Angel Face

by Suzanne Forster

“At least take off this blindfold,” he said. “Do that, and I’ll stop trying to get free.”

  “Oh, now we’re bargaining? I don’t think so, Doctor.” She laughed softly, a breathless sound. “You haven’t got anything I want.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To know what you want and why you followed me down here. You’re not getting out of those ropes until you tell me everything.”

  “Fine, just take off the blindfold and let me sit up. I can’t talk this way.”

  That was not the way it worked, but he didn’t understand that yet. She gave the orders now. Perhaps it was time to impress that on his mind.

  She took stock of her surroundings, looking for anything that would help make her point. A big stick, for example. There was plenty of wood around. The hut seemed to be made entirely of tropical hardwood, with a thatched roof of palm leaves. It was a rather large two-room structure, mostly open to the air with rolled shades, and the front looked out on a sparkling white beach and turquoise sea.

  Angela felt a cooling breeze and held up her hair, letting it rifle the tendrils clinging to her nape. She’d tied her blouse at the waist for ventilation and rolled up her linen shorts, but nothing really helped.

  She would love to have taken off everything and run naked to the water. The heat was that oppressive. It was an alarmingly primitive area, but she’d had little choice other than to come here. She’d found a map in his pocket with directions to this place, which was described as an isolated refuge, equipped with a solar cell generator, hot and cold running water, and a two-week supply of food. At the time, she’d been in the middle of a tropical jungle with no knowledge of the area or its inhabitants. Her command of Spanish was limited, and she’d had an unconscious man in the truck.

  Any kind of refuge would have been an improvement.

  Now she gave in to an impulse and bent over to shake out her hair, aware of the rustling sound it made as she ran her hands through its brandied thickness. Anything to cool her scalp and bring down her temperature. The soles of her leather sandals scraped against the tile floor. They were loaners from Silver, and they were too big.

  “What’s that noise?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

  “Sharpening knives, Doctor, in case I decide to operate. And by the way, I ask the questions from now on.”

  She tossed back her hair and came up, cooler now, more in control. It was hard to image that he’d brought her to a place like this for any other purpose than to interrogate and dispose of her, and that was part of the reason she’d brought him here. She had a few questions to ask, and she wanted all of the advantages this place offered, including the psychological advantage of having turned the tables. The danger was that he’d told someone where he was going, that they knew his destination. Her first task was to get that information out of him, and she’d already decided how to go about it.

  The falling sun had gradually flooded the hut with amber light, giving the rooms a rich, peachy glow as she crossed to the kitchen. Her shadow danced against a latticed wooden screen that separated the two rooms, one of the few attempts at decor. The others were equally earthy and charming. Scattered about were Mexican jaguar masks, sandy seashells, and leafy palms in clay pots, which probably needed no watering because of the humidity. A hammock had been hung outside on the thatch-roofed veranda, and the living room and kitchen had rattan furniture with faded orange birds of paradise on the cushions.

  But Angela’s thoughts weren’t held by the ambience. She was looking for a certain eating utensil, and fortunately, the kitchen seemed to have everything. The hut was not well outfitted by accident, she was sure. It was too isolated for vacation purposes, which made it perfect for things clandestine. At any rate, she found what she needed in the first drawer she opened. The edge of the knife blade was blue steel and sharp, like his eyes.

  “What the hell are you doing now?” he called out.

  She returned to the living room, aware that he couldn’t see what she was carrying, but he would find out about it the hard way if he didn’t cooperate. She didn’t plan to use the knife on him, but . . . accidents happened.

  “I said I’m asking the questions now. What about that statement didn’t you understand?”

  He mangled a word, but Angela caught it and it rhymed with witch.

  She emitted a resigned sigh. He was going to make this difficult.

  He was lying on bamboo mats in the corner of the living room nearest the door. It was as far as she’d been able to drag him, given his size. She should have been intimidated by that. If she knew anything about dead weight, he tipped the scale at better than two hundred pounds, and he was at least seven inches taller than she was, which would put him around six one. No small adversary, but somehow she knew in this one area, she possessed superior skills. He was a wizard in the operating room, and perhaps he had some intelligence experience, but she sincerely doubted he had ever done any of the things it was beginning to look like she’d done.

  “I don’t think you did understand,” she said in a tone that implied supreme calm and forbearance.

  She yanked tight the front of his T-shirt. “Don’t move!” With two clean strokes, she sliced around the entire sleeve, leaving his arm bare and untouched, except for one tiny nick.

  Why did it surprise her that she knew how to handle a knife?

  He shot up as far as the ropes would let him. “What the fuck?”

  Apparently, he’d felt the nick.

  “I just cut off the sleeve of your shirt. Speak to me in that tone again, and you’ll lose another sleeve, and then I’ll divide the rest of your T-shirt into squares and start cutting cake. You could be totally naked in no time.”

  “Naked? Is that one of your sick rituals?”

  “Are you hard of hearing or just slow?” With a swift stroke, she opened his shoulder seam and the crew neck of his T-shirt flapped forward. “Want to go for the other sleeve?”

