All this flashes through my head the second the roof collapses in. I can’t think—not of survival, not of Mimi. The cold sucks the air out of my lungs like a vacuum. Ten seconds underwater feels like fifteen minutes. I’m so cold that the cold starts to feel warm.
And that’s when I realize that if I don’t get myself out of the car in less than a minute, then I’m going to die. Simple as that. But facing the facts gives me a kind of armor. I don’t have time anymore. Every second counts because every second I stay underwater brings me that much closer to death.
I don’t have the strength or the force necessary to smash through the window, but with the car completely filled I realize I don’t have to. Something small but unmistakable sparks in my head, filling me with just a bit of warmth. It’s not much, but it’s all I need.
My deadly tired, numb fingers grapple around the car handle. They’re so stiff they don’t even curl: I’ve got to wedge my wrist up against the top part of the handle and move my fingers out, towards me. It’s a hell of a strain, feels like my fingers are breaking, and I can’t take a breath of air for more strength. I’ve hardly got enough air just to keep sitting there. Just a little more. My fingers can go to pieces—it doesn’t matter. Just a little more.
I don’t hear the click but I feel the handle give and the door slowly pries open. My mouth opens in shock, surprise, and joy, which I know immediately, is a mistake because there goes the last of my oxygen. I’ll have to beat it to the surface with everything I’ve got and anything I don’t.
Swimming, paddling, stroke after furious stroke. My lungs are on fire. My body feels like ground meat. The cold weighs me down, threatening to push me under the surface and hold me down. I don’t give in. I won’t ever give in.
And then, at last, surface. Air, amazingly. My lungs drink it in. Spiky, piercing, painful but life-giving air.
I roll out onto the beach, my back against the snow-covered sand, drinking it in. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been before. I could sleep for a thousand years, even in the cold and snow. It doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s even kind of warm, now that I’m out of the water.
My eyelids are like lead. Just a little sleep. After all that work, all that energy. Need something to keep on going. I’m so close to passing out I can already feel the darkness coming on. Infinite, black waves pushing me out to sea on waves of ice. I turn over and roll to the side so that I’m facing the broken barrier. I’m on the tails of my consciousness, and I know that if I close my eyes now, then I’ll die, and that’ll be the end of everything. I’ve forgotten why I was so desperate to hang on in the first place.
Then, through the haze, I see the light of the Motel Six. Warmth. A place to go. A way to save Mimi. It all comes back, dull and tired, but stronger now than the desire to lay and rest and let exhaustion carry me off to death.
Getting up from the beach feels like learning to walk all over again. I’ll never know how I managed to get across the street and into the lobby, as tired as I was. The only thing I recall of all this is that I stumble in wearing nothing but my socks and underwear. I obviously shed the outer layers, but I don’t have any memory of doing it.
There’s no manager or anyone on duty from what I see, not until I lunge over and look behind the desk. The guy’s all done up in ropes and has got a gag of socks in his mouth. At least he isn’t dead.
My memory is spotted from here on out. I must have helped the guy get untied, but with my frozen hands, I don’t know how that would be possible. The next thing I know, I’m on the floor, right there in the middle of the lobby. And this guy—not more than a kid from the looks of him—is shaking me for all he’s worth, telling me I can’t go to sleep, I can’t go to sleep, I can’t.
Black holes. White holes. Little yellow holes like suns with faces that look down at me then disappear. It all goes flashing through my mind, glittering, brilliant, and brief like a shower of confetti, and then I’m out.
Chapter 28
And then, just like that, back on. Or maybe not ‘just like that.’ It’s more like a climb up a mountain where you can see the peak, but it’s so far away no matter how much you climb you never seem to get any closer, even when the climbing gets harder. And laying down wherever I was laying down, that peak was a lamp of orange light, smothering me like a large animal.
Closer and closer, but still too far away. My eyelids flicker but don’t open all the way, even when I want them to. My brain tells me I’m still a far cry from being back in control of my body, but my will begs for me to keep trying anyway. And I do. I’ve got nothing else to do.
“Hey,” someone says. “He’s waking up.”
“Already?” someone else says. I strain and fight and force my eyelids to stay open, even though it makes my eyes go all teary and hot.
I see red wallpaper, a painting of a landscape that looks like a generic hotel print, a TV, a few chairs, people in the chairs. One of whom looks exactly like Stefan Randall.
“Leon.”
Son of a bitch. What the hell is he doing here? I try to ask him but my lips are heavy and clumsy, and all I get are a few puffs of air and some moans.
“What’s he saying?” another guy I recognize—the motel manager asks.
“He’s only trying,” Stefan says, taking a sip from his scotch. Don’t know why I’m not surprised by any of this. Could be because the water and the snow turned my brain to such mush I can’t tell what’s real from what should freak me out. Maybe none of this is real. Just some interactive dream. That’d make more sense—it’d account for the reason I can’t move or talk, or even see very clearly. Everything’s still in the same underwater haze. The snowy, salty haze.
