by Nora Roberts
“It was, in a terrible way, the best time of my life. I watched television, listened to music, studied, cooked, learned, had people to talk to. John and Terry—I know it was a job, but they were family to me.
“Then my birthday came. I didn’t think they knew, or would think anything of it. But they had presents for me, and a cake. John gave me earrings. I’d gotten my ears pierced that day at the mall with Julie, and he gave me my first real pair of earrings. And Terry gave me a sweater; it was so pretty. I went up to my room to put the earrings and the sweater on. I was so happy.”
She paused for a moment, working out how to explain to him what she’d never fully explained to herself.
“It wasn’t like the day in the mall. The happiness wasn’t fueled by rebellion and novelty and lies. It was so deep, so strong. I knew I’d wear that sweater set, those earrings, on the day I testified in court. That while I couldn’t bring Julie back, I would have a part in getting justice for her. And when it was done, I’d become who I wanted to be. Whatever name they gave me, I’d be free to be myself.
“And then … I don’t know everything that happened. I can only speculate. I’ve put it together so many ways. The most logical is that Bill Cosgrove and the agent who substituted for Lynda that night, his name is Keegan, came in through the kitchen, as usual. I think Terry was in there alone, and John in the living room. She must have sensed or suspected something. I don’t know what or why. They killed her, or at that point disabled her. But she managed to call out to John first, so he was alerted. But he couldn’t get to me, couldn’t get to the stairs without exposing himself.
“I heard the gunfire. Everything happened so fast. I ran out of the bedroom and saw John. When John got to me he was shot, several times. He was bleeding, from the leg, the abdomen. He pushed me back in the bedroom, and he collapsed. I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
She looked down at her hands. “I couldn’t stop it. I knew what to do, but I couldn’t help. He didn’t have much time. There wasn’t much time. He told me to run. To take what I could and get out through the window. I couldn’t trust the police. If they had Cosgrove and the other, they’d have more. The Volkovs. I didn’t want to leave him like that. But I went out the window, with the money I had, with my laptop, some clothes, with his ankle weapon. I was going to try to call for help. Maybe if help came he wouldn’t die. I didn’t know if Terry was alive or dead. I’d barely gotten a block away when the house exploded. I think they’d planned to blow it up, with me in it. They’d have taken over from John and Terry, staged something and blown up the house.”
“Where did you go?”
“I went home. My mother would be at work, and the cook would have gone for the day. I still had my key. I went home so I could hide until my mother got home. And I found she’d boxed up all my things. Some were already gone. I don’t know why that upset me so much, considering.”
“I do.”
“Well. I opened her safe, and I took money from her. Ten thousand dollars. It was wrong, but I stole from my mother, and I left. I’ve never been back. I walked, tried to think. It had been storming, but now it was just rain. Just rainy and dark. I knew John and Terry were dead, and the last thing he’d told me to do was run. I saw a pickup truck with Indiana plates outside a coffee shop. I got in the back, under the tarp. I fell asleep somewhere along the drive, and when I woke up, I was in Terre Haute. I found a motel, paid cash. I went to a drugstore and bought bright red hair dye. It turned my hair orange, but I looked different. I slept again, a long time. Then I turned on the television. And I saw on CNN the report about John and Terry, about the house. About me. They thought I’d been in the house. They were looking for our remains. I nearly called the police. I had Detective Griffith’s card, but I was afraid. I decided I’d wait, buy a cell phone, a disposable, in case. I waited another day, eating in the room, barely leaving it, watching the news, trying to find out more through the Internet.”
She paused, took a long breath. “Then I found out more. They didn’t think I was in the house. They knew I wasn’t. There was speculation someone had abducted me, and other speculation that I’d snapped, shot John and Terry, blown up the house. Cosgrove and Keegan had each other to back up the story, how they’d gotten there just seconds too late. And Cosgrove was wounded.”
“John got a piece of him? What about ballistics?”
“It was through-and-through. They said the lights went off, and they couldn’t be sure who fired at them, but Keegan got Cosgrove out. The house exploded as he called it all in.
“So I ran. I took a bus to Indianapolis. I got supplies, another motel, and I made new identification, and with it and some of the cash I bought a used car from a junk dealer that got me to Nashville. I waited tables there for three months. Then I changed my hair again, my ID again, and moved on.”
She drew another breath. “There wasn’t much on the news anymore, and I wasn’t quite able to hack into the files—the U.S. Marshals and FBI. I went to MIT on a forged ID and transcripts, and monitored classes on computer science, and anything else that seemed helpful. I connected with a student there, a boy. He knew a lot about hacking. More than I did. I learned from him. I slept with him, then I left him. I think he cared for me a little, but I left him with only a quick note once I’d learned all he could teach me. I moved around every few months, a year at the most. Changed IDs, modified my appearance. The details aren’t really important.”
