“Gaia has no idea you witnessed the accident,” Loki interrupted. “She wouldn’t notice anything.”
Ella stared back at him, her mouth open, her lips trembling. Loki resisted the urge to slap her hard across the face.
“Did you tell her that you saw what happened?” Loki demanded.
She shook her head.
“And what did happen, exactly? Do we know who was driving the car? Do we know why Sam Moon happened to be standing in the middle of the street outside your house? Do we know why Gaia was … nearly … killed?” He brought his face within inches of Ella’s own. “Can you answer any of these questions?”
“I—I—,” she stuttered.
The terror was there, plain for him to see in her wide eyes. Good. Maybe terror would help get her back on track during the last few weeks of her … assignment.
“Well, don’t worry,” he said, abruptly lightening his tone. He withdrew his head and began pacing around the apartment. “I can answer these questions for myself. But it’s a pity you’ve left me with no choice.”
Ella took a step forward. “But I didn’t—”
“Silence!” Loki barked. He whirled and thrust an accusing finger at her. “What am I paying you for?”
She didn’t answer. She simply bowed her head.
“Now go home,” Loki commanded. “Don’t let Gaia out of your sight.”
“I was hoping …” She let the sentence hang and lifted her eyes. This time there was fear—but something else as well. The old, familiar spark of seduction. But it was almost pleading. And therefore that much more pitiful.
“Go home to your husband,” Loki spat.
Ella swallowed. “How can you do this to me?” she murmured.
Loki looked her directly in the eye. “Don’t make me repeat myself,” he stated, very calmly.
Without another word Ella turned and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.
Loki allowed himself a little smile. Maybe he’d get some professionalism now. Yes. Sexual frustration, anger, and fear were all excellent motivators. He’d give Ella one more chance. One last shot at redemption.
Tonight.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Time: 6:45 P.M.
Re: Please don’t hate me
Hey, Ed—
I’ve been trying to call your house for the last hour, but nobody’s home. I know you’re not at the video store, either, because I called there, too … anyway, you probably think I’m the biggest loser on the planet, but there’s a very good reason I didn’t come to meet you. I got hit by a car. Seriously. You’ll know I’m telling the truth when you see my face at school on Monday. It kind of put me in a daze for a while. Call or write back as soon as you get this, okay?
—G$
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Time: 6:47 P.M.
Re: Sorry for the freak-out
Hi, Sam,
So I just wanted to let you know that I’m really sorry I bolted today on the street. I just didn’t want to deal with any ambulances or hospitals or anything like that. Hospitals kind of give me the creeps. I’ve got a lot of bad memories associated with them. Anyway, I’m okay, in case you were wondering. I just wanted to know if you’re okay, too. By the way, what were you doing on Perry Street? I’ll understand if you don’t want to answer.
—Gaia
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Time: 7:05 P.M.
Re: Glad you wrote
Gaia,
Thanks for letting me know you’re okay. I’m okay, too. But there’s something I want to talk to you about. Can we have dinner tonight? I need to see you. I’ll explain everything then. Corner of Waverly and University at nine o’clock.
—Sam
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Time: 7:06 P.M.
Re: I’ll be there
See you then.
—Gaia
an entire lifetime
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She wouldn’t think about death. Not tonight
She would banish death from existence.
Potential Liability
ONE OF THE BENEFITS OF WORKING with his old friend George was that Tom never had to explain himself if a mission or meeting went awry. George implicitly understood that Tom never had to justify his actions. To anyone.
The agency wasn’t as understanding.
It didn’t matter, though. Explaining himself was of no concern to Tom now. This wasn’t agency business. This was a family matter. The agency couldn’t be involved. At this very moment, in fact, his superiors were probably reeling over why he hadn’t issued a status report in the last few weeks, why he had simply abandoned his job in Russia and flown to New York. There was a very good chance he would be reprimanded. Or demoted. Or simply neutralized. Three decades of sacrifice and patriotism meant nothing if the agency considered you to be a potential liability. Nothing at all.
