by Anna Zaires
“All right, then.” Marsha grins. “Let’s do this.” She hops off the barstool and grabs my wrist, raising my arm in the air. “Hey, everyone,” she shouts over the music. “My friend here can belt out a mean one. You all want to hear?”
I want to sink through the floor, but a few people in the crowd—mostly tipsy dudes—respond with a chorus of “hell, yeahs.”
“Come on.” Marsha all but pushes me onto the stage, where the band members look less than pleased to be dealing with an amateur.
Normally, I would slink away and yell at Marsha later, but between the alcohol loosening my inhibitions and my little performances for Peter and his men in Japan, I somehow find the courage to remain on the stage.
“Do you guys know ‘Karma’ by Alicia Keys?” I ask the guitarist, hoping I’m not slurring my words.
The guitarist—a ruddy-cheeked guy with a receding hairline—gives me a wary look. “Maybe. You going to sing as we play?”
“Do you mind?” I give him my prettiest smile. “Just one song, and I’ll be out of your hair.”
He exchanges a look with the other musicians, then shoves a mic into my hands and says, “Oh, what the hell. Go for it, girl. Show us what you’ve got.”
They play the first few notes, and I turn to face the crowd, my pulse quickening as I realize what I’ve gotten myself into. The last time I performed in front of so many people was back in middle school, when I got a lead role in a school musical. And just like then, I feel a swarm of butterflies in my stomach, a jittery kind of excitement.
Use it, I tell myself, and taking a deep breath, I begin to sing, letting my own lyrics mix with the familiar words of the song. Despite all the drinks, my voice comes out strong and pure, so powerful I can feel the vibration of the sound. All other noise in the lounge dies down, and I see both surprise and wonder on the faces looking up at me—including that of the undercover Fed who followed us from the club and is now nursing a drink in the corner.
Marsha looks amazed too, and I realize she’s never actually heard me sing on my own. We’ve done the “Happy Birthday” song for a couple of nurses as a group, and she probably heard me sing along with the DJ’s selection at that club outing a few months back, but never like this.
Never as a performance… especially with my own lyrics.
I almost choke up at that thought. I’ve never shared my lyrics with anyone but Peter and his team. However, I manage to keep going, and as I sing my version of the chorus, I notice people in the audience starting to sing along, slapping their palms on the tables and tapping their feet to the beat. The butterflies inside me expand, filling every crevice in my chest until I feel like I will float away on their beating wings, and I keep singing as my body starts to follow the music, my dancing training coming to the forefront.
I’m not conscious of feeling like I’m soaring until the song ends and thunderous applause erupts. Coming off the high, I see Marsha clapping and hooting madly at the front, and I beam as I turn around, wanting to thank the band. Except they’re clapping too, and it feels like a fantasy, like something my adolescent self might’ve conjured in a daydream.
“That was incredible. Do you have more songs like that?” the guitarist asks, and I nod, though the butterflies are now more like hummingbirds in my chest. In Japan, I composed and recorded dozens of songs, some to existing music, others to my own mixes, and I performed them for my captors as part of our evening ritual. Peter always told me I’m good, but I chalked it up to flattery and a lack of other entertainment. These people, however, are complete strangers; there’s no reason for them to flatter me.
If anything, the musicians should shoo me off the stage so they can get back to real music.
“I have this one other one,” I tell the guitarist breathlessly when the fantasy shows no signs of dissolving. “Do you know the tune to Bruno Mars’s ‘Just the Way You Are?’”
He grins. “Sure do. All right, let’s do it—what’s your name?”
“Sara,” I say and instantly regret it. My name is beyond ordinary, and this night deserves something else. Something like Madonna or Rihanna or SZA—
“Let’s get a round of applause for Sara!” the guitarist shouts, and I forget all about my ordinary name as the people in the audience clap and hoot.
The band starts playing “Just the Way You Are,” and I take a deep breath to prepare myself. As it gets to the words, I again use my own lyrics, and the soaring feeling returns as I see the reaction of the audience. They’re loving it. They’re genuinely loving it.
All too soon, the song is over and I crash back down to earth, only to soar again as the audience demands one more song, then another and another. I perform seven of my best numbers in a row, and then my voice starts to give out.
“That’s it,” I tell the band, handing the mic back to the guitarist. “Thank you so much for indulging me.”
“Girl, you can sing with us any time,” he says. “In fact…” He turns around, locks eyes with his bandmates, then turns back to face me. “We’ll be performing here all weekend, and we’d love it if you joined us.”
“Oh, I—”
“We’d obviously split the earnings with you,” he says, as though I was about to refuse out of monetary consideration. “It’s a pretty sweet gig here.”
“You guys can’t afford her,” Marsha says, and I turn to see her coming up on the stage, hips swaying. “She’s a doctor, you know.”
“For real?” The guitarist gives me a onceover. “Talented, pretty, and smart, huh?”
I flush as Marsha says, “You bet. So if you want to book her, you got to talk to me first. Here.” She grabs his wrist, pulls out a pen, and scribbles her number on his forearm, right next to a tattoo of a heart pierced with an arrow. Winking, she adds, “I’m available any time.”
