by Barker, Kira
So much for hoping that there was something to this that I could use against him.
“What did I do?” I asked. I didn't have to feign cluelessness; that was all real.
He laughed, shaking his head. “Of course you don’t get it. You were there. You were available. And you made it so fucking easy to fall for you.”
Ah.
“You had a wife. A child,” I pointed out.
That was a mistake. The gun barrel snapped up again, Adam’s eyes narrowing with anger.
“Yes. Had. She divorced me. Got full custody, because legally, I didn’t exist anymore. The deep cover, you understand? I didn’t even get a chance to talk to her. I had to use my own resources to track her, and that almost got me thrown in jail. See, if you stalk your ex-wife, it’s a crime. If you stalk hundreds of whores, it’s your civic duty.”
I could understand his anger—but not how all that was my fault.
“Why did you never tell me anything about that?” I asked. He frowned, and I quickly backtracked. “I get it, you couldn’t blow your cover. But you could have hinted at something. Or you could have told me that you felt like I was more than just a friend to you. I didn’t know, Adam. I really didn’t know.”
Another lie, and one I’d told him before. I had known—I just hadn’t wanted to deal with the obvious complications. And complicated it would have gotten, because he’d never been anything but my neighbor, friend, and occasional fuckbuddy.
“How could you not know?” he accused. “It was your fucking job to know! Isn’t that what you always were so fucking proud of? That you instinctively knew what your clients wanted? To turn yourself into the perfect woman for them? Why were you never my perfect woman?”
Toward the end, his voice grew louder and harder, making me swallow with a new kind of fear whispering through my mind. Shit. This was not just him projecting his frustration on me. This went much deeper. And, stupid as I’d been, I’d told him way too much about how things between Darren and me had been—and how that had come to a temporary stop.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, but I wasn’t even sure that he heard me.
“You should be,” he ground out. “You ruined everything. My life. My job. And now I have to watch and stand by while you two slink off into the sunset? This is too much. If I can’t catch you red-handed, I figured I’d have to help a little. And whether you wanted to or not, you picked out my perfect target.”
I so wanted to look over to where Brigitte’s body lay, but forced myself to keep my attention on Adam.
“How did I do that?”
“I followed you,” he said. “And I listened to you tell her everything. Sure, she thinks she keeps her apartment free of bugs, but she forgot the old-fashioned way. There’s a fire escape right outside that window over there. Doesn’t even require skill to access it, and anyone can press their ear against the glass. And, as usual, you never even realized that I was there.”
He gestured toward the floor-to-ceiling window front over at the other side of the room, behind his back—and when I looked over, it was just in time to see a flicker of movement out there. Of course it could have been a figment of my imagination—and wishful thinking was entirely in the realm of possibility right now—but I was sure that I had seen someone.
Probably for the first time in my entire life, I was glad that Darren was enough of a control freak to keep tracking me, even when he said that he wasn’t. Resolving that issue was something that could easily be done in the future—when I had made it out of here, alive.
“I’m so sick and tired of this shit,” Adam grumbled, making me look back to him. “Not even when it’s just the two of us, I’m invisible to you. What does it take for you to see me? Do I have to keep you tied up in a basement, too? Because, trust me, that can be arranged. Everything that fucking monster did to you I can easily do to you as well.”
It took him saying that for me to understand that, even after so much time together, he’d never bothered to really understand me—a mutual oversight, it seemed. Sure, being forced to smash my own hand had been hell—but it had been the psychological horror that I’d lived through that had broken me, not the physical abuse. In the end, Darren had done nothing more than restrain me and refrain from feeding me. Yes, the tattoo counted, but it wasn’t that. It wasn’t even the sight of the dolls, or knowing that I was next in line to join them. It was the knowledge that, knowing all that, feeling it and having it stare me in the face, I still loved him. That I just couldn’t make myself stop needing him. Wanting him.
That was one thing that no one else could do to me.
I chose to hold my tongue, because if I’d said something, it would likely have led to him shooting me right in the face. Instead I continued to look at him, waiting for him to either do something or continue his tirade.
Or, lacking that, for the elevator to give a loud “ding” that made us both jump, followed by the incredibly welcome sight of Agent Smith stepping out of it, her gun already drawn—pointed at Adam. Gosh, but it would have been just my luck if she’d been in on it, too.
“Drop the weapons, Adam,” she said, her voice deceptively calm.
Adam gave her a sidelong glance, but the gun didn’t waver, and neither did the knife. That he hadn’t just shot me in surprise was sheer luck, I figured—and likely something she could have lived with easily. Fucking agents.
“Eva. Always the diligent goodie-two-shoes,” he snarled.
“That’s my job,” she replied, her tone even. “As it’s yours. Don’t throw away your career for that tramp. Drop your weapons, and we can have this resolved within the hour. Trust me, Adam. I’m on your side.”
She was lying, of course. I could easily tell that. So could Adam, it seemed, because the next moment he was moving, stepping closer and partly around me so that I became his meat shield. I really wasn’t comfortable with that, because I didn’t trust her not to shoot right through me.
