CHAPTER TEN
Ten days later
August 18—5:30 P.M.
Denver, Colorado
“You look nice,” John said, coming up the stairs. Alex was adjusting her fake blonde hair in front of the full-length mirror. She wore only a lace thong. “Is this what you’re wearing tonight?”
Alex laughed. He ran his hand across her belly while his fingers played with the large round diamond she wore in her belly button. He kissed her neck before tugging her toward him. She leaned her head back against his shoulder, and they watched themselves in the mirror.
“Have I mentioned that I love you recently?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said, catching his eyes in the mirror.
“Oh, love.” He dropped his mouth to her neck again. “When are we due at dinner?”
“In a half hour,” she said.
“Hmm,” he said.
She smiled at him.
“What would you say to a . . .”
“Hey!” Max called from downstairs.
John spun Alex around and kissed her with such intense passion that she was out of breath and melting to his touch.
“Later,” he said.
John moved into the bathroom to take a shower.
Alex was almost dressed when Max came into the bedroom. Screaming that she was wearing old-lady clothing, he dug into her closet and handed her a tiny red strapless metallic stretch-nylon dress hiding in the back. They argued back and forth until Max convinced her to try it on.
“Where did that come from?” John came into the bedroom with a towel around his waist.
“Max bought this dress online. He’s become very interested in slutting Alyssa’s dress code.”
John raised his eyebrows to Max.
“Thanks, man,” he said, as he walked into his closet to change.
Alex watched herself in the mirror. The dress was just long enough to cover the scarring on her left leg and hip. The skintight red metallic fabric covered from the top edge of her breasts to just below her hips. Turning sideways, she scowled and tugged the fabric down. Max handed her a pair of four-inch red patent-leather stiletto pumps. She slipped them on, and watched herself in the mirror again. When she looked up, John was staring at her, the blue of his eyes virtually consumed by his black pupils. Max looked over at John and laughed.
“It’s unanimous,” Max said.
“Can you help me with this?” Alex asked.
She gave Max a tube of concealer. Together, the twins covered the fairy tattoo.
“No Fey today?” John asked, coming out of the bedroom dressed all in black.
Alex shrugged. “I went with Erin today to get her black ‘F’ tattoo and saw this concealer. Alyssa shouldn’t be so tattooed.”
“Weapon?” John asked.
“Yes, that too,” Alex said.
She went into the bedroom. When she came out, the men shook their heads.
“Where is it?” Max asked.
“What?”
“Your gun?” John asked.
“Ah, some things are better left to the imagination,” she said.
Laughing, she went down the stairs. They walked a few blocks to a trendy restaurant, where they met Erin and Matthew, Colin, Julie, and Samantha. The siblings laughed through dinner and took a cab to a nightclub on South Broadway. Despite the long line, a bouncer Matthew knew waved them into the dance club. They danced until they were thirsty and drank until they were dancing again. As the night wore on, Colin and Julie made an early exit. Samantha slipped into a reserved section with a handsome professional football player. With a wink to Alex, Max disappeared with a beauty.
When Matthew and Erin went to the rooftop to dance under the stars, John took Alex’s hand and led her off the dance floor. Pressing her into a dark corner, he kissed her lips. His hands ran over the tight dress and her responsive flesh. Alex burned with rising desire. She held him in a tight embrace as his lips worked down her neck and shoulders. He let out a breath.
“Let’s go home,” she said into his ear.
“Just one more.” He took her lips with his lips.
“Ah, Johnny,” a voice said over the music.
John stiffened at the voice.
“I didn’t expect you to be an exhibitionist,” the man’s voice continued in some form of Gaelic.
John pushed Alex from him. Two slight men grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Not so fast.”
John’s eyes filled with desperation. Shaking his head, he continued to push Alex toward the corner.
“She’s not a part of this,” John replied in the same language.
“Oh yes, she is,” a bright red-haired man said, speaking the same Gaelic.
“Shall we go for a little drive?” the dark-haired man asked John.
The red-haired man grabbed Alex by the arm and pressed a handgun into her ribs. She was about to take the weapon away from the man when she caught John’s eyes. He shook his head “No.” His eyes pleaded with her to go along. Alex looked down at the ground. She would bide her time in this made-for-television kidnapping.
At gunpoint, the men escorted them through the club. They were near the door when Matthew flew down the stairs. Without looking at him directly, Alex raised her left hand, and he stopped in his tracks. She moved her hand horizontally, and he nodded. They walked past him and out the door into the deserted alley behind the club. The men tied Alex and John’s hands behind their back, and shoved them into the back of an SUV.
“I realize we are in the middle of a made-for-TV movie,” Alex said in English. “But I’d like to know what’s going on.”