I laugh, realizing what Marsha is doing, and tug her off the stage before my friend starts making out with the musician right then and there. According to the rumors at the hospital, she’s done crazier things when drunk.
We push our way through the still-clapping audience and burst outside, the frigid February air doing little to cool our excitement. I’m still buzzing from the alcohol and the performance high, and Marsha is excited as well, laughing and chattering about what just happened and how she can be my agent so we can both be rich if I make it big.
We’re having so much fun I forget for a moment that none of this is real, that my life right now is just one big waiting game. However, when I get into a cab to go home, I remember, and my high fades without a trace.
While I was out singing and getting drunk, another evening passed.
Another day ended without Peter returning.
22
Peter
I think about contacting Sara as we land at a small private airport in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, some ninety kilometers from Asheville and only a few states away from her. It’s beyond tempting to pick up the phone and call her, so I can hear her voice. But if I did that, the Feds—who are still watching her and listening to her calls—would be all over her, once again doubting her story and putting her through the wringer.
It’s not the first time I’ve considered reaching out to her. I think about it all the time. As careful as the Feds are, I could still get one of the men I hired to watch her to surreptitiously pass her a letter. It would be risky, but I could do it.
What stops me are not the logistics, but that I’m not sure what I would say—and what Sara’s reaction would be to getting such a letter. As much as I’d like to think that she misses me as much as I miss her, I know there’s a very real possibility that the fragile accord we built toward the end of her captivity is gone, that being back home has made her hate and fear me again.
She might be hoping I’m gone for good, and getting my letter would upset her.
Besides, what can I tell her about why I’m staying away? I can’t disclose anything about Novak and Esguerra—too dangerous if the letter got intercepted�
��so that leaves me with basic assurances that I’m still alive and coming for her.
Assurances that she could easily interpret as a threat if she’s happy to be home without me.
I can tell that my guys are dying to say something about the situation, but the rule about No Sara Talk remains in place and they know better than to break it. So they keep quiet, and I focus on getting through the days without Sara, relying on the daily reports about her to feed my obsession.
A couple of days ago, she went out with her friend Marsha and ended up singing at a lounge, performing one of her songs in public. Just reading about that filled my chest with a warm glow, and I instructed the Americans to record her the next time, so I could listen to her and watch the reaction of the audience. I feel absurdly proud at the thought of my little songbird putting herself out there like this, shaking off her inhibitions and displaying the talent that I’ve always known was there.
Of course, pride wasn’t my only reaction to that report. The idea of her going out to places where other men might hit on her is like a burning coal in my side. Sara is mine. The physical distance between us doesn’t change that fact. So far, the reports haven’t indicated anyone seriously sniffing around her, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. With the FBI constantly tailing Sara, my men have to be extra careful, and there are times they simply can’t get close enough to make sure some asshole isn’t begging her for a phone number or offering to buy her coffee.
If I could have a listening device on Sara herself, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
I’d plant a chip inside her brain if I could.
“You ready?” Yan says, and I realize I’ve been mindlessly cleaning my gun for the past minute instead of grabbing my bag and getting off the plane.
“Yeah,” I say, reassembling the gun and stuffing it into my waistband. “Let’s do this.”
Lyle Bolton, Wally Henderson’s first cousin, owns a small organic grocery store in Asheville. As far as his friends and neighbors are concerned, he’s a kind, peaceful man, with the requisite two-point-five kids—two preschoolers and a baby on the way. His pregnant wife is a stay-at-home mom, and to the outsiders, they seem like the perfect suburban couple.
Too bad none of them know what our hackers have uncovered.
We wait for him in the hooker’s mountain cabin, our SUV parked out of sight behind the shed. Technically, the girl is an escort, but sex for money is all the same as far as I’m concerned. Bolton comes here every Tuesday and Thursday on his way back from the local farms, where he gets produce for the store. His wife is completely clueless, and so is everyone else in the community.
Nobody would imagine that the quiet, churchgoing Mr. Bolton, who’s passionate about animal welfare and the environment, would pay a barely legal “escort” to let him defecate on her twice a week—after he beats her up.
Henderson has his buddies keeping tabs on Bolton’s home and work, which is why this cabin is a perfect place to question the fucker. His dirty little habit is a secret from everyone, his cousin included, and thanks to all the precautions he’s taken to account for this stretch of time, nobody will come looking for him until he doesn’t show up at the store some four hours later.
We can do a lot in four hours.
The cabin is empty except for us. Yan lured the hooker away this morning by pretending to be a high-paying client. Once he got her into a hotel room, he tied her up and left her there. If we have time, he’ll untie her later today; if not, housekeeping will find her tomorrow morning. Either way, the girl is not going to go to the cops, especially once she finds the payment on the nightstand.
Lyle Bolton is prompt, as usual, showing up at a quarter to ten. His truck rumbles into the graveled driveway, and I motion to the guys to get ready.
