by L. T. Ryan
“You don’t know these people, what they’re capable of.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Amy forced a breathy laugh. “Oh, I can see what you do best. And every man can see it.”
What the hell kind of comment was that? This woman who had befriended her, now insinuated that Clarissa’s sole attribute was her looks.
“I’m sorry,” Amy said, reaching for Clarissa’s hand. “You should see what they have me do when they stick a man they’re concerned about in this unit.”
“Concerned?” Clarissa shifted her gaze toward Beck, who had approached the couch.
“That’s not always the case,” Beck said. “Sometimes we just want to keep an eye on people.”
“I suppose I’m one of those people.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Look at your background.”
Clarissa rose, stepped forward. “What about it?”
“Your mother died suspiciously when you were what, twelve or thirteen?”
She said nothing.
“And then your father is murdered, no, assassinated. Everyone knows who was behind it, but the man goes free except for suffering the embarrassment of bureaucratic exile.”
“Tell me everything you know about them.”
“Who?”
“My parents.”
Beck took a deep breath, closed his eyes, exhaled. He glanced in Amy’s direction. “We’ve got other things to worry about right now.”
“Beck, please,” Clarissa said.
“I promise you, when the time is right, I’ll help you.”
She didn’t know whether to believe him. He could be stalling, hoping she’d forget or be too intimidated to ask again. She’d waited over fifteen years for answers about her mother. She knew some of the details surrounding her father’s death, but there was a lot left unsaid. She avoided thinking about both of them. Most of the time. In a way, she feared that solving the mystery of both would cause a part of her to die.
Clarissa turned and walked past Amy on her way to the door leading to the balcony. She needed a moment alone, away from Amy’s sobs and Beck’s judgmental stare.
It had cooled off, and the wind had picked up. But the air was thick. It seemed that the humidity trapped what was worst about living in the city. All the exhaust and gases released by air conditioning units fragranced the air with their putrid smells.
Lights fixed to boats twinkled on the river. They floated along, soon to be replaced by another vessel. The trees in the distance blended in with the darkening sky. She could barely trace their tops. The traffic below moved from stoplight to stoplight, never backing up more than half a block. Soon the nighttime joggers would be out, their reflective clothing shimmering in the headlights and street lamps, keeping them safe.
Or so they thought.
No one was ever safe. Anyone’s world could be shattered in an instant, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
The door behind her cracked open. She looked over her shoulder and saw Amy step out onto the balcony. The woman had stopped crying, for the moment at least.
“I’m sorry for losing it in there.”
“Your son is missing. I think you have a right to freak out.”
“They won’t hurt him.”
“Then why take him?”
“To scare me. Get me thinking. See, in a couple hours, someone will be by to collect me. That’s how this works. They’re wedging themselves into my thoughts now, and they know that by the time they bring me in, I’ll say anything to get Adam back.”
The twisted nature of what the woman said was not lost on Clarissa. She turned her head slightly toward Amy. “What are they going to ask you?”
“About you.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it sent a shiver throughout Clarissa’s body.
“What’re you going to tell them?”
“The truth? Whatever they want to hear? I don’t know. I guess it depends on how serious they are.”
“You’ve been through this before, right?”
Amy nodded, said nothing.
“How serious were they then?”
Amy leaned forward, looked away. “Serious enough that I told them what they wanted to hear just so they’d give me Adam back.”
“You know what this is about, don’t you?”
“Yes, what happened to Vice President McCormick today.”
“Amy, I was—”
“Stop.” Amy turned and held out her hand. “Don’t tell me anything, Clarissa. I don’t need to know. I can’t know.”
Clarissa debated ignoring the woman’s warning and telling her anyway. If not for Beck opening the door with a concerned look on his face, she would have relayed the entire day’s events to Amy.
“What is it?” Clarissa asked Beck.
“Julie Polanski just called.”
The look on his face was enough to tell her that something bad had happened. “Did McCormick die?”
Beck shook his head. “No. He’s in bad shape, though.”
“Then what is it?”
“Jordan’s gone to ground. Disappeared. No one can find him. His wife, family, none have heard from him.”
“Oh my God.”
“I think your hunch was right.” Beck stepped back while holding the door open and gesturing the women inside.
Before she reached the door, a crack shattered the ambient sounds of the city. Clarissa dropped to the ground. Beck did the same. Seconds passed. They stared at each other. Finally, she said, “You okay?”
He nodded. “You?”
“I think so.” Turning back, she gasped. She and Beck made it through unscathed. Amy hadn’t.
The woman’s lifeless eyes stared up at the light-washed sky. Blood poured from the hole in her forehead, trickling down the side of her face and pooling on the concrete.
Clarissa pulled her pistol and peered over the balcony. The man she saw staring back at her was not who she expected.
