Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3

by Swartwood, Robert

  I step out and watch them without a word.

  After Leila helps Eleanora into the passenger seat, she gently shuts the door and turns to me.

  “I … I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “How”—she pauses, shakes her head in wonder—“how did you do this?”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  In the dark, I note a speck of confusion on her face but it quickly morphs to understanding.

  “Were … those men there?”

  I glance past her at Eleanora in the car. I figure Eleanora will probably tell her everything. Not only what happened between me and the two men, but what those men may have done to her after they abducted her. I’d tried asking Eleanora about her abduction, in case anybody else was involved, but she was exhausted once we made it back to the car, and I didn’t want to put any further stress on her.

  “Is she an illegal?”

  Leila says nothing. Which is all the answer I need.

  “Then I’m going to assume you won’t report what happened to her. I would keep it that way.”

  Understanding flicks across her face again.

  “Those men—”

  I cut her off.

  “Are no longer going to be a problem.”

  I pause, watching her in the dark, not wanting to ask the next question but knowing I have no other choice.

  “Are there others?”

  “Others?”

  “Who were taken.”

  She shakes her head, a deliberate back and forth.

  “Not that I know of.”

  My first impulse is to tell her to call if she hears of any other girls being abducted. Mulkey and Kyer can’t have been the only two running this particular racket. There are no doubt others, but … no, I can’t get involved in this. I’ve already done more than I should. I killed two men tonight, and while I’ve killed several in the past, that was a different life. I’m no longer that person, and I can’t risk any further exposure.

  When I realize Leila Simmons is waiting for me to speak, I softly clear my throat.

  “Good.”

  I wait another beat, and then tilt my chin at the car.

  “Take care of her.”

  Leila Simmons nods.

  “I will.”

  I don’t tell her to call if she needs anything else. I don’t tell her that the phone I’d called her on will be stripped apart and its pieces scattered along the highway. That as far as this woman is concerned she’s never going to see me again. I don’t tell her any of that, because I think she’s smart enough to figure it out, just as she’s smart enough to know she needs to be the one to leave first.

  Leila doesn’t say anything else. She just looks at me one last time before climbing into her car.

  Eleanora twists in her seat when Leila pulls out of the rest stop, the girl raising her hand goodbye.

  I don’t bother returning the gesture. I don’t even acknowledge her with a nod. Because I can’t invest any further time in the girl or the woman. It may sound harsh, but they’re strangers to me, and that’s all they’ll ever be.

  The Jetta accelerates as it heads west, its taillights a dim red before fading completely.

  I wait there for another minute, listening to the silence of the night, the distant chorus of insects calling from the desert, before I slip into my car and head back to the place I’ve come to think of as home.

  Sixteen

  Another brown paper bag is waiting for me outside my apartment door. This time the gift inside is big enough to tell exactly what it is. It’s squat and circular, and the note on top—another folded piece of paper—simply says, In case you run out.

  A roll of toilet paper. Hardy har har.

  I consider knocking on Erik’s door, playfully tossing the toilet paper at his face, but I feel sticky from sweat and smell of gasoline, and besides, I still have my weapons.

  Inside my apartment, I set the toilet paper on the kitchen table next to the box of Imodium A-D, as well as the knife and the pistols. They’ll need to be cleaned, which is something I’ll do after my shower. It’ll feel good to clean the weapons—a familiarity I’ve long missed—but they’ll have to wait.

  I head to the bathroom, stripping out of my clothes as I go, so that when I flick on the light I’m only wearing my bra and panties. I study my face in the mirror, at the place where the cowboy backhanded me. A slight bruise, but it’s not too noticeable. Nothing a healthy dollop of makeup can’t hide.

  I slide the shower curtain back and turn on the water and adjust the faucets until the temperature’s just right, and then I step into the tub and pull the curtain shut and tilt my face down so the warm water beats at the back of my head.

  Part of me hopes the shower will not only rid me of the sweat and gasoline but also my exhilaration. Tonight for the first time in a year I felt alive again. Like I had a purpose. For once my existence didn’t consist of the mundane—shelving books, serving drinks—but for a couple hours I had felt like the old me.

  And it wasn’t only saving Eleanora—that should have been enough—but what I did to those two men. Making them pay for their crimes. Making sure they would never hurt another helpless girl.

  Stop. Just stop it.

  I don’t want to be that person again, do I? I made the choice to walk away from everything. To tell Walter Hadden I was done—not just being a bodyguard to his two children, but to all of it. The non-sanctioned work I’d done for the government. The covert missions. The assassinations. The knowledge that with every life I took it was in service to the country and to normal Americans who went about their every day lives completely oblivious to the constant danger surrounding them.

  Of course, it wasn’t only Walter and the work I’d walked away from. It was the knowledge that my father—our team leader, who all my life I’d considered a hero—wasn’t really dead. That he’d only faked his death. That he’s out there somewhere, having aligned himself with terrorists, and part of me wants nothing more than to put a bullet through his face while another part … well, another part dreads the idea, because despite what he’s become, he’s still my father.

