by Julia Derek
I wanted to hear Burt tell his side of the story without him having heard Nadja’s version of what had happened in that room.
“Exactly,” he said. “I was already on thin ice by dating her when she could never become an untouchable even if she’d wanted to. Not unless she was already powerful and wealthy, which she isn’t. Any regular person with grave conditions such as diabetes is automatically eliminated. Which was why I tried to keep our dating a secret as much as possible. But of course it was only a matter of time before it would be discovered. I planned to run away with Nadja then, but Janine was onto me much sooner than I’d thought. So you found her by tracking my cell phone then?”
“Yes. We were really looking for you and just happened to stumble upon Nadja sitting tied up behind that door.”
“Thank you for looking for me,” Burt said, looking sincerely grateful. “And thank you for saving Nadja. You must have come in the nick of time. She told you everything that happened in that room then? How we were interrupted by gunfire that hit me and Governor Chatterly?”
“Yes. Is the governor still alive? She said he fell to the floor. There was a lot of blood in that room. Well, in the rest of the apartment, too.”
“Yes, we both bled a lot. The governor fell because he was hit in the knee. They had to wrap towels around our wounds to stop the bleeding until we could get medical attention. But he’s fine.”
“How’s your arm?” I nodded toward his bandaged upper arm.
“Okay. Our doctors are great. They stitched me up in no-time. After that the idea was that we would head back to Nadja so I could finish her. And we did, but we didn’t get far.”
I glanced at him, sensing an “and” hanging in the air. “Then what?” I said when he didn’t say anything. “You shot them or what?” I meant that last question as a joke.
He smiled without mirth. “Yes. Shortly after I detected the location of my phone on my iPad. I retrieved the tablet when I went to change out of my bloody clothes at my house. Two men were waiting for me in a town car outside my apartment building.”
“When did you kill them?”
“As soon as I got back in that car they sat in, waiting for me.”
“Really? On the street? Didn’t anyone see what you were doing? Hear the gun shots?”
“No, because the gun I was going to use to kill Nadja had a silencer on it. And, as I told you before, the windows in the town car they drove me in were tinted. No one could see into the car, and the only people who could see out were the ones in the front seat. So shooting them on a street in the middle of Manhattan was not a big risk for me.”
“Why didn’t you just wait for them to drive you over to the apartment?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that have been much smarter still? That way you wouldn’t have had to use your phone to find it. Couldn’t you have just killed them there?”
“That was my original plan when I found out they wanted me to shoot Nadja.” He smirked. “At first I thought they were getting rid of me only… Anyway, I would pretend like I was going to kill her, and then turn my gun on them instead. I’m talking about the first time I was there. They were only three, so it could work. It was my only chance to save us. I think Janine grew wise to my intentions, though, because I heard her telling the men to hold a gun to my head as I pointed my own to Nadja this time around. You know, so I wouldn’t try anything. So I needed to get rid of the men before we got to the apartment.”
I nodded. “Got it. So after you killed them, you took a cab to take you to the apartment?”
“Yes. Only problem was, as soon as I was on my way, my phone began to move.”
Chapter 8
By the time Burt had finished his story and I had told him about the arrangements we’d made for Nadja, it was almost two o’clock in the morning. Soon after that, Ian called to tell me that Nadja was safely in place and that he was arriving back into the city.
“Great,” I said. “I think you should swing by my house before you head home. There’s something I want to show you.” I gazed conspiratorially at Burt, who was still on my couch. At the moment he was eating a protein bar that I had given him.
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” Ian asked. “I’m beat.”
“No, you have to see this tonight. Come over. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”
I disconnected before Ian could protest, knowing that he’d come over now; he’d be too curious to resist.
I was right; twenty minutes later, he was outside my front door.
I opened, smiling big. “Wow. That was faster than I’d thought. Come on in.” I stepped aside and let Ian enter my place, then closed the door after him, making sure it was also locked. We couldn’t be careful enough.
The expression when Ian spotted Burt seated on my couch was priceless.
“How the…” he began, stopping in the doorway between my hallway and living room.
“You’re not the only one who knows how to track phones,” I said, coming up beside Ian. “Burt here tracked his own and ended up on my street.”
“So you did plant the phone under the couch with the intention of returning to the apartment then?” Ian asked Burt. “To save Nadja?”
“Yes,” Burt said. “That’s exactly what I did.”
“How did you manage to do that without the others noticing?” Ian asked. Which was a good question, one I should have already thought of myself.
“It wasn’t hard at all,” Burt said. “What with all the commotion after the shooting, no one was looking too closely at what I was doing. Most of the attention was focused on Chatterly, who was hurt worse than me. Janine and the other guy had to help him out of the apartment to the car outside. All I needed to do was pretend I needed a break from the blood loss I’d suffered, so I took a seat on that couch. From there it was easy to slip the phone under the edge of it. How’s Nadja? Is she okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. She has enough insulin in her bag to last her for the next three days. We’ll go to her house in the next couple of days to get more or find a pharmacy that’s willing to sell us some without a prescription. I’ve provided her with enough cash that she won’t be wanting for anything essential until I see her again. Or someone else sees her. We’ll have to think about the safest way to get it to her.”