She paused again. “I’m wanted for questioning in the murder of two U.S. Marshals.”
He said nothing, just pushed to his feet, walked over to the window.
And the world dropped away for Abigail. He would be finished with her now, she thought. Everything would be finished now.
“Have you kept tabs on Cosgrove and Keegan over the years?”
“Yes. Keegan has been promoted several times.”
“Good, you know where they are, what they’re doing. That’ll save time and work.”
“I don’t understand.”
He turned back to her. “You don’t think we’re going to let those two bastards get away with murdering two good cops and implicating you? For keeping you running since the day you turned seventeen? For doing all that so another murderer and his murdering, thieving, son-of-a-bitching friends and associates could walk on killing an innocent girl?”
She could only stare at him. “You believe me.”
“Jesus, of course I believe you. I’d believe you even if I wasn’t in love with you, it’s so obvious you’re telling the truth.”
“You still love me.”
“Listen up.” He stalked back over to her, pulled her to her feet. “I expect—no, I demand—more respect than that from you. I’m not some weak-spined half-ass fuckhead who slithers off when everything’s not just exactly perfect. I loved you an hour ago. I love you now. I’m going to keep right on loving you, so get used to it and stop expecting me to let you down. It’s insulting, and it’s pissing me off.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Good. You should be.” He yanked her in for a kiss, let her go. “Where’d you learn to shoot?”
“John taught me initially. I lived in Arizona for a time, and took lessons from an old man. He was a conspiracy theorist and a survivalist. He was interesting but not entirely stable. But he liked me, and was very knowledgeable. I spent time at a number of universities, under assumed names. I needed to learn.”
“What’s in the locked room upstairs?”
“I’ll show you.”
She led him up, unlocked the triple locks. “It’s a safe room,” she said, as she opened the door.
And a frigging arsenal, he noted. Handguns, long guns, knives. Shelves of packaged food, bottled water, a computer setup as elaborate as her station downstairs, a chem toilet, clothes, wigs, hair dye, batteries, he saw, as he wandered. Flashlights, dog food, books, a freaking grappling hook, tools.
“Did you set this up yourself?”
“Yes. I needed to learn,
as I said. I learned. I have several alternate IDs and passports in here, in a lockbox. Cash, credit cards, and the laminate and paper I need to make still more IDs, if necessary. It’s against the law.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll arrest you later. Okay, you know how to protect yourself, and you think ahead. You’ve been at this how long now?”
“Twelve years.”
“Long enough. Time to stop running.”
“I want to. Today, I thought …”
“What?”
“It’s not rational.”
“Jesus, Abigail.” Despite it all, he had to laugh. “Be irrational.”
“It seemed like a circle. Seeing Ilya in Justin Blake, seeing what I thought of Sergei Volkov in Lincoln Blake. Seeing so much of what I admired in John in you. And finding I could stand up to the Blakes, I could do the right thing and not panic or run. It seemed like I could make the running stop, but I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. I want another beer. I want to think. We’ll figure this out, and we’ll fix it.”
“Brooks—”
“Beer, thinking, figuring and fixing. You’ve stopped being alone, Abigail. You’ll have to get used to that, too. What’s your real name, anyway?”
She took a breath. “Elizabeth.” Her voice sounded rusty on the word. “Elizabeth Fitch.”
He angled his head. “You don’t strike me as an Elizabeth.”
“For a little while, I was Liz.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I’m partial to Abigail, but I can see Liz. So.” He stepped forward, took her hand. “Nice to meet you, Liz.”
22
IT WORE HER OUT, BROOKS REALIZED, AS HE SAT DRINKING his beer and thinking. The telling of it and, he imagined, the reliving of it. She’d wedged herself into the corner of the couch, drooping. So he kept his silence, let her drift away awhile while the fire went to simmer and the breeze kicked up against the windows.
Storm coming on, he thought.
Twelve years on the run. She’d turned seventeen and had, or believed she’d had, nothing and no one to depend on but herself.
He pictured himself at seventeen, considered his biggest worry or problem at the time. Wishing he’d had a mightier bat, a faster glove, he remembered, to drive him toward his fantasy of living up to his name as a hot major-league third baseman.
And longing—lusting—for Sylbie.
And that, he concluded, had been pretty much that.
Some schoolwork stress, fights with the longed-for Sylbie, annoyance with parental demands and rules. But he’d had parents, family, home, friends, structure.
He couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her, being seventeen and in constant fear for her life. Witnessing cold-blooded murder, watching the man who’d given her a sense of security, even family, bleeding to death and trying so damn hard to obey his dying request.
John Barrow told her to run, no question saving her life with the order. And she’d never stopped.
