He turns away but his heel catches the door, stopping it from slamming. By the time I make it across the yard he’s gone, but the door is wedged open with a piece of folded paper that Jay has stuffed against the doorjamb. I prise it open as carefully and quietly as I can. I can hear voices heading away back towards the lobby – Jay and the doormen talking animatedly about a game, something about the Yankees being on a winning streak – and I take the opportunity to slip inside and make for the stairs.
I run up the first flight and when I hit the second floor I fly through the exit on to the landing and head straight for the elevator. It feels like an hour I stand there waiting for the doors to ping open, and once they do I dart inside, relieved that it’s empty. I shove an empty Coke can, taken from the recycling bin outside, and wedge it into the groove so that the doors won’t shut, and then I hit the emergency button.
The elevator lets out a wail and the doors start dementedly bashing the Coke can as they try to close. I head straight for the stairwell and am on the fourth floor already before I hear the doorman heading upwards, his breathing laboured, cursing the damn elevator alarm under his breath.
I’m glad I called the elevator on the second floor and not the fifteenth, or he’d be dead from a heart attack before he even made it, and then we’d have that on our hands too. The doorman eventually huffs his way out on to the landing and a split second later I hear quicker, lighter footsteps running up behind me. I lean over the banister and see Jay taking the steps three at a time. He’s on me in no time and then whipping straight past.
‘I thought you were going to wait for me on the twentieth,’ he says as he runs.
I grit my teeth and follow behind him, having to use the banister to haul my way up, pushing past the burn in my thighs and my muscles, which are ready to go on strike. I overtake him on the twelfth floor and have put a flight between us by the time we make the twentieth. I wait for Jay, sucking in large gulps of air and unsticking my top from my sweat-coated skin. Jay reaches the landing and stands there panting for a few seconds, before he pulls the gun out from his waistband and hovers behind the door. I place my hand on his shoulder and my other hand on top of the gun and prise it carefully out of his hands.
‘What?’ Jay asks.
‘You’ve left the safety on,’ I say, showing him how to release the catch. I check the chamber and then release the clip to check how many bullets we have. Then I look up. Jay is staring at me with his mouth hanging open.
I ram the clip back into place. ‘My dad owns a security company. I grew up around guns.’
He frowns at me. ‘Hell, if I had known I was on the run with Rambo I would have let you lead the way from the start.’
I push past him. ‘Get behind me.’
‘With pleasure,’ he says, stepping aside.
I reach for the door handle.
‘Hang on!’ He catches my arm. ‘The doorman reported no unexpected visitors, but that’s not to say they couldn’t have snuck past. I mean, that guy’s hardly Mr Aware. I could have flashed him a toy truncheon and a pair of fluffy handcuffs and he’d have spread his legs. What if we burst through here and they’re on the other side of the door or they’re waiting in your apartment?’
I take a deep breath and settle my shoulders, staring at the door trying to visualise the cop-killer on the other side. ‘I’m a good shot,’ I say, but my voice shakes as I say it. What if there are two of them? the voice in my head points out. I ignore it. There’s no room for second-guessing.
Jay blinks at me. ‘Right,’ he says and his hand falls away from my wrist, leaving a burning patch of skin.
I am a good shot – my dad made sure of that. I’ve been taking lessons every week since I was thirteen. But like anyone who works in close protection or in the military will tell you, firing at a paper cut-out of a person and firing at an actual person are two very different things. It’s not uncommon, I’ve heard, for people to freeze when faced with a flesh-and-blood target. My hand shakes and I cup the elbow on my firing arm to steady it.
Jay waits for me to nod and then opens the door for me, just a crack. I nudge it with the barrel of the gun. It eases open and we both let out a breath. The hallway is empty. We step out of the stairwell, our footsteps cushioned by the deep tread of the carpet. It’s like walking through a snowdrift, but I’m not complaining. Silence is an asset. We move slowly down the corridor, our ears straining for any sounds, until we’re standing in front of my dad’s door. It’s closed and the keypad beside it is blinking red. No one’s tried to tamper with the lock. I let the gun fall to my side.
