Hot Secrets

by Lisa Marie Rice

  He’d wander from room to room, soaking up the rich, scented atmosphere of Caroline’s home.

  The shelter rarely had hot water, but still he took care to wash as well as he could whenever he headed out to Greenbriars. The stench of the shelter had no place in Caroline’s home.

  Greenbriars was so far beyond what he could ever hope to have that there was no jealousy, no envy in him as he touched the backs of the thousands of books in the library, walked into sweet-smelling closets full of new clothes, opened the huge refrigerator to see fresh fruits and vegetables. Caroline’s family was rich in a way he couldn’t comprehend, as if they belonged to a different species living on another planet.

  To him, it was simply Caroline’s world. And living in it for an hour a day was like touching the sky.

  Today nobody could see him approach in the storm. He walked right up the driveway, feeling the gravel through the thin soles of his shoes. The snow intensified, the wind whipping painful icy particles through the air. Ben knew how to move quietly, stealthily when he had to. But it wasn’t necessary now. There was no one to see him or hear him as he crunched his way to the window.

  The music was louder now, the source a yellow glow. It wasn’t until he had reached the end of the driveway that Ben realized that the yellow glow was the big twelve-pane window of the living room, and the music was someone playing the piano.

  He knew that living room well, as he knew all the rooms of the big mansion. He’d wandered them all, for hours. He knew that the huge living room always smelled faintly of woodsmoke from the big fireplace. He knew that the couches were deep and comfortable and the rugs soft and thick.

  He walked straight up to the window. The snow was already filling in the tracks his shoes made. No one could see him, no one could hear him.

  He was tall, and could see over the windowsill if he stood on tiptoe. Light had drained from the sky, and he knew no one in the room could see him outside.

  The living room was like something out of a painting. Hundreds of candles flickered everywhere—on the mantelpiece, on all the tables. The coffee table held the remains of a feast—half a ham on a carving board, a huge loaf of bread, a big platter of cheeses, several cakes, and two pies. A teapot, cups, glasses, an open bottle of wine, a bottle of whiskey.

  Water pooled in his mouth. He hadn’t eaten for two days. His empty stomach ached. He could almost smell the food in the room through the windowpane.

  Then food completely disappeared from his mind.

  A lovely voice rang out, clear and pure, singing a Christmas carol he’d heard in a shopping mall once while he helped his dad panhandle. Something about a shepherd boy.

  It was Caroline’s voice. He’d recognize it anywhere.

  A frigid gust of wind buffeted the garden, raking his face with sleet. He didn’t even feel it as he edged his head farther up over the windowsill.

  There she was! As always, his breath caught when he saw her.

  She was so beautiful, it sometimes hurt him to look at her. When she visited him in the shelter, he’d refuse to look at her for the first few minutes. It was like looking into the sun.

  He watched her hungrily, committing each second to memory. He remembered every word she’d ever spoken to him, he’d read and reread every book she’d ever brought him, he remembered every item of clothing he’d ever seen her in.

  She was at the piano, playing. He’d never seen anyone actually play the piano, and it seemed like magic to him. Her fingers moved gracefully over the black and white keys, and music poured out like water in a stream. His head filled with the wonder of it.

  She was in profile. Her eyes were closed as she played, a slight smile on her face, as if she and the music shared a secret understanding. She was singing another song even he recognized. “Silent Night.” Her voice rose, pure and light.

  The piano was tall and black, with lit candles held in shiny brass holders along the sides.

  Though the entire room was filled with candles, Caroline glowed more brightly than any of them. She was lit with light, her pale skin gleaming in the glowing candlelight as she sang and played.

  The song came to an end, and her hands dropped to her lap. She looked up, smiling, at the applause, then started another carol, her voice rising pure and high.

