The little signs of panic flash over Elliott’s face, nostrils flaring, eyes darting, lips tight.
“Don’t make me turn on the cold water.”
The joke doesn’t work.
“It’s the only way we’ll get out alive. Please.” The last word ekes out, too much of a plea.
He huffs out two quick breaths, then sucks in a deeper one. His eyes lock on mine. The tension in his lips shifts toward determination. “I’m with you.”
Relief spills into my chest. But I need him focused on us. “How’d they get you?”
“Why didn’t you answer my call?” His voice strains, and I don’t think it’s just because he’s trying to be quiet.
“A couple minutes after I took out my earpiece?”
“Yeah. I called to warn you and you didn’t answer.”
“I promised Danny. No work.” And I was already more than an hour late.
“Yeah, kinda backfired.”
Tears threaten my throat with emergency closures. Elliott has no idea how badly everything backfired tonight.
I muscle through the emotion. “I thought you were calling about — you know, and you could leave a message. Or text.”
“I did both.” He’s not mad, but there’s more than enough quiet accusation in his voice: this is my fault.
I stuck my neck out for Elliott to keep him in the field, and he was trying to repay the favor. And look where it got him. I try to push that thought away. Things are bad enough as it is. I look at Elliott slumped in the corner, both of us disheveled and speckled with water spray.
This is depressing. I restart the conversation. “So how did they find you?”
“Well, you weren’t answering, so I thought I’d have to go in to get you.”
I gape up at him. “You left her now, to warn me?”
“No offense, but if I had it to do over again, I don’t think I would.”
It’s not funny, really. The one thing Elliott’s done wrong lately is to let us down at a critical moment because he’s so worried about Shanna. Now he’s tried to save my life, and in the process, he’s letting Shanna down at probably the most crucial time of hers.
“These things take time.” I pat his shoulder. “Especially the first one.”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously. My sister-in-law? Like twenty-four hours after she got to the hospital with her first.” Then she had an emergency C-section, but I omit that part for OPSEC, and Elliott’s sake.
He turns a grim expression on me. “Are we going to be out of here that fast?”
“Of course. If both of us are missing, they’ll have to know something’s up, right?”
“If they know we’re both missing.”
Yeah, he’s right, but again, omitting that part for his sake. “It’s not like we’re helpless—” I was going to say infants. I don’t need to pour salt on his wounds, either. But maybe we’re not helpless. Maybe Elliott has something we can use. “Did they search you?”
“Yeah, at the hotel. Took everything.”
At least his gear looks pretty innocuous, his iPod as a cover for his comms equipment, etc. I didn’t have anything on me either, but they also didn’t bother with the less obvious tools: my earrings, my hairpins. But Elliott doesn’t have any — wait.
I turn to the door again. The padlock. “Have you ever picked a lock with bobby pins?”
“Uh, no. I’m a lot better with a pick gun.”
So am I, but there’s a good reason we trained to do it manually, too. I couldn’t before because I had no way of keeping the lock close and stationary, but Elliott — I check his shoes. Sneakers.
“Take out your shoelaces.” I’m already kneeling to attack one shoe.
Once the laces are free, we kneel in the last puddles by the shower door. Elliott leans on the door to open it that one little centimeter. We pass the first shoelace through the lock’s hasp, using one of my earrings like a threader to pull the lace back into the shower. I pull another pair of bobby pins out of my hair. I have to gnaw off the plastic coatings at the end, and I’m not going there with the pins on the shower floor.
I strip the plastic off. Elliott’s got the other shoelace through the lock, holding the ends. Now, if we can get the lock close enough to the door, we can hold it there with enough leverage to pick it. Yes, you absolutely can pick a lock with bobby pins, but it’s not like on TV.
I hand Elliott one of the pins. “Make a torsion wrench.”
He shifts the laces to one hand, takes the pin and bends it with his teeth. I flex mine, working it into one long pick, but the crimped metal doesn’t want to uncrimp.
Elliott’s pin slips and his teeth clack together. He swears under his breath, but tries again. Finally, he has the ends bent together at a 90° angle. “I think I chipped a tooth.”
