Cries of Penance (25 page)

She laughs too, handing me my change. “Wel , good luck!”

I force myself to walk slowly and nonchalantly to the car, and then drive the wrong direction on Interstate Fifty for ten miles to make certain I’m not being fol owed before doubling back. By the time I get to the safety of the adobe, I’m a nervous wreck. Sitting in the chaise, I spend the rest of the late afternoon watching the surrounding hil s. I don’t know what I expect, the closest people are almost an hour’s drive away and no one fol owed us from town, but stil I watch for any movement.

Thankful y, the kid’s internal clocks seem set with the sun and they are al sound sleep by dusk. After driving al night and a stress-fil ed day I am more than ready to fal asleep, but anxiety keeps me on edge and awake.

I take a shower and change into one of Lattie’s caftans. It’s silk and flows around my ankles, making me feel pretty and feminine despite my girth. Making a cup of tea, I take it with me out into the courtyard.

The chaise is a comfort, supporting my weight in a way furniture doesn’t.

Sipping my tea, I realize again just how alone we are out here. As the stars come out against the black night sky, there isn’t a single other light for as far as I can see. I feel like I’m floating in space. It’s an utterly peaceful feeling. Stil , I’m watchful and don’t fal asleep.

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Strangely, the howl of coyotes is a comfort. Their soft yips back and forth are a conversation. I don’t think they’d be making such a racket if there were any other humans near, maybe I’m wrong about that but for a while it brings me peace. It doesn’t last. By dawn I feel as if a leaden mantle cloaks me. I’ve felt this way before, much like the physical and emotional letdown fol owing a death. I experienced this feeling when my mother died, and to some extent when my father died, except no one has died now. Wrapped in an agony I don’t understand, I al ow myself to cry.

I know it was important to leave the cel phones behind, but having no way to cal out I’m afraid. I need to hear Garrett and Thomas’s voices. Apprehension greater than I have ever known tel s me that Garrett is the one in danger, and it makes me angry that he scoffed my fears. I can’t stand the thought of him being in jeopardy, and it’s taken al night for me to realize paranoia didn’t put me here, real menace did, and Garrett has to be warned he could very wel be in peril too.

I feel stupid for not considering it before. I have to drive back into town and find a pay phone.

I debate with myself about whether I wil tel him where I am and final y decide I’m not going to. I trust him, but I don’t trust whoever was fol owing me and the children, and now that we’re safe, hidden, I can’t risk being found.

Thomas charged me with the care of his children until he returns, not Garrett, and I feel the weight of the responsibility.

What i f Thomas never comes?

“No, no, no. I refuse to think that.”

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Inside, I hear the children rising and hurry to wipe away the evidence of my sadness. Standing, a sharp pain tears through my groin. God, no, not this, not now.

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“You know how often the turning down this street or that, the accepting or rejecting of an invitation, may deflect the whole current of our lives into some other channel. Are we mere leaves, fluttered hither and thither by the wind, or are we rather, with every conviction that we are free agents, carried steadily along to a definite and pre-determined end?”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Let ers Chapter 20

Garret

“Your father’s brain is shrinking at an alarming rate.”

Doctor Graham, my father’s neurologist, lays out the most recent brain scans as evidence. Pointing with his fountain pen into the empty spaces between skul and brain matter in an assumption that I have no idea what I’m looking at. I appreciate the fact that he is trying to help me to understand why the medications he has prescribed aren’t providing my father any relief from his symptoms.

“How long does he have?”

The doctor is taken aback by my question but answers, “Months—at this current rate of decline—weeks.”

Stunned but not surprised, I nod and leave his office. This isn’t the news I wanted to take to my mother, but she needs to know. There is much she needs to prepare for.

My mind is distracted as I leave the Physician’s Center but not so distracted that I don’t notice a dark sedan tailing me. I tel myself I have an overactive imagination fueled by Celia’s nonsensical fears, but as I make two unnecessary 235

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turns and both are shadowed I know I shouldn’t have dismissed her qualms so lightly.