She wasn’t sure what form of Gaelic they were speaking. It was similar to the Irish Gaelic she spoke fluently. She wasn’t about to let them know that she spoke any form of Gaelic.
“Listen, maybe you should be more choosey about the married men you pick up in clubs.”
“He’s . . .”
John fell into her. He murmured in English, “Whatever they say, remember that you are now and have always been my only love.”
Alex turned to him as if she was stung.
“What? You didn’t know he was married?” the dark-haired man asked in accented English. Irish?
“Fuck you,” John said.
“Ah, yes, fuck me. Johnny, your family’s missed you all these years.”
Alex closed her eyes for a moment. She felt a spinning sensation in her head. She bit the inside of her mouth to stay present. Tasting her own blood in her mouth, she pushed her emotions away. When she opened her eyes, she felt nothing. She would deal with John later. She saw the glimmer of Jesse in the car. At least she wasn’t alone.
They drove in silence until the SUV slowed at a warehouse. The men dragged John and Alex from the SUV. When they stopped to open the door, John attempted to protect Alex with his body. The men laughed. They pushed John through the door and into the empty warehouse.
Alex followed John into the warehouse without a word. She was relaxed and calm. Just waiting for action. After all, it was only two small men. Irish? Maybe Scottish. She shrugged. Either way, they weren’t much.
After tying them to chairs, the men went to the edge of the open space to make phone calls, and Alex began to undo her ropes. Working with the spike of her stiletto heel, she loosened the knot. Her ropes fell to the ground. Standing barefoot on the concrete floor, she jumped high enough to rotate her hands in front of her. She untied John’s ropes, and he untied her hands. When the men returned, John and Alex were standing near the chairs.
“I’m a Homeland Security agent,” Alex said.
“And I’m Father Christmas,” the dark-haired man said, holding the handgun on Alex. “I don’t know how you did that, but . . .”
“I won’t kill you if you let us go.” Alex had to work to keep the amusement from her voice.
“Why would I let you go?” the dark-haired man asked. “I’ve wanted to talk to your boyfriend for more than twenty years.”
�
�All right,” Alex said. “We talk, and then we walk.”
“Who the fuck are you? I have a gun!”
Shifting to the left, Alex kicked the gun from the man’s hands. The gun skittered into a far corner of the warehouse.
“Now you don’t.”
“Will you shoot them?” the dark-haired man asked the red-haired man.
“I don’t know, Cian. This isn’t going very well,” the red-haired man replied.
“Holy fuck. Cian?” John asked.
“Johnny. It’s a big Kelly family reunion. Now shut the fuck up,” Cian said.
“You’re John Kelly,” Alex said, with more breath than sound.
John’s head wrenched toward her. His face flushed with emotion while his mouth moved. Without saying a word, he dropped his head.
“That makes you Cian Kelly,” Alex said in clear Irish Gaelic. “You’re Irish Republican Volunteers.”
“Now we have to kill her,” the red-haired man said. His arms dropped to his side. “Fuck Cian, we didn’t even know if they needed killing. I told you we should have left her at the club.”
“Who’s in charge?” Alex asked.
“I am,” Cian said.
Alex reviewed the man’s curly dark-hair and blue eyes—not quite John’s cobalt, but deep blue anyway. He was smaller and older than John. She shook her head.
“No you’re not,” Alex said. She sat down in the chair she had been tied to. “Call whoever is in charge, and tell them this: ‘I captured the blue fairy.’”
“I’m not going to . . .”
“You’d better do it,” she said. “I’ll wait here.”
She made a movement with her hand.
“Go on.”
Cian Kelly gave Alex a dark look and turned his back on them. Walking away, he dialed his cell phone.
“Sit down,” Alex said to John.
“Alex . . . I . . .”
Her heart flashed with emotion. She shook her head and pushed the emotion away.
“You may as well get comfortable” She gave an exaggerated bored yawn.
Cian Kelly was yelling into the telephone. Storming back to the chairs, John moved to cover Alex with his body, but Cian punched the phone in her direction.
“He wants to talk to you,” Cian said. “Where’s your fucking tattoo?”
“Have a tissue?” she asked, reaching for the phone.
The red-haired man ran to the bathroom and returned with toilet paper. She wiped off the concealer from her fairy tattoo.
“Ah, fuck, Cian, do you know who that is?” The red-haired man wheeled back from Alex as if he’d been hit.
She waved at the red head before speaking into the telephone.
“Dia duit,” she said.
“You are with John Kelly,” the voice said in Irish Gaelic.
“I just found that out,” Alex said, continuing in Gaelic. “How are you?”
“I’m well. I have three more grandchildren since you were here last,” the elderly man’s voice said. “How is your health, dear? I hear you’re walking . . . kicking guns from people.”
