Double Vision

by L. M. Halloran

  Liam.

  I run for the door. When I reach the threshold, I grab the doorframe and swing my body to the right. Away from the living room. Don’t notice me. Don’t notice me.

  I run smack into a thick body. Hard fingers grip my shoulders. “What the fuck?” snarls the guard from the truck.

  My training takes over. I don’t think or feel—just move. Jab to the eyes. Punch to the nose. Duck and block. Kick to the groin. Elbow to exposed neck. It takes seconds to put him on the ground. Another to disarm him, another to clock him in the temple with the butt of his own handgun.

  A shrill note fills my ears, my vision pulsing in time with my heart. Behind me, the yelling continues.

  Scrambling to my feet, I see two doors ahead of me. One of them is slightly ajar. I leap over the unconscious man and dive into the room, shutting the door behind me and locking it. Small bed, window, single nightstand, narrow closet. Empty.

  “Fuck,” I hiss.

  As I turn back to the door, I hear a thump behind me. Then another. My gaze veers to the closet. I lurch forward, yanking it open.

  Liam grins around his gag, showing no sign of pain despite the angry, seeping wound in his shoulder. Crammed into the space beside him is Elizabeth. She blinks up at me, tears falling across her cheeks.

  I make quick work of their gags. Elizabeth gasps, “Eden, thank God.”

  The first words from Liam are an order. “Get my phone. Drawer in nightstand.”

  “What?” I bark, yanking ineffectually at the zip ties on his ankles. Motherfucking zip ties.

  No more gunshots have sounded, and to my growing panic, the noise from the living room is tapering off.

  “Do you still trust me?” murmurs Liam.

  I make a sound—somewhere between a whine and a sob—then I jump to my feet and race to the nightstand. Yanking out his phone, I turn around.

  “Now what?” I whisper.

  “Dial this number.” He rattles off an international phone number and makes me repeat it back as I type.

  I hold the phone to my ear, my hand shaking as I listen to the ringing and imagine armed men bursting into the room any second.

  Then the line picks up. Through crackling static, a man says, “Hernandez. Are we a go?”

  I blink dumbly. “Uh—”

  Liam hisses, “Green.”

  My numb lips obey the command my brain doesn’t really register. “Green.”

  There’s a pause. “Copy that.”

  The line goes dead. I lower the phone and stare at Liam. “Now what?”

  He smiles slightly. “Now we wait. Come here. Nice and cozy already, but there’s room for one more.”

  Liam shifts around, stretching his legs over Elizabeth’s feet to make room for me on his lap. I walk forward and gingerly find my footing to lower myself. When I’m inside the closet, braced against his uninjured shoulder and my legs tucked into the space between their bodies, Liam nods to the sliding door.

  Before I pull it closed, I glance at Elizabeth. She looks as stunned as I feel.

  “Who was that?” she whispers.

  “A friend,” replies Liam.

  The lines between my mental dots are fuzzy, but growing more distinct each moment. Hernandez. Hernandez. There’s only one man by that name who comes to mind.

  But I can’t fathom what it means. How it’s possible.

  Liam’s breath teases my ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, love. I couldn’t risk the information.”

  The thought lines grow taut and clear. But I only have one question. “How?”

  “You left his card at my house. I hung on to it on the off-chance I’d need it someday.”

  “Tell me what’s going on,” pleads Elizabeth.

  Neither of us answer, because at that moment we hear a heavy crack of splitting wood and new, loud voices shouting.

  “Police!”

  “Drop your weapons!”

  “Get on the floor!”

  “Hands behind your heads!”

  The walls are thin. There are muttered expletives from the living room. Thuds as guns and knees hit the floor. Grunts and more cursing.

  “Alexis Sharpe, drop the fucking gun. You’re under arrest for drug trafficking, money laundering, and murder.”

  I recognize the final man’s voice. Not that I actually needed confirmation that FBI Special Agent David Hernandez is here to save the day.

  There’s a beat of silence before I hear my sister’s voice. Like she’s sitting beside me instead of several rooms away, her words ricochet in my ears and down my body.

