattoo or a wallet on a chain, so nothing obvious popped out. She looked closer. Her hair was long, but so was Sera’s, so that really meant nothing. She wore makeup, but so did half the girls Sera had dated in the past. The girl raised a pen to her mouth and chewed delicately on the tip. Her nails weren’t exactly long, but they definitely weren’t short, either. And they were manicured with French tips. Sera didn’t know any lesbians with nails like that.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Her name is Torrence Jewel, and she broke up with her girlfriend almost two months ago. You can ask her yourself.”
At mention of her name, Torrence Jewel turned her head slightly and met Sera’s gaze. Her face flared red as she smiled.
Sera waved slowly, more just a barely there movement of her fingers, and Torrence turned even brighter red. She let out a nonsense sound, almost a low-grade squawk, then whirled back in her seat fast enough to make Sera wonder if the exchange had happened at all.
“Believe me now?” Remmy sounded far too smug.
Sera nodded. “Maybe.”
Chapter Four
“If you’re done spewing bullshit, Marcus, do you think you could tell me what’s going on?” A million thoughts ran through Sera’s brain. She tried to slow them down and collate them into some discernable order of importance.
“Don’t you want to know where I got the photos?”
Yes, she really wanted to know that, but talking about it would only make her more emotional and less in control. As much as she wanted to know how Marcus got those photos and, more important, how Tor was involved in it, the answer to those questions wasn’t relevant to her immediate survival. “I’m more interested in where we’re going.”
“It’s the funniest thing, how small the world is when you start really looking at things.” Marcus continued conversationally as if she hadn’t spoken. “I know a guy, an investigator, and I asked him to look into things.”
“What things?” The sinking feeling in her chest returned and grew stronger as Marcus talked.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and smiled slyly. “Things about you, your history. Thing is, this guy I know? He came up empty. Nothing. You have the cleanest background, too clean for a gangster. But no matter how hard he dug, he couldn’t find anything.”
“Hard to find something that isn’t there.” She didn’t sound convincing even to herself.
“Well, that’s the thing. See, my guy came up empty until he talked to a guy he knows. Now this other guy, he does a lot of private, discreet work for big-money clients. Clients like John, only bigger. And when this guy saw your photo, he recognized you immediately, but the name was wrong. It’d been a few years, but he was pretty sure. Can you believe that? After all this time, he still remembered the pretty coed who was fucking his client’s daughter. He pulled his file up and there you were, only you weren’t you anymore.”
Jesus, she was dead. Nothing she said now would make a difference.
“What do you want?” she asked, promising herself that she still had time. She wouldn’t be able to change his mind, but she might be able to delay his actions. Every extra second was one more chance for her to find a way out, a way to survive.
“All of this got me to thinking. I thought about how much I want to kill you and all the ways I want to do it, but it occurred to me that none of them are really good enough. I don’t just want you dead. I want you destroyed. Utterly, completely destroyed. I want your parents to be embarrassed to talk about you. I want that sweet girlfriend of yours to be disgusted when she thinks of you. I want you in pieces, gutted and useless. Then I want to kill you.”
What could she say to that? Marcus was talking far too much, and every additional word hurt her more than the one before. This wasn’t the kind of information she needed right now. It clouded her judgment, made her think about doing risky things.
She glanced into the backseat at Craig. He was focused on the window, his shoulders hunched, face pinched and tight. He looked positively forlorn. Hopefully she was holding it together a little better than he was.
“What are you going to do?”
“That’s the great part. It’s already started. You just get to be a part of something that would have otherwise happened without you. Listen.”
Marcus turned on the radio using the controls on the steering wheel. He searched until he found a station where the newscaster was talking about an explosion that had taken place earlier that morning at an investment firm downtown, shortly after the employees began to arrive for the day.
“What the—”
“Shhh! Listen.”
As he listened to the newscast, the glint in Marcus’s eyes transformed from vengeful to something resembling joyful, except it was angry joy. It was by far the scariest thing she’d seen in a really long time, maybe ever. He always looked a little off, the resonance in his eyes a mismatch for the sweet smile, but his expression became even more demented as the newscaster spoke. The intensity of his hatred for her, which was always present, transferred and magnified as his focus shifted away from her to the news report.
