“She spoke to me. I know what we have to do.”
“Your dead sister told you what to do in a dream,” he said in mocking seriousness.
“Well, it wasn’t a dream-dream. I was trying to calm down. I mean, last night was… wow, and–”
Her hands flew around, following her scattered explanation. For as flattering as it was for him, Mark’s temper was still reeling from minutes before. “Focus, Ann,” he growled.
“Sure. I was meditating, and she spoke to me.” She stopped to tap her lips with a finger. “I see from your face you’re not convinced.”
“You’re very perceptive.”
She followed him into the other room, where he gathered up fresh clothes. Mark stopped when she rammed her palms on his chest with all the strength she had. “Would you listen to me? Do you remember what Mary did when she came back to her office, after she spoke to Mouse?”
“She opened the door.”
“Your attitude’s not working. I’m sorry I scared you but–”
He bent down until their noses nearly touched. “Pull a stunt like that on me one more time, girl, and I’ll have you taking a long tour in the slammer.”
“You can’t do that. You’re not a police officer.”
He narrowed his eyes and hissed, “Try me.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re big, strong and can do what you want with me. I got it.” She grabbed his face in her hands and shook it lightly. “Now will you listen? Mary mouthed something at the camera before she opened the office door. We didn’t see it because it was too quick.”
That conquered his attention. “You sure?”
“Well, no. But sometimes, when we free our mind, our brain works out details we lose when we’re perfectly conscious. The dream might have been just that.” She saw him wavering and landed the final blow. “It’s not going to take more than thirty minutes to check.”
He nodded, turned to find his clothes as he kept playing the tape in his mind.
“Mark?”
“What now?”
“Is it a bad moment to notice I’m still naked?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
“Okay, then. I’ll go get dressed.”
Mark followed her with a sigh.
* * * * *
“There,” Ann called out, stopping the image with a click of the mouse. “You see it? She said something.”
Mark remembered that part of the video, and like the last time, nothing caught his eyes. He would spend day after day with her sunny attitude and happy thoughts, but she was following a clue her dead sister gave her in her sleep. Not the most reliable source of info.
As if she read his mind, Ann made a face and rewound the video a few seconds back. Mary walked to her office door; the key slid into the lock with no effort. She hesitated and glanced somewhere.
“Here,” Ann said, clapping her hands once with excitement. “I thought she saw someone in the hallway, but that’s not where she’s looking. She’s looking up at the camera, and then she says something. She’s talking to me.”
She grabbed his arm, shook it. “Mary knew I would find the tape and she’s telling me what to do. Do you believe me now?”
“Rewind,” he asked.
They played those few seconds back and forth, back and forth; with each time, Mary’s lips made a little more sense. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
She grinned. “I told you. I think her first word is keep, but I can’t get the second. It’s too fast.”
Ann grabbed pad and pen and wrote the alphabet down. Then tried to copy Mary’s mouth movements. “It can’t be any word that starts with a vowel,” she said, marking the letters with an x. “Or a closed lips letter: b, f, m, p, q, v, y.”
“Keep going?” Mark tried. “She hoped you would see this and keep looking for the truth?”
“It doesn’t match. Look at my lips if I say it.”
Mark watched her lips, all right. They were a slice of blessed hell. He hammered his willpower back and his brain on the task they had.
No, Ann’s lips and Mary’s didn’t match.
“It’s a softer sound,” she said. “She wanted us to keep doing something. Running? Looking?”
Mark played the video one more time. “Try with listening. Say it.”
“Keep listening.”
His lips quirked up. “We have a winner.”
“It doesn’t make sense. She cut off the camera exactly three minutes after she closed the door, it’s all black after that.” She ran frustrated fingers through her hair. “Is it possible that she recorded something more on the last file?”
Mark shook his head. “All the files are locked, you can’t overwrite on them. It’s a new one, or nothing.”
“Maybe there’s something left in her apartment, or office.”
“We searched the place, so did they.” Mark leaned back in his chair. “Mary calls Mouse between 2:10 and 2:30 AM, goes home, books the first flight to NY. Packs and off she goes.”
“She was at my door at 8:30 PM, she must have left her place around 1 PM or 2 PM.”
“Along the way she might have left a message. She had from 3 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon. It’s a long time.”
“Why didn’t they go after her there? I mean, they had ten hours to–”
“To take care of Snow,” Mark reminded her. “There’s a chance they didn’t even know she was involved until they got to Snow.”
Ann buried her chin in her hands, trying to guess where Mary could have left her a message.
Her head snapped up. “Hold on,” she said. “She called Mouse, but she didn’t call me. I mean, she didn’t have her phone when she was at my place. I was annoyed with her because she didn’t call me from the airport.”
“And?”
“She always said her whole life was on that phone. It was one of those things you can do everything with, too big and too noisy for me, but she loved it.”
Mark’s felt the smile coming from deep within himself. He knew. “Play the video one more time, angel. What does she do right after she says to keep listening, and before she opens the door?”
Ann did as he suggested. Like Mary’s mouthed words the act was quick, nothing more than a quirk of her hand. “She tightens the hold on her phone.” She grabbed Mark’s hand, squeezed hard. “Something’s in there, it’s on her phone.”