Stefan turns to the kid and adds, “You’ve been very, very helpful,” meaning he wants to talk to me alone. If talking is what he’s got in mind. Suddenly I’m remembering Mimi’s contract. Could Stefan know about that? There’s no way. She only gave it to me last night, and it’s not like she’d go out of her way to tell anybody. There’s just no way. Last night? When was last night? How can I even know how much time has passed since… since everything? What if it’s been days? Weeks? Christ—what if Mimi’s dead already? That’d be reason enough for Stefan being here. I’m not a guy who gets scared easily, but I forget that when Stefan moves his chair in closer to get a better look at me. I shrink a little.
“You’ve had a lot of exposure to the elements,” Stefan says. “It’ll be some time before you’re able to talk. At least that’s what the paramedics said, although I have a feeling that it’ll be sooner than that. I know your type. I knew it the moment I hired you. You’re a fighter. Why, that’s the very reason I hired you. I needed someone who could fight when the time called for it.”
He sits back and takes another sip. “You’ve done your job; that’s certainly clear. So don’t try to talk until you’re comfortable. Let me do the talking for both of us. After that, we can have our little dialogue.” He sets the scotch down on the carpet—bright red patterned motel carpet.
There’s something different about Stefan Randall. Something I’d never noticed before, not during any of the times when I went over to his mansion to get my intel on his daughter or the goings-on of the company. He looks tired, for one thing. For another, I see the lines in his face very clearly, like they’ve been traced with a pen. He doesn’t smile either. The look on his face is the furthest from a smile I could imagine, and I realize it’s not one thing I’m noticing now about Stefan Randall, but a whole bunch of different things, all of which add up to someone who looks extremely old and extremely tired of life. Mimi asked me to put a bullet in his heart, but to me, the guy already looks dead.
“A little less than two days ago, my daughter stole a car from my garage and drove to a part of the city, the best word for which I can find would be unseemly. She stayed there several hours. I know all of this because every one of my cars is installed with a GPS tracking system that instantly tells me their whereabouts and
the duration of each stay. Mimi was reported missing to me by my staff within the hour, and it didn’t take us any more than ten minutes to piece together her disappearance and the missing car. I was asked whether I wished to pursue her and take her back: it is my regret I did not answer immediately.”
He pauses, sips his drink down to the rocks and clanks them around in the empty glass.
“We’ve had a severe difference of opinions these past several weeks, you see, over the fate of poor Kit Wheeler. My daughter holds firmly to her idea that I’ve made her a prisoner of my will, possibly involving her in deaths of which she has the highest disdain and disgust. Over these past weeks, she’s transferred this disgust over to me, for what I do and for what I stand for.”
Another pause. “And I understand entirely why she feels the way she does. My daughter believes I am a monster. What is more, I feel like one myself.”
He takes a long, slow breath. My eyes are fixed on his old, wrinkled face. Everything about this man is sad and pathetic.
“Then last night, something strange happened,” he goes on. “We traced the location of the car but still held off from any interference. I thought if I gave her some space to collect herself it would help our relationship. She’d see in time that what I did was done entirely for her benefit and for the sake of her welfare. So we let her stay here. The car registered four hours: we’d determined that she’d stopped for the night and would be returning tomorrow morning. Then just after midnight, something alarming happened. My men awoke me with the news my daughter had just committed suicide by drowning herself in the Gulf of Maine. My grief was indescribable.”
Stefan bows his head over the weight of the terror of the memory. I feel some of it myself, thinking about how I felt when I saw those men moving Mimi into the car. Those men. Her kidnappers.
“Of course I had to go and see her body myself. It’s been years since I’ve driven a car—forty years, perhaps longer, and never on snow. Nevertheless, I managed, though I still do not know how. I saw the broken rail, the marks in the snow. I was near inconsolable, as you can imagine, and my inconsolable grief soon transformed into rage, which for no reason I can think of, I directed here. A motel with guests, and staff. How could they have allowed this calamity to pass? Surely they would have heard something. I was determined to know. But when I arrived, I found something entirely beyond my expectations. Which is, of course, you, Leon.”
He sets his back heavily against his chair, the majority of his speech concluded. He doesn’t bother to move his coat over the handle of his sidearm. My guess is that he intends for me to see it. For a few seconds, he sits like that, letting me take it all in. I do, and much more. Clearly, judging by the looks he’s giving me now, Stefan thinks I’ve had a hand in murdering his daughter.
“Stefan.” The name comes out thick and heavy.
“Can you speak? Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to speak.” He adjusts his seating position in order to show off the gun once more.
“I do-do-do,” I trip over the word. It’s too heavy: I try another. “Mimi,” and this one I have better luck with. “Mimi.”