  My mother never knew the truth about her husband, just as Tina, my sister, never knew the truth about her father. All they knew was he worked for the military. Not that he was an assassin for the United States government. That when the government needed full deniability and couldn’t afford to risk sending in a CIA asset, they’d send my father and his team.

  Besides myself, the only other person left from the team is Nova Bartkowski, who I haven’t seen or talked to in a year, not since we came back from an impromptu mission in Mexico, and now that I think about Nova, where did he end up, anyway? He mentioned something about finding his father, but he didn’t tell me much else. For all I know something bad may have happened to him. For all I know he may be dead.

  I blink, realizing all at once I’ve been lost in my thoughts, still standing in the shower. How many minutes has it been? I feel the tips of my fingers, realize they’ve started to prune, and decide enough screwing around.

  A couple minutes later I step out and dry myself off. My hair’s still wet, but at least it’s short now, not long like it was a year ago.

  Wrapped in a towel, I walk into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge. As I twist off the cap and start to raise the bottle to my lips, there’s a soft knock at the apartment door, followed directly by a whisper.

  “Police, open up.”

  I eye the two pistols and the knife on the kitchen table next to Erik’s two gag gifts. I cross over to the table and collect all three weapons and place them in a drawer before heading to the door.

  A quick glance through the peephole confirms Erik is standing on the other side. But he’s turning away, having concluded I’m asleep or maybe mad at him, and is about to head back into his apartment.

  I open the door.

  He pauses, and glances at me over his
shoulder.

  “Oh, hello.”

  He says it all innocently like he’s surprised to find me answering my door at three o’clock in the morning.

  I say, “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  He turns to me, and shrugs.

  “I was reading. Thought I heard you come in not too long ago. Wanted to check to see how you’re feeling.”

  I glance down at his empty hands.

  “What, no beers?”

  He offers an embarrassed smile, and shrugs again.

  “Figure you probably wouldn’t be in the mood for a drink. Why were you out so late, anyway? I was at Reggie’s earlier; they said you called out sick.”

  “Keeping tabs on me, are you?”

  Another shrug.

  “I’m merely a concerned neighbor, is all.”

  “Maybe I was out on a date.”

  “Oh. That’s nice.”

  “Erik.”

  “Yes?”

  “I have a confession to make.”

  “Okay.”

  I beckon him with my finger. He takes a step forward. I glance down the empty hallway, as if I expect a crowd to be watching, and then lower my voice.

  “My problem from last night? It’s not a problem anymore.”

  “Oh. Well … that’s good, right?”

  “Too bad you didn’t bring any beers.”

  His eyes light up.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Before he can step away, though, I reach out and hook a finger on his belt, pull him toward me into the apartment.

  Tilting my face up to kiss him, I murmur, “Let’s skip the beers.”

  Erik doesn’t object. He goes right with it, kissing me back, his hands grazing my body through the towel, and I jump up and wrap my legs around him as he holds me tight and walks farther into the apartment, absently reaching back to close the door.

  Seventeen

  Light trickles in from the part in the curtain. It’s not strong light—the streetlamp stands several yards away—but it’s enough so that once your eyes adjust you can make out the bedroom.

  We lie in my bed, Erik and I, and stare at the ceiling, both of us sweaty and spent. While we were going at it—our hands and lips exploring the familiar terrains of our bodies, my hand squeezing Erik’s bicep when he entered me—it was like any other time, a recognizable rhythm, both of us already knowing what the other liked, but this was the first time we were together in my apartment, the first time Erik has ever seen the inside of my apartment, and now a sense of awkwardness tinges the air, Erik no doubt wanting to ask why the place is so bare, why I don’t even have a TV. I’ve been living across the hall from him for nearly a year, and it looks like I’ve just moved in—or am ready to move out.

  But Erik doesn’t ask. He lies beside me, catching his breath, and then starts to sit up, twisting to place his bare feet on the carpet.

  I don’t move. Don’t even tilt my head. But I watch him in the dark, his broad shoulders rippling as he starts to stand. He thinks he’s supposed to retreat to his apartment now, because that’s what I always do once we finish. I’ve never lingered for more than a couple minutes. At first making an excuse for why I needed to leave, and then, once it became clear to Erik that I’d rather sleep alone, making no excuse at all. Just slipping out of bed, redressing, and then ghosting through his apartment to the door where I would peek out first to make sure none of our neighbors were there before darting across to my apartment.

  “You don’t have to go.”

  His shoulders twitch. Clearly he wasn’t expecting me to speak.

  “I have to work tomorrow.”

  He says it without looking at me, standing to pull on his boxer shorts.

  “What time?”

  He pauses and turns his head slightly to the side, so I can make out his profile in the dark.

