by Sara Rosett
Costa picked up a knight from the game board. “You are merely a piece on the board.” He ran his finger over the ridge of the horse’s mane on the game piece as he crossed to the desk. “And, as exciting as the game has been, it is time for you to go back in the box.” Costa placed the game piece in a marble box on the desk and snapped it shut.
He did not look at Jack again. He walked to the door and stepped into the hall. Zoe caught a glimpse of Sam, waiting there before the door closed again.
“He’s talking about killing you,” Zoe hissed. The doors looked thick, but she wasn’t about to take a chance that Costa could hear her, so she kept her voice low. “And me, too, probably because I doubt they’re going to take you out and leave me around to talk about it.” Jack sent her a look. “I know that look,” Zoe said. “I know you’re telling me to keep calm and think and not lose my head, but he’s serious, Jack.”
Jack tried to speak, but the gag garbled his words into an indistinguishable murmur. He bent at the waist.
Had he passed out? “Jack, what’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?” He moved, twisting his neck around and mumbled some more.
“What? I don’t get it? You look like I feel when I try to do yoga. What are you doing?”
Jack threw himself back against the chair, panting around his gag, and sent her a look of frustration.
“I’m sorry. You know I’m no good at charades.”
Jack rolled his eyes. He used his hand to point at her wrist, then at his face. He gripped the arms of his chair then jerked himself up with all his strength. The chair hopped half an inch in her direction.
“I get it,” she said. If he could get close enough, he could lean over and she could untie the gag. The arms of the chair were too short and his upper body was too long for him to bend over and untie the gag from the back of his head, but she could do it, if he could get close enough. Then, maybe they could shift over to the desk and find something to cut the plastic ties. She grabbed the arms of her chair and heaved.
Her chair didn’t move. Its high back reached above her head and was decorated with thick grooves and pinnacles. The legs of the sturdy chair were embedded in the deep carpet. Jack managed to shift his chair another half an inch. Zoe blew out a breath and heaved. Her chair popped up a few centimeters, then settled into the deep indentions of the carpet. Zoe tried again, her hair flopping forward around her eyes.
The only sounds in the room were their ragged breathing and the popping of the fire. She felt her face flush with exertion. “This is an excellent workout,” she gasped. “If we get out of here, I think I’ll make an infomercial. Chair hopping cardio.” She could see Jack out of the corner of her eye, his head bobbing up and down. His cheeks bulged a bit above the gag, and she knew she’d made him smile.
Suddenly, a section of the wood-paneled wall swung open and a woman with a curvy figure and dark hair in an asymmetrical cut came into the room.
Jack and Zoe, who had both been in mid-hop, went still.
The woman didn’t make eye contact with them.
Zoe exchanged a quick look with Jack, and he shrugged one shoulder as if he wasn’t sure what the woman was doing. She went to the desk and set down a long cardboard tube she carried. She quickly picked up a leather tube that had been propped against the leg of the desk and put it beside the cardboard one. With a few swift movements, she switched the contents of the tubes, moving a roll of glossy poster-size paper from the cardboard tube to the leather tube and a roll of soft almost fabric-like material from the leather tube to the cardboard container she’d arrived with. She replaced the leather tube, propping it against the leg of the desk exactly as it had been, then she picked up the cardboard tube.
“Wait, don’t go,” Zoe said. “Please help us.” This had to be the secretary Jack mentioned. “You’re Anna, aren’t you?” Of course she was with Costa, but maybe Zoe could convince her to help them.
She didn’t reply, but did pause. “Please, Anna. Costa is going to kill us. We need to get out of here.”
Anna examined the man bag in the desk chair, tossing the flap back as she said, “Costa never kills anyone. He’s told Sam to do that.” She looked at the laptop, then extracted the flash drive. “He’s told Sam to arrange things for you. Of course, Costa doesn’t want to know the details. That way he has deniability.”
Zoe blinked at her matter-of-fact tone then found her voice. “And you’re okay with that? You’re going to stand by and let two innocent people be killed?”
