by Meli Raine
Voices have an extra layer of vibration you don’t notice until you’re completely naked in the same room with someone who is talking. All of the tiny hairs that dot my skin go on high alert, the flesh rippling like parachute cloth snapping in the wind. Every breath I take makes blood flow to my extremities, reminding me how much pain I’m in. My right butt cheek spasms. My knee aches. My thighs are tight with the anticipation of invasion.
Air brushes against my mons, my belly caving in, fear making me tense. They didn’t split my legs open, thank God.
I have a modicum of modesty left.
It’s fleeting, I know.
“Mules take too long. We’ve dragged this one out long enough. Time to do this right,” Stellan snaps at John, who holds up one finger, as if Stellan’s supposed to pause.
All the blood in my body shimmers in place, trying to figure out where to go. My breathing feels like a waterfall sounds as Stellan looks at me with cold eyes.
He doesn’t see me. Lindsay. His old high school friend.
He sees a fleshbag. A tool. A pawn in a game. My survival relies on remembering that. No plea for mercy will make a difference.
John gets off the phone, then pulls a SIM card out of it. He puts it in his mouth and bites. The sound is like dry bones cracking between the teeth of a troll.
Stellan doesn’t even blink at the weirdness of a guy eating electronics. I avert my eyes but wonder what the hell that’s all about.
Then John reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out another phone and SIM card, inserting it. He walks across the room and throws the old phone away.
I watch this from a detached place, like I’m at the movies and it’s all intrigue.
Except this is very real.
In this film, I bleed.
“Time to do it,” Stellan declares.
My stomach climbs into my throat, my pulse turning into everything.
“But she’s naked.”
“You’re very observant.”
“We were told to leave her half clothed. Staged. Remember?”
The fact that they’re talking about operational details for my actual death makes a part of my mind explode.
DREW! The rest of my mind screams, joined in perfect harmony with my heart. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?
“Who cares what we were told?” Stellan walks across the base of the bed with an aggressive series of steps, getting in John’s face. Tension and anger vibrate off him.
John gapes at Stellan. “We’re following orders to the letter. I am done with this shit. No more having it all dangled over our heads.”
“Hey, man. The price of fame.”
“I wish I’d never let you talk me into this shit.”
So who was the brains of it all? And fame – all three of them have become stratospherically famous in their own fields. Blaine’s running for Daddy’s old House seat. John’s one of the top baseball players in the world. Stellan is a huge television star with a big movie career ahead of him.
The odds that all three could be so successful so quickly are impossible.
Impossible unless you realize someone very powerful has been helping them all along.
And in exchange for what?
For ruining me.
“Before you do it,” I say through a numb mouth, numb face, numb heart, “tell me why.”
“Why should we?” Stellan’s eyes are so cold, so dead. “You won’t live to process it. Analyze it. Understand it.”
“Humor me?”
He laughs through his nose. “This is a waste of time.”
“It really isn’t.” I force my shoulders to slump forward, giving him the body language I’m pretty sure he wants. Defeat etches itself in my body, and I fight to make sure it doesn’t seep into my mind. I have to separate what I know on the inside from what I exhibit on the outside.
“Who cares? Just tell her. Bet she already knows. It’s not like it’s a secret Corning hates her father’s guts.” John gives Stellan a look of challenge.
I just blink. I live in two worlds right now, two sharp divisions in my consciousness. There’s the part that plays along, dragging out time, trying to get information to help me understand and to give Drew enough time to find me.
The other part is having freakout emotional reactions to what I’m learning. One thousand terrified mouths are open and crying out inside the cage of my bones.
Both are important.
But only one will save me.
“Corning?” I lift the corner of my mouth. “Nolan Corning? In the Senate? Daddy hates him right back.”
This look comes across John’s face, an eagerness and interest that would normally make me cringe. I don’t, though, because I’ve hooked him.
And then I realize I still have some power.
“What do you want to know?” I ask in a neutral voice. I can hear the shake come out in my vocal cords, though. “I can tell you anything you want. I can give you information you can use.”
Stellan’s eyes narrow. He grabs John by the shirt and yanks him away from me. The two argue in whispers and seconds tick by.
My life is lived second by second. The chorus of terrified sopranos inside me just keeps singing. If I can make it through the obstacle course of my chaotic mind long enough, Drew will put an end to this.
I just hope he arrives before they put an end to me.
“She can’t know anything significant. They kept her in an institution all these years,” Stellan says in a loud voice.
“But she might know something about Bosworth we can feed to him.”
Him. Corning. Daddy’s rival for the presidency is behind this? I’ve met Nolan Corning a few times over the years, always at large public appearances for Congress. He’s a big man with a bald head and sharp predator’s eyes, jowls hanging and saggy skin making him look older than he is. Side by side, he and my dad look like Mutt and Jeff, tall and short, even though they’re only five or six years apart.
Nolan Corning obstructed a bunch of bills Daddy tried to get through on transportation and energy, even though they’re in the same party. He also is one of those old men who insists on kissing you on the mouth when you’re a kid, even if you don’t want to.