‘Woah,’ Jay whispers close to my ear. ‘What’s with the high-tech entry pad? What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned key?’
I don’t answer because I’m concentrating on tapping in the eight-digit code. The pad beeps and invites me to press my thumb against it.
‘Holy shit,’ Jay murmurs as the light flips to green and the door clicks. ‘Is this when you tell me your dad is actually Jason Bourne?’
We step into the apartment, which is ghostly quiet and still, as though it’s holding its breath, waiting to ambush us. I wait for the air to settle, holding up my hand for Jay to be quiet. Finally, when I’m sure I can’t sense anyone, I turn around and ram the three bolts across the door.
When I turn back Jay is already making himself at home, throwing open doors and making an appreciative noise when he finds the kitchen. He heads straight for the tap and sticks his head under it, gulping down water and soaking his entire face and half the kitchen floor in the process. When he comes up he shakes himself like a wet dog and I dance out of his way as water sprays me. I reach past him and grab two glasses from the cabinet above and hand him one. We both drink until we’re gasping, holding on to swollen stomachs.
‘You know, I think this might be the safest place to hang out after all,’ Jay says, opening up cupboards. ‘It’s not like they’re getting through that door. And we have food. It’s like a five-star panic room.’
I place my glass on the side and stagger towards the hallway. Jay is wrong. We need to be quick. I need to get my stuff together, leave my dad a note, and then we need to get out. They’ve tried three times and failed. They’re not about to stop now.
‘We’re not staying,’ I tell him as I walk out the room.
15
We have to get out of here but, first things first, I need a shower. Half my brain argues with me about the stupidity of taking a shower at this particular moment in time, but the other half of my brain doesn’t give a damn. I’m rank and disgusting, and if I don’t get under a scalding jet of water in the next sixty seconds then I’m going to melt down. I want to scrub the blood from my legs, along with the memories of this morning. I want a shower even more than I want to eat. Even more than I want to sleep.
Even more than you want to live? I hear Felix yell at me.
I stop stock-still in the middle of the hallway as though his ghost is standing right in front of me. The words ring in my ears. The reason Felix died was because I didn’t listen to him.
Ever since then I’ve done my best to follow orders, to do what I’m told. To the point of accepting the Israeli bodyguard accompanying me on dates. But now there’s no one to tell me what to do – I have to rely on myself. And right now I am making the call that it’s safe to take ten minutes to regroup and grab supplies. I’ll live with the consequences. But I take the gun into the bathroom with me and set it down on the side of the bath.
I lock the bathroom door and step towards the mirror, flinching at the horror film extra staring back at me. Jesus. That’s not pretty.
I turn around quickly and tear off my clothes, then step under the shower, letting out a groan that quickly becomes a hiss when the water hits my thighs. Ignoring the sting of flayed flesh, I soap myself and my hair, before quickly rinsing and jumping out. I grab a towel and wipe the steam from the mirror. My face stares back, clouded and distorted, pale and wide-eyed, with dark shadows beneath my eyes and
hollows below my cheekbones. Still not that pretty. But better. The cut close to my eye is just a scratch, a fading red line beneath my eye.
When I step out in the corridor I hear Jay banging around in the kitchen, but I head straight to my bedroom and stand in the doorway taking stock. Nothing appears any different to how I left it. Not that I was expecting it to. The bed is made. My books are lined up tidily on the shelf. The photograph of me and Maddie – my best friend back in Oman, who I’m not sure is still my best friend, given the fact she’s not talking to me – still sits at the same angle on the corner of my desk beside the stack of information about the two-week dance intensive I was meant to start today. My alarm clock blinks the time: 10.07 a.m.
I take a step into the room. My ballet certificates and awards are framed and hung on the wall – one of my father’s efforts to make me feel at home. He was so happy I was moving to New York to live with him that he ran straight out and bought new covers for the bed and tried to fix up my new bedroom to make it as welcoming as possible. Though his idea of what a seven-teen-year-old girl might be into was slightly off, I was so relieved he wasn’t angry with me about the expulsion that I just smiled politely at the sight of the pink comforter on the bed and the teddy bear wearing ballet shoes he’d propped on the pillow.