Nabbing our prey is child’s play. He has no idea what’s in store for him. The fucker walks in with a big, shit-eating grin on his chubby face, and Ilya steps out from behind the door and punches him in the stomach. He does it lightly—as lightly as someone that massive can—but Bolton still flops over on all fours, gasping and wheezing and trying to scramble away.
Yan kicks him in the ribs, and then I step in, pulling up the fucker by the back of his shirt as he starts to blubber and plead for mercy.
“Your cousin,” I say calmly, depositing him into a kitchen chair. “Where is he?”
He gapes at us, and I see a new kind of fear on his face. He realizes now this is not a mistake, that we’re not burglars who just happened to be here.
“I d-don’t know,” he stutters out, and I sigh before pulling out my gun.
“One more chance,” I say, putting the barrel to his forehead. “Where the fuck is Wally?”
He pisses himself. A dark stain spreads over the crotch of his corduroys, and I smell the acrid stench of urine. It annoys me nearly as much as the tears and snot running down his face.
“I swear to you, I don’t know!” he wails, and I lower the gun, squeezing the trigger twice in rapid succession.
His screams are deafening as he falls off the chair and rolls into a little ball on the floor. I just planted two bullets—one in each foot—and I wait a minute for the screams to die down before repeating, “Where is your fucking cousin?”
“I don’t know, don’t know, don’t know!” He’s hysterical now, holding his bleeding feet with both hands. “Please, I swear, I don’t know. He disappeared over two years ago, and I haven’t heard anything since.”
“Nothing? No calls, no emails, no letters?”
I already know the answer to that thanks to our hackers, so I’m not surprised when the blubbering idiot shakes his head like a wound-up toy. “No, no, I swear! Nothing! No one’s heard from him since he left.”
I turn to Yan. “What do you think?” I ask in Russian. “You believe this piece of shit?”
He studies him, then nods. “Yeah, I think so. Henderson’s too careful to reach out to this one.”
“Okay, then. Let’s go.”
Bending down, I take Bolton’s phone from his pocket and leave him to blubber and bleed on the floor as we walk out of the cabin. Before we leave, I disable his vehicle to make sure he can’t leave for a while.
We have five more assholes to interrogate before this one’s fate is discovered.
23
Peter
The next two people on our list pose about as much challenge as Bolton. The first, Ian Wyles, is a retired schoolteacher who’s Henderson’s uncle twice removed. The two of them used to exchange emails on a regular basis before Henderson’s disappearance, and it’s possible that Henderson might still keep in touch with him somehow.
However, the minute we nab the old man on his way home from the post office, it becomes obvious he doesn’t know anything. He’s so fucking clueless and stunned by our questions that we don’t even bother roughing him up. We just tie him up and leave him with his disabled vehicle in the woods, where he’ll be found in a few hours when his wife comes home and discovers him missing.
The second person, Jennifer Lows, is Henderson’s wife’s friend. A plump, middle-aged woman, she literally shits herself when we grab her outside her parents’ nursing home. Within the first minute of our interrogation, it becomes clear that she’s clueless as well, and we leave her tied behind a dumpster in an alley, gagged and terrified out of her wits but otherwise unharmed.
“Zero for three,” Anton remarks as we peel out of the alley, but I just shrug. This is not unexpected. If Henderson kept in touch with these people, we would’ve likely uncovered it by now. Also, the security around them would’ve been tighter. The fact that they were relatively easy to get to tells me they’re not in Henderson’s inner circle.
The people who matter to him—his wife and children—are as well hidden as any treasure.
In any case, getting information about Henderson’s whereabouts is not our primary goal. This is about sending a message, telling him that no one in his life—no matter how distant a connection—is safe.
&
nbsp; We want to enrage and frighten him, because angry, scared men make mistakes.
The next person we go after is a local police officer who happens to be Henderson’s childhood friend. Jimmy Gander, age fifty-five, is one of the oldest cops on the force, and when we grab him outside his favorite bar, he manages to slug Anton in the face before we knock him out.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Anton mutters as we pull into the woods where we intend to interrogate our captive. “Bastard’s going to get it.”
“No killing unless necessary,” I remind him. “We’re just going to rough him up some if he doesn’t cooperate.”
Anton scowls. “Fuck that shit. I’m going to have a black eye.”
“Shouldn’t have let grandpa get the better of you,” Yan says, smirking. “Maybe we should have him take your place on the team. He certainly seems more skilled.”
“Shut it,” I tell the two of them as our SUV stops in a forest clearing. “You can slug it out later.”
We drag the cop out and wait until he comes to before starting to question him. Like the others, he seems genuinely bewildered by the situation. However, unlike our other targets today, he refuses to answer our questions at first. To Anton’s joy, we end up having to hit him a few times before we hear the usual “don’t know anything” and “haven’t heard from him.” Under other circumstances, I would admire Gander’s loyalty to his friend, but given that we have less than two hours left to question the two remaining people on our list, the delay merely frustrates me.
“Put a fucking bullet in him,” I tell Anton when the cop balks at telling us about the last time he saw Henderson, and Anton gladly obeys the order, shooting Gander in the right shoulder.