by Amy Vansant
“What the hell are you doing?”
Sean watched as Luther removed a contact.
“Since when do you wear—”
Luther looked up at him. His one eye was so blue it was nearly white. Sean had only ever seen eyes like that on one other person.
“Please don’t tell me you’re Rune’s brother.”
Luther laughed and replaced the contact. “Naw, you’re too funny.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Means Rune and I have been doing this for a long time. You ever notice your eyes getting lighter?”
Sean thought about it, picturing his own image in his bathroom mirror at home.
“I...no.”
Luther shrugged. “You’re only on your third go-round. Just a kid, really...”
“My third—” Sean sighed. “Luther, I can’t take much more of this today. Tell me what I have to do to get back home.”
“That’s easy.” Luther grinned and raised his tankard. “You have to die.”
Chapter Nineteen
Catriona felt someone grab her roughly by the shoulder and pull her from Volkov’s limousine. She pretended to stumble and rubbed her face on the man’s arm as he tightened his grip and yanked her to her feet. Her wrists were zip-tied behind her back, and her plan had been to push away the blindfold around her eyes against the man’s shoulder. Her scheme worked—at least well enough to peek out the top as she hung her head in apparent misery.
Not that she wasn’t genuinely miserable. It had taken her most of the drive to control her emotions over Broch’s assassination. It all felt so stupid. It had happened so fast. One second he stood by her side and the next she watched helplessly as—
The car door behind her slammed.
Stop it. You can’t think about him now.
She hung her head and tried to get a picture of her surroundings. From what she could see through the crack in her blindfold, it looked as though they were in a neighborhood. Not a particularly nice one. Row after row of tan, stained-stucco ranch-style homes. Toys. Metal fences around the front yards with signs warning of dogs. The kind of neighborhood where people knew not to call the police about two blindfolded and bound women being led into a house. People here kept to their business.
Luckily, the ball of fabric they’d shoved into her mouth shortly before stopping kept her from having to make the agonizing decision between scream-for-help-and-be-killed and don’t-scream-for-help-and-be-killed.
Catriona tilted her head to get a better view of the house the men pulled her towards. This rancher looked like all the others, except a man stood on the porch, looking as if he’d been expecting them. Tall, dirty-blond, coarse features, bit of a paunch—the sort of face only youth made attractive for a brief moment in time. Hopefully, he had a wife or would soon. Time was not this young man’s friend.
The man at her side steered her with the grip on her upper arm. Her toe struck the first step to the porch and she lifted a foot to feel for the next riser. Impatient, the man dragged her up the next two and pushed her towards Paunchy.
“Put ‘em in the room.”
No sooner was the pressure on her arm released than it began anew, slightly lower, closer to her elbow, as the new man took over duties. He led her inside and she caught a brief glimpse of a sparsely furnished, depressing living room before being shoved unsuccessfully through a doorway. Her shoulder clipped the frame and she grunted in pain.
Catriona heard the sound of a jackknife opening and felt a rush of panic before the pressure began on the zip-ties around her hands.
They’re cutting me loose.
Her hands sprang free and she reached up to pull the cloth from her mouth. She took a deep breath through her mouth as she slid down the blindfold.
The door clicked shut behind her and she found herself in a windowless room lit only by a dull bulb in the light screwed to the ceiling. Fly-shaped shadows littered the bulb’s opaque plastic enclosure.
Nice touch.
A blubbery cry brought her attention to Mo, the only thing keeping the room from being completely empty. The woman’s muffled sobs had been the only sound in the car for miles, and released from her gag too, she gasped in an attempt to catch her breath.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Catriona took a step towards Mo and rubbed the woman’s back with one hand.
It wasn’t okay. There was nothing okay about their situation, but the only thing worse than being held captive, was being held captive with a woman who couldn’t stop crying.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” said Mo, sounding more defeated than panicked. It was a start.
“Your husband has been selling your leftover clothes to the Russians, or to Serbians, Albanians... whatever Eastern European hellhole these creeps crawled out of. That’s what happened.”
Mo squinted at her through already swollen eyes. “What?”
“It was Alain, Mo. You told him you’d sent me on an errand, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I was mad he sent you to win me back, but you were going to help—”
“Alain didn’t want me to solve your problem.”
Mo tucked back her chin as if the concept of someone not wanting to please her struck her ears as foreign. “Why not?”
“Because he’s the one who’s been selling your clothes instead of burning them.”
“Alain?”
Catriona rubbed her temples. She felt like she was talking in circles. “Yes.”
“To Russians?”
Catriona sighed. The nationality of the heavies wasn’t the information she’d hoped Mo would find troubling. “Sure. I dunno. Volkov has a bit of a Drago thing going.”
“Drago?”
“The boxer. Rocky Three. Four? Four. It doesn’t matter. He’s got a touch of a Russian accent.”
The corner of Catriona’s mouth curled into a smile as she heard Broch’s brogue in the back of her head.
Ye hae an accent. Nae me.
She shook her head.
Stop. No.