But that’s literally all I know about him.
Why would he want me to be raped and tortured – and now killed? What did I ever do to Nolan Corning?
Drew
Cramming myself into the hidden compartment of a surveillance van after having the shit kicked out of me by law enforcement is about as much fun as you’d expect.
I think I lost half a testicle and all vestiges of self respect as Silas drives me into Tiffany’s open garage. He kills the engine, the doors close, and I unpretzel myself, ignoring the pain, trying to will my half-broken right shoulder to cooperate. Adrenaline shoots through me like fireworks in the sky on the fourth of July.
It has to be enough. I have to be enough.
I have to get next door and save her.
What they’re doing is obvious. Set me up as a crazy ex-boyfriend stalker, then kill her in my apartment. Stage the murder. Make me the scapegoat. Leave Harry and Monica in the impossible position of having hired the very man who “killed” their daughter.
It’s a brilliant set-up.
And I’d admire it more if I weren’t the setee.
“Get out of here,” I tell Silas as he grabs my gear. “If they start sniffing around, I’ll need you on the outside.”
“You can’t be in here alone.”
“I have to. You need to be ready with a team if it gets bad enough. Right now, we can’t storm my apartment. They’ll just kill her.” Adrenaline floods me, making this conversation feel slow and cumbersome.
“Then we need to communicate on a secured line.”
“Agreed.”
“Is any line secured with these guys?” Silas asks. “You’re the cybersecurity expert.”
“I’m not an expert. I’m just smarter than anyone else on our team. We need
to up our game and find someone better than me.”
“We aren’t rolling in time here, Drew.”
I take a few precious seconds and ponder. Closing my eyes, I clear my mind.
Time to decide.
Time to act on the decision.
“Use a secured line. This is all about to go down within thirty minutes. By the time they realize I’m there they’ll be dead.”
His look makes it clear he’s not sure who will be dead in thirty minutes, but he believes that someone will.
“I’ll continue tracking down Paulson.” Silas’s eyes meet mine. “I want to believe he’s not involved, but the longer he goes without being reached...”
“One of three scenarios is possible with Mark: he’s on the other side, he’s detained, or he’s been harmed. Only one of those actually matters operationally.”
Silas doesn’t even flinch.
More proof I’ve trained him well.
“Let’s hope it’s the middle one,” he mumbles.
“Hope isn’t a strategy.”
“No, it isn’t, but there’s nothing wrong with keeping some.”
“Only if it doesn’t get in the way of the mission, Gentian.”
“Dr – I mean, Pete!” Tiffany appears, her voice dropping from a high-pitched affect to a whisper. She is done to the nines, with eyelashes that look like dead spiders attached to her eyelids.
She is wearing short shorts that make Daisy Duke look like a nun. A tight flannel shirt with breasts spilling out everywhere.
And a pink tool belt.
“Oh, my God, Drew – er, Pete! What happened to you?” Genuine concern floods her expression, making her look younger and older at the same time. Her hands fly to her mouth, perfectly manicured, with nail polish the color of sand. “You look awful! Did you get into an accident?”
One simple rule I’ve learned in my line of work: people will give you your excuse. Just pause and don’t say a word. Ninety percent of the time, they hand it to you.
“Yeah,” I say, grimacing. “Bad bike accident.”
“You ride a motorcycle?”
“No. Bicycle.”
Her face falls, as if that’s disappointing. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. Just a flesh wound, right?” I need to speed this up.
She frowns, but drops the topic. “I’m so glad you’re here, Pete. Who’s your friend?” She goes from friendly to seductive.
“Ah, this is Joey.” Joey is the name of Silas’ cat.
“Joey. Love it.” Tiffany shakes his hand. “You here for the filming?” She cranes her neck around him. “Where’s the camera crew?”
“They’re coming separately.”
“Pete is here to block the scene,” Silas adds.
“And you’re here to...”
“Leave. Joey was just leaving. He’ll be back with the crew later. I need access to the wall between our apartments, Tiffany, to do some drilling.”
“Drilling?” Her eyes fly wide with fright. “I don’t own this place. You never said anything about drilling!”
“All expenses will be covered by the production company,” I say. It’s a lie. I will definitely pay for any damage, though.
If I live.
Her body relaxes with relief. “Oh. Sure. Right. Like Extreme Home Makeover, huh?”
“Exactly,” Silas says, nodding as he gives me a sardonic look.
“Okay. As long as you have insurance or something in the contract so I don’t get sued.” Her lips pout and her eyebrows go down. “You do have a contract, right?”
“I have to go drop by legal and get them to give me the newest version,” Silas says casually, like it’s no big deal. Like he’s not lying.
“Perfect.” She looks around nervously. Her hair, long and flowing over her shoulders, moves as one piece, like a LEGO toy hair helmet. “We’re not filming now, are we?” she whispers.
“No. Camera’s not on yet,” I say smoothly, walking past her.
Limping past her. Falling down those concrete stairs at the jail didn’t do me any favors.