I may very well be a marked man.
Then again, he’d been a marked man for as long as he’d been an agent. Every terrorist group from Belfast to Hong Kong had an open contract out on his life. But that came with the territory.
Tom shook thoughts of mortality aside and scanned the deserted alley. The air was bitter cold—the kind of cold that numbed extremities and bit at exposed flesh. But he was used to it. The weather reminded him of Russia, in fact. Of Moscow.
Of Katia
Sweet Katia.
Bile rose in his throat. He swallowed the foulness and shook his head. If Katia knew that Loki was hunting their daughter, that Loki wanted to take Gaia away from them, to bring her into his monstrous existence … horror wouldn’t even begin to describe Katia’s emotions. No. Tom had to be strong. He had to prevail. For Katia’s sake.
Shuffling footsteps tore into Tom’s stream of consciousness.
He glanced at his watch, then breathed a sigh of relief. George was right on time. He lifted his eyes to see George’s shadowy form in the pale glow of a lone streetlamp, hunched over from the cold. Icy breath drifted from George’s mouth in quick puffs.
“How are you, Tom?” he murmured as he approached.
Tom managed a smile for his old friend. “I’ve had better days. How’s Gaia?”
George paused, then took a quick peek around the alleyway. Tom had already combed the area several times, but at their age, security precautions were as instinctive as breathing.
“Pretty banged up, but all right,” George finally answered. “At least from what Ella told me. What happened?”
“I nearly killed my daughter, for starters,” Tom mumbled.
George gaped at him. “It was you?”
Tom nodded, overcome by a sudden stab of nausea at the memory of Gaia’s body flipping over the hood of his car. “Yes,” he muttered. “I nearly hit some boy. A boy I recognized … I think he’s a friend of Gaia’s. She saved his life and nearly got herself killed in the process.”
“Good God,” George hissed. He shook his head, his brow tightly furrowed. “I had no idea. What were you doing on Perry Street?”
“I couldn’t find a parking space,” Tom replied matter-of-factly.
Their eyes met. A sad smile passed between them.
“I forget that the real world intrudes in our work sometimes,” George said wistfully.
Tom shrugged. “So do I.”
George’s expression grew serious. “So how should we proceed?”
“You tell me. What’s the word on Loki?”
“The same,” George answered, scanning the alley once more. “Like I told you before, preliminary intelligence indicates that he’s got somebody close to Gaia. A plant. That’s all we know.”
So nothing’s changed in two weeks, Tom thought. Frustration tore at him; he felt like punching the nearby brick wall. But he didn’t blame George. The poor man was do
ing the best he could under the circumstances. Besides, Loki was far too clever to leave himself vulnerable. It was a miracle that George knew as much as he did.
But then a thought occurred to Tom.
“Could the plant be the boy?” he asked.
George shrugged, sighing. “Your guess is as good as mine.” He stamped his feet and rubbed his gloved hands together, shivering as a gust of wind swept through the burnt-out tenements.
The streetlamp flickered. Bits of garbage and old newspaper rustled across the old cobblestones. There was nothing more to say. Nothing had changed. Tom could only continue to wait as the situation developed … and to watch Gaia as closely as possible. It was time to adjourn this meeting. He should let his friend return to the warmth and comfort of his home. Hopefully Gaia would be there, too. Resting. Recuperating. With Ella to help her.
“How’s Ella?” Tom asked.
“She’s—” George broke off in midsentence. His entire body seemed to sag into his trench coat. “To be honest, I don’t know.”
Tom shot him a confused stare. “What do you mean?”
“I … she—she’s been acting odder than usual recently,” he stammered with uncharacteristic clumsiness. He avoided Tom’s gaze. “She comes and goes without telling me and keeps hours I don’t understand. I …” His voice faded, as if he’d suddenly run out of air.