He shifted, studying her while she slept. Time to stop running, he thought. Time to trust someone to help, to make it right.
Sergei and Ilya Volkov, Yakov Korotkii, Alexi Gurevich.
He needed to do some research on the players, or utilize Abigail’s research. He imagined anything that was or could be known about them was in her files. And in her head.
Marshals Cosgrove and Keegan—same deal.
A dirty cop earned a cell shared by those he’d sent over, in Brooks’s opinion. A dirty cop who killed another cop for profit or gain? There was a special circle of hell reserved for them. He wanted a part in putting Cosgrove and Keegan dead center of that circle.
He had some ideas, yeah, a few ideas, on that. He wanted to chew on them some, do that research, let it all sift around. After a dozen years, a few days, even weeks, of studying and formulating wouldn’t hurt. And he expected she’d need some of that time to adjust to the new situation. He’d need it to convince her to let him do what needed to be done, once he’d settled on exactly what that would be.
For now, he figured the best thing would be to cart her on up to bed. They could both sleep on it awhile.
He got up, started to lift her. And she kneed him dead in the balls.
He swore he felt them tickle his throat, then stick there when her elbow jabbed his larynx. He felt his own eyes roll up and back as he dropped like a stone. Airless.
“Oh God, oh God! Brooks. I’m sorry.”
Since the only sound he could make was a wheeze, he gave it up after one attempt. He’d just lie there for the moment, maybe forever.
“I must have fallen asleep. You startled me.” She tried to turn him over, brushed his hair from his face. The dog licked it sympathetically. “Can you breathe? Are you breathing? You’re breathing.”
He coughed, and that burned like fire to match the inferno raging in his crotch. “Shit,” he managed, and coughed again.
“I’m going to get you water and ice. Just take slow breaths.”
She must have told the dog to stay with him, as Bert laid down so they were eye to eye. “What the fuck?” When that hissed out of him, Bert licked his face again.
He managed to swallow, then roll cautiously to his hands and knees. He stayed there another moment, wondering if he’d complete the cycle and puke. He’d made it to sitting on the floor, stomach contents intact, when Abigail rushed back in with the cold pack and a glass of water.
“Don’t you put that on my balls. It’s bad enough.” He took the water, and though the first couple of sips ripped like drinking broken razor blades, the rawness slowly eased. “What the fuck?” he said again.
“It was reflex. I’m so sorry. You’re so pale. I’m so sorry. I fell asleep, and I was back there, at Alexi’s. Ilya found me, and … I think you touched me, and I thought it was Ilya, so I reacted.”
“I’ll say. God help him if he tries for you. We may never have kids now.”
“A minor insult of this kind to the genitalia doesn’t affect fertility,” she began, then looked away. She went considerably pale herself. “I’m very sorry,” she repeated.
“I’ll live. Next time I start to carry you up to bed, I’ll wear a cup. Now you may have to carry me.”
“I’ll help you.” She kissed him gently on the cheek.
“I’d say that’s not where it hurts, but if you kiss me where it does and I have the normal reaction, it may kill me.” He waved her away, pushed to his feet. “It’s not so bad.” He cleared his throat, winced.
“I’ll help you upstairs.”
“I’ve got it. I’m just going to … check things out. For my own peace of mind.”
“All right. I’ll let Bert out before I come up.”
When she came up, he’d stripped down to his boxers but stood by her monitor, studying it.
“Is everything … um.”
“Yeah. That’s some aim you’ve got, killer.”
“It’s a particularly vulnerable area in a man.”
“I can attest. I’m going to want you to show me how this system works sometime soon. How you switch from view to view, zoom in, pan out and so on.”
“It’s very simple. Do you want me to show you now?”
“Tomorrow’s soon enough. I figure you’ve got plenty of data on the Volkovs, and the agents in their pocket. I’m going to want to review that.”
“Yes.”
He caught the tone. “What?”
“I haven’t told you everything.”
“Now would be a good time for that.”
“I’d like to clean up first.”
“Okay.” And get her thoughts together, he concluded.
She took a nightshirt from the drawer. “I’ll just be a minute,” she told him, and went into the bathroom.
He wondered how much more there could be as he heard the water running, and decided there was no point in speculating. Instead, he turned down the bed, lowered the lights.
When she came out, she got two bottles of water out of her cold box. She offered him on
e, then sat on the side of the bed. “I think, if I were you, I’d wonder why I’d never tried to go to the authorities, tell everything that happened.”
“You didn’t know who to trust.”
“That’s true, at least initially. And I was afraid. For a long time I had nightmares and flashbacks, panic attacks. I still have occasional anxiety attacks. Well, you’ve seen. And even above that—though it took me time to understand it, I believed I had to do what John told me. He died protecting me. It all happened so quickly, so violently, and was so urgent, so insistent. I realize