Anna slipped the flash drive into the pocket of her jeans. “I won’t be here.”
“You’re still a party to this. You’re an accessory.” Zoe had no idea if that was true, but she had to do what she could. “Please, just hand me a pair of scissors. That’s all I need.”
Anna looked at Zoe for the first time, and Zoe’s heart sank. Anna’s gaze was cold and remote. There was no sympathy, no ambivalence at all. “If you’re involved with Costa, you’re far from innocent.”
Zoe licked her lips. “Then I’ll have to scream.” She felt Jack tense beside her. Anna ignored her, grabbed the tube then turned her back, but not before Zoe had seen a flare of fear in her face. “And even if you leave before they get here,” Zoe continued, “I’ll tell them what you did—that you switched something in those tubes and took the flash drive. I doubt you’d make it to the village before they catch up with you.”
Anna stopped, her free hand flexing into a fist. Zoe waited, her heart hammering as she watched Anna’s hand open and close. Had she made things worse? Anna whirled toward Zoe, her chin lowered with a look on her face that made Zoe wish she’d kept quiet.
“And how do I know that you won’t betray me, if I help you?”
Zoe sucked in a breath and hoped that Anna couldn’t actually see her heartbeat through the fabric of her coat. “You don’t. You’ll have to trust us. Just as we’ll have to trust you.”
Anna studied her a moment, then strode toward the desk. She ripped open a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors. She slammed them down on the edge of the desk near Zoe, and Zoe couldn’t help flinching.
Anna kept her hand on top of the scissors. “We have a deal? We both keep quiet.” Her gaze flicked between Zoe and Jack.
“Yes. We won’t say anything,” Zoe said as Jack nodded his head.
Anna removed her hand from the scissors. “Then you better move quickly. I overheard Costa. He told Sam to make your deaths look like an accident—no guns or anything that would draw extra police attention.” She whipped around, strode to the door in the paneling.
The door slid into place. Jack and Zoe looked at each other for a moment, then both of them resumed their frantic chair hopping movements. Two heaves brought Zoe to the edge of the desk. She strained her fingers straight up and curled them over the tip of the scissors, then worked them around in her hand so that her fingers were through the grips. Zoe looked at Jack through the screen of hair that had fallen over her face.
He nodded at her. “Yes, I know it’s only a few more times,” Zoe said, “but I feel like I’ve climbed the highest wall at the gym.” She blew out a breath and shook her hair back from her face. “Okay. Now we just have to rotate so that we’re facing each other.” Jack nodded and set to work shifting his chair into alignment with hers.
Zoe wrapped her fingers over the scissors as she grasped the chair arms. Two heaves brought her so close to Jack that the tip of the scissors nearly stabbed him as her chair came down. The metal point gouged the wood near his wrist as Jack jerked his hand away as far as the plastic ties allowed.
“Well, that should do it,” Zoe said between breaths. She worked the scissors into the groove of space between Jack’s wrist and the plastic and sawed away with the scissors. The plastic was thick, and it took her several strokes with the scissors for the metal to bite into the plastic. Then the scissors snapped closed, and the plastic tie fell to the carpet.
A creaking sound came from the hallway.
Zoe’s head sna
pped up. “He’s back.”
Jack grabbed the arms of the chair and began shifting it back into the position it had been when Costa left the room. Zoe managed to bring her chair around so that it was facing the desk, but she was far closer to the desk than she had been, but it was too late. She couldn’t move anymore because the door swung open. Costa entered.
Zoe pushed the handle of the scissors up under her wrist and tried to calm her breathing, not that it would do much good if he looked directly at her. She was sure the flush on her translucent skin matched her hair, which was probably twice its normal size.
But Costa didn’t even look at them. As he crossed the room to a tall bookcase, he checked his watch then he moved several books to the side, revealing a safe. He punched in a code, opened the door, and removed an envelope. He closed the safe, replaced the books, then returned to the desk where he put the envelope in the bottom left drawer of the desk.