  The whole family was there. Mr. Lake, a big-shot businessman, tall, blond, looking like the king of the world. Mrs. Lake, impossibly beautiful and elegant. Toby, Caroline’s seven-year-old brother. There was another person in the room, a handsome young man. He was elegantly dressed, his dark blond hair combed straight back. His fingers were beating time with the carol on the piano top. When Caroline stopped playing, he leaned down and gave her a kiss on the mouth.

  Caroline’s parents laughed, and Toby did a somersault on the big rug.

  Caroline smiled up at the handsome young man and said something that made him laugh. He bent to kiss her hair.

  Ben watched, his heart nearly stopping.

  This was Caroline’s boyfriend. Of course. They shared a look—blond, poised, privileged. Good-looking, rich, educated. They belonged to the same species. They were meant to be together, it was so clear.

  His heart slowed in his chest. For the first time, he felt the danger from the cold. He felt its icy fingers reaching out to him to drag him down to where his father had gone.

  Maybe he should just let it take him.

  There was nothing for him here, in this lovely candlelit room. He would never be a part of this world. He belonged to the darkness and the cold.

  Ben dropped back down on his heels, backing slowly away from the house until the yellow light of the window was lost in the sleet and mist. He was shaking with the cold as he trudged back down the driveway, the wet snow seeping through the holes in his shoes to soak his feet.

  Half an hour later, he came to the interstate junction and stopped, swaying on his feet.

  The human in him wanted to sink to the ground, curl up in a ball, and wait for despair and then death to take him, as they had taken his father. It wouldn’t take long.

  But the animal in him was strong and wanted, fiercely, to live.

  To the right, the road stretched northward, right up into Canada. To the left, it went south.

  If he went north, he would die. It was as simple as that.

  Turning left, Ben shuffled forward, head low, into the icy wind.

  DANGEROUS PASSION

  Alleyway outside the Feinstein Art Gallery

  Manhattan

  November 17

  Feelings kill faster than bullets, that old Russian army saying, raced through Viktor “Drake” Drakovich’s mind when he heard the noise behind him. It was barely audible. The faint sound of metal against leather, fabric against fabric and the softest whisper of a metallic click.

  The sound of a gun being pulled from its holster, the safety being switched off. He’d heard a variation of this sound thousands and thousands of times over the years.

  He’d known for a year now that this moment would come. It was only a question of when, not if. He’d been barreling toward it, against every instinct in his body, completely out of control, for a full year.

  From his boyhood living wild on the streets of Odessa, he’d survived the most brutal conditions possible, over and over again, by being cautious, by never exposing himself unnecessarily, by being security conscious, always.

  What he’d been doing for the past year was the equivalent of suicide.

  It didn’t feel that way, though.

  It felt like . . . like life itself.

  He could remember to the second when his life changed. Utterly, completely, instantly.

  He’d been in his limousine, separated from Mischa, his driver, by the soundproof partition. In the car he never talked, and used the time to catch up on paperwork. It had been years since he’d driven anywhere for pleasure. Cars were to get from A to B, when he couldn’t fly.

  The windows wer
e heavily smoked. For security, of course. But also because it had been a long time since the outside world had interested him enough to glance out the windows at the passing scenery.

  The heavy armor-plated Mercedes S600 was stopped in traffic. The overhead stoplight continued cycling through the colors, green-yellow-red, green-yellow-red, over and over again, but traffic was at a standstill. Something had happened up ahead. The blare of impatient horns filtered through the armored walls and bulletproof glass of his car, sounding as if coming from far away, like the buzzing of crazed insects in the distance.

  A motorcycle eased past the cars like an eel in water. One driver was so enraged at the sight of the motorcyclist making headway, he leaned angrily on his horn, rolled down the window and stuck his middle finger up in the air. He shouted something out, red faced, spittle flying.

  Drake closed his eyes in disgust. Even in America, where there was order and plenty and peace—even here there was aggression and envy. Humans never learned. They were like violent children, petulant and greedy and out of control.

