Still risky but necessary, I thought.
My mind was racing through all the million questions I had. But I was starting to feel fuzzy, confused, fear and multiple blows to the head addling my thoughts.
That morning when you left, did you know you’d never see me again?
No. I would have been gone soon, maybe even in the next day or two. But not that morning.
What happened?
Ivan came to see me. I betrayed him after the murder of Marcus Raine, called the police and reported guns in the apartment. He went to prison. Camilla went to see him in her anger, told him what I’d done. He came to see me. Not just for money. For revenge.
You killed all those men. But you left Ivan alive. You could have killed him, too. Why didn’t you?
Isabel, so many questions.
Tell me why.
The same reason I didn’t kill him years earlier. Because he’s my brother. I wanted him to think about what he’d done. I didn’t necessarily want him to die. Why does this matter now? It’s over.
It matters, how the pieces fit together. I need to know.
And that’s why you risked your life to follow me.
I can’t be other than who I am.
That’s why I loved you, Isabel. You have always been so sure of who you are.
If you loved me, then tell me everything.
Another long sigh. Another cough. All the while, I was working the bindings. Before he started talking again, I felt my wrist come free. It was dark. He didn’t see.
What else do you want to know?
Who is S?
I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. Sara. A woman I loved a lifetime ago. My first love, I suppose. I left her in the Czech Republic. I went to college; she joined the military. Eventually, she was discharged, served some time for injuring a man who tried to rape her-as justice in Czech would have it. She sought me out in the U.S., had started her own business.
Services Unlimited. A prostitution ring?
Among other things.
You had an affair with her. She was the one who sent that message.
He gave an assenting lift of his palms.
It’s complicated, our relationship. I loved her once. But she belongs to no one now.
She trashed our office. Our home. She hated me; I saw it in her eyes in your office.
Someone like Sara doesn’t hate. She’s jealous, possessive, angry that I loved you too much to let her end your life for my convenience.
Did she take your mother’s ring? Did you give it to her?
You’re so naive. Such a little girl.
The ring never belonged to your mother.
Of course not.
Was anything you told me true? Anything?
He looked at me with unmasked pity. Why is that so important to you? What we had was real. Now it’s gone.
Just make me understand why.
What did you just say to me? I can’t be other than I am.
THE CONVERSATION IS an echo in my head, as though I am listening to it on headphones. I see the whole thing playing out on the wall across from me. There are other sounds, too, voices and sirens. Another sharp, insistent rattle. Gunfire? But it is so distant. The wind is still calling my name.
ENOUGH QUESTIONS. HE rose from his seat. He was just a shadow among other shadows in that milky light. While he spoke, I’d managed to get my hands and feet free. The bindings were careless. He’d underestimated me again.
He moved toward the door and opened the storage cage. I wondered if he’d want to cut my throat as he had Camilla’s, if he liked the power and the intimacy of that. When he was near, I lunged for him and knocked him back. I heard him release a grunt as my shoulder dug into his abdomen.
I’d surprised him; whatever weapon he’d held in his hand clattered to the floor. I tried to run past him, but he caught the neck of my sweater, ripping a long gash. Nausea and dizziness were twin forces within me, threatening to take me down. He grabbed me and threw me hard against the metal of the cage. I felt my lip split as my face connected with the metal.
But I also felt the door open, and I kept moving. Out of the cage, running blind for a rectangle of light that I knew was an open door. I heard him roaring as I found a staircase and took the stairs two at a time, adrenaline giving me more strength than I had a right to, injured as I was. At the top of the stairs, another door let me out into the cold. By the light and the hush, I figured it was right before dawn. I had no idea where I was or where I was going. But I just ran. I heard him exit, a door banging, echoing off the stone all around, not far behind me.
Isabel. His voice sounded like the moaning of the saints I always imagined on the bridge. Isabel.
I still had so many questions. But I’d finally developed, too late, enough sense to run from the darkness and hope the light still let me return.
I moved through the narrow cobblestone streets, surrounded by the muscular, ornate buildings that rose beautiful and quiet beside me, passed closed cafés and fountains turned off for winter. Then I broke free from the maze of streets into Old Town Square and thought for a moment that I’d lost him. But then I heard running footfalls behind me. A light snow started to fall. Against a bench, I lost my battle to hold on to the light. The darkness took me, if only for a moment. I heard the question I wished I’d never asked.
Kde je Kristof Ragan?
IN SPITE OF the cold, in spite of all the red around me, I am starting to feel warm now, happy, lighter. Some distant voice within me is telling me that it’s not a good thing to feel so comfortable. I hear more gunfire, voices, footfalls, closer now, then farther away. It all seems to be happening somewhere else. I think of my father, how he drifted away from us. And I think I understand the pull to nothingness. It’s such a chaos all the time-within.
I am thinking how nice it would be for things just to go quiet, when I hear a very loud, bossy voice in my head. Izzy, if you fall asleep, you’ll die. Do you understand? Get up. I know it hurts, but get up. Get moving, get help. Don’t give up. We need you. My sister’s voice. For once, I do as I am told.
The world comes into sharp focus and with it the fire in my gut. I am sick with the pain but I know I really don’t want to die here in this place. Suddenly the thought terrifies me. Fear gives me another shot of adrenaline and I pull myself to my feet. I manage not to scream, though the pain is white lightning through me-physical and beyond somehow.
The world is tilting but I use the wall and make my way to the doors through which he left. In the snow, there’s a trail of blood. I remember hearing the gunfire. Is he hurt? Has someone shot him out here in the street? But he kept moving like I plan to do now. The snow on the ground is a chaos of footsteps, slowly filling in with the falling snow. I follow the trail of his blood, leaving a trail of my own.
A quiet has fallen, or maybe I have just stopped hearing as I wind down a steep slope, past a closed café near the Little Quarter Bridge Tower. A young man passes me, gives me a strange look but keeps walking, more quickly. He doesn’t look back or offer help. Smart guy.
I grip a black metal rail and follow down a steep set of narrow steps. Before me a sloping cobblestone lane-a marionette shop, its windows shuttered, a small hotel, a new condo building rise up to my left. Ahead I see the canal they call Certovka-the Devil’s Stream.