  The sound that escaped his clenched teeth was straight out of the jungle. If Angela hadn’t been certain the ropes would hold him, she would have backed off, backed way off, and let him cool down. But that would signal intimidation, and too many men had tried to control her in that way, by frightening her. Too many, dammit.

  The other sleeve was history, she vowed. And then everything else would go, too, if that was the way he wanted it. He wouldn’t even have Adam’s fig leaf left.

  She couldn’t get at him the way he was lying, so she made use of the wall for leverage and pulled him to his knees, supporting him until he was steady enough to stay upright on his own. She’d not only tied his hands and feet behind him, she’d looped them together, severely limiting his mobility. The blindfold made him even tipsier, but that worked to her advantage, too. She wanted him vulnerable in all ways.

  “The great Dr. Jordan Carpenter in naked bondage,” she whispered in his ear, then blew lightly and watched him grimace. “I wonder what the medical community would think of their bright and shiny hero now.”

  “Ask me if I care,” he muttered.

  “The only thing between you and naked bondage is those safari shorts, Doctor. And if I were you, I wouldn’t want me anywhere near your pants. I could miss.”

  “They were wrong about you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a crazier bitch than they claimed.”

  “Wrong answer.” She sliced the other shoulder seam, and his T-shirt nearly fell off.

  He recoiled, and she tasted the sweetness of winning. Of justice. It fired the breath in her throat, and everything went hot for a second. The big man had flinched, and that was all she wanted, some respect. But something inside her had quivered, too, and the reaction had nothing to do with the thrill of victory.

  Angela was not quite prepared for what she’d exposed. She hadn’t expected to have a thought about his physical body beyond defending herself against it, but now it was difficult not to have several thoughts. He was half-naked, seethingly angry, and r
eally quite spectacular, especially clenched the way he was.

  Her gaze swept over him, on some involuntary mission of its own, and settled on his abdomen. That surprised her, considering all of the other things that could have drawn her eye. Movement, she realized. Those muscles were in flux, fisted with tension, yet rising to accommodate his breathing. Quick breathing, shallow and pent up. Movement. And body hair, too. Pointedly swirled, it cast shadows down his torso that made her think of the sea, of storms.

  In chains on his knees, the dashing doctor could have been one of Caravaggio’s religious martyrs, a human landscape of naked light and shadow.

  It was a good thing he’d gone quiet, because she would certainly have hurt him—and not even intentionally—if she’d tried to use the knife now. It was useless in her hand. She was fairly useless, too, spinning like a top. He didn’t get the credit for that, though. She was battling a fever, numbing fatigue, and wet heat. She’d had no food since that morning and didn’t want any, but she should probably force herself to eat and regain some strength. She couldn’t let him find out that she was weakening.

  A dragonfly whirred through the hut, iridescent jade, and landed on her hostage’s blindfold. He jerked his head and nearly toppled himself but said nothing. Sweat sheened his temples, tiny pearls that would soon be tracing the strong bones of his face. The smell of trapped anger was powerful. It burned like locked brakes. But maybe he was weakening. There was one way to find out.

  She drew deeply from the very pit of her belly, and then did it again, all in an effort to conquer her light-headedness. Someone had taught her how to do that, she was virtually sure. She was also becoming aware of something else: A part of her had ice for blood and was totally fearless. But that part of her was locked up with the horrors of the erased months, and to release it would have been too dangerous. Since that time, she had held everything at bay with a few words, but she couldn’t do that any longer. She would never get through this without the fearlessness.

  The knife blade came to life as she reclaimed her grip on the handle.

  “Let’s see now, what comes after the shirt?” She pretended to ponder the issue. “Pants maybe? I’d hate to think what the mosquitoes are going to do to your bare—”

  He chewed a word into dust.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said we’ll do it your way. Ask your questions.”

  “And you’ll answer them?”

  “I’ll answer them. What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know what you know about Angela Lowe.”

  “Angela Lowe is you, right?”

  “Just tell me about her.” She had begun to shake again, and even gripping the knife didn’t help. There was a price for unlocking the power hidden in her psyche, and she would have to pay it now. She unlocked everything. Tell me what Angela Lowe has done, every sickening detail. Tell me who her friends are, if she has any, and which one of them wants her dead. Is it Brandt or Sammy? Is it Silver? Or someone she doesn’t even know, a ghost she erased? Tell me if there’s any hope for Angela Lowe, because she’s breaking, Doctor. She’s breaking faster than you are.

  “I have one condition,” he said.

  “You don’t get conditions.”

  His head came up defiantly. “Then cut off my clothes and gut me with that knife, or whatever it is you plan to do, because I’m not saying another word until you take off this blindfold.”

  It flashed through her mind that he wanted to see who and what he was dealing with. That would give him an edge, and it wasn’t the kind of concession she should make, especially at his suggestion. She also had another kind of flash, one that allowed her to imagine that he might want more intimate contact with her, contact only the eyes could make, but that was ridiculous.

  Gut him? she thought, marveling at his choice of words. She had to believe he was bluffing. He didn’t think she was capable of that kind of violence. She wasn’t capable. Even with a crucial part of her past missing, she knew she had never done anything like that and never could. It was almost as if he were talking about another person, someone not even human. Someone had been lying to him, she realized with true astonishment. They were trying to make him think she was a monster. Someone was lying.