  It was an old feeling, dating from his childhood, as familiar to him as the feel of his hands and feet. Humans were flawed and rapacious and violent. You used that, profited from it and stayed as much out of their way as possible. It was the closest thing to a creed he had and it had served him well all his life.

  Oddly enough, though, lately this kind of thinking had made him . . . impatient. Annoyed. Wanting to step away from it all. Go . . . somewhere else. Do something else. Be someone else.

  If there were another world, he’d emigrate to it. But there was only this world, filled with greedy and violent people.

  Whenever he found himself in this mood, which was more and more often lately, he tried to shake himself out of it. Moods were an excellent way to get killed.

  Strangely out of sorts, he looked again at the spreadsheets on his lap. They tracked a 10-million-dollar contract to supply weapons to a Tajikistani warlord, the first of what Drake hoped would be several deals with the self-styled “general.” There was newfound oil in the general’s fiefdom, a goddamned lake of it right underneath the barren, hard-packed earth, and the general was in the mood to buy whatever was necessary to hold on to the power and the oil. When this deal went through smoothly, as it certainly would, Drake knew there would be many more down the line.

  Years ago, if nothing else, the thought would have given him satisfaction. Now, he felt nothing at all. It was a business deal. He would put in the work; it would net him more money. Nothing he hadn’t done thousands and thousands of times before.

  He stared at the printouts until they blurred, trying to drum up interest in the deal. It wasn’t there, which was alarming. What was even more alarming was the dull void in his chest as he reflected on his indifference. Not being able to care about not being able to care was frightening. Would have been frightening, if he could work up the energy to be frightened.

  Restless, he glanced to his right. This section of Lexington was full of bookshops and art galleries, the shop windows more pleasing, less crass than the boutiques with their stupid, outlandish clothes a block uptown.

  And that was when he saw them.

  Paintings. A wall of them, together with a few watercolors and ink drawings. All heartbreakingly beautiful, all clearly by the same fine hand. A hand even he recognized was extraordinary.

  Though the car windows were smoked, the gallery was well lit and each work of art had its own wall-mounted spotlight, so Drake got a good look at them all, stalled there in a mid-Manhattan traffic jam. And anyway, his eyesight was sniper grade.

  He did something he’d never done before. He buzzed down his window. The driver’s mouth fell open. Drake flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror. The driver’s mouth snapped shut and his face assumed an impassive expression.

  The car instantly filled with the smell of exhaust fumes and the loud cacophony of a Manhattan traffic jam.

  Drake ignored it completely. The important thing was he had a better view of the paintings now.

  The first painting he saw took his breath away. A simple image—a woman alone at sunset on a long, empty beach. The rendering of the sea, the colors of the sunset, the grainy beach—all those details were technically perfect. But what came off the surface of the painting like steam off an iron was the loneliness of the woman. It could have been the portrait of the last human on earth.

  The Mercedes lurched forward a foot then stopped. He barely noticed.

  The paintings were like little miracles on a wall. A glowing still life of wildflowers in a can and an open paperback on a table, as if someone had just come in from the garden. A pensive man reflecting himself in a shop window. Delicate female hands holding a book. The artwork was realistic, delicate, stunning. It pulled you in to the world of the picture and didn’t let you go.

  Drake had no way to judge the artwork in technical terms; all he knew was that each work was brilliant, perfect, and called to him in some way he’d never felt before.

  The car rolled forward ten feet, bringing another section of the wall into view.

  The last painting on the wall jolted him.

  It was the left profile of a man rendered in earth tones. The man’s face was hard, strong-jawed, unsmiling. His dark hair was cut so short the skull beneath was visible, which was exactly as Drake wore it in the field, particularly in Afghanistan. Far from even the faintest hope of running water, he shaved his head and his body hair, the only way to avoid lice. The face of the man didn’t exactly look like him, but the portrait had the look of him—features harsh, grim, unyielding.

  Running from the forehead over the high cheekbone and down to the jaw, brushing perilously close to the left eye, was a ragged white scar, like a lightning bolt etched in flesh.