“Your charming grin will never be the same.” I take the pin/wrench. Elliott leans on the door and positions the padlock with the keyhole at the gap. He pulls the laces to get it as close as we can and keep it still.
While Elliott holds the shoelaces out to the sides, I thread my arms over and between his. I start with the creased end of the bobby pin to turn the tumbler, but the keyhole and lock are so small it doesn’t fit. The end Elliott bent doesn’t fare much better, slipping on my first three attempts.
Now I feel like swearing. I try switching it up, using the long feeler pick I created to somehow leverage the tumbler. But this end of the bobby pin is too narrow. It spins inside the lock without catching on anything. Even as a lever to pit the tumbler against itself, it just doesn’t have the force required to pick a lock.
From behind me, Elliott hooks his chin over my shoulder, half on my dress, half straggly whiskers poking my neck, to get a better view. “Do you want to give this a shot?” I murmur.
“Not really. Can’t do much better than you with these tools.”
I hold up our bobby pin picks. “Think I could use one to shim the lock?”
“No.” Like that’s patently obvious. “The metal’s too thick. Unless you’re hiding a hammer and anvil under your skirt.”
“Yeah, and a life raft.” I glance around the stark shower. “Oh, wait, those are in my other red dress.” I lean in and start back to work on the lock.
Elliott holds the tension on the shoelaces, but I still can’t get any torsion in the keyhole. I maneuver between his arms to get a better angle on the padlock. The yacht cruises forward into another lock. What is this? Four? Five?
“Your night went downhill from when I left you,” Elliott says once the boat stops again.
“Obviously.”
“What happened?”
I don’t answer.
“They showed me the pictures. You guys on the bridge and the lock.”
The pick gives and my hands slip. I groan. Elliott gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze with his chin, his whiskers digging into my shoulder where my dress doesn’t cover. But that’s not what’s so frustrating. “You should’ve let them take me. Pretended you didn’t know me.”
“I know.”
As cold and mercenary as it sounds, all of us, including the Agency, would’ve been better off if Elliott had chosen to protect himself. Would I have come if Elliott was the one in the photos? Probably, but I wouldn’t have agreed as quickly as I did with Danny. Almost, though.
I pull the torsion wrench out and reposition the bent ends so they’re side by side, not overlapping. This time, I get some purchase on the torque. Elliott tightens up on the shoelaces and I move in with the pick again, trying not to think about what I’m about to say. “It was worse than it looks. He dumped me.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.” I try to keep the summary brief — and merciful, since Danny did spend like half the argument on the side issue of me and Elliott. As if there were a “me and Elliott.” I skip that for both of their sakes, but by the time I finish, I’ve somehow twisted the tumbler so hard I can’t move the pins at all now.
“Too much pressu
re on the torsion wrench.” Elliott nods at the lock. I try to let up, but the pins are still stuck.
Like a couple other people I know.
I reset the tension wrench and start over. This time I get a good solid grip, and flip the lock right out of its positioning with the makeshift rope stabilizers. Elliott’s shoulders sag against my back. “Well,” I sigh, “let’s keep at it.”
He reaches around me and through the narrow crack to right the padlock, but before he gets it into place, the doorknob rattles. We both jump. I jam the hairpins into my curls and Elliott yanks the shoelaces free of the lock. We freeze, not daring to move from this too-intimate-for-strangers position. If we dart away, we’ll look even more suspicious.
Kozyrev walks into sight, the limp a little more noticeable until he stops in the doorway. “Oh.” The layer of surprise in his tone is too thick to be real. “I thought you’d never met?”
I level a glare at him. “We’re getting to know each other pretty well by now.”
“Excellent. I will want to talk to you about that.”
“I’m really good at talking.” Not for the first time.
Kozyrev smiles. Again. “I’m sure you’re about to get better.”
“Oh? Did you bring our food?”
“We negotiate only on our terms. I have brought something . . . better.” He steps into the bathroom and pulls someone in after him.
