He didn’t have a reply at the ready, which was a new experience for me. It was not customary for him to be struck silent, but all he did was smooth his hair out in the mirror, adjust his seat to recline back, and close his eyes. When his breathing evened out, I knew better than to think he was asleep, so I turned on the radio and settled in for the long drive to Raleigh, wondering how all of this would play out.
When we arrived in the capital city of North Carolina approximately four hours later, my eyes were begging for relief. It was three in the morning, and I’d spent the entire ride watching Fox dozed in the front seat. If only I had a knife.
He hadn’t been exaggerating about his new estate home. The bright white mansion loomed over the manicured green lawns of Fox’s property like the leader of a lion’s pride. The car zipped up to a wrought iron gate, which opened automatically for us, and sped up the long cobblestone driveway. When it braked in the circular driveway, I kicked open my door before Fox could get out and open it for me, marched up the marble staircase, and strolled into the foyer. The inside of the house was just as overzealous as the outside, but I didn’t bother to appreciate the dangling chandeliers or priceless art hanging on the walls. Instead, I headed up the double staircase that led to the upper levels of the house.
“Where’s my room?” I called down to Fox as he closed the doors behind me.
A butler emerged from another room, bowed to Fox, and took his jacket for him.
“Down the hall,” Fox said. “Last door on the left.”
“Don’t follow me,” I ordered, turning down the corridor. The thick, lush carpet swallowed the sounds of my footsteps. This house was old, and I imagined that it once played home to a family with no sense of humanity. It was the type of place that was built by the hands of people who were treated like the scum of the earth. I took no comfort in the quilted king-sized bed in my assigned bedroom or the marble bathtub in the adjoining bathroom. Years ago, people had suffered on this land, and Fox intended to carry on a similar tradition in order to keep his lavish dreams alive.
The bedroom door didn’t lock, but the bathroom one did, so I took the duvet and a pillow from the extravagant bed and curled up in the enormous bathtub. If I was going to play Fox’s game, I needed to be well-rested, and I wouldn’t let him steal my sanity from me a second time. But just as I was nodding off, I felt a familiar buzz in my head, one that I hadn’t noticed was missing over the past few weeks.
Bridget?
My eyes flew open. Holly.
Don’t worry, she said, her silent voice firm and confident. We’ll find you.
In the morning, I found Fox in the dining room downstairs, munching on a breakfast of buttered croissants and marmalade as he read the paper. My stomach rumbled as the delectable scents of fresh pastries and real coffee reached my nose. Fox looked up at the sound.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair next to his. “Would you like a cappuccino?”
“That depends,” I replied as I sat in the chair farthest away from his end of the table. “Is the milk poisoned?”
He gave a wry grin. “As you so delicately pointed out last night, I need you. I’ll keep you alive long enough to make you useful.”
“How thoughtful of you.”
The butler emerged from the kitchen and poured a glass of ice water for me. Up close, I could see that he was a young man, late teens or early twenties maybe, and when our eyes met for a fleeting moment, he seemed to beg me for help.
“What’s your name?” I asked him in an undertone.
His voice, with its prominent southern twang, shook as he responded. “Austin, ma’am. Austin Weathers. Did you want that cappuccino?”
“No thank you, Austin. Water’s fine.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As he scurried off, I threw a butter knife across the table at Fox. “What do you have on him?”
Fox examined the polished wooden table beneath the cutlery for damage. “Hmm?”
“The kid,” I clarified, jabbing my finger in the direction of the kitchen. “Did you steal him from NC State too? How’d you convince him to work for you? I know you’re not paying him.”
Fox buttered a new croissant with the knife I had thrown at him. “Let’s just say his Baptist mother would not approve of the nature of his romantic relationships at school.”
“You’re despicable.”
“As you keep reminding me.” He dusted his hands off, sipped his coffee, and set aside his newspaper. “Let’s not waste time. Last I heard from my sources, Miss Taylor Davey—as she likes to be addressed—was living at an apartment near the university. You’ll go there today to fill her in on the supposed details of my whereabouts.”
“What am I supposed to say?” I challenged. “What are all these false trails you’ve set out for her to follow?”
He slid a fat document folder down the length of the dining table. “Everything you need to know is in there. I’d like you to spend the morning committing those details to memory. When you think you’re ready, we’ll head into town.”
I flipped through the folder. It was full of falsified bank statements, legal documents, and police reports. “You want me to memorize all of this in a couple of hours?”
“I have faith in you,” he said, smirking. “Now eat up. We have a long day ahead of us.”
That afternoon, we drove into town, where Fox dropped me off at a corner on campus dressed like a student in jeans and an NC State Wolfpack T-shirt. It seemed ironic that the university’s mascot mimicked Belle Dame’s, and the school colors were similar too. We’d even finished off the outfit with a black backpack embroidered with a wolf head, which held all of the files I needed to trick Taylor into believing my story. I plucked at the front of the shirt. Fox had taped a wire to my chest before we’d left so that he could listen in to any of my conversations. If I strayed off script, he would know about it. The details of his fake business affairs were simple enough. We had rehearsed the story I would tell to Taylor until Fox was satisfied that it sounded natural. Now it was time to set the plan in motion. Fox had given me the address of Taylor’s apartment, but I couldn’t waltz right in. She would automatically know that something was up. Instead, I set up a shop at a small café across from her building, blending in with the other students. From there, I had a perfect view of her door.