“Thank you for doing that,” Burt said in a reverent voice. “And for hiding her. So that house where she is right now is safe then? Where in Philly is it? I used to live there, so I know the city pretty well.”
“I’ll tell you later. I don’t think this place is bugged since mine isn’t—I check for bugs every day to be sure one hasn’t suddenly appeared—but it’s best not to take any chances. Suffice to say that no one knows my connection to it and that I went there, so they can’t get to her. Of course she’ll also have to change her appearance in case someone from The Adler Group hangs out in Philly. So what’s the deal with you?”
I quickly filled Ian in on all that Burt had told me, thinking it would go faster if I did so rather than Burt himself.
“So these men are still in that town car on your street then?” Ian asked Burt.
“Yes,” Burt replied. “I’m thinking I’ll have until sometime tomorrow morning until Janine and Adler realize what I did and start to look for me. And for Nadja. Less, if I’m unlucky and they decide they want to check with the men immediately after I was supposed to have shot Nadja, even though that would be late at night and they should all be asleep until tomorrow. I don’t think they’ll do anything tonight. Both Janine and Chatterly were exhausted when we parted ways.”
Ian nodded. “Let’s hope for all our sakes that you’re not unlucky. How did you envision hiding from them being a hybrid and chipped in the first place? You must have had some kind of plan for you and Nadja, correct?”
“Yes, I did,” Burt said. “And our chances to get away were good. See, since I’m one of the original hybrids, I don’t have a tracking chip in my system. We would have had several options to disappear without riskin
g being found.”
Ian looked surprised but pleased. “Really? They didn’t chip you? Okay, yes, that changes everything.”
Burt shook his head. “Yeah, they never chipped me. That’s one of the advantages of being an ‘older’ model.” He gave us a charmingly crooked little smile.
“Well, then, in that case,” Ian said, “we should take you to Nadja and you can stay with her for now. How would you like that?”
“I don’t think there’s a better solution,” Burt said, grinning big.
“I agree,” I said. Glancing at Ian, I added, “The sooner we get him there, the better, right?”
“Yes,” Ian said, his face turning grim. “But I don’t think I have the energy to drive back to Philly tonight. I’d pass out while driving. How about you?”
“I feel okay right now,” I said, “but I have a feeling that’ll change soon. And I don’t know my way around Philly, either.”
“Yes, you can’t go,” Ian said. “I don’t know why I even considered that as an option.” He rubbed his stubbly chin. “I suppose we can have a car service drive him to the house. Though, I don’t like the idea of anyone else knowing where that house is. Even if it is unlikely that anyone involved with Adler would ever find out. I doubt they control all car services in town.”
“You have a car, right?” Burt asked Ian, who nodded. “How about I drive while you sleep in the passenger seat? I haven’t slept for two days, but one of the advantages of being the kind of hybrid I am is that you don’t need much sleep to function okay. And I just took a powernap. Would that work? That way you’d get at least a couple of hours of sleep before we get to Philly. As I said, I know that city pretty well.”
“Yes, let’s do that,” Ian said. “And let’s go now then. The sooner we can get you there, the better.”
“Let me get you some water and protein bars for the road,” I said and got to my feet. “That’s all I have at home unfortunately.”
After I had supplied them with bars and bottled water, I gave Burt a ball cap he could wear to provide a little cover. Not that we really worried that someone from Adler was waiting outside my place, what with Burt not having a tracking chip and his phone still being untraceable due to Ian having removed the battery. But, again, it was better not to take any chances.
Ten minutes later, I was under the sheets of my bed, deep asleep without having had to resort to heavy-duty sleeping pills for once.
***
I had only slept four hours when my alarm clock blared the following morning, causing me to shoot out of bed, momentarily confused as to where I was. It only took me seconds to remember everything that had happened the previous night, however. I grabbed my disposable that was charging on the nightstand beside my bed to see if Ian had called me and left a message.
I frowned when I saw there were no missed calls or text messages in my phone. He had promised me that he would touch base as soon as he and Burt got to the house in Philly. By now, they must have gotten there. It only took a little over two hours to get there from Manhattan, probably less if there was no traffic. Surely there had been no traffic given that they had driven in the middle of the night. So why hadn’t Ian gotten in touch with me?
Swinging my legs over the edge of my bed, I dialed his number. The rings just kept going through without him answering, then an automated voicemail began to play, informing me that the person I was trying to call could not be reached. I hung up and went into the shower, putting the phone on the toilet seat lid in case Ian tried to reach me while I was cleaning up.
He hadn’t by the time I was done, nor did I hear from him as I got ready for work and left my place. By now I was getting really worried. Had something happened to Ian and Burt as they got to the house? Maybe Ian had been overconfident in his belief that no one had seen him drive with Nadja to the house. For all I knew, people from Adler were watching Ian and me 24/7 to see what we were up to, standing by for the right time to kill us both. The reason we were both still alive—or at least I was—could be because they’d been getting something out of watching us trying to thwart their cause. That might have changed as of yesterday when we saved not only Nadja, but also made sure that Burt was taken care of. There was no way of knowing. We could only hope what we were trying to do would make a difference. A difference as in putting a stop to their plan.
