She had never slept with him. He hadn’t tried to seduce her, fearing that in the throes of passion his iron control might weaken, that he would grab her by the throat and throttle her until her tongue poked out and her eyes rolled up in her head. He would regret her death. Over the years she had proved indispensable. With the inside knowledge she had given him, he’d been able to blackmail her wealthy art clients, and those he chose not to suborn he used as patsies, delivering drugs all over the world secreted in the crates that held their precious artwork.
Tracy ran the crescent of lemon rind around the rim of her cup. “What’s so special about Don Fernando?”
“Drink your espresso.”
She stared down at her cup but didn’t touch it.
“What’s the matter?” he said at last.
“Let’s skip him, shall we?”
He waited a moment, quietly. Then, suddenly leaning forward, he grasped her knee beneath the table in an agonizing grip. Her head snapped up, her eyes engaged with his.
“You know the rules,” he said with soft menace. “You don’t question assignments, you take them.”
“Not this one.”
“All of them.”
“I like this man.”
“All. Of. Them.”
She stared at him, unblinking.
He despised most of all when she got like this, that enigmatic mask that came down over her face, making him feel like a dim-witted child who had failed to learn how to read properly. “Have you forgotten the damaging evidence I have on you? Do you want me to go to your client and tell him how you accommodated your brother when he stole your client’s painting to cover his debts? Do you really want to spend the next twenty years of your life in prison? It’s more terrible than you can imagine, believe me.”
“I want out,” she said in a strangled voice.
He had laughed. “God, you’re a stupid cow.” Once, just once, he thought, I’d like to make you cry. “There is no out. You signed on, a contract in blood, metaphorically speaking.”
“I want out.”
He sat back, releasing her knee. “Besides, Don Fernando Hererra is only a secondary target-at least, for now.”
She had begun to shake, very slightly, and there was a tic under her left eye. She took up her espresso and drained the cup. There was a slight clatter when she set it down.
“Who are you after?”
Close, this time, he thought. Very close. “Someone special,” he had said. “A man who calls himself Adam Stone. And this assignment is a bit different.” His hands had spread wide apart. “Adam Stone is not his real name, of course.”
“What is it?”
Arkadin’s smile held real malice. He turned his head and ordered them two more espressos.
Dawn was spreading its wings over Puerto Peñasco as Arkadin’s brief flare of memory subsided into darkness. A freshening breeze off the water brought the scent of a new day. There had been women in his life-Yelena, Marlene, Devra, others, surely, though their names now escaped him-but no one like Tracy. Those three-Yelena, Marlene, and Devra-had meant something to him, though he’d be hard put to say precisely what. Each in her own way had changed the course of his life. Yet none had enriched it. Only Tracy, his Tracy. He clenched his fist. But she hadn’t been his Tracy, had she? No, no, no. Good Christ, no.
Rain drummed against the roof of the cottage, fat drops sliding down the windows. A rumble of approaching thunder. The lace curtains stirred. In the dead of night Chrissie lay fully dressed on one of the twin beds, staring at the window, speckled as a robin’s egg. Scarlett lay curled on the other bed, breathing evenly in her sleep. Chrissie knew she should be sleeping, that she needed her rest, but after the incident on the motorway her nerves would not stop singing. Several hours ago she had contemplated taking half a lorazepam to calm herself into sleep, but the thought of drifting off made her more anxious.
The singing of her nerves had only increased when she’d picked Scarlett up from her parents. Her father, always well attuned to her moods, had suspected something was up with her the moment he opened the door to her knock, and he was not convinced when she tried to reassure him that everything was fine. She could still see his thin, oblong face as he stood looking after her while she bundled Scarlett into the Range Rover. It was the same stricken look he’d had standing over Tracy’s coffin as it was lowered into the ground. As she got in behind the wheel, Chrissie breathed a sigh of relief that she’d had the foresight to park the SUV so that he couldn’t see the scrapes along one side. She waved cheerfully to him as she drove away. He was still standing in the doorway when she went around a curve and disappeared from his view.
Now, hours later and miles away, she lay on the bed in a house owned by a girlfriend who was away in Brussels on business. She’d been able to pick up the keys from the woman’s brother. In the dark she lay listening to all the tiny creaking and moaning, whispers and hissing of a strange house. The wind clawed at the window sashes, trying to find a way in. She shivered and pulled a blanket tighter around her, but the blanket didn’t warm her. Neither did the central heating. There was a chill in her bones, caused by her vibrating nerves, and the dread that stalked her thoughts.
“We were being followed, possibly all the way from Tracy’s flat,” Adam had said. “There’s no point in taking a chance these people know about Scarlett-and where your parents live, for that matter.”
The thought that these people who had wanted to shoot Adam might know about her daughter gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to feel safe here, wanted to believe that there was no danger now that she had separated herself from him, but the doubts continued to prey on her. Another roll of thunder, closer this time, and then another burst of rain rattled the windowpane. She sat up, gasping. Her heart was pounding, and she reached for the Glock that Adam had given her for protection. She had some experience with guns, though mostly rifles and shotguns. Against her mother’s objections, her father had taken her hunting on winter Sundays, when the frost was brittle and the sun was weak and drained of color. She remembered the quivering flank of a deer, and how she had flinched when her father had fired a shot into its heart. She remembered the look in its eye as her father had taken his skinning knife to its belly. Its mouth was half open as if it had been about to ask for mercy before it was shot.
Scarlett whimpered in her sleep, and Chrissie rose and, leaning over, stroked her hair as she always did when her daughter was having a bad dream. Why were children burdened with nightmares, she wondered, when there was so much time for nightmares in adult life? Where was the carefree childhood she’d had? Was it a mirage? Had she also had nightmares, night terrors, anxieties? She could not now remember, which was a blessing.
She knew one thing, though, Tracy would have laughed at her for even having such thoughts. “Life isn’t carefree,” she could hear her sister saying. “What are you thinking? Life is difficult, at best. At its worst, it’s a bloody nightmare.”
What would have led her to say such a thing? Chrissie asked herself. What misfortunes had befallen her while I had my head stuck in my Oxford texts? All at once she was overcome with the conviction that she had failed Tracy, that she should have seen the signs of her stress, her difficult life. But, really, how could she have helped her? Tracy had been lost in a world so distant, so alien, Chrissie was sure she would have found it incomprehensible. Just as she could make no sense of what had happened today. Who was Adam Stone? She had no doubt that he’d been friends with Tracy, but she suspected now that he was more-a compatriot, business partner, maybe even her boss. Something he hadn’t told her, hadn’t wanted to tell her. All she knew for certain was that her sister’s life had been a secret, and so was Adam’s. They had been part of the same alien world, and now all unknowing she had been dragged into it. She gave a shiver again and, seeing that Scarlett had quieted, lay beside her so that they were back-to-back. Her daughter’s warmth seeped slowly into her, her eyelids grew heavy, and she began to drowse, sinking slowly, inexorably into the delicious cushion of sleep.