Not good, Tom thought. But he suppressed his alarm. Aside from the fact that George was his most trusted friend, Tom took comfort in the knowledge that George seemed to have such a stable relationship with his beautiful, young photographer wife. Tom had counted on their providing a solid, healthy environment for his daughter, one where she would be nurtured by both a father and mother figure.
“It’s the stress,” Tom stated after a minute—as much for himself as for George. “The stress of trying to get her career off the ground. Photography’s a tough business. Especially in this town. Very competitive.”
George nodded. “Right,” he said, without any conviction.
Tom swallowed, regarding his friend closely. He hadn’t noticed before—but George seemed haggard. His skin was very pale. Puffy sacks hung beneath his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Tom murmured.
“It’s okay,” George answered. He smiled tiredly. “It’ll pass. Every relationship suffers ups and downs.”
Tom nodded. That statement was truer than George probably even realized. It certainly applied perfectly to his relationship with Gaia. He extended a hand. “If there’s anything I can—”
“Don’t worry,” George interrupted. His voice caught. “I’ll make it work.” His jaw twitched, but he looked Tom in the eye. “For Gaia’s sake.”
Concentration Camp Victim
WHEN HEATHER FIRST STEPPED INTO the cold and antiseptic-smelling intensive care ward, her first reaction was one of rage. Pure rage. Staring down at Phoebe’s skeletal frame—the way she was hooked up to all those IVs, lying under the blankets and sickly green hospital robes as if she were already a corpse—Heather wanted to wring Phoebe’s neck. To scream. To tear Phoebe’s beautiful brown hair from her scalp.
You idiot! How could you let this happen? How could you do this to yourself?
But she didn’t. She kept her mouth shut. Because Heather knew if she tried to speak, she would very likely start bawling like an infant.
“I can’t believe we didn’t see this coming,” her mother whispered at her side.
Heather swallowed and shook her head. Right, she thought bitterly. Maybe part of her anger had to do with the guilt that was presently shredding her insides. Heather had seen this coming. Only last week she’d found herself gaping in shock at Phoebe’s naked body, fresh from the shower—at those protruding eye sockets, at all the bones that jutted sharply from beneath her pallid and anemic flesh. Heather had even gone so far as to comment on how thin her sister looked. Too thin. Heather had seen something like this coming and done nothing to stop it.
Now Phoebe’s body was so starved, so deprived of nutrients that it simply wouldn’t function. It had shut down, like a toy that had run out of batteries.
Of course, toys didn’t have souls. They didn’t look like concentration camp victims, either. They didn’t need life-support systems just to keep their frail hearts beating—
“Maybe you should go home, Heather,” her mother whispered.
“No,” Heather croaked. She shook her head again, violently. She’d only been here twenty minutes. She had no intention of leaving. Not until Phoebe gave her some kind of sign—anything—to prove that she was still with them. And a pulsating beep or a blip on a screen didn’t count. No way. Phoebe had to say something. To open her eyes, if only for a second. Even the mere lifting of a finger would be enough.
The door opened behind them.
Heather glanced over her shoulder. A short, balding doctor in a white lab coat stood there, holding a clipboard.
“I’m very sorry,” he murmured with a sympathetic smile. “You’re going to have to wait outside now. We need to run a few more tests.” He gestured down the hall
Heather exchanged a quick glance with her mother. Her throat caught. In the sickly blue glow of the fluorescent lights, she couldn’t help but be struck by the resemblance between Phoebe and Mom. Both had those same deep-set eyes, the same mouth … only Mom’s lips were full and red, whereas Phoebe’s were cracked and nearly white. Mom’s arms didn’t look like you could snap them with two fingers. A network of purplish veins weren’t bulging beneath translucent skin. Heather shot a quick glance back toward her sister.
“Of course,” Mom said.