I wiped the hair away that was getting stuck in my face due to the rain dripping from an overcast sky as I hurried to the health club, running late for my first client.
As I picked up my pace from a walk to a jog, I suddenly saw Burt’s weird eyes in my mind, those snake-like eyes, and filled with a sense of dread.
What if Burt turned on Ian in the car driving there?
He wasn’t entirely human after all. My thoughts went to the Spider-Man rapist murderer I had caught and killed. Ian had suggested that he might have been a test hybrid, a killer hybrid The Adler Group had sent out. That seemed unlikely to me. Why send out a hybrid like that? What purpose did it serve for him to go on a vicious rape-killing spree? What if he had just been a regular hybrid, functioning fine in society, until one day all those gene mutations in his body had made him snap and turned him into a sadistic killer? I thought that seemed more plausible than him being some kind of a test.
It was also possible that Burt hadn’t turned in a physical sense, but instead just come to the sad conclusion that there was no way we could defeat Adler and its mission, no matter how much we wanted to. Maybe it was as simple as him figuring that if he couldn’t beat them, he’d join them. Or stick with them, in Burt’s case.
It struck me that neither Ian nor I actually knew for a fact that Burt had killed the two men supposed to take him to kill Nadja. We only had Burt’s own words to support that claim. He could easily have made that up if he’d wanted to. As I pondered this, the dread inside me grew bigger.
Oh, God, what if Burt never had any intention of saving Nadja?
Surely those men in the car were still alive and had already gone with Burt to the apartment where they saw that Nadja was gone. They’d had plenty of time to do that while Ian, she and I were at that diner. In a last-ditch effort to save his own life, Burt must have somehow convinced them that he’d help them find her and kill her. Chances that he would have succeeded with the plan he’d claimed to have to save Nadja and himself were slim. Really, it was practically a suicide mission, it was so unlikely to succeed.
I thought about how he’d claimed to have planted his phone under the couch to find his way back to Nadja. The story was pretty weak, not to mention convenient. The more I considered it, the weaker I thought it was. Wouldn’t it have been smarter to shove the phone between the sofa cushions instead of under it? As I pictured the phone lying there at the edge of the couch again, it struck me that it could have fallen out of Burt’s pocket if he took a seat there to rest. That part of his story was probably true.
As I reached Nikkei’s lobby, I checked my phone to see if Ian had tried to call me as I’d jogged to the club in the rain that had gotten heavier and heavier.
The screen still said no missed calls.
KEEP READING. PART NINE IS COMING RIGHT UP. BELOW IS A DESCRIPTION SO YOU KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT:
For the first time, Gabi sees what extremes Jonah is willing to go to when he wants to make an example out of someone. It becomes clear just how much power Jonah wields. As if that isn’t enough, Nadja disappears—and so does Burt.
GIRL UNDERCOVER
Part Nine—The Smiley Killer
Julia Derek
Published by Adrenaline Books
Copyright © 2015 by Julia Derek
This is a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published as an e-book July 2015 by Adrenaline Books.
To find out more about the author and to sign up for her new books release, visit JuliaDerek.com
Cover design by Luly Blazek at Ka
losys Art.
Chapter 1
The dread in my stomach was close to unbearable as I rode the elevator up to Nikkei’s entrance. It had now been almost six hours since Ian and Burt had left my place to drive to the house in Philly, and my phone remained eerily dead. Was it possible that it wasn’t working properly?
As soon as I got out of the elevator, I called the club’s number, the rings going through in my ear. I watched how one of the front desk people picked up and answered.
“Good morning, Nikkei Sports Club. This is Andrea speaking. How may I help you?”
My heart sank. So it is definitely working then. I disconnected without saying anything.
I continued into the club, greeting the front desk people on my way. Having only a couple of minutes to spare before it was time to train my first client of the day, I took the elevator up to the trainers’ lounge where I would change into my trainer gear.
I’d barely entered the lounge before I spotted Jonah inside the locker part of it, changing out of his regular T-shirt and into his black trainer one.
I groaned inwardly. I was so not in the mood to talk to Jonah right now—well, I wasn’t ever, but today was worse—unfortunately I didn’t have a choice unless I wanted him to turn on me. In fact, since I had been avoiding him as much as possible lately, I needed to be extra friendly and loving so he didn’t suspect that I was playing him.
He pulled his trainer shirt over his head just as I entered the locker area, spotting me. Instead of breaking into a big grin like I had expected him to do, he glowered at me.
Oh, God, what is he mad about now? I thought, but out loud I said with a smile on my lips, “Hi, Jonah! What a nice surprise to see you first thing in the morning.”
He didn’t return my smile. “A weird blond chick came to my house yesterday afternoon and looked for Burt. You know anything about that?”