I don’t meet my mother at her attorney’s office. Even though I’m running late I keep driving, jumping onto I-275, then driving fast, too fast, waiting until the last possible second to cross three lanes to whip onto the I-71 exchange that wil take me into the city. The sedan flies past the exit unable to negotiate the turn.

I sigh, but not with relief. Fear leaves me cold as I try Celia’s cel and she doesn’t answer. I cal the landline phone at the new house, but it goes straight to voicemail. I dial Enrique, both his cel and his number at the penthouse only to get voicemail at each. I cal the club, speaking first with my secretary and then with George, neither of which have seen or spoken with Celia. What did I expect, her to drag four children to Lewd Larry’s?

I cal Jackie but she hasn’t spoken with Celia for several days. “Have you tried?”

“What?” She sounds distracted and confused by the question.

“Have you tried cal ing Celia and she didn’t answer or have you just not bothered cal ing for a few days?”

“I’ve been busy. Why? What’s wrong?”

“I’m in Cincinnati, and she isn’t answering the phone.”

“What are you doing in Cincinnati?” Her voice is shril . I don’t have time to explain so I hang up on her and try Celia’s cel again. A sickening feeling fil s my gut as I ditch Mom’s car and take a city bus across town. Riding, I try to piece what I know together to make sense. Who would be fol owing me and Celia?

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Exiting the bus and catching a taxi, I ride back to Indian Hil s and my mother’s attorney’s office. She is waiting impatiently in the lobby. “Where’s my car?”

“Downtown. I parked it in a garage downtown.” I hand her the parking stub so that she can locate it. “I need to get back to San Francisco.”

“What?” she demands. “You can’t leave now. “

I steer her out of the main lobby into a smal waiting area that is made private only by the distinction we are the only ones using it. A wal of palms separate us from the reception area. I take my mother’s hands and with no delicacy tel her,

“You don’t need a divorce. I doubt Dad lives long enough to make it to the court date.”

She pales.

“When you speak to the lawyer, explain the situation. Your husband is dying, rapidly.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You saw him this morning. He’s irritable, cranky as an old bear.”

“The neurologist hasn’t given you al the facts you needed. As Dad’s brain continues to atrophy he wil lose body functions. His major organs, control of his muscles. He wil reach a point where his heart and lungs stop.”

She stares at me, not wanting to believe me.

“Your lawyer wil explain everything that needs to be done.”

My mother gapes at me. “You’re real y leaving me to deal with this?”

“Yes, Mother. My family needs me.”

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“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, al the voyage of their life is bound in shal ows and in miseries.

On such a ful sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”

Wil iam Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

We are taken to a privatized military base in the desert—not as prisoners—as al ies. The building is a single story mud brick as long as a city block, and as deep. We are taken through a maze of corridors, and the room we end up in is no more than a carved out cave. Dirt floors, bare light bulbs, roughly hung, and lack of windows take me mental y back to assignments I wish I’d never been part of. Outmanned and outgunned, my entire team is on edge, waiting. Maybe I’ve been in similar circumstances so many times in the past, I’m immune to the threat, not the danger. I no longer react to pompous assholes carrying bigger guns than mine. I’m armed, wel armed, and as long as I have my guns, knives, and body armor, I’m okay with their show. Puffed chests, pumped biceps, and crude jokes aside, I know we’re equals even if they want me, us, to believe differently. Now, if anyone tries to take away my weapons that ups the ante and I might have to prove who has the better trained team.

It helps that I know most of the soldiers escorting us, recognizing them as Glorianna’s men. Stil , I’m surprised when she arrives on site.

As far as I knew she was stil in Washington DC playing her role as Republican presidential hopeful, but the woman standing in front of me is a far 238

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cry from Senator Abigail Wainwright-Ful er. Glorianna is tough as nails, battle ready. Glorianna has the ability to scare me. She stalks toward Nikos, pushing up his chin with two fingers. Narrowing her gaze, she says icily, “Your locator says you are safe and sound in the United States. Imagine finding you here.”