Marcus had been overly confident when he picked her up—at least she assumed that was the cause of his carelessness—and he hadn’t searched her. Yes, he’d eventually taken her weapons, but she also had a working cell phone in her pocket. She watched Marcus out of the corner of her eye as she eased her hand to her hip and between the folds of fabric. She could barely reach the buttons on her phone with her fingers, and her movements were cramped and imprecise, but she had to take advantage of his distracted state somehow. She hoped her phone was on silent, as was her norm, as she pushed the first button. When she didn’t hear a muffled beep, a noise that would definitely alert Marcus to her activity, she exhaled. As Marcus lis
tened to the newscaster, she dialed Beth’s number from memory.
For the first time, she was thankful that the FBI hadn’t followed through on the promise to upgrade her phone. Making a call with the phone still in her pocket was difficult, but at least her phone had real buttons that she could feel with her fingers. That would have been impossible with a smartphone.
She divided her attention between Marcus and Craig. Marcus focused on the road, but about halfway through Beth’s number, she checked to find Craig staring at her intensely. She stilled momentarily, but he never looked away. If he knew what she was doing, he gave no indication. She held her breath as she continued pushing buttons. When she finished dialing, Craig once again turned toward the window.
As soon as she hit the send button, she slowly removed her hand from her pocket. She didn’t want to accidentally hit the disconnect button. If she’d successfully dialed the number, Beth would pick up on the situation and take appropriate measures. Marcus was still engrossed in the report, so she flipped down her visor to further study Craig in the mirror. Beneath the expression of bored disinterest he’d finally managed, she saw horror and disgust, but she couldn’t tell if it was directed at her or Marcus.
“Marcus, seriously, enough with the news. Where are you taking me?” As a general rule, it wasn’t a good idea to antagonize a guy who, she had every reason to believe, preferred to kill her instead of talk to her. In this case, however, she had to do something to let Beth know what was going on. Short of pulling her cell from her pocket and giving Beth a play-by-play of events, this was the best option, even if it provoked Marcus.
The overly sincere newscaster’s voice gave way to a commercial for mattresses, and Marcus lowered the volume. “Weren’t you listening? Our work today has already started.”
Sera thought back to what the announcer had been talking about. Marcus had been enraptured by it, but she’d been too focused on her phone to really pay attention. She vaguely remembered something about an explosion. “Sorry, Marcus. I’m a little distracted by the fact that you kidnapped me at gunpoint. The radio just isn’t that interesting by comparison.”
She never used Marcus’s name so much as she had in the past few minutes. She hoped he didn’t pick up on it and become suspicious, but it was the only way she could think of to tell Beth what was going on. If she was lucky, the mouthpiece wasn’t completely muted by the fabric surrounding it in her pocket, and Beth would be able to hear what was being said.
“Oh, you need to pay attention. There’s so much more going on here. This goes way beyond me and you. The fact that I get to finally put you in your place is just icing. Today was always going to happen regardless.”
“So where’s John? If today’s such a big deal for our organization, where’s the man in charge? Don’t tell me you’ve looped him out, too? Is he in the other SUV, being held at gunpoint just like me? You’re playing a dangerous fucking game here, Marcus.”
She knew, after seeing the pictures, the odds were very slim John wasn’t aware of what Marcus was doing, but that was still her best talking point. No way could she distract him or change his mind, but it gave her something to say. If she was talking, she was also breathing, a good thing considering the circumstances.
“This isn’t a game!” The vein on the side of Marcus’s neck stood out in stark relief, and spittle flew from his lips. She’d never seen him unhinged to the point of screaming before. She wasn’t at all happy she was the one to push him to it now. He took a deep, concentrated breath, then spoke again, this time without the crazed-lunatic flare. “This is the difference between the two of us. You do this for the money. I do it because I believe in a cause. I believe we’re fighting for something larger than ourselves. I’m willing to die for that belief. Are you willing to die for your money?”
It was odd he didn’t bring up his belief that she was an undercover agent. The answer to that question was much simpler than the one he posed. Yes, she was absolutely willing to die. It was her sworn duty and she lived with it each and every day. But that didn’t mean she was excited to have it happen.
As much as she’d rather he focus on anything except her working for the FBI, having him say it aloud while Beth was listening would jumpstart her into action. The knowledge that she’d been taken at gunpoint would raise flags. Knowing her cover was blown would initiate plans for extraction. As much as Sera hated being cast as a damsel in the white-knight scenario, she’d be a fool to deny she needed rescue. She was a lot of things, but foolish wasn’t one of them. Surviving the day was going to take a miracle.