Chapter 26
Lunging toward the opening to the apartment, Clarissa drove her shoulder into Beck and knocked both of them inside. Another shot tore through the window, spraying shards of razor thin glass on top of them.
Beck moved her off him, got to one knee and drew his weapon. Another shot was fired. He dove forward.
Clarissa shifted and crawled toward him. She reached out, grabbed his shoulders.
“I’m all right,” he shouted, turning toward her. “Did you see who did it?”
Clarissa nodded, her vision clouding with tears.
“Who? Jordan?”
Fear had a grip so tight on Clarissa’s throat that she couldn’t speak or breathe. The man staring back at her from across the street had frightened her to the point of death once before, only he’d let her live in order to get something out of her. There was no intent of letting her live tonight. In that instant, with him aiming at her and firing, she knew she had no one in her corner.
Beck kicked the door shut with his foot and crawled toward Clarissa. There hadn’t been a shot in several seconds, but that meant nothing. He could be repositioning to shoot from another floor up. Or worse, on his way to her apartment.
Perhaps thinking this also, Beck said, “We need to get moving. Follow me.”
Clarissa got to her hands and knees and crawled to the kitchen, joining Beck behind the island. They knelt on the floor, facing each other.
“Clarissa, I need you to tell me who it was you saw.”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Her throat relaxed as she forced air past it and into her lungs. The hot air that returned blew gently out her mouth. The tips of her fingers were numb. She shook her hands.
Beck reached out, grabbed her wrists, brought her hands down to her knees. He leaned forward. Their faces were inches apart. She felt his hot breath wash over her lips and chin.
“Who was it?”
“Sinclair.”
Beck’s eyes darted wildly to the right and left. The pace of his breathing picked up
a notch. The sheen of sweat on his forehead thickened.
“We need to get out of here,” Beck said.
“Where will we go?” She rocked back and got to her feet, remaining in a squatted position so the island blocked her from view.
Beck either ignored or didn’t hear her question.
“Why would he do this?” she asked.
“Sinclair goes back some ways with Banner and Polanski. After all, that’s how you became involved in all of this. But I can’t imagine that he… that they are involved in this.”
Clarissa studied him as he spoke. She hadn’t seen Beck this disheveled before.
He asked, “Are you sure he aimed at you?”
“Yes. I think so. Why?”
“What if he was there to protect you?”
“You mean he meant to kill Amy and was trying to kill you so he could rescue me?”
Beck nodded, but didn’t look sure of himself. What was he getting at? What reason would he have to believe that Banner and Polanski and Sinclair conspired to kill him, but let her live?
“Why would he do that? I mean, that makes no sense unless he thought you were going to do something to me, in which case I would see him taking a different course of action.” She went silent for a moment. “This makes no sense. That couldn’t have been Sinclair.”
Beck rose up a few inches and looked over the top of the island. “Doesn’t matter who it was. We need to find a way out of here now. If someone was in that building, then they might be on the street by now, or have someone positioned there.”
“You know the building better than I do, so lead the way.”
Beck remained low as he headed toward the door. He cracked it open, leaned out and cleared the hall.
Clarissa froze as he called for her to join him. Her instincts told her to shut and lock the door, but then she recalled that Beck had a key. Even if he had set it down inside, he could get another. It would only buy her a few moments. She’d still have nowhere to go. In that moment she questioned how well she knew Beck and everyone else she had been around that week. It could have been him setting her up, involved in what had just happened. The bullet may or may not have been meant for her, but if Beck was involved, then sooner or later there would be one shot with the intent of taking her life.
“We need to go now,” Beck called from the hallway.
She had to confront him. That was her only option. But she couldn’t do it in the apartment. She needed a place where she had more than one escape route.
Clarissa took a deep breath, held it and lunged for the open doorway. She dove toward the threshold, tucking and rolling into the hall. Beck reached down and pulled her up. She braced for a shot to tear through the drywall and into her back. Nothing happened, though. Sinclair, or whoever it was, must’ve run after the second shot.
Beck ran toward the stairwell. He opened the door and entered first. The air was humid and fifteen degrees warmer. Clarissa felt her chest tighten. Each breath became more difficult than the last. They jogged down two flights of stairs. Beck stopped on the landing and leaned toward the door.
“Don’t move, Beck,” Clarissa said.
His head was already turned to the left so that his right ear pressed up against the heavy door. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, hardly reacting to the pistol she held three feet from his face. Perhaps he’d expected this. Did that make him guilty? Did he lead the way to take her toward danger? To make it seem as though he was trying to help her?
“I need to know what your—“
“I have nothing to do with this,” he said.
“Don’t bullshit me, Beck.”
She took a step forward. The pistol was less than a foot away, close enough he could attempt to disarm her. But in his present position, pressed up against the door, he would have to take a step back to be effective. And that would give her time to shoot. He knew that, which meant he’d only attempt it if guilty.