  “Not a fucking chance, pig.”

  —BANG—

  The solitary gunshot convulses every muscle in my body. I jerk against Liam and hold my breath, listening, listening…

  …but there’s only silence.

  70

  As we’re guided down the hallway by Hernandez, Liam tells me not to look into the living room. But I stop. And I look at the end of the Donnellys.

  It’s not pretty.

  Alexis shot Maddoc in the chest. He’s propped against a wall, eyes glassy with death, blood pooled on the tile beneath him. On his lap, loosely clutched in lifeless fingers, is a gun. And lying several feet away is his last victim, dead from a gunshot wound to the throat.

  One of Chris’s hands is extended toward Maddoc, like he was trying to help his boss or seek forgiveness. His eyes are closed, his face relaxed and surprisingly peaceful.

  I hope that wherever he’s gone, he finds absolution for his sins. But I’m also grimly satisfied at the prospect of him burning in hell for eternity.

  Another man lies beyond Chris. From the angle of his body and the gunshot to the head, I surmise that Maddoc fired his gun twice, missing Chris the first time and killing the other man.

  The final three men are gone, having been shackled and hauled to the police van parked outside. Hernandez told us two of them were ID’d as shooters from the hospital. The third is the one with his brains leaking onto the floor.

  I should be relieved I didn’t kill that man in the hallway, but I’m not.

  I stare at Alexis the longest. Unlike Chris, her face is locked in a rictus of her last moment’s emotion. Rage and defiance. I imagine there was satisfaction in her, too, at the end. She exercised the ultimate power of the individual—the choice to live or die.

  In her death, at least, we finally have something in common. I made the same choice in a basement not long ago. I’d been ready to die.

  I don’t feel anything but apathy. Not yet, anyway. Not even when Elizabeth’s cold fingers grip my own and she begins weeping softly over the death of her daughter. Perhaps out of guilt for not taking her instead, or not taking us both, or both of our failures to save her…

  “Eden,” murmurs Liam.

  I turn away, my fingers slipping from Elizabeth’s. Someone dressed Liam’s wound with gauze and tape.

  “Do you need to go to the hospital?” I ask mutedly.

  He shakes his head and offers me his hand. I stare at it long enough that I finally feel something. An unpleasant something. Like a swarm of bees has taken residence beneath my skin.

  “You lied to me. All this time, you’ve been working with Agent Hernandez. You didn’t trust me.”

  His eyes remain beseeching, but his hand falls. “Let’s get out of here, love. I’ll explain everything to you later.”

  “No. Explain it to me now.”

  His gaze flickers to where Agent Hernandez stands near the front door and back to me. “I was trying to uphold your wishes that no one die unnecessarily. Eden, there was no way on this earth that Maddoc or Alexis would have let us go. You have to know that.”

  I take a step toward him, feeling Elizabeth’s focus behind me. “You didn’t look surprised this morning. Did you know they were coming for us? Is that why you insisted I wear pajamas to bed?”

  Liam flinches, either at the look in my eyes or my tone of voice. “Yes,” he admits softly. “My contact—the same one Al
exis made—was the undercover police. I received a text when she left here this morning. You were still asleep.”

  A deep tremor runs through my body, leaving a poisonous fissure in its wake. I take two more steps until I’m right before him.

  “You set me up,” I whisper. “You couldn’t help it, could you? The need for secrets. To create the game and control the players. It’s who you are.”

  Hernandez turns toward us. “Coroner’s on his way,” he says, not unkindly. “Time to get going.”

  We both ignore him.

  “Eden,” Liam says calmly. So fucking calmly. “We can talk about this later. I did what I had to do to keep you safe. You said you trusted me with our lives. Did I fail you? Are we not alive?”

  “You used me. How did you know I’d find you? Be able to get your phone? What if that guard had overpowered me?”

  He shakes his head. “He didn’t, and he wouldn’t have. I heard every blow. You were perfect.”

  I shake my head; the movement feels like slow-motion. Like I’m underwater. Suffocating.

