Deadly Expectations (22 page)

I tilted my glasses up at him as I kept my eyes closed.
 
Sod off.

Look at me,
he demanded
.
 
The Lieutenant voice.
 
I couldn’t ignore it so I raised my chin and opened my eyes.

“You’re not the Lieutenant,” I said.
 
The man in front of me wasn’t the Lieutenant … neither were the two next to him.

“What?” he said.
 
Maybe all the gunfire had affected his hearing.
 
“Anna, what are you talking about?”

I blinked and stared up at him.

“Paul?” I asked.

“Yes.
 
Paul.”

Impatient.

“Why did you call me Andre?” I asked.

“I didn’t.
 
Why are you smoking?”

Ludicrous, I thought.
 
“I don’t smoke.”

He took the nearly burned out cigarette from my hand and put it in the ashtray.
 
Then I noticed the taste in my mouth.
 
“That’s disgusting Denis.
 
You should quit.”

“You still need to pack up Lieutenant Martin?” Paul said.
 
It wasn’t a question.

“Yes Sir,” Denis disappeared.
 
Ray stayed outside with us.
 
I ran my tongue around the inside of my mouth.
 
I’d never tasted anything so bad … or so good.

“How long has Denis been helping you sneak cigarettes?” Paul asked.
 
He looked just as mad at me as Ray did.

My mouth dropped open.
 
“Never!”
I exclaimed.
 
“I have no idea how it got there.
 
I thought I dreamed it.”

“If one of my men talked to me like you did a few minutes ago I’d drop him,” Paul said quietly.

I laughed.
 
My eyes unfocused as I started to slip back into the dream.

“That’s just what the Lieutenant did,” I put my hand to my jaw and it popped loudly as I opened my mouth.
 
“Then he sent us back up.
 
I got my twenty-one again before I ran into someone better … never made it back down.”

I was still laughing.
 
“Smug little SOB, didn’t have enough of us left to clean out the latrine after that.”

My hand moved to my throat and I gagged as the air from my lungs rushed out a hole in my neck.
 
For a few seconds I could feel my blood spilling down between my breasts and into my lap.
 
My fingers scrambled to hold my neck shut as I shook my head and tried to pull myself out of it.
 
Their looks of anger had changed to concern but I kept going.

“Another South Pacific island; I don’t remember the name.
 
They pointed me where they wanted me to go; I put my knife in everything I could get my hands on.”
 
Sigh.
 
Smile.
 
“I really liked my job.
 
I didn’t like that Lieutenant though.”

“Anna,” Paul said sharply.

I turned my head up to look at him.

“Come inside now.”

The taste in my mouth tried to pull me back in so I grabbed what I was going to wear and went straight to the sink to scrub my mouth out.
 
With the taste gone I realized how much I had wanted another cigarette.
 
No wonder Paul was pissed; thinking that his pregnant wife had started smoking.

I expected Paul to come in to voice his displeasure privately but he hadn’t yet so I started to undress for the shower.
 
I could make out Ray talking with him out in the room.
 
I was dried off and dressed by the time he knocked and let himself in.

He stood there for a minute.
 
“Are you okay?” he finally asked.

I gave him a stiff smile.
 
“Aren’t you tired of asking that?”

“I’m not.
 
Ray thinks that was some kind of lucid dream …” he said.

“… or psychotic episode,” I finished.
 
“It was so vivid … I feel like I have the last few hours of someone else’s life in my head.”
 
I stepped close to him and lowered my voice.
 
I didn’t know how far it would travel.

“I don’t need another evaluation from Ray.
 
The only thing Denis did wrong was leave his pack of cigarettes on the table,” I told him.
 
“Andre helped himself.”

“Andre?” Paul said.
 
I nodded.
 
“Denis isn’t in any trouble.
 
He came and got me … he said you helped yourself.
 
We came out and you’re smoking away acting out some kind of knife fight.”

I laughed quietly remembering it.
 
“Yeah … Andre was enjoying himself.
 
He’d lost count the day before and was going through them one by one to figure out how many he had killed.”

“How many what?”
Paul asked.

“Japanese.
 
I … Andre wanted out.
 
He called out the Lieutenant to provoke him.
 
Maybe he could find his way into a military prison or find someone good enough to end his service.
 
He liked what he did too much and there was nothing for me … him back home.
 
He got what he hoped for that day.”

“So the Lieutenant straightened him out?”

I nodded.
 
“Andre just stood there and took it.
 
Didn’t feel it.
 
