“Our second meeting. At our first, you kickboxed me into the emergency room.”
“Good point. Because you understand that it’s impossible to play this role without being asked to do things I don’t want to do.”
“It’s every informant’s dilemma.”
“And I’ve been fine with it. Until last week. I was given an assignment. Basically, it boiled down to this: Kill Theo or be killed.”
Jack went cold. “So you kidnapped him.”
“I hid him away. For his own safety.”
“You’re an informant. Don’t you think it would have been smarter just to go to the police?”
“Theo had the same reaction,” she said, shaking her head. “But I can’t hand this off to the police now. I’ve invested too much.”
“Invested what?”
She was pacing again. “It’s no coincidence that I work at Viatical Solutions. I sought this company out, gathered up all the dirt I could, then went to the U.S. attorney and offered to work as an informant.”
“And they just went for it?”
“I played it pretty smart. They thought I was a mobster’s ex-girlfriend, pissed off and eager to blow the whistle.”
“But you weren’t.”
She shook her head. “I knew I was going to steep myself deep in this company to get the information I needed. The only way to avoid going to jail some day was to turn government informant.”
“So what’s your real agenda?”
She stopped pacing and looked right at Jack. “There’s a guy I’ve been looking for. He used to own a factory in Prague, which was basically a front for a criminal racket he ran. Drugs, prostitution. It took me a long time, but I finally tracked him to Miami. From everything I’ve found so far, I’m pretty sure he’s working for Viatical Solutions.”
“And you want to find him because…”
“Because of what he did to me and to a friend of mine named Beatriz. It’s personal.”
Jack wanted to ask, but she didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure what he looks like, exactly. The closest I ever got to him was looking at the back of his head from the back seat of his car.”
“Aren’t you worried that he might recognize you first?”
“I looked much different then. Short hair, thirty pounds thinner.”
Jack found it hard to imagine her thirty pounds thinner, but it gave some insight into how she must have lived. “How will you know you’ve got the right guy?”
“I just need a little more time to check things out. Then I’ll know.”
“Then what?”
“After all this time and effort, I don’t intend to shake his hand. But I got a bigger problem right now. As my Russian friends like to say, the house is burning, and the clock is ticking.”
“What does that mean?”
She stepped toward the window, peeled back the drapery panel just enough to see across the lawn. Then she faced Jack and said, “I’ve got a new boss at Viatical Solutions. And something tells me he’s looking for the hat trick.”
“Hat trick?”
“A little Russian hockey analogy. A hat trick is three goals.”
“I know. But I don’t understand the context.”
“First Jessie. Then Marsh. Now he wants the third son of a bitch who scammed him.”
“Are you saying…”
“He doesn’t believe Theo’s dead, so I’ve got one last chance to prove myself. Which means I have to think fast and figure out what I’m going to do with you.”
Jack took a half-step back. “Do with me?”
She looked him in the eye and said, “You’re my next assignment.”
64
•
Each breath carried Cindy more deeply into sleep, though it felt like something beyond the realm of sleep, a numbing paralysis that tingled all the way to the tips of her fingers. A simple effort to raise her heavy eyelids was enough to send the room spinning. A burning sensation tinged her nostrils. It wasn’t that she couldn’t remember what had happened. It had all just happened so fast, the moment she’d stepped into the master bathroom-the blur of motion behind her, the muscular arm around her waist, and the pungent rag that covered her mouth and nose. In a matter of moments, she felt limp. But she was battling it, refusing to be overpowered.
She’d managed to hear most of what Jack and Katrina were saying. The living room was down the hall from her, but sound traveled well in their little two-bedroom house, especially in the stillness of morning. She’d heard enough to know that it was time to dial 911. That was when she’d grabbed the cordless telephone on the nightstand and run into the bathroom. It was suddenly coming clearer to her now. The perfectly round hole that had been cut into the glass door that led to the solarium outside their bathroom. The ambush from behind her. And something else was coming back to her, too.
She seemed to recall that there had been no dial tone.
Yes, the phone was dead. That much she definitely recalled, and the fear that flourished in that brief, lucid moment gave her another kick of adrenaline. Part of her knew that she should have been completely unconscious by now, but she wouldn’t allow it. Instinct was taking over. It was an almost inexplicable, involuntary, high-gear response to the realization that someone had broken into their house and that Jack was with Katrina, completely unaware. He was in danger and she needed to help. She liked to think it was love that drove her, a kind of love she’d harbored for a long time, as long as she could remember. The feeling was familiar to her, but she was somehow finding it easier to associate that feeling with the distant past than with present events. She tried to resist whatever it was that was pulling her in that direction, fought off the effects of the drug. But she could feel her mind slipping. She found herself retreating to that time and place long ago, where she’d first been tempted to act on her impulse, the God-given instinct to protect a man she loved. Or at least to protect his name.
It had happened when she was nine years old, just two months after her father had committed suicide.
•
A grinding noise emerged from behind the bathroom door, the girls’ bathroom on the second floor. Cindy stepped out of her room and listened. It definitely wasn’t an electric hair dryer or anything else she’d ever heard coming out of the bathroom. She started down the hall and tried the door knob. The noise stopped.
“Go away!” her sister shouted.
“What are you doing in there?”
“Get out of here!”
The grinding noise was back. Cindy shrugged, then took a bobby pin from her ballerina-style bun and stuck it in the key hole. The lock clicked, and the door popped open.
Celeste grabbed the blender and screamed. “You idiot!”
Cindy was unfazed. She walked in and inspected the mess on the counter. “What are you making?”
“A milkshake. Now will you get out of here, please?”
“Can I have some?”
“No. But if you’re going to come in here, at least close the door.”
Cindy pushed the door shut, and Celeste locked it. Cindy leaned over the blender and smelled the concoction. “Yuck. It smells like fish.”
“Things that are good for you never smell good.”
“Is there really fish in there?”
“No, genius. It comes in a bottle.”
Cindy checked the label. “Is it really good for you?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s pour in some more,” she said as she tipped the bottle.
Her sister grabbed it, stopped her. “No. A little is good for you. Too much can kill you.”
“Kill you?”
“Yes. Too much is like poison.”
“What’s in it?”
“Medicine.”
“What kind of medicine?”
“None of your business.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“One of the high school girls. A senior.”