  Reflexively, Drake lifted a hand to his face, remembering.

  He’d been a street rat on the streets of Odessa, sleeping in a doorway in the dead of winter. Some warmth seeped through the cracks in the door, allowing him to sleep without fear of freezing to death in the subzero temperatures.

  Emaciated, dressed in rags, he was perfect prey for the sailors just ashore from months working brutal shifts at sea, reeling drunk through the streets. Sailors who hadn’t had sex in months and didn’t much care who they fucked—boy or girl—as long as whoever it was held still long enough. Most of the sailors didn’t even care whether who they fucked stayed still because they were tied down or dead.

  Drake came awake in a rush as the fetid breath of two Russian sailors washed over his face. One of the sailors held a knife to Drake’s throat while the other dropped his pants, already hauling out a long, thin, beet-red cock.

  Drake was a born street fighter and fought best when he was close to the ground. He was born with the ability and had honed it by observation and practice. He scissored his legs, bringing the man with the knife toppling to the ground, then hurled himself at the knees of the second man, hobbled by his pants. The man fell heavily to the ground, his head hitting the broken pavement with a sickening crack.

  Drake turned to the first man, who’d scrambled to his feet and was holding the knife in front of him like an expert, edge down. The chances of surviving a knife fight barehanded were ludicrously low. Drake knew he had to even the odds fast, do something unexpected.

  He flung himself forward, into the knife. The blade sliced the side of his face open, but the surprise move loosened the sailor’s grip. Drake wrenched the knife out of his hand and jabbed it into the man’s eye, to the hilt.

  The sailor dropped like a stone.

  Drake stood over him, panting, his blood dripping over the man’s face, then pulled the knife out of his attacker’s skull and wiped it down on the man’s tattered jacket.

  He took both men’s knives. One was a nozh razvedchika, a scout’s knife. The other was a Finnish Pukka, rare in those parts and very valuable. He bartered both along the Odessa waterfront for two guns, a Skorpion and an AK–47— />
  including clips and shooting lessons—sold cheaply because they were stolen.

  He was on his way.

  Later, as soon as he could afford it, he had plastic surgery on the long, jagged white scar on the left side of his face. He was known for being able to blend into almost any environment, for turning himself invisible, but a very visible scar was like a flag, something no one forgot. It had to go.

  The surgeon was good, one of the best. There was nothing visible left of his scar. Besides himself, only the surgeon could remember the shape of the long-gone scar. But there it was, in a painting in a gallery in Manhattan, half a world away and two decades later. However crazy it sounded, the scar in the painting was the same scar the surgeon had eliminated, all those years ago.

  Traffic suddenly cleared and the Mercedes rolled smoothly forward. Drake punched the button in the center console that allowed him to communicate with the driver.

  “Sir?” Mischa sounded startled over the intercom. Drake rarely spoke while they were traveling.

  “Turn right at the next intersection and let me off after two blocks.”

  “Sir?” This time the driver’s voice sounded confused. Drake never left the car en route. He got into one of his many vehicles in his building’s garage and got out at his destination. The driver caught himself. Drake never had to repeat himself with his men. “Yessir,” the driver replied.

  Once out of the limousine, Drake continued walking in the direction of the car until it disappeared into the traffic, then ducked into a nearby department store. Ten minutes later, satisfied that he wasn’t being followed, he doubled back to the art gallery, having ditched his eight-hundred-dollar Boss jacket, Brioni pants, Armani cashmere sweater and scarf and having bought a cheap parka, long-sleeved cotton tee, jeans, watch cap and sunglasses. He was as certain as he could be that no one was tailing him and that he was unrecognizable.

  The art gallery was warm after the chill of the street. Drake stopped just inside the door, taking in the scent of tea brewing and that mixture of expensive perfumes and men’s cologne typical of Manhattan haunts, mixed with the more down-to-earth smells of resin and solvents.