He turns around, showing her the back of his neck. It is jaggedly scarred, wel healed. He probably hasn’t been implanted since his first day at Lewd Larry’s. He explains, “Bar fight. Got hit over the head. Must have popped out.” Shrugging, he turns back around, meeting her gaze with sincerity and the bit of cocky arrogance that makes my brother so charming to women and so threatening to men.

“Sorry.”

“We’l discuss this later,” she promises icily, but I recognize the look in her eyes as pure lust. My brother’s first mistake: chal enging her. His second: catching her eye.

Careful , brother. I hope he understands the look I give him when she turns her back on us to address the entire group. It doesn’t pass my notice she intentional y avoided my gaze, and for some reason that bothers me. “There’s been an incident. What we thought was an isolated territorial event in Sudan has proven to be much more. There have been four assassinations and a dozen kidnappings across the world, which at first glance have absolutely no connection. However, on closer inspection have proven to be a direct attack on the Guardians.”

She opens an envelope and scatters photos across a table for dramatic effect.

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“You may not recognize al or any of the faces, but let me assure you these people are important to everyone standing in this room.”

My heart skips a beat and I am overwhelmed with dread, seeing that both Celia and Garrett’s photos are among the scattered.

She pins a photo to a tan cork board. “The first assassinated was Charles François Charbonneau, an arms dealer, though had this woman—” She hangs Lattie’s photo directly beneath his. “—not been kidnapped, the assassination itself would not have warranted the Guardians involvement. However, she was, which drew one of our top agents into the intrigue.” She meets my gaze before hanging my photo directly beneath Lattie’s.

The muscles in my jaw tighten as I nervously wait for her to drop the other shoe, but she leaves Garrett and Celia’s photos on the table in favor of picking up the photo of a man I don’t recognize.

“The second assassination was a man of little to no importance, a banker in Israel, and the child kidnapped, his daughter, might have only been a coincidence, but garnered the Guardians ful attention when it was realized these two were directly related to this woman.” She hangs photos of the banker, the young girl, and the female, a mossad agent I once completed an assignment with.

“The third assassination was of global consequence, Charles Linquest, king of Sweden. The second and third kidnappings were two brothers, Charles and Randolf Linquist. Charles is heir apparent to Sweden’s throne.”

She attaches the three photos to the board, father above, sons below, and beneath the sons, she pins Eva’s photo, a lover from my past.

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“The fourth assassination was Senator Duluth of Kansas. His wife and children are safe. Fast actions on their own part prevented the attempted kidnapping.”

She hangs the photo of the senator and beneath it his wife and children. And lower, Claude, a man standing in the room. The likeness he bares to the senator leads me to believe it is his father.

“Are we noting a trend?” She taps each face on the bottom row of photos.

“Agent, agent, agent, agent. We are only as strong as our weakest agent, and as of this moment our four strongest agents are emotional y compromised. And why?”

She glares at us.

“What is the first thing we learn when we become a Guardian? No emotional attachments. You do not have family. If you have a lover you must keep the fact in your mind at al times the person is expendable.”

She paces the length of the room. “Who’s next? That is what our enemy wants us to spend our time thinking and worrying about. We cannot gather every single father, mother, spouse, child or sibling into safe houses. We cannot protect your lovers.”

She stops directly in front of me. “You took a wife, bore children.”

She moves to Claude. “You went home. Tel me, what point was the elaborate cover story? Your death, your funeral? If you were so weak that you had to run home to Mommy and tel her you were alive?”

“She had a nervous breakdown,” he argues in his defense.

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She slaps his face and in the same moment one of her men, who until this point has merely been one among us, stabs a hypodermic in the back of his neck. Claude drops at her feet, and she doesn’t give him a second glance as she walks around his body. It is fairly obvious he is dying, but no one makes a move to aide him.