“Get up,” Adam barked, now pressing the gun against my temple. “Get the fuck up!”
The next moment, a dark blur slammed into him from the side—that side where he’d made himself vulnerable by changing position. A kick landed in my ribs, sending me sprawling on the floor, but I was already pushing myself away. Turning, I watched as Darren was grappling with Adam for the gun. Agent Smith shouted something, but no one was listening to her. For a second, it looked as if Darren would manage to wrest the gun out of his opponent’s grasp, but Adam stabbed him with the knife two times, making Darren’s struggle falter as he grunted in pain. Adam finally managed to pull the gun arm free, then tried to backhand Darren with it, but missed. Darren used that momentum against him and went for the knife—
A shot rang out, deafeningly loud. Darren jerked, blood dripping from his mouth as he coughed. I screamed, panic gripping me hard. A triumphant smile spread on Adam’s face as he sneered. But then his eyes went wide and strength seemed to leave his body. He staggered, only Darren’s grip on him keeping him upright. At that slight turn, I could see why—Darren had managed to obtain control of the knife, and had rammed it into Adam’s stomach. In true Darren fashion, that wasn’t enough for him, though, and he wrenched it upward until it got stuck somewhere along Adam’s rips. He snarled into the other man’s face while doing so, bloody spittle spraying everywhere.
“See? You’re even too incompetent to kill me.”
He shoved Adam away from him, watching as the body landed a few feet away from Brigitte’s. Taking a staggering step, he turned toward me, a beginning smile on his face—but then his strength left him and he sagged down, making me scramble toward him as soon as my muscles would move. He was wearing a dark sweater so I couldn’t see the blood from the knife and gun shot wounds in his lower abdomen, but as soon as I touched him, I realized that the material was already soaked through.
“Darren? Darren, look at me! You have to keep looking at me,” I shouted, half-pulling him into my lap. He tried to protest, but his hand was way to easily
batted away. “Just hold still. Help’s on the way.” That wasn’t even a lie, I realized, as only just now my brain was making sense of the wailing sirens I could hear in the street below.
Agent Smith knelt down on his other side, trying to push me away. I resisted, but she ignored me, using her folded jacket to press it over the wound. “Here, help me. Hold that,” she barked at me, the sharp yet authoritative tone making me follow along before I had even time to think whether I wanted to or not. “Keep the wound as compressed as possible,” she went on. “The EMTs will be up in a minute.” She paused as she met my gaze, the look on her features utterly unreadable. “It’s only one shot, and the stab wounds can’t have gone deep. He has a good chance that he’ll make it.” That clearly was better news to me than her, but right now was not the time to dwell on it.
Looking at Darren’s face, I fought hard to force a smile onto mine.
“Do you hear? It’s not that bad. Just hold on. For me, okay? Hold on for me.”
He smiled back at me, a truly gruesome grimace thanks to his teeth being completely stained red.
“You know that I will. For you, I’d do anything.”
I nodded, tears running down my cheek. When had I started to cry?
“You saved me. You fucking saved me.”
His smile widened. “Have I ever told you how insulting you can be when you’re surprised that I can be the good guy, too?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle, even if it was a strangled, terrible sound.
“No. But you can do that each and every day from now on. You just have to be alive for that.”
“I’m too stubborn to die,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper now. “You should know that. You, of all people, should know that.”
Guess I did.
Chapter 24
Darren was barely conscious by the time the EMTs loaded him onto a stretcher, but he was still holding my hand. I tried to come with him into the elevator, but was decisively—if gently—pushed away. So I remained behind—in the apartment where my only friend had killed the woman who had been more like a mother to me than the woman who had given birth to me. And all that in the name of love.
I was so over this shit.
Even before the crime scene guys could swarm the scene, Ray was there, immediately dissuading anyone from taking a statement from me—or even coming anywhere close. Detectives Donahue and Wessex arrived presently, giving Ray another target, which gave me the chance to quietly step outside.
On the way to the hospital, Ray filled me in on the gaps. No, the 911 call hadn’t been active anymore, but the second the address had been logged in the system, Agent Smith had been alerted. Apparently, she had had that pre-arranged, expecting that after my flight, Brigitte might have become a target. It didn’t come as much of a surprise that Darren had found out about that, too. He must have been on the way to the precinct already, so it hadn’t been much of a detour to race to Brigitte’s instead. Judging from how quick he had been, Agent’s Smith assumption hadn’t been based on paranoia only. It made sense that he’d had the place staked out, including the quickest, stealthiest route in and out of the building. There were cameras in the lobby downstairs as well as in the elevators—but the alley at the back where the fire escape ended was void of further security measures. A lucky oversight for me—but one that had cost Brigitte her life.
That Adam and Darren must have thought so very alike wasn’t anything I ever wanted to dwell on.
I took all that in with barely enough brain capacity to make sense of it, filing it away for later. As soon as Ray swung into the hospital parking lot, I was out of the car and running inside. It wasn’t hard to follow the trail of nurses and doctors, but before I could get a last glimpse at Darren, they’d already wheeled him into the OR.