  “That’s what you meant by ‘Clover,’” I say, more to myself than him. “I thought you were telling me that I had power. But you were telling me that you did. No matter how much I want to be your equal, you’ll never allow it. I will always be your dove, your submissive to control.”

  I see his moment of comprehension—the moment he realizes he’s lost me. The blood drains from his face, and his eyes take on a vivid, grief-stricken hue.

  “Eden, please,” he whispers.

  The chaos inside me detonates, but I’m too numb, too far gone to scream. Instead, I grow calm and still. Utterly contained.

  I become him.

  “Goodbye, Liam.”

  I glance a question at Elizabeth, who nods, then I walk past him, past Agent Hernandez, and into the brilliant light of day. Squinting, I walk toward the closest uniformed man.

  “Any chance my mother and I can get a ride home?”

  He looks over my head—at Hernandez, no doubt—then nods and waves a hand. “This way.”

  The drive back to the bungalow is brief. I thank the officer and lead Elizabeth inside. She helps me pack my duffel before I remember I have nowhere to go, no money, and the bank doesn’t open until tomorrow.

  I sit listlessly on the bed Liam and I slept in. Made love in. Misery rushes toward me, a tornado I’m in no way, shape, or form prepared for.

  Then Elizabeth turns from the dresser. “How does room service sound?” she asks, holding up a banded roll of hundred-dollar bills.

  The tornado passes by without touching down.

  Elizabeth tosses me the roll. I stand up, tuck the money in the front pocket of my jeans, and grab my duffel from the floor.

  With a final look around at my happily-never-after, I head for the door. “Room service sounds fantastic.”

  71

  Elizabeth and I stay in Rarotonga another four days. Without the threat of imminent death hanging over our heads, we actually talk. Slowly and tentatively, we get to know each other. And I learn what it took to make her break.

  Me.

  “I should have known Maddoc wouldn’t risk Alexis turning on him. He brought her in so young. It warped her.” Tears fill her eyes. “It was always too late to save her. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry, Eden.”

  I shrug off her apology. We’re about six parallel dimensions past I’m sorry for all the shit that’s gone down.

  “I didn’t know, either,” I reply muted. “She was a great actress.”

  Elizabeth shudders, staring sightlessly toward the sea visible from our balcony. Giving no indication that she heard me, she continues, “She wanted you dead. I heard her talking to Maddoc, trying to convince him you weren’t worth the risk of keeping alive. So I made a deal with him. Your life for the details you gave me about the bank and money. Maddoc was many things, but always stood on his word. He overruled Alexis.”

  “Why did they keep you alive?”

  “I gave them enough to confirm the account existed—your social security number and information so Alexis could call. But I only told them one of the account numbers every day.”

  “Huh. Wish I’d thought of that.” I take a deep breath of the moist, tropical air. “I wonder if Maddoc was surprised when the monster he made killed him.”

  “I’m sure he was. A parental failing, perhaps—seeing our children as who we want them to be rather than who they are.”

  The similarities to Liam and his own father don’t escape me. Or surprise me. Creations killing creators isn’t new to mythos, literature, or psychology. Freud especially would have a blast analyzing the Donnellys and Rourkes.

  “At least in your case, I was right,” continues Elizabeth. “You are exactly as strong as I knew you were from the moment you were born.”

  I’m not strong. Beneath my diamond shell, I’m shattered. A million flecks of blackest dust. But I don’t say it. Keeping my mouth shut so she can find a measure of peace with her choices is a small price to pay.

  “You didn’t break,” I muse aloud. “Just made a deal.”

  Elizabeth glances at me, one brow raised. The sunset glows in her cracked-marble eyes.

  “Sharpe women don’t break.”

  My smile is grim. “No, we don’t.”

  At least on the outside.

  Elizabeth asks a billion questions about my childhood, high-school years, med school, and my brief career as a doctor. Neither of us mention the gaps in my timeline—meeting Liam and Alexis post-graduation, the six weeks in the basement, and the months with Maria in Los Mochis. Elizabeth drinks my words like water, smiling wistfully and tearing-up in intervals.