Or stupid.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I had nothing to do with what just happened. I’m on your side. My only responsibility at this time is to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need a handler. Once we get outside, you go right, I go left. I’m disappearing, and you’ll be on your own.”
“You don’t know the people behind this.”
“So you’re saying you know who arranged this?”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I have an idea, though, and you’ll never outrun them. And neither will I, Clarissa. If we stick together, we might have a chance.”
She took a step back, said nothing, kept the pistol aimed at his head.
Beck lifted both hands over his head. Shadows covered his face, turning his eye black. He turned toward her, then leaned back against the door.
“Call Julie,” Clarissa said. “I want to hear her reaction.”
Beck shook his head. “We need to get out of this building. They might already be inside.”
“Where will we go?”
“Hopefully across the street. They have a back exit.”
“And what if that doesn’t work?”
“Then we run until we find a car. I’ve got a place outside the city, about an hour from here. We can go there. No one knows about it.”
“You sure about that? After all, you said they know everything.”
He smiled, lowered his hands an inch. “Trust me, no one knows.”
Whether it was the way he said it, or the look on his face, Clarissa lost trust in Beck. “Call Polanski.”
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
“Speaker,” Clarissa added.
He complied. The ringing sound echoed throughout the stairwell. Julie Polanski answered on the second ring.
“We haven’t located him yet, Beck.” She paused, breathing heavily into the phone. “How’re things there?”
“You tell me,” he said.
“Tell you what? How would I know? That’s why I asked you. Are you two doing okay?”
“Aside from being shot at, we’re great.”
“What?”
Beck said nothing. He fixed his gaze on Clarissa and held it.
“Beck, what the hell is going on?”
“Someone shot at us. Our friend in the building was hit.”
“Did you see who did it?” There was a panic to her voice. Clarissa couldn’t help thinking it was because the woman already knew who had shot at them.
Beck said, “No, we didn’t see who did it. It was from a building across the street, offset to the right. They fired two shots. One hit, the other missed.”
“Jesus Christ.” Polanski muttered something either to herself or someone in the room with her. “Do you think it was him?”
“Jordan?”
“Yeah.”
“How should I know?”
“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t. Okay, get out of there if you haven’t already and come in. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”
Beck gestured toward the stairs with his chin, but Clarissa didn’t move.
“Julie,” he said, “we’re not going to find any surprises when we leave the building, right?”
“Are you insinuating I had something to do with this?”
“I’m just asking a question. I avoided one bullet tonight. I’d like to make it through without dodging another.”
“I had nothing to do with this,” Polanski insisted. “It had to have been Jordan. Maybe he caught wind that we were on to him and is trying to eliminate what he deems to be a threat.”
On to him?
Clarissa wondered what Polanski meant by that. Had Jordan been the real target? Was she only assigned to be an assistant to McCormick because of Jordan? And if Jordan was taking out those he thought were threats, did the vice president really know why she was there? Why the act, then?
“We’re coming in to see you,” Beck said. He hung up and clung to the phone.
“We’re going in?” Clarissa asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t tr
ust her.”
“What was that about Jordan knowing you were on to him?”
Beck held his hand up. “I’ll tell you if we get out of here. Speaking of which, we need to get moving.”
He led the way, taking steps two at a time. Clarissa jogged to keep up. They reached the main floor landing. Beck stopped, placed his ear to the door.
“Anything?” she asked.
He shook his head and looked back. “Did you grab your personal cell back there?”
“Yeah.”
“Ditch it.”
“Not a chance.”
“Listen to me, Clarissa. We can’t leave this building with that phone. They’ll track us. I have clean phones where we’re going. I’ll give you one there.”
She squeezed the phone tight. It was her only link to the world. If Beck was playing her, she’d have no way to call for help. Buying time, she said, “What about yours?”
“What about it?”
“Can’t they track yours, too?”
Beck turned, taking a deep breath. He held out his arm and unclenched his fist. His cell hit the floor, clattering and skidding toward the stairs. He took a step forward, lifted his knee high, and drove the heel of his shoes onto the face-up phone, shattering it. He repeated the move three times until the phone laid there in several pieces.
“Happy?”
She wasn’t, but she dropped her phone anyway. He stopped her when she went to stomp on it.
“Toss it in the trash on the way out.”
Chapter 27
The main floor had been empty. They avoided the lobby and the garage. Beck had figured even if someone wasn’t watching his car, they’d track their movements through the GPS. It wouldn’t matter if he disabled it.
The building’s gym had a door that led to an alley, and they exited there. Clarissa stepped out into the dark, narrow lane. It felt like she cut through the thick, stale air. With Beck leading, they hovered close to the building and headed toward the street. She looked up to her right, her gaze climbing the rows and columns of balconies. From down there she had trouble picking out the window that the shots had been fired from.
What if he was still up there?
The thought was enough to send her racing forward, nudging Beck in the back with her elbow.