Once again, something clicks in my brain. I know the guy standing, head bowed, in the doorway, with his dark longish hair and gray suit and bound wrists, but he’s so out of context — or maybe my brain is instinctively hoping that if I don’t admit it, it can’t be him. But half a second later, his name registers through the rising panic.
Danny.
I can’t react, can’t breathe, frozen between Elliott and the door. The hope he’d be okay shrivels and dies in my chest.
When he sees me, or recognizes me through the black eye makeup that I’m sure is all over my face now, Danny glowers at Kozyrev. “What’s she doing here? You said—”
Kozyrev laughs, a single discordant bark. “I lied.” His grin in my direction looks more like a leer. “You will move away from the door now.”
“Yeah, we’re not exactly eager to obey in here. Cramped enough as it is.” Good thing Elliott can talk, because I sure can’t.
Danny turns on Elliott. “Wouldn’t be so crowded if you weren’t all over her.”
Oh, perfect. I jolt into action, awkwardly elbowing Elliott off me and climbing to my feet. I shoot my most threatening glower at Kozyrev. “Let him go.”
“What do you want me to do? Dump him in the lock?”
I glance at Danny, trying to act like I barely know him. “You can swim, right?”
He glances heavenward, less a prayer for help and more a Seriously, Dude? “I really didn’t think this night could get worse.”
“Enough!” Kozyrev motions to someone behind Danny. He reaches for something out of sight and pulls back — a gun.
A bolt of cold lightning shoots down my spine. Yeah, he’s escalating.
“I thought this glass was supposed to be bulletproof,” Elliott snaps.
“It is. However, I believe he is not.” Kozyrev shoves the gun against Danny’s temple. Danny flinches and closes his eyes, but there’s something about his reaction that’s . . . tired. Is this not the first time they’ve threatened him at gunpoint? Heat gathers in my chest. They can’t do this. They can’t do this to my — to Danny.
I fight back the anger. “I am way too nice to you people.” I try to recover the bluff I’ve been working on this whole time.
“Ya by nye tak vyrazilsya,” Kozyrev mutters. I wouldn't express it that way.
I step to the fiberglass wall and grumble, “Your mother.” Elliott follows.
“Away from the controls.” Kozyrev’s voice says he’s too old to fall for that trick again. I slump in a corner. Elliott takes the opposite end. There’s barely room in the middle for Danny.
Kozyrev pushes Danny in front of the glass. In front of me. I didn’t plan to face him again so soon — I haven’t thought about facing him at all yet; I’ve been a little distracted — but now there’s something between us a heck of a lot more solid than bulletproof glass.
Danny stares into my eyes, but I can’t hold his gaze. I watch Kozyrev. He keeps the gun on Danny, but turns back to the bedroom door. “Iskali yego?” he calls.
I can barely hear the “Nyet” reply. I look back to Danny. “They’re going to search you.”
“Talia, I am so sorry—”
Now? His timing sucks, but the prospect of us getting back together sparks up the dry kindling of my heart.
“ — to drag you into this.”
Wait, wait, wait. How could this be his fault? “Drag me into . . . ?”
“I told them to leave you out of it.”
“You — you told them—” How could he tell them anything? Unless he — and they —
No. Nonono.
The surprise of seeing Danny had begun to subside, but now panic claws its way up my throat. He’s betrayed our country — countries? He’s working with Kozyrev, and Fyodor?
The flicker of hope roars into a blaze of mettle-melting fear.
Anyone else. I could’ve taken it from anyone else: Robby, Will, even Elliott. But Danny?
I cover my burning cheeks with shaking hands. I’m going to be sick. The boat rocks forward and my mouth fills with warm saliva. I’m going to throw up. I force myself to swallow, and my tongue is left dry.
The evasiveness, hiding something, something he wasn’t telling me. Not this.
Anything but this.
“What?” My voice betrays me in a hoarse whisper. “What did you do?”
Before he can answer, Kozyrev jerks him back by the collar.
“Can we not do this here?” Danny’s tone is weary, and I don’t think it’s just because of what he and I went through earlier. How long has he been with them?