Somehow, Mo had finally been stunned into silence. Catriona moved away from her to rap on the walls. They sounded solid. Too solid for the inside of a house. Cement? It seemed this room had served as a prison before. She noticed a pattern of droplet-sized stains on one wall and scratched at one with her fingernail.
Dried blood, maybe.
Fantastic. That bodes well.
“Alain wouldn’t do this.”
“Ah you’re back.” Catriona turned to Mo. “He would and he did.”
Mo pressed her lips together, appearing to hover somewhere between rage and sadness. Despair won out and her eyes began to tear again.
Catriona tilted back her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. And I’m sorry to be the one to tell you—”
“It’s okay.” Mo’s voice fell to a whisper. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
Catriona opened her mouth and then shut it. She’d wondered if Broch’s disappearance had penetrated Mo’s shield of self-absorption.
Mo chewed on her lip. “He was your boyfriend?”
“It was complicated.”
“It always is, right?”
Catriona nodded. “He wasn’t stealing my clothes, but yes.”
Mo chuckled. “I know, you’re right. Alain is a thief at heart. I always did fall for the bad boys.”
Catriona wasn’t sure if five-foot-five Alain in his five hundred dollar shirts fit the bad boy mold, but she let it go as Mo barreled on.
“I should have known. I’m so sorry to have dragged you into whatever nasty scheme he’s gotten himself into now. They’re keeping me to hold over him...”
“Yep.”
Mo frowned. “But why are they keeping you?”
Catriona’s scalp tingled. Mo had struck on the dread she couldn’t place, the phantom lurking in the back of her mind.
Why are they keeping me?
They’d had no problem killing Broch. They had to keep Mo for leverage over
Alain. She’d been telling herself they thought she was also important to Alain, but why would they think that? Would Alain have said that?
Probably not. After all, he’d sent Volkov after them. So Volkov had to know she wasn’t that close to Alain’s heart—
Stop this line of thought...there be dragons. It’s unproductive.
She flashed Mo a tight smile and wandered to the door.
Don’t think about their reasons. Think about getting out.
She dropped to her knees, but found the door too close to the floor to see much of anything outside.
“I wish we had a way to see out there. To get a feel for how many people are babysitting us.”
“Do you think you can get us out of here?”
“I don’t know. At some point an opportunity might arise. We’ll have to be ready.”
“Peter, ask her where her husband is.”
Catriona heard someone call from farther away. Maybe from out on the porch. The door rattled and she stepped back as the sound of a releasing padlock snapped. A moment later, Paunchy stuck his head in the door.
Paunchy Peter.
His attention locked on Mo.
“Where’s your husband?”
Mo’s hand fluttered to her chest. “What do you mean?”
Peter picked at the skin on his arm. “He isn’t answering his phone and he isn’t at your penthouse. Where is he?”
Mo shook her head. “I don’t know. Did you tell him—?”
The boy scoffed. “Did we tell him we have you? No. That’s what we’re trying to do.”
Mo’s eyes widened. “I, I honestly don’t know.”
Peter opened the door to enter and Catriona stepped forward to block his path to Mo.
“She doesn’t know.”
He looked her up and down. “She knows.”
Catriona looked into Peter’s eyes. His pupils were dilated and jerky. That combined with the way he itched and his general pallor implied he had a drug problem. Meth-head if she had to guess. That was good. She didn’t want a guard working at top capacity.
She wanted to escape.
Catriona motioned to Mo. “Why would she hide Alain from you? It doesn’t help her. And why would she protect the man who’s been lying to her? The man whose gotten her into this mess?”
Paunchy Pete hooked his mouth to the side and glanced at Mo, who raised her hand to her mouth and sobbed.
“And he’s been cheating on me. I hate him!”
Peter winced. It seemed she wasn’t the only one finding the pitch of Mo’s wailing unpleasant.
His jumpy eyes bounced in Catriona’s direction.
“You better hope we find him soon.”
She nodded. “If we think of anything you’ll be the first to know.”
She glanced at his hip and saw his gun there, tucked in his waistband.
Sloppy.
As Peter turned to leave, Catriona took a step forward, following him. He reacted, spinning to face her and blocking her path from the room.
She held up her hands. “I’m not trying to get out. I just had a thought. Did you check Paris? He goes there a lot. The hotel, not the city, obviously. The restaurant...I forget the name.”
The man grunted. “Get back.”
She took a half-step back.
Paunchy Pete closed the door and she heard the combination lock snap back into place.
“Alain doesn’t go to Paris,” said Mo. “That would be so, so.”
“I know. I just wanted to get a peek outside. I didn’t see anyone else.”
“So he’s the only one guarding us?”
“Maybe. It sounds like the people who brought us here are still out on the porch, but I’m thinking maybe they’ll go.”
She slid to a squat and put her ear against the door. “I’m going to listen for a bit. See if I can hear him talking to anyone.”
Mo’s shoulders slumped. “They took my purse. I need to fix my face.” She licked her finger and rubbed through the river of mascara beneath her eye. “Where do you think Alain is?”