  A drop of perspiration trickled and ran. She blinked, and her eyes felt the sting. Her gait was unsteady as she walked over to him and her hand wavered. A warning whispered in her head, but not soon enough to stop her. She shouldn’t be using the knife. Someone might get hurt.

  The blade hissed near his ear, and he jerked back. His blindfold fell away, and Angela saw that he was bleeding. She thought she’d cut him, but it wasn’t pain she saw in his gaze, it was confusion, rage, and disbelief. He was staring at her as if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Blue eyes, she realized. Excruciatingly blue. Like the earth from a million miles out.

  “Who the hell are you?” he whispered.

  Angela’s dizziness returned with a vengeance, tilting her in space. What was he talking about? Who did he think she was? He had searched out every detail of her face that day at his house. He’d stared until she felt as faint as she did at this moment. And strangest of all, he’d looked as if he were falling in love with her, or half in love with her already. She hadn’t imagined that. But now he didn’t seem to recognize her. How could that be?

  * * *

  THERE were no signs of global warming inside the Cognitive Studies lab. Sammy Tran could see his own breath. The weather in his own personal squirrel cage was a frigid ten degrees lower than usual, and the worst part was, he couldn’t find his earmuffs. It felt like there were icicles hanging from his ears and a few other extremities.

  Hell, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was she was gone.

  Angela Lowe was still missing, and he hadn’t been able to think about anything else. His work was going to hell on him, and that was why he’d lowered the temperature. The chill would distract him. He was desperate to keep his mind off his own infantile preoccupations and focused on what he had to get done before the sun came up again. He’d never taken Angel Face to her limits. Tonight that would change.

  Tonight he would blow the circuits on this video game he played for a living and prove that she could do everything that had been claimed and more. The program was addictive. The pure power of it thrilled him. He could control people’s brains, their behavior. No one got to do that, not even God, if you believed in free will. No one but a lab rat named Sammy.

  He didn’t care about the glory. He didn’t even care about the power really. It was success, the intoxicating rush of success. Who would have believed it possible to control nearly every aspect of human behavior with the click of a mouse? That you could reduce humanity to a hard science?

  Sammy brushed his palm with the spines of an overgrown butch haircut. The hair made him look like a sea urchin, but he liked the way it tickled his skin and stimulated the sensory cortex. He had news for the nonbelievers. He could regulate emotion, modulate motivation, and/ or make people as horny as toads, if he chose. He could not only read minds, he could change them.

  He could also drive an innocent to the very brink of butchery. And he could stop her. Now that was power.

  Naturally there would be outraged hordes, decrying the morality of what Angel Face could do. But Sammy couldn’t be concerned with that right now. He had to be concerned with making her work perfectly. That was his job.

  He had his hand poised on the mouse, ready to increase signal strength to the deep limbic system, when he heard papers rustling. It sounded like someone had opened a book. He left the program running and got up from his desk. It was a short walk down the hall to the next cubicle, and an even shorter trip in his mind because he knew exactly what he would find.

  Her cubicle was an empty shell, not a sign of life there except for the books that were piled in stacks and wedged between cheap metal bookends. As always, there were one or two left lying open, as if she’d meant to get back to them but was interr
upted with something more interesting. One would think she did nothing but read. Read and whisk imaginary hair from her face. He was always kidding her about her overactive cingulate, and how she was just one step away from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Pretty soon you’ll be counting cracks in the sidewalk, Angela.

  She’s fine, just taking some time off. That’s what he’d been told.

  Bullshit!

  He kicked the back of her lab chair savagely, smashing it against the countertop. Anywhere else the sound would have exploded, but in the vacuum of the lab, it barely registered. Just like his life. Nothing registered. Nothing made a sound.

  Where in hell is she? And how could I have let her disappear from right under my nose?

  CHAPTER 14

  IT wasn’t just the bloody knife in her hand. Jordan had no idea who he was dealing with at this point. She wasn’t the frightened female in the San Luis mission or the guarded professional who came to his home, and certainly not the innocent in the picture. She was flushed with purpose and hot for some kind of action. Maybe a confrontation that would give her an excuse to carry out her threats. Hidden in her deceptively soft brown eyes was a wildness that made him think she must be high on something.

  Who the hell am I dealing with? The teenager in the video had been desperate, but this was a different kind of desperation, and he didn’t know what to make of it. Having a man restrained and helpless had obviously empowered her, and if that was her game, then maybe she was capable of killing, simply for the feeling of power and control it gave her.

  God, he didn’t want that to be true. Even tied up at knifepoint, he didn’t. Maybe he was hallucinating because of the head wound. His skull throbbed, and his eyes didn’t want to focus. Worse, the haunting cries that emanated from the jungle were beginning to sound human, like some tormented soul in need of rescue.

  “What did you hit me with?” he asked. “I could have a concussion or a skull fracture.”

  “You could, but it’ll have to wait.”

  The cords in his jaw tightened. “For what? Until I’m unconscious?”