It took two coffees, a danish, and a shot of espresso before I finally spotted her. A small, black motorcycle darted by the café, supporting a petite, lithe rider. I wouldn’t have known it was Taylor were it not for the end of her auburn ponytail sticking out from beneath her matte black helmet. As she disappeared into the alley beside her building, I abandoned my table at the café and jogged after the motorcycle. When I turned the corner, someone pinned me to the brick wall, and I felt the unmistakable prick of a knife point against the back of my neck.
“Why are you following me?” Taylor hissed.
“Taylor, it’s me,” I said, my cheek pressed against the rough, red brick. “It’s Bridget Dubois. I just want to talk!”
She let go, pocketed the knife, and pulled her helmet from her head. “Oh. I thought you were someone else.”
I rubbed the irritated skin of my cheek. “Who else would I be?”
“No one,” she said, tucking her helmet under her arm. “I don’t know. I just feel like someone’s been tracking me lately.”
“CIA’s making you paranoid, huh?”
“Shut up. What are you doing here anyway?”
I pointed to my shirt, a blatant display of school spirit. “I’m here for a tour of the university. I was thinking about enrolling in the fall. What are you doing here?”
Taylor’s lips pressed together in a tight line as she looked over my ensemble. “Visiting a friend.”
“Bullshit. For a federal agent, you’re a terrible liar.”
“Yeah, well, I won’t be a federal agent for much longer if I don’t make good on a few promises,” she hissed. “And keep your voice down, w
ould you? In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not walking around with a suit and a badge.”
I stifled a snicker. “You’re still on the CIA’s shit list, aren’t you?”
Taylor grabbed my arm and led me into the lobby of the apartment building. We rode up the elevator to the top floor in silence, and it wasn’t until we were securely ensconced in Taylor’s apartment that she bothered to answer my question.
“Lucado, my boss, isn’t thrilled with me,” she said, unzipping her motorcycle jacket and tossing it over the back of the sofa. Her new place was an upgrade from the last one in Wolfwater. At least this one had a real kitchen and no leaks in the roof. “You screwed me over when you had your sister transported from Gold River to Belle Dame. There were too many legal hoops for me to jump through to catch up with you. I lost a lead. Again.”
“I’d apologize were it not for the fact that you were planning to use me and my sister as bait in your game,” I said.
“You heard that?”
“Good thing I did, or Holly would probably be sitting in some locked room at CIA headquarters by now.”
“Or maybe,” Taylor growled, advancing toward me with her shoulders raised like an agitated dog, “we would have used the advantage to lure Fox out in the open, and he would’ve been behind bars by now. Did you ever think of that, or were you too busying relying on your ignorance to think of the bigger picture?”
A chill rolled down my spine. For the first time since I’d gotten Holly out of Wolfwater, I wondered if I had made the right decision. Was Taylor right? If I had agreed to let the CIA have access to Holly, would Fox have ever had the chance to crash Holly’s homecoming party?
“Fine, I’m sorry,” I said. “At the time, I thought the best thing for Holly would be to get her home as soon as possible. Now I’m not so sure.”
Taylor narrowed her eyes at me. “Why?”
“That feeling like someone’s following you?” I said. “I feel it too. Fox is still out there, Taylor.”
She heaved a sigh and toppled over to lay on the couch. “I know.”
“You’re tracking him, aren’t you?” I sat on the arm of the sofa. “That’s why you’re here in Raleigh, right? I’ve been keeping up with him too.”
Taylor propped herself up on her elbows, suddenly interested. “You have?”
The wire taped to my chest scratched across my skin. “I’d be an idiot not to. Fox is smart. Just because he lost a few guys doesn’t mean he’s going to call it a day. He’s still building his business up.”
“Sounds like you have more than an inkling of information,” she remarked. “Care to share with the class?”
“I’ll admit that I think running into you was a godsend,” I told her. “But I’m still not sure I trust you with this stuff.”
Taylor sat up, folding her knees beneath her so that our eyes were at the same level. “Look, I’m going to be honest with you, okay? You were right before. The agency still hasn’t lifted my suspension. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be anywhere within an inch of this case, but I can’t let it go. I know I’m onto something here, and if I can just figure out what it is, then I can bring Fox down once and for all. I promise to do everything in my power to keep you and your family safe. Now if you have any information at all on what Fox might be planning next, I would greatly appreciate it if you shared it with me.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek and avoided her gaze in what I hoped was a decent show of insecurity. Then, as if I had made my decision, I swung my backpack off, unzipped it, and pulled out the files from inside to show her.
“Here,” I said, spreading out the fake documents on her couch. “This is everything you need to know about Fox’s movements. From the looks of it, he wants to expand in California first. He booked a plane ticket to L.A. for this evening with the same fake name as the one on his passport.”