  “I go in at noon.”

  “What time is it now?”

  He grabs his watch from the nightstand, checks the time.

  “Almost three thirty.”

  “Good. So there’s no hurry.”

  I pause a beat, watching him.

  “But if you need to go, go.”

  He sits back down, the bed springs making their usual soft cries of protest. He twists, curling his left leg on the bed, and reaches out to run his finger down my arm. Even in the dark he doesn’t look at me, staring instead at my arm.

  “I like you a lot.”

  “I like you a lot.”

  He keeps running his finger up and down my arm, still not meeting my eyes.

  “No, I mean I really like you. I think about you all the time. When you’re not around, I …”

  But he trails off, shakes his head.

  “Never mind.”

  I say, “I know.”

  He looks at me for the first in several minutes.

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  Neither of us says anything, though, nothing to further the conversation. We keep staring back at each other in the dark until Erik retracts his finger and takes a breath.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this.”

  “I know. So let’s go get a cup of coffee sometime.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.”

  He appraises me, trying to study my face in the dark.

  “I realized the other day, despite us doing this every so often, I don’t know anything about you.”

  This, I want to tell him, is a good thing. The less he knows about me the better. He doesn’t need to know about my past life. As for my current life, there isn’t much to know. There’s a backstory, but I’ve long since stopped thinking about the cover Atticus gave me. I eventually told myself there was never any reason to use it. I was never going to get close to anybody again.

  After several seconds have passed in silence, I nod so Erik knows I heard him.

  “I know. I don’t know much about you either.”

  “To be honest with you, Jen, I want something more.”

  “So do I.”

  I’m almost as surprised as he is by the words as they slip out of my mouth.

  He says, “You do?”

  I reach out and grab his hand, give it a slight squeeze. But for some reason, I can’t say the word. Not yet. Not until I’ve come to terms with the past twenty-four hours. The thrill of holding a gun in my hand again, of squeezing the trigger. I’ve never gotten a thrill from taking lives, though I have to admit there’s sometimes been a satisfaction watching what I’ve thought of as evil people die. I’ve often questioned what kind of person that makes me. And while part of me may have felt alive tonight, another part knows that road leads to a lonely life and probably a lonely death.

  Erik keeps watching me, waiting for me to say the word.

  I wet my lips, try to speak, can’t. Clear my throat and try again.

  “Tell me something nobody else knows.”

  The request catches him off guard. A slight frown crosses his face.

  “I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.”

  “Did you grow up in Alden?”

  “No.”

  “Then tell me where you grew up. Tell me about your childhood.”

  Erik watches me for another moment, still not sure if I’m being serious. Then he takes a deep breath, stares off at the thin line of light streaming in through the curtain, and tells me about his childhood.

  About how he never knew his mom. About how his grandmother raised him. About how just before his sixth birthday, his grandmother had a stroke and passed away. About how he then ended up in the foster care system, going from one family to another, never meshing with any of them, and about how as he got older he started acting out, being aggressive with his peers, stealing from the corner stores, the crimes at first petty but quickly escalating until he was thirteen and stole a car to go joyriding, and how then he ended up in a juvenile detention center for a year and when he was released he was sent to a place up nor
th, to a woman named Ruby who took care of kids like him, kids who had no family, and there were other kids at Ruby’s house, a few other boys who also started out with petty crimes and which had snowballed into worse things, and at first Erik was defiant with Ruby, just as he was defiant with every other adult in his life, but Ruby was patient, almost too patient, wearing him down with her patience, and she was kind too, kind but strict, making it known to Erik and the other boys in the home that she had a certain set of rules and those boys were going to abide by those rules, no ifs ands or buts about it. Of course, Erik and the other boys tested those rules, tried to push the boundaries, but Ruby had a three strike policy, and the boys quickly learned she wasn’t playing and that after the third strike they were kicked out of the house, and word would often get back to the other boys still in the home how good they truly had it, how Ruby may be strict but that she actually cared, that she actually gave a damn, and this was something Erik had never experienced, not since his grandmother passed away, somebody who gave a damn, because sure some of the other foster homes were run by good people who cared, but he never got the sense that they truly cared, that they really gave a shit. It was in Ruby’s home that Erik started learning about respect, started doing better in school, started taking care of himself, and right out of graduation Erik joined the Marines because the Marines managed to get his past charges expunged, and he spent several years in the Marines before he met a girl he wanted to marry, but something happened and that girl went away, and Ruby—whom he still kept in contact with all this time—encouraged him to forget about her, to get on with his life.

  “In the end, there wasn’t much I wanted to do. I just … wanted to disappear. And so I looked around for some jobs, and being a deputy here in Colton County was one of them, and guys I knew joked that being a black man in Texas wasn’t the best idea, but the county was the first one to call me back and hire me, and so …”

  He shrugs and looks at me for the first time since he started telling his story.