How long has he worked with them? Before tonight?
Kozyrev ignores Danny’s protest and starts the search. He comes up empty until he reaches Danny’s suit pants pocket.
For a second, I think it must be his Swiss Army knife. The hope and the disappointment lace through me together, water with gall. He has something to help us, but they’re taking it.
Kozyrev pulls out his find. It’s the same dark red color, but it’s not the pocketknife I’m expecting. It’s a box. A mahogany box.
A ring box.
The cold prickles are back and my eyes jump to Danny’s. This time he’s the one who can’t meet my gaze.
That’s what this week has been about? The date I had to promise to come to? Wilfrid’s, Signatures — even the bike ride along the river? Half a dozen little moments flash through my mind, the pieces falling into place: Danny hiding something in the trunk before we went biking, Danny musing about Friday night, Danny talking about Campbell’s and my coworkers’ marriages. And I said I don’t buy marriage, don’t think about marriage. Their marriages.
I would’ve said yes. Of course I would’ve said yes. I know it as certainly and as surely as I thought I knew Danny. Because I know what it’s like to lose him.
Now? Now I don’t know the man on the other side of the glass. And I don’t know which of those things scares me more.
Until Danny walked through that door, I haven’t been afraid. Annoyed, worried, anxious, yes. But curl-up-in-the-corner, can’t-think-can’t-blink-can’t-breathe, total-shut-down terror now revs its engines in my brain and lungs and heart.
This is all my fault.
“Casual acquaintance.” Kozyrev’s mocking words barely reach my ears. He sets the box on the sink’s molded soap dish.
Suddenly there’s someone in front of me, hands on my shoulders. Fear flashes through me again and I shrink into the corner. But I can’t push myself half an inch farther away.
“T,” he whispers. Elliott. It’s Elliott. “Pull it together.”
&nbs
p; I nod, but the shock is still running rampant. I can’t move. I can’t deal. I can’t do this.
“Don’t make me turn on the cold water.”
I realize I’m gaping and snap my mouth closed. Behind Elliott, the lock pops open and the chains grate over the bars.
“Stay back or I will kill you.” Kozyrev waves the gun. “Starting with Fluker.”
Elliott turns around to shield me, like Kozyrev’s going to open fire if we stay still. I wish he’d jump into action — we both know how to disarm the guy — but I don’t think either of us can risk hurting Danny.
Or can we? He’s with them. Though something must have gone wrong for them to tie him up and throw him in their brig.
Like that’s any consolation.
A henchman hooks the padlock back up. They’ve given up their trump card by sticking Danny in here, so I feel safe playing one of my own.
“You watch your back, Mikhail Kozyrev.” He’s never given me his name. I pronounce it slowly and carefully and watch his reaction.
His eyebrows waver a millimeter. But he says nothing and strides out. The bathroom door closes, leaving us alone again. That has to be a trick. They have to be listening.
But Danny speaks before I can warn him. “Let me guess: Elliott, right?” He shakes his head. “Why am I not surprised?”
So much for pretending the three of us hardly know one another.
And Danny’s not done. “As if getting tied up and marched down here at gunpoint isn’t bad enough, I find you two all snuggled up together, nice and cozy in the shower?”
“Shut up,” Elliott hisses. “They’re listening.”
I can’t see Danny from behind Elliott, but for once this week, I don’t need any help understanding. Still, I climb onto the bench to peer over Elliott’s head at Danny. I grab Elliott’s sleeve to lift his arm. He glances back at me. “Hey?”
I ignore him, pulling on his forearm and finally holding up his hand. His left. With his wedding ring. Once I’m sure Danny’s seen it — the furrow in his brow confirms it — I drop Elliott.
“The least you could do is untie me.” Danny holds up his wrists.
“Are you kidding?” I fire back. “What are you doing, working with them?”
Spy Another Day Box Set: Three full-length novels: I, Spy; Spy for a Spy; and Tomorrow We Spy (Spy Another Day clean romantic suspense trilogy) Page 18