The Lieutenant got a couple of good shots in and finally knocked him out.
 
He wouldn’t have had a chance if I’d … Andre fought back.
 
When the sun finally came up Andre was the first one he sent up the hill.
 
Never came down.”

I looked at him seriously.
 
“Tell Denis if I ever do that again to just leave the cigarettes on the table and get you like he did before … Andre would have been quite happy to stick him for going to the Lieutenant and probably would have if he’d tried to stop him from taking one.”

He frowned.
 
“Maybe we should wait on you carrying your gun …”

“Not Andre’s style,” I shook my head.
 
“Too impersonal.
 
Too quick.
 
He was just as deadly with a gun but he never used one.
 
It’s fading Paul.
 
I feel … distance from it now.
 
It’s funny.
 
Andre was a lefty, frowned on back then but he did it anyway.
 
And that Lieutenant reminded me of that man with my sister.
 
Can’t put my finger on why.”

“You’re not sleeping much … you’re probably trying to dream when you’re awake.”

I didn’t realize that he had noticed.
 
Mostly I just tried to lie still at night.
 
“How could you tell?”

“You don’t move around as much as you used to.
 
And you’re getting circles under your eyes,” he let me go and ran his thumb along under my eye.
 
“You could ask Ray if there’s anything he can give you to help so you can get caught up on your rest.”

I looked up at him, brushing the tip of my nose along his chin.
 
“I’ve never slept well in pyjamas … I’ll sleep better when I can wear less at home.”

“Debatable,” Paul whispered in my ear, flirting back.
 
“I’m considering keeping you away a while longer.
 
I can send Ray and Denis back and we can move on somewhere else for a while.”

“That’s your call,” I told him.
 
“I’m not the one ultimately responsible for you and your men.”

I thought a moment longer.
 
“Did you see how big she was?
 
The baby is close for her.
 
I know I’ll get through the next few months.
 
I’m not afraid to go home,” I told him. “At least there I’ll have a weapon and a chance.
 
Here … I’m just a target.”

Paul struggled for a minute with his decision.

“Okay,” he said.
 
“We’ll go back.
 
You promise you’ll carry your gun always.
 
And please let me do my job … you’ll need to take any precautions I tell you to take.”

“I won’t let you down Paul.
 
We’ll be okay,” I promised.

Chapter 22

It was almost a week after we returned from
Reno
.
 
I’d given up trying to stay awake and stopped worrying about disappearing.
 
I figured that my two trips to
Toronto
had been to learn about the danger we faced from Damian.
 
Without running into Damian I wouldn’t have known Alina was in trouble.

We’d emptied the other rooms on the top floor of Paul’s house in preparation for turning it into an apartment and I’d been making holes in the walls to find out what sort of nightmare waited inside them.
 
All those rooms were warm.
 
Paul’s was the only cold one so I figured it was just a blocked duct or something easy to sort out.
 
We’d been in the warehouse going through his old tools to see what was up to the job and what we would still need.

My back was to Paul as he put the warehouse keys in his pocket when something got my attention from up the hill.
 
It was a man, dark like a shadow.
 
The closest smudge I’d seen a week before.
 
My breath froze in my throat as I turned.

I forced out Paul’s name as a bright red light filled my eye.
 
He reacted and several things happened far too quickly for me to have caused any of them.
 
He stepped between me and the source of the light.
 
I only knew that because it went out.
 
Then he grabbed the front of my coat with both hands and sprung toward the corner of the warehouse.

He managed a few steps before something hit him hard in the back.
 
He stumbled and pushed me behind the building but he was off balance.
 
His head hit the corner of the warehouse with a loud crack and he dropped nowhere near making it around the corner with me.
 
Luckily he sent me spinning so I was rolling when I hit the ground avoiding a hard landing.
 
I scurried to the side of the warehouse as soon as I knew which way was up and knelt down low on the ground.

Paul was on his stomach his head turned towards me.
 
Blood ran from a gash on his temple and dripped into the snow.
 
The red light shone on his shoulders.
 
It kept reaching trying to touch his head but the ground was uneven so it kept jumping from his shoulder to the snow a few feet beyond.
 
The light tried a few more times then went off.

I turned my head toward the man on the hill.
 
Even with the building in between us I could easily pick up his location.
 
He was waiting for me to do something stupid like run to Paul.
 
Paul’s eyes blinked a couple of times and looked around for me.

“Keep still,” I told him.
 
“He can’t get a shot at your head the way you’re laying.”