Zoe had her breathing under control and was trying to figure out what to say—if there was anything to say—that would convince him to let them go, but before she could decide on an approach, Costa slung the man bag over one shoulder, grabbed the leather tube, and picked up the set of keys from the desktop.
He paused, fingered the Mercedes logo on the remote key fob, then seemed to come to a decision and replaced it on the desk. He left the room without once looking at them.
He left the door to the hallway open, so Zoe whispered, “He’s leaving, isn’t he?”
Jack nodded.
“He doesn’t want to be here when...” Zoe trailed off, and Jack gripped the arms of the chair.
“Right. Back at it,” Zoe said, but before she could gather her strength to move the chair, Sam entered the room with his attention focused squarely on them. Jack kept his free arm positioned exactly as it would have been if the tie still held it in place. He wanted the element of surprise, she realized. It was all they had left, she supposed, except for the scissors. If only she had handed them to Jack, he would have had a weapon. He was the one who’d taken years of martial arts. She’d only had a few piddly lessons. If one of them was going to take on Sam, she wanted it to be Jack.
The metal handles of the scissors felt cold on the inside of her wrist. She didn’t think she could be very effective with them unless Sam got really close to her, and if he did...could she stab him? Would she be able to do that?
Sam paced over to them. He held the gun loosely in his right hand. It dangled beside his leg as he studied them. “Been working hard, I see. You’ve discovered those chairs are good, sturdy German craftsmanship.”
Zoe managed to sneak a look at Jack’s wrist and saw the cuff of his sleeve covered the missing plastic tie, but the tie itself lay on the carpet under the chair. Zoe hoped the intricate pattern of the carpet would hide it.
She looked up from the carpet. “Everything is in place, ready to go. You are going to have a very bad car accident,” Sam said with mock sadness. Then his voice changed. “But I do believe we have time for a little fun before you have to go.” He fixed his gaze on Zoe. “You have no idea how long I’ve looked forward to this,” he said, his voice going thick.
Yes, I think I can stab him, no problem, Zoe decided. She licked her lips. “Sam, you don’t want to be part of this. Costa can’t run from the police forever. He will get caught, and you’ll go down with him.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Zoe saw Jack’s fist clench.
Sam didn’t reply. It was as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. He came around the desk on Zoe’s side. He propped himself up, legs splayed on either side of her chair, and reached out.
“You don’t want to do this,” Zoe said again.
“Yes, I do.” He ran a finger along her cheek, then trailed his fingertips down her neck to the base of her throat where her pulse fluttered. Zoe gave up on talking and concentrated on not gagging. He wasn’t listening; it wouldn’t do any good to try to talk her way out of this situation.
His attention focused only on Zoe. “You had no idea, did you? I had you so convinced I was a sensitive, caring, metrosexual type that if I’d told you the things I’ve done, you never would have believed me.”
He leaned close to her face. “Would you have believed I had it in me to kill a man?”
Zoe had a feeling that this was one of those trick questions that she’d answer wrong, no matter what she said, so she kept quiet.
He exhaled and leaned back. “Killing is easy, simple even, if you do it with a gun or a knife.” He lifted the gun as he spoke and pointed it at her chest. Zoe’s breath caught, and she tried not to move an inch.
He dropped his arm to his side. “It’s killing without leaving a trace that’s difficult. Like what I did to Bent. They’ll never know he was dead before the fire began.”
“You did that to him?” Zoe couldn’t help asking. “You poisoned him?”
“Noticed that, did you? Well, there won’t be any evidence of it for the police to find. The fire erased any trace of the poison or my presence there.” With one hand, Sam reached out and popped open the top button of her coat.
She scrunched back in the chair as far as she could. Sam laughed. “Oh, don’t go all timid on me.” She worked the handle of the scissors into the palm of her hand. He was so focused on her face and neck that he didn’t even notice. If he’d just come a little closer she could shove the metal point into his leg.