“I’m much better than when we spoke last. Did you hear the Fey is back?”
“I did hear that, but I prefer to see it with my own eyes.”
“Why are you here?” Alex asked.
“As you know, John Kelly is a curiosity of mine. I received this photo of him with a group of people, and, things being what they are, I thought I’d send a few boys to talk to him.”
“His wife? Where is she?”
“Yes, his wife. Why are you with John Kelly? The boys said you were pretty hot at it.”
“He’s my husband,” Alex said.
The man laughed. “John Kelly is your John? The John who taught you Gaelic? Wait . . . Oh my God, this is a picture of you. Christ, you’re wearing mouse ears.”
“That’s what you do at Disneyland,” she said. “Where did you get the photo?”
“It came in our direction. I’m not sure.”
“But you’ll find out.”
“Yes, lass. We have a few questions,” he said.
“Fine. Then we go home.”
“I don’t care where the questions get answered.”
“Great,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”
Alex passed the phone to Cian. She stepped into her shoes and stood.
“Come on, John,” she said. She held her hand out to him. “Let’s go home.”
“Wait a minute,” the red-haired man said. “We need to talk.”
“You’ll be much more comfortable at our house,” Alex said. “I can call a cab or . . .”
“I’ll drive,” Cian said, stomping over to them. “You know it’s not very fair to cover that tattoo. How the fuck are we supposed to know who you are?”
“Right—I could just be some other girl you are holding at gunpoint,” Alex said.
“Shut up,” Cian said. “Get in back.”
They drove in silence. John reached and entwined his fingers with Alex’s fingers. When she turned to look at him, he saw that she had placed herself somewhere far away from him. He kissed her hand. Closing his eyes, he prayed to a God that he was certain had abandoned him years ago. He prayed that Alex, the only thing that mattered to him in this whole world, would possibly understand. When the car stopped at their house, Alex got out.
Turning back into the SUV, she said, “There are some people here to see you.”
Homeland Security agents surrounded the car. Raz jumped from the porch of the house and swept Alex into a hug. Unsure if he should touch her, John stood behind Alex.
“We got the call from Matthew and tracked you with the GPS locator in your hip. We thought it was Eleazar.”
“I’m sorry to have worried you,” Alex said. “We got picked up by the PIRA.”
Raz looked surprised.
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I need to go to bed. Can you hold these guys? Just hold them. They didn’t do anything.”
“Got it,” Raz said.
Alex walked up the porch to where Ben stood, smoking a cigarette. She searched the face of her mentor and saw what she expected.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it doesn’t matter,” he said.
She gave a curt nod and moved to follow John into the house. Ben touched her arm.
“Remember. He’s a psychological terrorist.”
Hearing his words, Alex’s eyes shifted to look at Ben, but her mind was already slipping down the familiar path of depression. She followed John into the house. Moving like a person in a trance, Alex walked up the stairs. Each step brought her further into the depressive fog that had blanketed her for the last two years. Rather than walking into their bedroom, she turned into the guest bedroom and closed the door. John stood on the landing, staring at the door.
“You have to talk to me,” John said to the door.
Standing on the other side of the door, Alex turned the lock of the door. She didn’t have to talk to him tonight. Pulling off the tight red dress, she threw it on the ground and kicked the pumps under the night table. She went to the closet and put on a battered marathon gimme shirt. Sitting on the side of the bed, she heard John sit down in the hall.
“I know you are just sitting there, Alex,” he said. “Will you hear me out?”
“Why?” she asked. “You’ve had twelve years to be honest, to tell me that you were already married. Ah, fuck.”
She pressed her hand against the pain and anger that lived in her heart. Rolling onto her side, her heart away from John, she pulled the covers over her head. Unbidden, her mind began to walk the trail toward death. Now that John wasn’t her husband, she could just go and be with her team.
With a sigh, she closed her eyes and fell into a dream.
She was walking down a familiar white tunnel. As she walked, round fluorescent ceiling lights flickered on. She had the sensation that she was walking out of the light and into the dark over and over again. She heard laught
er. Mike, their operations officer, was teasing Jax, their medic, about placing third in the hundred and thirty-five mile Badwater Ultramarathon. Alex smiled. If she hurried, she would spend the night playing in Paris. She began to jog, running mostly in the dark now, as the lights flickered on behind her.
The faster she ran, the farther away they seemed.
Jesse was laughing with Dwight, the other weapons officer, about something the engineer Paul was doing. She beamed with expectation and turned into the room. Sliding on a pool of blood, her vision filled with the horror of her beloved friends’ bodies in pieces, bleeding onto the floor.
Screaming, she collapsed to the floor.
F
The Fey Page 11