by Amy Brent
“When can I talk to him?” she asked.
“Nicole, you know how these things work,” he said. “We need to give him time to rest and heal. We can't risk waking him up before he's ready to.”
“A-all right,” she said, hanging her head. “I'll check in on him later.”
“No,” the doctor said, putting a hand on her arm. “I want you to go home and get some rest. You had a pretty serious episode there. You need to get yourself together.”
“I can't go home,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “Not while my boyfriend is here like this. I need to stay.”
The doctor sighed. “Fine, you can stay if you want, but not on the clock. You're no good to anyone until you've had time to rest and recover. Get yourself something to eat, then go lay down for a while. Horatio isn't going anywhere, and I doubt he's going to be waking up before morning anyway.”
“Thanks.” She started to leave, and then turned back to the doctor. “Does anyone know what happened? How he got shot?”
“You'd have to ask the police about that,” the doctor said. “I really don't know.”
“All right. Thanks.”
She went to the cafeteria and forced herself to eat. The food tasted wooden in her mouth, but she forced it down anyway. She'd done it before, when she was working long shifts without end and didn't have time to enjoy a meal. She knew that she needed to eat to keep her strength in order to get through this ordeal.
Once she'd eaten, she went to Horatio's room and curled up in a chair by his bed. She couldn't bear the thought of going home or being anywhere else but by his side. Even though he seemed stable for now, she knew that anything could happen. And she knew that he would need a friendly face by his side when he woke up. Someone to reassure him and help him see that everything would be all right.
And on top of all that, she needed answers. The moment he awoke, and she knew he was no longer in any danger; she was going to make him explain to her what was going on.
Sometime later, she awoke to the sound of Horatio gently coughing. She got up immediately, hurrying to the side of the bed. She put a hand on his forehead, looking at his face. His face was scrunched up in pain, and he licked his dry lips in between coughs.
“Hold on, dear,” she whispered, stroking his hair. “Let me get you some water.”
She brought him some water and held the bottle to his lips so he could drink. He took a few swallows, and then turned away, coughing. When he opened his eyes, he looked up at her, his face filled with strain. “Nicole?”
“Yes, dear,” she said, caressing his cheek. “It's okay. You're here, you're safe. Everything is going to be okay.”
He looked around the hospital room, then sighed and closed his eyes, leaning back against the pillow. “I was shot,” he said.
Nicole tensed up. “Yes. But the doctor took care of you. He said you're going to be fine.”
He opened his eyes and looked up at her, grimacing guiltily. “I'm sure you have a lot of questions.”
She ground her teeth for a moment. She wanted nothing more than to demand answers out of him, but she knew he still needed time to recover. “I do,” she said. “But that can wait, until you're better.”
“I'm not sure if it can wait,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He sighed, meeting her eyes. “Nicole,” he said. “It's possible that you're in danger.”
She stepped back, frowning down at him. “Horatio, what are you talking about.”
“It won't be easy to explain. There are some things you need to know about me, and about my work. I'm not sure where to begin.”
“Well, you'd better start somewhere.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Horatio, just what is going on here?”
“You should sit down,” he said. “I'll try my best to explain.”
Nicole frowned at him for a long moment, and then pulled the chair over to the side of the bed. She sat down, crossing her legs and folding her hands over her knee. “Go ahead.”
Horatio took a deep breath. “Nicole, I work for the United States government. I'm an international spy and assassin.”
Nicole stared at him in shock for a long, silent moment.
Then she burst out laughing.
10
* * *
“Horatio, you've got to be kidding me,” she said, still laughing. “An assassin? Please. You couldn't possibly...”
He gave her a stern look. He wasn't laughing, and there wasn't the least bit of amusement on his face.
“What are you...?” Nicole shook her head, frowning at him. “Horatio, you can't be serious...can you?”
“Please,” he said, “let me explain.”
She sat back in her chair, her laughter gone now. She wasn't sure if she would believe any of this, but she had to hear it.
“I thought you were involved in international trade,” she said.
“More like international espionage.” Horatio pushed himself up a bit in bed, wincing as he did so. Once he was comfortable, he looked up at the ceiling, launching into his tale.
“I know you think that I made my money in trade and finance,” he said. “But the truth is, I get paid an exorbitant amount of money to fly overseas, collect illicit information from foreign contacts, and occasionally, to assassinate high profile targets.”
“That doesn't make sense,” she said. “Even if I believe you, you couldn't possibly make that much money doing this.”
“Not enough, by itself, to live the way I do,” he said, nodding. “But combine that with an impressive stock portfolio, and I've turned my pay into a sizable fortune over the years. And it helps that I have access to behind-the-scenes information about political upheavals and the like. I always know when a government is going to be toppled or a new regime will rise. It isn't hard to make smart investment decisions when I have access to that kind of information.”