He even took me shopping for new clothes, handing me his credit card and encouraging me to spend whatever I wanted.
I slide open the wardrobe doors and stare at the few things I did actually buy, most of them still wearing their price tags. For a moment I stand there like a bunny in the headlights. Then, with an elastic snap, my brain kicks into gear again; I need something that blends in, something with pockets, something with a waistband. I snatch a pair of shorts, a tank top, clean underwear and a bra. I need to be quick. We need to move.
But first I need to treat my legs. They feel like jelly, as though I’ve climbed Everest and slalom skied down it. And there are still those slivers of glass that I need to get out. Beside me on the bed are tweezers and disinfectant I brought from the bathroom. I wrap the towel tighter around me and bend over my thigh with the tweezers in my hand. The first couple of splinters come easily enough but the third one has me sucking in air through my teeth and cursing like an Israeli soldier.
‘Do you need a hand?’
My head jerks up. Jay’s standing in the doorway. My first instinct – to tell him tersely that I’m fine – is overridden by the look on his face. Gone is the smirk and that almost permanent flicker of mocking amusement which lights his eyes; instead he looks as wasted and shell-shocked as someone who’s just walked unharmed out of a high-speed car crash that killed everyone else. I guess the adrenaline supply has finally cut out and he’s crashing as hard as I am.
I nod and he walks towards me, feet scuffing the floor. I notice the beads of water still clinging to his hair and the fact that his T-shirt is sticking to him like a second layer of skin, revealing every line of muscle. He glances around the room and a smile tweaks at his lips when he sees the pink comforter and the teddy bear sitting atop it. I glare at him, daring him to say a word. Perhaps it’s the look I give him or maybe it’s the sight of the gun on the nightstand, but either way he thinks twice and the smile fades.
‘Here,’ he says, shoving something at me. It’s a bag of frozen soybeans wrapped in a tea towel. ‘For your shoulder,’ he says, nodding towards it.
I take the frozen bundle, murmuring thanks while wondering when he even noticed my shoulder was hurting. He drops to his knees in front of me, taking the tweezers from my hand without a word.
I squeeze my knees together and pull the towel closer, but he doesn’t seem to notice that I’m to all intents and purposes naked but for a small rectangle of Egyptian cotton. He puts his hand under my knee and pulls my leg gently closer. I inhale sharply, though not because it hurts.
‘I haven’t even touched you yet,’ Jay says under his breath.
I watch his dark head, bent over my thigh, and my heart rate accelerates as fast as I’ve seen Jay drive. Angrily, I try to rein it in, trying to dismiss it as the toxic effects of the adrenaline and shock leaching through my body. I press the ice packet to my shoulder, hoping that the cold will somehow counter the effect of his fingers, but no joy. His thumb gently grazes the top of my leg, looking for the splinter, and I almost leap a foot off the bed.
‘So, your dad – this GRATS thing – what is it exactly? You said it was something to do with the police,’ Jay asks, seemingly unaware that my leg is jerking like it’s in spasm with every pass his thumb makes across my skin. I wince as the tweezers suddenly dig in.
‘Kind of,’ I say through gritted teeth as he pulls the splinter free. ‘It’s a task force and it works with the police. But it’s government-led. They’re looking at ways to stop gangs trafficking.’
Jay grabs the bottle of disinfectant and pours some on a cotton pad. He starts wiping it over my knees and thigh and I hiss loudly and grip the edges of the bed. ‘Trafficking what? Guns? Drugs?’ he asks.
I hesitate for a second before speaking. ‘People,’ I finally say.
He blinks at me, confused. ‘What?’
‘People,’ I say again, watching him carefully. ‘Girls, mainly.’
I wait for him to figure it out and watch his face closely as he does. He pulls back away from me, grimacing.
‘Shit,’ he says.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. Over two and a half million people each year, mainly women and girls.’