“She was at the office, in her home and at the airport,” Mark listed. “Scared, not in the mood to go around in the city. She must have left it in one of those places.”
“As you said, we searched the office and her home, so…”
“The airport,” Mark stated quietly, smiling into her smile. “They have a storage.”
“I can easily pass for Mary, but I don’t have any document, hers or mine. The clerk will refuse.”
“IDs can be faked.”
“You can do that?”
“I’m not as good as Mouse, but he taught me enough and we don’t need perfection. Men are easily distracted by a beautiful woman, oldest trick in the world. You make sure to wear something appropriate and bat those lashes.”
“What if there’s a woman serving us?”
“Then I’ll turn on the charm. Scoot over.”
He pushed her away from the screen, took her place. “Watch and learn,” he said as he took a picture of her with the computer camera.
A couple of hours later, a tour to a print copy shop and a tense raid of Mary’s wardrobe after, Ann was holding a license with Mary Holloway written on the side of her face. “You kill people, steal cars, know how to break into places. And now, you can make a fake ID. You’re a very interesting kind of guardian angel.”
“I do what I can. Now go get dressed,” he said, motioning to Mary’s clothes. “We have work to do.”
Chapter 20
When Ann walked out from the bathroom, Mark’s world took a dangerous spin.
She had taken some clothes from Mary’s home, something apt to bait a man’s attention and make
him check the fake ID with hurried eyes.
But the way she looked now, it was unfair to the entire male population. On top of long legs were the shortest blue denim shorts Mark had ever seen wrapped around her thighs. The tank top cut way above her belly button – the sweetest belly button ever. The revealing top, blue like her eyes, was woven like a net with big holes. Her blue bra played peek-a-boo through it, showing itself enough to conjure hot fantasies.
Two minds inside Mark’s head launched in a fight hard and dirty, rolling in the mush of his brain no holds barred. One was the champion, the Marine, duty bound and focused on the result: they must get hold of that phone; to do so, they had to get past the ID problem any way they could. End of story.
But the other mind was a man’s, screaming to rip apart that ridiculous nothing she wore and take her against the wall. Those skimpy clothes opened the door to a world of imagination that mingled with memories of the night before; a deadly combination.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, pulling at the hem of the shorts to make them, somehow, longer.
He nodded stiffly, his teeth clenched.
She studied him, a long, thorough look. Then her mouth tilted into a raffish, dangerous smile, and she walked in front of him. “Like what you see, boy?” she teased in a husky whisper, running her finger over his cheek.
Hell took the form of choking jeans, clutching his groin in a merciless cage. “Careful what you play with.”
She lifted up on her tiptoes, sliding against him with deliberate slowness; she reached his mouth and bit his lower lip. The sharp intake of breath satisfied her enough to walk away with a chuckle and a symphony of swaying hips. “I didn’t take you for the kind of guy who likes a girl on the slutty side.”
“Not slutty, sexy like hell. That’s what you’re now, angel.”
Before temptation got the best of him he took his gun, checked it and the ammo in his pocket. The cold, hard metal tempered his baser impulses. They had a work to do, and they’d better do it quick. He put the gun in the holster, un-tucked the shirt to cover it.
But before he opened the door, he turned around.
He didn’t take her mouth. He assaulted it with all the greed and the need that threatened to overpower him. Hard, fast, and deep, that kiss was all they had time for.
It still roared in his head when he let her go. “I’m going to pull out the eyes of whoever looks twice,” he growled as they left the room. “With a toothpick.”
* * * * *
A crumbled crowd of travelers, keen police officers and bagged-eye flight attendants filled the airport. Smiles pulled suitcases full of happiness; tears soaked up others. Some were waiting, bored as their masters, to be loaded for the next business trip. Lives, bumping into one another, left a trail of energy that filled the static air.
Ann took the surroundings in with tensed detachment, fighting the need to pull at the ridiculous cut-offs with sweaty palms.
The moment they stepped into the airport, all had become too real. She could play the flirty girl to tease Mark in the safety of their room. What if she couldn’t do it properly here? What if the nervousness she felt inside showed on the outside like a flag – I’m a fraud? She never had to actively do anything up to now, would she be up to the task?
“We have a man and a woman,” Mark said.
He had placed her between his chest and a big white pillar, hiding her and peeking at the baggage checkroom counter at the same time.
“Man’s yours. Smile a lot, lean over a lot,” he instructed her. “If he starts looking too much at the ID, talk to him, touch his hand or something. Distract him and take the ID back as soon as you can.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll take care of the woman. They’re both young, easily sidetracked.”
When he kissed her, she saw his eyes still glued to the counter.
“The man’s gone. I’m going in, you follow in a minute.”
As Mark walked away, anxiety took his place like a spider in its web. Too many people around, too many eyes pointed at her. It might be just the clothes. Perfect for the job she had to do, but it sure didn’t help to go unnoticed.
Ann shook off the unease, and following Mark’s directions she got to the counter. Mark laughed at something the woman had said; to talk to him, she barely registered Ann’s presence.