Nicole crossed her arms and looked away. She didn't want to believe what she was hearing, and it disgusted her.
“I don't do it for the money,” Horatio said. “I do it to protect our country. The people I'm sent after, the ones targeted for termination, they're always dangerous criminals. Terrorists. Corrupt politicians. People who need to be taken down, and who can't be touched by diplomatic means. Someone needs to take care of them. That's my job.”
Nicole refused to look at him. She couldn't face the fact that the man she loved was a killer. She couldn't accept knowing that the father of her child had taken lives with his own hands, even if he did it for a good cause.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” she asked, still not meeting Horatio's eyes. “You said that I was in danger. And what about those men who came to my apartment? What, do they think I'm some kind of spy or something?”
“Actually,” Horatio said, “yes.”
She looked at him, a deep frown on her face. “What?”
“You've been under investigation since I first met you.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “It comes with the job, I'm afraid. They have to do thorough background checks on anyone I have extended contact with. To make sure that you're not some sort of threat to national security.”
“National security?” She scowled at him, spreading her arms. “Do I look like a threat to national security? For Christ’s sake, Horatio, I'm a nurse. I help people for a living. And I don't know the first thing about international politics, or terrorism, or any of this.”
“That's what I told them,” Horatio said.
“Told who? The men who came to my apartment?”
He nodded. “There was a misunderstanding. It took me some time to sort through it all. When they ran a check on you, some unusual things popped up. But it was all a mistake. There's another Nicole Willis living in the city, and by coincidence, you and her share a lot of the same background. There must have been some kind of information mix up, and they ended up thinking that you were her.”
Nicole shook her head. She couldn't figure out how to make sense of
any of this. “Another Nicole Willis? Who the hell is she?” It didn't surprise her that someone else could share the same name as her. That sort of thing happened. But she didn't understand how that would put her life in danger.
“She's a stripper,” Horatio said. “That's why I was at the strip club last night. I was investigating her.”
“Wait, I don't understand.” Nicole rubbed her hands over her face, trying to get her head around this. “If she's a stripper, why would the government care?”
“Because a lot of men from the army base down by the docks come into her club,” Horatio explained. “Soldiers are notorious for spending most of their pay on beer and women. She caters to the soldiers who go to the club during their time off. Gives them lap dances and a friendly ear to listen to all of their problems. Every now and then, one of them lets something slip. Nothing too big, to be sure. It's not like people are telling her classified national secrets. But a bit of information here and there can add up, if she delivers it to the right people who know how to interpret the information.”
“So that's what this is about?” Nicole shook her head, still having trouble putting the pieces together. “Those men who came to my apartment, they thought I was a stripper who was selling secrets to...who? Terrorists?”
“Russian agents,” Horatio said. “She has one client in particular, Igor Romanov. He's a suspected covert operative. We've been trying to pin him down for years. I did some snooping around when I got back into the country, and I think Igor has been collecting information from Nicole...the other Nicole, that is, and sending it back to his superiors in Russia. The agents who came to your home were trying to find a connection between you, or rather, between who they thought you were, and Igor.”
“But I'm just a nurse. I don't know anything about this sort of thing.”
“I tried to tell them that. I gave them all the information they needed, your social security number, your driver's license number, all of it. They should have been able to use that to realize you weren't the Nicole Willis they were looking for.”
“So that's what you were doing in my purse that night.” Nicole frowned at Horatio, though she had a hard time being angry with him over going through her purse, considering everything else she had to consider.
He looked away in shame. “I'm sorry about that. I was trying to protect you. To keep you off their radar. But they didn't want to listen, and they pushed ahead their investigation without me.”
“So you went to find this other Nicole...and she shot you?”
“Not her,” Horatio said. “A man at the club. A suspected associate of Igor's. Things got a bit out of hand. He must have realized what I was doing there, snooping around. He tried to slip out the back, and I followed him. And, well...” He looked down at his bandaged chest.
Nicole got up from her chair. “I need to think about this, Horatio. I need time to process all of this. To understand. I don't know...I don't even know who you are anymore.”
“I'm still the same man,” Horatio said. “I know this changes things, but I'm still the father of your child. I'm still the man who fell in love with you.”
She looked into his eyes. She saw pain there, and regret. But she still couldn't be sure if she even knew who Horatio was anymore. She needed time to sort through everything he'd said and figure things out.
“I need to go,” she said, picking up her purse. “I need time, Horatio.”
“I understand. When can I see you again?”
“I don't know.” She looked away, unable to meet his eyes. “Just give me some time.”
“All right.” He smiled at her, obviously trying to reassure her. “I love you, Nicole.”
Nicole turned and left without answering. She didn't know what to say to him anymore.