“A second ago you accused me of working for the FBI, and now you say I’m just in it for the money. It sounds to me like you don’t know what you believe at all.”
“Shut up. Shut your mouth.” Lunatic Marcus was back. She liked this version of him even less than the arrogant prick who felt like he deserved her job more than she did. “You don’t know anything.”
“So tell me.” She appealed to his ego. “Teach me about your cause. Show me which things are worth dying for.”
Marcus looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time, like there was potential for her beyond what he’d always accepted as truth. He turned the radio back up and found another station where the newscaster was talking about the explosion. “Listen.” He said the word simply, like a teacher to a student, all hints of mania gone from his tone and demeanor.
This time she actually focused as much of her attention as was safe on the newscast. A financial institution, one Sera had never heard of, had been the subject of a terrorist bombing that morning. At the word “terrorist,” Sera began listening in earnest. The last news report had been vague, citing only an explosion.
There was a huge difference, however, between an accidental explosion and a terrorist act. She listened with increased understanding, infused with even more questions as the reporter said in a disturbingly modulated voice, “Yes, that’s right. Beckford financial was rigged with explosives, and the Middle Eastern terrorist group, Liberty for Allah, is believed to be responsible for this terrible act of violence. They claimed responsibility just a few moments ago, and at this point, we are waiting for verification.”
The speaker continued to offer more details, but Sera had heard enough. She’d heard Liberty for Allah called a few other names, but LFA seemed the one used most during sound bites. Sera thought it was ironic that Western media translated the word “liberty” to English but didn’t translate “Allah.” Perhaps they were worried too many Americans would grab onto a cause labeled Liberty for God.
One thing was absolutely certain. Sera wasn’t supposed to know LFA was affiliated with Lithman. Despite her best efforts, no one had offered that connection to her. Marcus was testing her.
“What does some trigger-happy lunatic with a vendetta and some leftover childhood issues have to do with me? This tells me nothing.”
Marcus flipped off the radio. “You really don’t understand?”
“Marcus, I’m a criminal because I like money. Not because I want to stage a jihad.”
“That’s what I mean. You don’t believe in anything.”
Sera took a couple of deep breaths. She had to play this right, make Marcus feel like he was engaging her, seducing her over to his cause. Her life depended on it.
“Okay, so you’re happy that building got blown up?”
“Happy about it? That’s the understatement of the year. I’m fucking ecstatic. And more than that, I’m the one who did it.”
Sera had assumed he was connected simply by virtue of the group claiming ownership, but she didn’t believe he’d actually carried out the act. She would bet her life, too, that the face of the LFA, the one given credit on the news programs, ended up being a lot darker than Marcus’s. He was a little too blond and a little too blue-eyed to match the media’s preferred image of a terrorist.
“Marcus, you’re American.” She spoke slowly, as if the words really made a difference. She knew the statistics. Mo
re active “American” terrorists existed inside the U.S. than all other nationalities combined, including those in all of the Middle East. Marcus’s light skin and American upbringing made him more likely, not less, to commit an act of mass violence. That he was linked to a Middle Eastern terrorist group just meant he’d found a voice to go with his feeling of disenfranchisement. Instead of shooting up a movie theater, he blew up a bank in the name of Allah.
Sera suspected Allah didn’t approve any more than she did.
“Yes, and I’m tired of watching the moral fabric of our country disintegrate until it’s falling apart around us. I can’t stand by and do nothing when the source of evil in this country, my country, is clear.”
Sera shook her head. Not because she didn’t believe Marcus was crazy enough to do it, but because all hope she had of rescuing herself dwindled to next to nothing with that statement. He wasn’t trying to convert her. He was confessing his sins like a man who knew his confessor would die before sharing his secrets.
“You don’t believe me? Maybe this will change your mind.”
Marcus rested his gun in his lap and retrieved something from the center console. She stared at the gun. Was this her opening? Before she could act, Marcus held out a remote-control device with five buttons lined down the front. She’d seen a similar trigger switch during her training but didn’t expect to ever come across one in the field. Most of the time, homemade bombs used more common triggers—simple things, like cell phones for remote detonation, or watches as timers. The device Marcus held was military grade and professional.
“You really did it.” Her voice sounded flat.
“I did.”
“What are the other four buttons for?”
Typically, with a detonator like that one, each button used a different frequency. Five buttons equaled five explosive devices. If he’d used one, that left four more untapped.