“What has become of my daughter?” Stefan’s voice is a harsh, sharp whisper. “Understand—your answer is the only thing that has kept you alive. If you’ve had a hand in her death, you’d best tell me quickly to keep from prolonging your own.”
“Mimi. Not d-d-de.” But that’s as far as I get.
Stefan frowns, looking at me like he’s looking through a magnifying glass. “Not dead? Is that what you’d like to say?”
I nod. I can’t describe my relief in not having to spell the whole sentence out.
“You’re speaking like a child. Perhaps I should do all the talking for now. Nod if you agree with me.”
I agree.
“Understand: if you’ve said this only because you’re hoping to buy yourself more time, the death that comes to you once I’ve discovered the truth you’ve been concealing will be exponentially more terrible than your death now, if you tell me the truth. I would scour the ocean for my daughter, and if you don’t believe I have the resources to do so, you clearly don’t know a thing about the man you’ve been working with.”
I nod.
“Were you alone in the car when you went into the water? My daughter was not there with you?”
Yes.
“That was no ill-conceived suicide attempt, I figure. You did not intentionally drive my car into the Gulf.”
Yes.
“Then our most obvious mystery is solved.” His voice lowers, almost a hush. “From what you know and from what you’ve seen, bearing in mind that nearly twelve hours have passed since I discovered my car in the water, do you believe she is still alive?”
I hesitate—remembering how she looked when she was being taken out to the car—and then nod.
Stefan’s face relaxes visibly. Even his eyes seem to brighten, but with a kind of guarded interest.
“You’ve let my daughter out of your sight. You’ve failed me utterly, and yet I trust you. I don’t know why myself. Maybe it is an old man’s foolishness, his hopes, and wished-for fancies. Whatever it is, I am sure that you are telling the truth. But our work is hardly finished now—we have achieved no ground in uncovering her whereabouts. Tell me, although I’m afraid for the question I am going to ask I know I have to ask it regardless—has my daughter been kidnapped?”
Yes.
“Do you know by whom?”
No.
“Was it because of her kidnappers that you were knocked off the road?”
Yes.
“Did you see what her kidnappers looked like? Hair color? The build of their bodies? How many there were in total? Any details at all?”
“Four,” I say. My lips aren’t shaking anymore. The cold is still there, but I can feel it begin to empty out of me. “Big. One small. M-maybe more.”
“And were they armed? Did you see?”
“No—I didn’t. Armed, maybe.”
Stefan pauses and doesn’t ask any more questions. What’s he thinking? I try to read his face, but all I get is a page of wrinkles and frowns. He’s concentrating intently on something, but I can’t tell what it is: a question, or maybe he knows something more.
“These men whom you saw leading her out—you don’t recall many of their details specifically to mind. But would you recognize them if you were to see them again? Do you believe you could distinguish them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps you will. Look here for me—” He pulls a large cell phone out of his pocket and begins to shift through different screens until he comes to the one he wants. He hands me the screen so I can look.
“You’ll recognize one of these men I’m sure.”
“Volker Horne,” I say, remembering the time I met the old Irishman in Stefan’s study. Cuchullain’s. Business partners. Kit Wheeler. Old friends—Stefan’s introduction comes back to me in pieces. I recognize the granny face and thin hair in the picture, but I don’t recognize the figure standing next to him. A younger type, and as thin as a twig.
“You remember him. A very dear friend, very dear.” Stefan is talking like he’s the only one in the room. Something’s agitating him.
“Perhaps you recall the rendezvous we made several months ago in my offices. I believe Volker made mention of his son to you.”
“Declan.”
Stefan’s eyebrows go up slightly. “That’s quite a memory you have. Particularly for someone who’s just experienced such a traumatic accident.”
“Why are you showing this to me?”
A cloud passes over Stefan. His face goes rigid like it was made of plastic. Though when I look closer, I see it moving, trembling with some hidden emotion powerful enough that if left alone it’ll explode from inside out.
“We never spoke about Declan Horne, Leon. Frankly, we’d hoped the threat he’d once posed to our partnership had expired years before. And yet the events of last night have proven us w
rong. Declan is a much more dangerous man than we’d ever feared or imagined. Spurred on by a hatred and insanity so fierce he’s murdered the very father who was doing all in his power to help.”
“Volker? Murdered by his son?”
“Murdered, yes. About seven o’clock last night Volker was seized by several of his own men—relatively new employments in his service—and driven far from town. I’ve had several of my own men at my late friend’s address who were given instructions to follow and keep their attention on any strange or unexpected proceedings. At eight o’clock they found themselves in a parking lot outside some abandoned buildings where they were instructed to wait and report on the situation. An hour passed before Volker’s assailants, Declan among them, emerged from the building and drove away. My men entered the building a short time later. They found him. What—what remained of him. His body was burnt thoroughly. At the back of his head, they found the entrance wounds of two bullet holes.”
Taken: A Dark Hitman Romance Page 20