She took Heather gently by the arm, steering her toward an orange vinyl couch out in the long hallway. Heather nearly collapsed into the cushions. She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was. The simple act of sitting was like settling into a warm tub. She stretched her legs and yawned. She’d been on her feet ever since she’d gotten the phone call. Of course, maybe only an hour had passed, but it already seemed like an entire lifetime.
It might just well be an entire lifetime.
She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. She wouldn’t think about death. Not tonight. She would banish death from existence.
After a minute or so, when she was certain her mind was clear, she allowed her eyelids to flutter open.
Her mom sat beside her, rigid—her bleary eyes pinned on the door that was now closed.
INTENSIVE CARE UNIT: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT
“Are you sure you don’t want to go—”
“I’m sure, Mom,” Heather interrupted, sounding harsher than she intended. “I want to stay here. I’ll be fine.”
Fortunately her mother just nodded, too tired to argue.
Heather glanced at a snack machine down the hall. Nah. She was in no mood for a sticky candy bar. She didn’t have an appetite. The thought of food was … well, she didn’t know what it was.
Her mother started rummaging through her purse. “The doctor gave me something,” she said absently. “I thought you might want to take a look at it….” She pulled out a crumpled pamphlet and handed it to Heather.
A Parents’ Guide to Anorexia Nervosa
Perfect, Heather thought dismally. Just the thing to take her mind off Phoebe. A little light reading before bed. She scowled at her mother—but her mom had already curled up into a fetal position at the edge of the couch and closed her eyes.
So. This was great. Here she was in a hospital, with her mom passed out and her sister near death. A hell of a Friday night, wasn’t it? Maybe she should take a look at this thing. It was just too bad it wasn’t called A Sister’s Guide. But the advice could probably extend to all family members. She opened to the front page and began to read.
Anorexia is characterized by a significant weight loss resulting from excessive dieting.
Duh … news flash. Heather rolled her eyes.
Women are often motivated by both an intense desire to be thin and an intense fear of becoming ob
ese. If they are successful at losing weight, people take note, complimenting them on their appearance and reinforcing the weight loss pattern.
Another Statement of the Obvious. Everyone: Mom, Dad, Heather herself, even Ed … all of them wouldn’t shut up about how great Phoebe looked when she came home from college. But in a matter of a month Phoebe had gone from diminutive to diminished to destroyed. The most amazing part of it was how clueless they all were. Then again, who would want to believe that Phoebe was committing slow suicide before their very eyes?
The denial made sense, though, in a way. Phoebe had looked great … up to a point. And in the Gannis household appearance was everything. It was the highest priority, in fact: whether it was the appearance of a perfect family or the appearance of living the way they lived before the money was gone—
Heather winced. This pamphlet was leading to places she didn’t really want to go. She flipped ahead a few pages.
Anorexics are usually dutiful daughters who set very high standards for themselves, striving for perfection.
Jesus. The more she read, the more it seemed Phoebe was a poster girl for anorexia. She was a good student. She was organized. She went to a fine college. And compared to Heather, she hardly ever talked back to their mother. In fact, their mom had told Heather more than once to look to Phoebe as an example.
Right.
So with all that going for her, why the hell was Phoebe starving herself?
Heather’s jaw tightened. She could feel the rage returning. Phoebe had brought this on herself. Her eyes flashed back down to the page.
Eating disorders are diseases that provide the illusion of control. Anorexics believe that while they can’t control life, they can control their weight.
But as quickly as the rage swelled, it subsided. The need to feel in control, to be in control, was something Heather could definitely relate to. She certainly had her own control issues. With Sam, for example. Specifically, with sleeping with him. Looking back on it now, she realized sex had been a ploy on her part—an empty, manipulative act to gain the upper hand in their relationship. The thought of it made her sick. God, she had even lied, telling him that her first time with him was her first time ever. Her stomach turned. She’d been dishonest with him, with herself, with the world. She’d been playing a role, trying to figure out what Sam was looking for, who he wanted her to be—or who she thought he wanted her to be—and she did everything she could to become that girl….
Liar Page 4