Fear, a big bag of snakes in her belly, slithered up to her throat as the man reappeared to serve her, but she was able to contain it. “Hello,” she said to him, her voice raspier than she would have hoped and free from any shaking. Perfect.
The clerk, still boy more than man, had a long way in front of him to learn the difference between looking and ogling. His eyes darted from her face to her body – Ann counted it as an advantage.
“I left something here, a while ago. Name’s Holloway.”
“Yes, ma’am. You have an ID ma’am?”
She smiled, produced the plastic sheet that could take them a step further into the quest, or punch her in the face. “It’s very muggy today,” she said, stroking a finger from her throat down, close to her breasts.
The young man took the bait, following her hand rather than checking the ID. She hammered a smile on. “I don’t know how you can stand all those clothes.”
Just a boy, an adorable boy, she thought as he blushed. “It’s dress code, ma’am.”
His reaction, and Mark’s low voice so close gave her courage.
“Well, you look very distinguished. Don’t look too close at my ID, honey,” she purred, stretching out a hand. “My date of birth’s written with too big a font, for my taste.”
With a chuckle, the boy gave her back the ID. “I’ll be back in a second with your luggage, Miss Holloway.”
Quickly, she slipped the ID in her bag. She heard Mark saying his thanks and goodbyes to the woman and walk away.
After a couple of unnerving minutes, the clerk came back with a small bag Ann recognized as Mary’s. Another smile, and she was walking to the exit holding a wheeled carry - on loaded with info.
Mark waited for her with the car running. She threw it into the back seat, and jumped in. “I think I’m having a heart attack,” she heaved. Her heart hammered against her ribcage, and she pressed a hand on it.
“You were perfect,” Mark said, squeezing her knee.
His touch was enough to calm her down and she let go a long sigh. “Really?”
“Really.”
One hour later, they stared at the luggage lying in the middle of their bed. Soft-sided, bright purple. Zippers and handle.
“There’s a safety lock,” Mark said. He searched his pocket, found a jackknife. The lock broke instantly under his strong hands.
Ann released the breath she didn’t know she had held.
He took a dress from the ripped suitcase. Even though it was rolled up in a ball of yellow fabric, Ann recognized it. “It’s Mary’s.”
Holding it between thumb and index, Mark let the dress unroll open. A phone and a charger bounced onto the bed.
Ann hurried there before he said a word, took the phone and plugged it in.
They stood side by side in silence, both with their eyes set on the small device; after a handful of minutes, it beeped to life.
“There’s an audio memo app, maybe it’s what she used.” She pressed few keys on the screen, shook her head. “Nothing.”
“A video?”
“Yes! There’s a file with no name.”
She held the phone up for both. “It’s just noise, and it looks like a ceiling.”
“Keep listening,” he reminded her.
And after a rustle, Mary’s voice filled the room, hurried and practical.
If you find this, something went very bad.
Ann paled. She stopped the record as her fingers clutched the top she still wore. She sat on the bed, placed the phone on the dark red bedcover.
Mark sat behind her.
Asking her if she was okay was plain stupid. She was liste
ning to her sister’s voice for the last time, a voice drenched with the knowledge that whatever would come, wasn’t good. He wrapped her in his arms not to protect, but to reassure and comfort. She was not alone. “Are you ready?”
From under his chin, she nodded and pressed play.
Chapter 21
Dim light filled the room, the powerful mid-afternoon sun kept out by dark roman blinds. Usually, Mary loved the heat, the merciless stare of the sun in Miami. She had no time for it today.
Things had to be thrown in the suitcase; things had to be said to Ann.
The bed barely made a noise when she sat on it, her cell phone held tight in her hands. How? How was she going to say to Ann, the most important person on earth, that she’d lied to her half their lives?
Mary cleared her throat, pressed play on the phone video recorder but couldn’t utter a single word. She stopped the recording.
Her head tilted backward, her eyes shut closed to stop the tears she felt coming.
It had to be done, she chanted in her mind.
Maybe, it would be easier if she didn’t look into the camera, pretend to forget Ann would look at her and judge her. Hate her.
She tossed the phone on the bedspread. Ann wouldn’t do any of that.
The recording started once again.
“If you find this, something went very bad,” Mary said to the empty room. “Also, if you find this, you know about my job. Well, part of it.”
Needing to move, she went to pick up her hairbrush in the bathroom. Fear made her hands clumsy, and it fell on the floor with a loud thud. She picked it up, whispered a soft curse, and went back in the bedroom.
In front of the bed, she closed her eyes, took a long breath and let the words go. “I’ve never, ever, sold myself, Ann. You must believe that,” she rushed saying.
The rock she’d carried in her heart all these past years lightened, as if it weighed nothing more than a cloud. Calmer now, she sat on the bed beside the phone. “It started years ago – God, so many years. I met this girl. She didn’t have a place to go, the second floor was empty, I told her to stay there for a while.
“Imagine my face when one day I walk up and I find her with a man. I thought he was her boyfriend or something, I even apologized.” She chuckled at how naive she’d been. “Turned out, he was a client. I get mad, she tries to explain…. But then, she says she has an idea. That’s how I created the second floor.
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