Lasering in on the next few action items in my sequence of events, I march into her apartment, the layout a mirror image of my own. There’s a guest bathroom I’m going for. I press my ear against the wall.
Nothing.
I go into the guest bedroom.
Nothing.
Kitchen, living room – nothing.
Master bedroom – jackpot.
Men’s voices, muffled and indistinct. They’re in the bedroom.
Is Lindsay?
And then the voices change, coming closer.
Followed by the higher-pitched tone of a woman talking.
Emotion floods me, shoving all the adrenaline out through my pores, my body turning into air and dust. She’s alive.
Alive.
Relief fills me like a balm, a cure, an antidote.
I give myself exactly five seconds to feel it all.
And then I stuff it right back in my internal box of emotion.
Feelings cannot be in charge of me right now.
Lindsay will die if I let that happen.
I pull out my toolkit and get started. Step one is simple: establish visuals.
“What am I supposed to do, Drew?” Tiffany’s hovering over me, nervous. “Do I have lines? Is this improv?” She says the word improv like she’s worshipping something.
“Yes. One hundred percent improv,” I assure her. That’s probably the only non-lie that I’ve told her. “Your first job is to go to my apartment and slip this note under the door. If someone answers the door, you’re in character.”
“In character?”
“You can’t tell them I’m here, or that this is a reality television show.”
“Won’t they notice the cameras?”
“The cameras will all be hidden.” I realize I need to be more persuasive with her. “You do understand, don’t you?” I take on an authoritarian tone. “I need to make sure we have a professional on this show. You really are in the business, right?” I up my skepticism level to an almost comic level, hating that I have to do this. One ear is perked, listening for Lindsay’s voice. So far, everything’s gone quiet on the other side.
“Of course!” Tiffany gushes. “I’m a pro! I practically live on camera 24/7.” She plucks the piece of paper from my hand and shuffles off, reading as she walks. “Wait. This is a note telling them I’m having work done on my pipes.”
“Yes. Just a friendly note from one neighbor to another.”
“But everyone who lives in this complex knows that I would never leave a note, silly. That’s so rude. I would knock on the door and -- ”
“No!” Panic gets the better of me for a split second, enough to yell loud so that she jumps. “You need to stick to the script.”
“I thought there was no script.”
“We don’t have lines, but we have guidelines,” I emphasize. Get a fucking grip, I tell myself.
And then I hear the men on the other side of the wall talking. A pause.
Followed by the sweet sound of Lindsay’s voice.
“Okay,” Tiffany says, wary. The way she’s looking at me makes it clear she’s not sure what to think, but she’s going along with it anyhow.
“Just slip it under the door. If someone answers -- ”
“Why would someone in your apartment answer?”
I wink. I lie. “It’s part of the show.”
“Gotcha. So they’re actors?” She fluffs her hair, which mostly means she pushes the helmet of hair up an inch.
“No. They’re unsuspecting real-life people who don’t know what’s going on over here.” Another truth.
“Oh!” Her eyes brighten. “I love being in on the joke and they don’t know!”
Joke.
Right.
I look at the wall and contemplate my first move. Goal number one is to get a fiberoptic camera through a light socket or a tiny hole in the wall, to establish a visual without bre
aking the line. I can’t think too many steps ahead, because I have to pivot if this goes south. All I can do is focus on this step.
The drill and other tools will make noise. My premise is weak. But having Tiffany go to my apartment is part of the ruse. I wait until she comes back.
It gives me a chance to assess myself. I look down.
I am fucked.
Chapter 7
Lindsay
“What do you want to know?” I offer.
“Why would you give us confidential information like this?” Stellan asks, turning to John. “I smell a set-up.”
I laugh. “You seriously think I’m offering fake information? Okay. Fine. Go ahead. Go ahead and kill me. Then you’ll never know if I could have told you something you could use to protect yourselves.” I shrug, as much as you can shrug with your hands tied together. “Kill me. Ruin the chance.” The words come out with a strange detachment as I stop caring.
I just...stop.
A switch flips in my head. It’s a relief. I am my blood. I am my heartbeat. I am each breath.
But my mind doesn’t matter any longer.
No one is coming to save me.
Not Daddy.
Certainly not Mom.
And obviously not Drew.
We fool ourselves every day into thinking that we have forever. Maybe we have to. If we thought about the fact that we’re going to die someday, maybe we couldn’t really live. Waking up, brushing our teeth, slogging down coffee, and doing whatever we need to do to check off our To Do list requires a belief that there’s no end.
Because if you knew there was an end, wouldn’t you live differently?
See, I know there’s an end.
It’s staring right at me.
“Where’s the weakness in your father’s security?” John asks.
Stellan smacks his arm. “She doesn’t know the answer to that.”
Because I don’t care, I say, “Helicopter mechanic. All it takes is planting a guy on that team to sabotage Daddy’s helicopter.”
They stare at me.
“No way. That’s what Anya said, too,” Stellan whispers.
Anya. Anya and Jane. Of course. Of course they betrayed me. Betrayed Daddy. I’m beyond caring, right? The information flows over me like a river of logic. Makes sense.