“He ran,” said Catriona, wishing Mo would stop talking for a minute.
“He wouldn’t leave me here. Would he?”
Catriona looked at her. “By now he probably knows Volkov is out of his league. I imagine he’s...confused.”
“That’s a nice way of saying he left me to die, isn’t it?”
Catriona shrugged. “Or he really might not know about you yet.”
“I would hope not.”
“But not long before I came to talk to you, he was busy carving words into the thigh of a twenty- year-old kid because he’d fallen behind on his bets.”
“So?”
“So he’s not a nice guy.”
Mo shrugged. “The kid should have paid his bets.”
Catriona chuckled. “You two are perfect together. He’d be crazy to leave you behind.”
Mo smiled.
It was the first sign of hope her cellmate had shown. Catriona took it as an opportunity to motivate. “You need to get out of here, so you can kick that twisted little croissant’s ass.”
Mo’s eyes flashed with the fire Catriona had always associated with the woman. “You’re right. I’m going to kill him.”
Catriona smiled and put her ear back against the door, closing her eyes to listen. Her mind drifted to the image of Broch walking out of the warehouse, a gun at his back.
He had turned to smile at her.
Chapter Twenty
“We have to die to go back to LA?” Sean felt his expression fall slack. “You’re kidding.”
Luther clucked his tongue. “Nope. Not kidding.”
Sean shifted back on his bench. His stomach didn’t feel quite right. He could only imagine what bacteria might have been clinging to the side of his ale mug before the beer went in. “I don’t know if I can stab myself in the neck...and the firearms of this period are less than reliable. I could end up a vegetable in eighteenth century Scotland for decades.” He glanced at the tankard. “The food here might work faster.”
“You ain’t gonna have to stab yourself in the neck. I took care of it.”
“Yeah? You brought a gun from home?”
“Not exactly.”
Sean lifted his mug to his lips, smiling, strangely amused by the situation. Finding out he could go home had lightened his mood.
“There’s already rope in Scotland so you wouldn’t need to bring that. Poison...?” Before he could finish his thought, Sean knew the truth. He felt the blood drain from his face. “You said you took care of it. Past tense.”
Luther nodded to the beer.
Sean dropped his mug two inches to the table with a bang, bottom-down, the contents jumping to splatter his face.
Luther guffawed.
“Come on.” Sean wiped at his chin.
“It was in the first beer, so you can finish that one if you like.”
Sean glared at the ale as if it were his enemy. “Thanks. I just wish I knew whether more beer would help or hinder the agonizing pain I’m no doubt about to suffer. Any insight?”
Luther shrugged. “Don’t think it’ll matter either way.”
Sean looked back at the bartender. “What’s Luke going to do when we start writhing around on the floor like we’re possessed? We’re going to scar the man for life.”
“Good point.” Luther finished his beer and stood. “Let’s get out of here.”
Sean glanced at his half-empty beer.
“Screw it.”
He threw it back, gulping the contents and then smacked the tankard to the table. Standing, he followed Luther out the door. He raised a hand.
“See ya, Luke. It’s been nice knowin’ you. Again.”
Luke’s permanent scowl ratcheted down another notch.
Sean followed Luther out the door. “You know, there are people here it might have been nice to visit before you killed me.”
Luther glanced back at Sean. “Sure. I get it. Maybe you want to stay
here? Catch up with the famine? Maybe give this guy a big wet kiss?”
Luther motioned to a man covered in a fine sheen of dirt, looking up at them from where he sat, his back against the side of the tavern. He had a festering wound traveling from the side of his mouth to the side of his nose. He smiled at them with blackened teeth and held out a hand. Luther dropped a coin into his palm from a safe distance.
“What was that? You brought money?”
“A quarter.”
“How’d you pay Luke?”
“Tucked a twenty under my mug.”
“Isn’t that breaking some time rule?”
Luther shrugged. “We’ll be dead by the time he realizes it and it will never make it to the future.”
“The quarter might.”
“Nope. I happen to know it doesn’t. A seventeen-year-old kid drops it into the ocean fifty-two years from now.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Luther grinned.
They wandered around the back of the tavern and Sean felt the first real wave of pain crash against the walls of his stomach.
He burped and put his hand against the side of the building to steady himself. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“I wouldn’t do that. If I go and you don’t, let’s just say it ain’t as easy for me to get back here as you might think.”
Sean felt another wave of nausea and fought to keep down his ale. “Exactly how much is this going to hurt?”
Luther shrugged. “Eh. You get used to it.”
“You get used to it?”
When the third cramp tightened his insides like a knot, Sean’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he fell to his knees.
“I swear to god I’m going to fire you when we get back,” he mumbled, scratching at the mud in agony.
He felt Luther lower himself to the ground beside him and take his hand.
“I’m right here with you, old friend.”
Sean shook his head and spat the word again. “Fired.”
~~~
Sean’s eyes sprang open.
Drywall.
He stared at a white ceiling.
The corner of his mouth began to curl into a smile.
He wasn’t dead. But at that moment, dead might have been preferable.