  I learn, too, about her life since escaping Maddoc. What it was like after she left me with my adoptive parents. Various careers and cities she lived in for long stretches before paranoia set in and she moved on. She really loved Tucson, Arizona, and is considering a permanent home there.

  When she asks me where I want to go, I know she means where I want to make a home. Since I don’t have an answer, I tell her Philomath. It’s my first stop, anyway, so not entirely a lie.

  On Thursday morning, we take a cab to the airport to meet Hernandez. Since neither Elizabeth nor I have valid passports, he arranged for private transportation back to the U.S. courtesy not of the FBI, but of the CIA. Disenchanted after the leak of my involvement with bringing down the Donnelly family in Los Angeles, Hernandez found greener pastures.

  As we board the private plane, I ask him why he kept his old FBI phone number. And when he looks at me in confusion, I shake my head and say, “Never mind.”

  Just another lie.

  More hours are lost on the flight to Los Angeles, but only three this time. When we finally land and taxi to our gate, it’s nearing 10 p.m. Elizabeth is fast asleep in her seat beside mine, while across from me, Hernandez bends to pack away his laptop. When he’s done, he gives me a solemn look.

  “I want to apologize for the leak that put your life in danger.”

  I nod. “Thanks, but my life was in danger anyway. Liam was right about one thing—once Maddoc found me, he wasn’t planning on letting me go.”

  “Did you…” he clears his throat, “talk to him before you left?”

  My brows lift. “You were there for our last conversation. Pretty sure it was self-explanatory.”

  Hernandez shifts in his seat, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “You’re certainly entitled to make the best choice for yourself, and I know as well as anyone that Rourke is a criminal, but… well… there are certain things you haven’t been told.”

  I snort. “No shit, Sherlock. Care to enlighten me?”

  He shakes his head, grimacing. “Against my better judgement, I swore I wouldn’t say anything more. Except… he told me to tell you that if you want to find him, he’ll be waiting.”

  My shriveled heart thumps with momentary life, then goes numb again. “Thanks for the cryptic message.”

  He shrugs, clearly r
elieved to have gotten it over with. “Do what you want with it, Eden.” He pauses, gazing out the window at the approaching terminal. “There’s only one thing about this case that still bothers me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A long time ago, before you were born, Donnelly was suspected of stealing diamonds from a Chinese diplomat. But when we seized all his assets and account records, there was no sign of anywhere near the type of wealth we expected. Nor did we find the diamonds at any of his properties.”

  “Maybe he took them with him,” I say, shrugging.

  Hernandez shakes his head. “If he had, he would have had no problem rebuilding his organization outside the U.S. But the three men arrested are all that’s left of the Donnelly crime syndicate.” His dark eyes pierce mine. “Do you know what I think?”

  My heart races. My palms itch with panic.

  “What?” I make myself ask.

  “I think that whoever has the diamonds, they probably deserve them.”

  The first thing I do after disembarking is lead Elizabeth as far away from Hernandez as I can, as fast as I can. Then I find a payphone. When Liam took my phone away six years ago, I developed the habit of memorizing numbers. One of the first ones I memorized is what I dial now.

  Karina and I have kept in close contact over the years. She did what I asked and rented an art studio with the money I gave her. Nowadays, she’s a minor celebrity with a dedicated following of A-listers. A fact neither myself nor Raul let her forget.

  She doesn’t answer the first time, so I fish out another quarter and dial again.

  On the fifth ring, she answers groggily, “What?”

  “Hey, K. It’s me.” There’s a long silence. “Sorry, it’s Eden. Hello?”

  “Is this some kind of sick joke?” she asks stonily. “Who the fuck are you? How did you get this number?”

  I start laughing. Then I start crying. “It’s really me, I swear. Remember when we decided that drunk roller-skating should be a thing, then spent twenty-four hours with ice on our asses?”

  Karina swears loudly, then sobs. “Eden? Eden! Holy shit, girl. Where are you? What happened?”