I sound like a walking, talking UN report. But that’s because I’m quoting directly from one I found on my dad’s desk a week ago and skim-read.
‘The task force is trying to find a way to stop the gangs from trafficking. They asked my dad to lead it because of his background. We used to live in Nigeria and there’s a big trade from there into the US. And, like I told you, he has a private security company. He’s led hostage rescue and special ops missions in countries where the UN and Western forces won’t step foot.’
I know I sound like a woman on a PR mission and it makes me cringe. The need to paint a glossy picture of my dad’s line of work is deeply ingrained, and has been since I was about thirteen and figured out that he makes his money from some of the dirtiest people on the planet – banks, oil companies, obscenely wealthy people protecting their obscenely vast amounts of wealth. Even warlords who need hired guns. It doesn’t sit comfortably. It doesn’t sit at all, actually. And I question it daily, believe me. It’s why I don’t like taking money from him. I spent the last two years teaching dance to little kids, saving every penny for the day I turned eighteen and left for college. I only moved to New York to live with him because I had to. No school in Oman wanted to take me. And then my dad took this job consulting for the government and I felt like it redeemed him slightly. It made moving here easier anyway.
Jay’s resting back on his haunches. He’s breathing shallow and fast but his gaze stays level and unfaltering as it meets mine. And that’s when the final dot shimmers into view dizzyingly fast and the picture waves in front of me like a Bridget Riley painting, making me lurch backwards, nausea bubbling in the pit of my stomach.
‘And you didn’t think to mention this sooner?’ Jay says, his voice laced with disbelief. He stands up and I have to tilt my head back to see him. ‘It didn’t cross your mind that maybe, just maybe, there might be a link between the fact your father is running a police task force cracking down on gangs that traffic people and the fact someone is out to get you like you are the goddamn prize.’
I can feel my breathing scattering all over the place. My internal organs feel like they’re being speared on the ends of my ribs. ‘Yes,’ I whisper.
Jay stares down at me, his lips half parted and his eyes hooded.
‘When you questioned why that cop didn’t take the shot when he could have, yes,’ I say quickly, too scared to look him in the face. ‘Then I started to think maybe it was a kidnapping attempt. B
ut . . .’ I shake my head more violently, trying to find some kind of grip. It’s like my thoughts are sliding around on ice in there. ‘It just didn’t add up. It still doesn’t. I mean, my dad’s insanely obsessive about security. You saw the door! My whole life I’ve been followed around by a big man with a big gun. Growing up I had more security than the freaking president. I don’t just know how to fire a Glock 19,’ I say, pointing at the gun I’ve left on the corner of my desk. ‘I can strip, load and fire an M4 machine gun too. You know of any other seventeen-year-old girls who can do that?’ Jay stares at me as though I’ve just walked straight out of the pages of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. ‘If I was at any kind of risk from the people he was working against,’ I say, my wet hair going flying, ‘if there was even the smallest whiff of danger, my dad would never ever have just left me in New York unprotected. No way.’
Jay studies me warily, backing off. Maybe it was the comment about the M4.
‘Look,’ I say, my voice dropping, ‘does it matter why they’re coming after me?’ I say. ‘Really? What does it change?’ I stand up and push past him. ‘Nothing,’ I spit angrily. ‘It changes nothing.’
Jay doesn’t say a word.
I turn to face him. He’s staring at me with an expression I can’t decipher – half glaring, half pained. ‘You don’t have to stick around. I can look after myself,’ I tell him.
A shadow passes across his face but vanishes almost instantly. What was it? Hurt? Annoyance?
‘I’m in this just as much as you now,’ he says quietly. ‘You think I can just walk out that door,’ he gestures wildly towards it, ‘and forget everything that’s just happened? Go home and act like none of it occurred? Is still occurring?’
There’s a pause that seems weighted on a gossamer strand and I’m aware of how important the next words out of my mouth are if I don’t want to snap it . . . If I want him to stay.
‘I need to get dressed,’ I say, speaking the words softly and holding his gaze. ‘Then we should go.’
Out of Control Page 8