11
* * *
Nicole needed some time off to sort through everything she'd learned. She didn't even know if half of it was true, though she couldn't imagine Horatio making up such a story. Though on the other hand, she wouldn't have been able to imagine him being some kind of secret agent, either, before that day.
She requested some time off from work, using the vacation time she'd been planning to save for the holidays. She spent the next few days at home, trying to come to terms with what Horatio had told her. She had no way of confirming or denying anything he'd said. Searching online didn't reveal any useful information. There were news reports of the shooting at the strip club, but they didn't say anything at all about a Russian secret agent or an undercover international hitman. She tried searching whatever public records she could find about Horatio, looking for holes in his story. There wasn't much information to be found on him, either, other than some business articles about his work in overseas finance. She didn't know if the articles were forged as a part of his cover, or if he really did business overseas to keep a legitimate front on his activities. She supposed it made sense as a cover; as a businessman who regularly traveled to other countries to invest in disaster relief and community growth projects, especially in underdeveloped countries, no one would suspect that he was up to anything nefarious. He could easily make some public appearances, signing checks to fund various humanitarian projects, then when the press conferences were over, he could head off into the night to spy and assassinate, and whatever else he did in the name of national security.
She decided to try another route, doing some searches for news about the projects Horatio had funded, then comparing them to political events that had taken place in the same countries. She couldn't find anything concrete, but she found several examples of news reports of major political events that occurred within a week or two of one of Horatio's humanitarian projects. Once or twice there had been deaths under “suspicious circumstances” that occurred not far from a disaster relief project or a new hospital Horatio was funding. There was nothing at all to connect the events to Horatio, other than him being in the country at around the right time. She couldn't prove anything, and she wasn't sure if she wanted actual proof. But seeing the reports made it a bit easier for her to believe Horatio's story.
Horatio called her a few times while she was taking time off from work. She ignored the calls each time. Part of her wanted to talk to him. She missed him; she missed his touch and his voice. And she needed to talk to him in order to get more answers to the questions that plagued her. But at the same time, she knew she wasn't ready to speak to him. Not yet. She needed time to process everything on her own, before she could face him again.
After a few days of feeling stir crazy in her apartment, another thought occurred to her. She wanted to know something about this other Nicole Willis. The one who had somehow been mistaken for her.
She sat at her computer, searching for any information on the other woman. It proved almost impossible to find anything. There were several Facebook profiles of women named Nicole Willis, though most of them were listed as living in other states. She found a few news articles and other websites listing different people who shared her name: a photographer, a botanist, and a body builder, but nothing about a stripper. Even when she tried to google “Nicole Willis Stripper” and “Nicole Willis Exotic Dancer,” she couldn't find any information. And there were more than a dozen women with that name who didn't have anything listed about where they lived or worked, so the one she was looking for could have been any one of them.
She was about to give up, when she realized there was a much simpler way to learn about this other woman. She searched for the news article about the shooting, and found the name of the strip club where Horatio had been shot. The Violet Butterfly, a so-called “Gentlemen's Club” only a few miles from the hospital where Nicole worked. She had never been there herself—it simply wasn't the sort of place she would ever consider visiting—but she knew the general area. She realized she had driven past the place many times, though she had never really paid it any mind.
She stared at the computer screen, drumming her fingers on her desk. She needed some kind of answer
s. And foolish though it might be, she realized that this other Nicole Willis was one of the only people she could get her answers from. She needed to know if there was any truth behind Horatio's claims.
And in order to find out, she would have to go down to the club and meet this woman face to face.
12
* * *
Nicole arrived at the Violet Butterfly late on a Saturday night. She figured that getting there a bit later would make it easier for her to find time to talk to the other Nicole, since hopefully, she wouldn't be too busy with her actual customers. Though she was certainly hoping she could get a chance to talk to the woman without having to pay for a lap dance or something equally distasteful.
When she first walked into the gaudily decorated place, she found a board in the lobby with pictures of all of the dancers. They were all shown on stage, wearing next to nothing, though none of the pictures showed the girls completely nude. Probably because they wanted people to pay to get into the club before they got to see the “good stuff.”
She scanned the pictures on the board. All of the women were thin, though none were all that attractive, at least not by Nicole's standards. They had nice enough bodies, but it was clear even from the pictures that most of them had fake tits, badly dyed hair, and spray tans. Nicole had never understood women who altered their bodies like that. She herself was an all-natural woman, and while she knew she could have stood to lose some weight, she considered her natural curves to be a blessing. There was no way she would ever change her body just to be ogled at by random men.
The strippers all used stage names, many of them cheesy and over the top names like “Kitty Whiskers” and “Missy Storm.” None of their real names were listed. But there was one dancer whose stage name was simply “Nicky Aster.” She was a black woman who looked like she was in her mid to late twenties. Nicole studied the picture, wondering if this “Nicky” was really the other Nicole Willis.