The sound of a car engine carried through the slightly open window. The engine struggled, then died. Sam’s attention strayed from the second button of Zoe’s coat as he tilted his head toward the window. There was a beat of silence, then the engine labored again and caught. It sputtered as if were about to die again, but the driver revved the engine, and it settled into a bumpy rhythm. Zoe’s grip tightened on the scissors.
Sam turned away, caught sight of the keys on the desktop and snatched them up, his face confused. He sprinted to the window, pushed it wide. “Not that car! No!”
Chapter Twenty
––––––––
SAM dropped the keys, leaned over the ledge of stone that protruded out from the window, and waved his left arm as he shouted. He still held the gun in his right hand down by his leg.
Jack reached across Zoe and took the scissors in his free hand. He quickly cut the ties on his other arm, his ankles, and cut Zoe’s hands and ankles free as well. Sam, his back turned to them, waved and shouted, but the engine continued to run. A yellow glow brightened the windows. The driver had turned the headlights on, but the engine continued to idle.
Jack shoved the scissors in his back pocket, handles down, then untied the knot holding the gag in place. He yanked it off as he moved to the fireplace and took the poker from the hearth, the carpet masking the sounds of his movements. By the time Zoe stood up, Jack had crossed the room to Sam.
Sam turned slightly, caught sight of Jack, and raised his arm with the gun. Jack froze as Sam leveled the gun at him. Frantically, Zoe looked around. What could she do? The chair was too heavy for her to do more than shove it a few feet. She’d never be able to throw it through the air and hit Sam. He was too far away. Jack had the scissors. The desk had nothing on it except a few pens, the blotter, and the marble box with the chess piece.
The car engine continued to idle. The corners of Sam’s mouth turned up. Zoe snatched the pens and threw them, reached for the blotter and tossed it. The cascade of office supplies didn’t deter Sam, he only raised his shoulder to block the pens from hitting him in the face.
Her hand closed on the marble box. She heaved it across the room. This time, Sam raised his arm and ducked his head. The box sailed over his head and crashed into the stone window ledge. Jack lunged forward and brought the poker down on the back of Sam’s head. He dropped to the floor.
“Is he...?” Zoe asked as she tried to catch her breath.
Jack picked up the gun then pushed on Sam’s shoulder with his foot, rolling him onto his back. Jack cautiously placed two fingers at Sam’s thro
at then looked up. “He’s alive,” he said, his voice scratchy.
“That’s...good. I guess.”
Jack ran a hand down over his mouth and cleared his throat. “As long as we get out of here before he wakes up.”
The things from the desktop that Zoe had tossed at Sam were scattered around him. One of them, an index card, caught her eye because of the neatly printed word, Evergreen. She picked up the card. “Hey, look at this. It must have been under the blotter on the desk—”
She stopped speaking because the noise of the car engine, which had been filtering into the room, changed tone. A flash of headlights cut through the black square of the window. Jack stepped over Sam, and Zoe joined him at the window. It was the little blue car that Sam had driven up the road. “Do you think Costa’s in that?” Zoe pushed the index card into her pocket as she looked to the parking area where a sleek black Mercedes rested beside the red Fiat.
“Sam thought he was.”
As the car neared the gates, the red brake lights flared, but the car didn’t slow. It continued to roll. The car swung onto the road that curved to the right and ran alongside the castle wall, dropping steeply to the first hairpin turn on the side of the mountain with the village below it.
The brake lights continued to glow red, but instead of slowing, the car picked up speed. It swung wide into the turn. One wheel slipped off the surface of the road and bumped along the dirt and leaves. The driver corrected and the car was back on the asphalt surface, picking up even more speed as it barreled toward the next hairpin turn.
The car careened down the steep descent, racing toward the drop off and the icy lake below. It reached the turn and sailed straight into the air, disappearing over the precipice into the sky, brake lights shining red. Zoe felt her heartbeat thud twice in the silence then there was a distant splash.
Zoe realized she’d reached for Jack’s hand. “That was supposed to be us.”
Jack nodded and glanced at Sam.