It was hours later that Alison found me there, right outside the doors to the corridor beyond which the man I loved was fighting for his life—and all that just because I’d been a stupid, ignorant little bitch. Ray had dropped by a few times, bringing me blankets, food, and drink, but all that rested in a heap beside me, untouched.
I looked up when I heard the telltale sound of heels clicking across the floor. It immediately reminded me of Brigitte, sending new tears into my eyes. She had taught me how to walk in high-heeled shoes. Had even been the one to gift me my first pair of designer heels, not those cheep knock-offs that they were selling on every street corner. Her conviction had always been that the right pair of shoes made the lady—even if she was just a prostitute.
Now, I’d never again hear her snark about one socialite or another wearing ballerina flats in public.
The very idea was so frivolous that I had to smile, but it immediately drowned in tears again. Brigitte might not have been a decent woman—but she’d always been there for me. A world without her in it was as close to blasphemy as an honest whore.
“Any news yet?” Alison asked. When I shook my head, she walked right on through those doors, never mind the signs. Two minutes later, she was back, a harassed-looking nurse bitching her out until a doctor in rumpled scrubs came to talk to us.
“His condition is still critical, but it’s looking good,” he assured us. That was all my mind really took in. Everything after “possible full recovery” was only so much white noise.
I had lost so much today. But not him.
I felt like the next breath I took was the first in forever.
Alison continued to interrogate the doctor a little longer before he finally managed to escape. That left me alone with her. Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to make of that. Of course I’d seen her a couple of times since that talk in her office—but this was the first time it was just her and me and all the secrets that we—now—shared.
She eyed me with that kind of consideration that fit a lot better to the woman who had no qualms sending a psychotic serial killer after people she didn’t like than the brash, ambitious lawyer that she mimed to everyone else. That it was an act I no longer doubted. I wondered what she saw in me, now that the balance between us had shifted. Was I still the preferred whimsical distraction? Or did she see me as the next obstacle?
“You really love him, don’t you?” she said, answering that question in a sense.
I nodded. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”
“I presume that by now, he told you—“
I inclined my head again, not making her try to find a circumspect way to describe what should likely not be voiced where others could hear it. “He did.”
“And still—“
Another nod. “Trust me when I say that it’s not the detail about him that concerns me the most.”
She actually had the audacity to smile, and it wasn’t a nice or warm one, not at all. That made me wonder just how much she really knew. Had Ray told her about the transcript? Had she read it from my file? Had Darren told her?
Did it matter?
For today, I decided that no, it didn’t. What mattered was that Darren was alive, and so was I. The question remained what Agent Smith would make of all this.
“You should come with me to the precinct to give your statement,” Alison said, shoving me right out of my musing.
I couldn’t help but stare at her. “Now? They didn’t even wheel Darren out of recovery yet, and you want me to abandon him?”
“Don’t be stupid, girl,” she said. “Now is the perfect time. You’re upset and still in shock over what happened. You’re grieving for your friend. You’re sick with worry for the man you love. No one can fault you if you fudge a few details now, and maybe your statement contradicts some of the criminological evidence. That happens all the time. But aren’t you an upstanding citizen who wants to help the authorities solve this matter as quickly as possible?”
Note to self—as soon as Darren was back in the saddle, he and I needed to have a long talk about what I was ready to concede to Alison, and what not. I’d been bullied enough for a lifetime. This had to stop. But today was not th
at day—even I could see that.
“Of course. If you think that’s pertinent.”
“I do. Chop chop. A car is waiting outside for us.”
I absolutely loathed leaving now, but went without further protest.
As we stepped into the elevator, Alison cleared her throat. “Does the saying that two can keep a secret when one of them is dead tell you something?”
I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. “Is that a threat?”
“Oh, this isn’t coming from me,” she was quick to assure me. “I was just wondering if that was part of what Mr. Sorrento was thinking when he held you at gunpoint. After all, you knew him well. He confided all manners of things to you that, looking back, might appear somewhat different than as they seemed at the time.” She let that sink in, then made an offhand gesture. “But what do I know. Which reminds me of another saying. The dead make excellent scapegoats.”
As I sat down in the interrogation room less than twenty hours since my last visit here, I still wasn’t convinced that Alison hadn’t in fact threatened me—but her message had been received loud and clear. With no record of what Adam had said after the call had been disrupted, it was up to me to fill in the blanks about what had happened. Wasn’t it convenient that it so happened that I had a certain knack for being exactly the kind of person people wanted me to be?
I didn’t lie. Not outright, at least. Wherever possible, I stuck to what had happened. My version of the events was hauntingly close to the truth, to the point where I was sure that the rich nightmare scape of my dreams had just become a little more vivid. It was easy, really. It was all right there, all the different pieces of the puzzle that had taken me so long to assemble—and it wasn’t hard to create a slightly different image in its stead, leaving out just a few details and filling the gaps with suggestions.