Taylor’s eyes widened as she rifled through the pages of misleading information. “How did you get all of this?”
“Let’s just say I learned a thing or two from working with him,” I told her. “Taylor, if he leaves the state, I won’t be able to follow him. My family doesn’t know what I’ve been doing, and I have no intention of telling them. It’s not exactly legal, you know? But you—” I flicked the pocket of her jeans, where I knew she kept her official badge “—could go after him. You know the details, you have the information, and if you pull this off, Lucado has to reinstate you. She wouldn’t have a choice.”
I could see the gears turning in Taylor’s head as she considered the options. It made me sick to send her off on a wild goose chase, one that would most likely end her career and possibly her life if Fox had his way. But it had to be done. I had to go along with Fox’s mania until I figured out a plan to get rid of him for good, but it burned like a hot knife to send away someone with the resources to help me.
Taylor collected the documents and shoved them into the backpack. “Can I keep these?”
“Go for it. I’ve got copies.”
“And I’ve got a plane ticket to buy.”
9
Closing
For the next week, I slept in the bathroom, fitfully dozing on and off. I woke at the slightest pin drop, waiting for the night that Fox finally crept in to attempt to collect what he wanted from me, but he never did. On the contrary, over the weekend, he had Austin install a new lock on the bedroom door and gave me both copies of the key. A show of faith, he called it, to make sure that I was comfortable in my new residence. While I was content to sleep in a bed instead of a tub again, I saw the gesture for what it was. Fox wanted me to stay in Raleigh with him, dropping hints that our relationship would eventually return to what it had been before. To prove him wrong, I caused him as much petty trouble as possible, tapping into my memories of teenage delinquency for ideas. I refused to eat in the same room as him. I set fire to the stove top when he asked me to make dinner one night then sprayed him with the fire extinguisher before putting it out. I flooded the laundry room, ruining designer bed linens and a row of Italian loafers that sat on the floor. I demanded that Austin should be made my personal lackey then sent him on minute errands to get him out of the house. It was my hope that he might take the many opportunities to get far away from Fox’s abuse, maybe even contact the local authorities about what was happening in the pretty white mansion, but he always returned. Whatever Fox had on him, it was bad.
Holly had not contacted me since that first night. Since Fox was here in Raleigh with me instead of lurking around Belle Dame, I was less worried about Holly and the others. Fox had won his prize, at least partially, and he was focused on the business aspect of his affairs now. I had a feeling that was the only reason he’d left me alone while we stayed at the plantation house. His contacts were not as unlimited as they had been in Paris. From what I’d gathered from overheard phone conversations and general eavesdropping, Fox was having trouble finding reliable men to count on here. He had recruited a few members of the old crew, but they were not pleased with the new stateside location. In addition, none of them were aware of my presence. If they found out that Fox was trifling with me again, the one woman that brought down their entire operation in France, they would have left Raleigh and never looked back.
I descended the grand staircase one morning to find Fox, as always, in the dining room with a coffee and a croissant.
As always, he looked up and said, “Good morning, Brigitte. Would you like a cappuccino?”
As always, I ignored the offer as if he hadn’t spoken and reached over his shoulder to get a croissant for myself. “You know, just because you had Austin install a lock on the bedroom door doesn’t mean you’ve changed. I’m sure you have your own copy of the keys.”
Fox grew very still as I took the knife from his plate and used it to spread butter and jam across the pastry. I smirked, enjoying his discomfort. Something had shifted between me and him. He was wary of me, unsure of my next move, and I played it against him as often
as possible. It gave me just a tiny bit of power over him, which was more than I had had to work with in Paris.
“I can assure you that you possess the only two copies,” he replied once I had retreated from the table.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I have a job for you today,” Fox announced before I could flee the dining room and join Austin in the kitchen, where we would commence our daily lamentations over living and working with Fox.
“It’s Saturday,” I returned. “I don’t work on the weekends.”
“You do for me.”
I chewed thoughtfully on my croissant. “I don’t think so. Business hours are during the week only. Austin and I have plans to go into town today. Your assignment for me can wait until Monday.”
I’d tiptoed along the fine line of Fox’s temperament for the entire week, but every once in a while, when his frustrations boiled to the service, he reminded me of why simply leaving the plantation was not an option. When I turned my back on him to go into the kitchen, I heard the legs of his chair scrape against the floor. Before I knew it, he had grabbed me by the waist and pressed me against the wall of the dining room, my cheek flush against the white paint. His fingers tangled in my hair and wrenched my head back to expose my throat.
“You will do what I ask of you,” he hissed, “when I ask it of you. I may have granted you a modicum of freedom here, but I will not allow your insolence to interfere with the way I run this business. Do not forget who is in charge here, Brigitte, or I will have my way with you.”
“Get off of me before I stab you with this butter knife.”
He looked down to where I held the knife to his thigh and released me out of surprise rather than fear. There was only so much damage I could do with a butter knife. I pushed against his chest, shoving him away from me. My whole body shook with rage and anxiety. I’d forgotten what it was like to feel Fox force himself on me. It was not an experience I ever cared to repeat.
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