Lila Shortcuts (11 page)

I start pounding it and almost manage to tenderise my fingers when I hear Alex asking Lila straight up what the deal is with her coming here. I thought he was supposed to be playing good cop, working the subtle interviewing angle. I guess though we still have room to work up to thumbscrews.

Lila just mutters something totally lame that doesn’t answer the question at all, but does Alex push her on it? No. He decides to drop it and switch the focus to me by asking when Sara is arriving. I glare at him over the fat frying in the pan. Great. I’m ready to get out the thumbscrews and he’s just thrown me to the wolves.

Lila is staring between us in confusion. Yeah, OK, I know it’s probably hard for her to believe that I have a girlfriend but she looks like I’ve just told her I’m dating Justin Bieber. It’s not
that
hard to believe surely?

‘You, you have a girlfriend?’ Lila splutters.

‘Yep, little sis, I do have a girlfriend,’ I say.

Her face splits into a grin and she hops up onto the counter beside me and starts grilling me and I wish to God Alex had kept his mouth shut. Alex has to lift her off the counter so he can reach something in the cabinet behind and for a brief second she stops talking but the next moment she’s back to interrogating me.

She doesn’t let up all through dinner, wanting to know everything about Sara short of her bra size. She smirks when I tell her she’s twenty-six and then she fires a million questions at us about work which we have to tag team to deflect. Eventually I turn the tables; ‘So, talking of living arrangements . . .’ I say.

Lila looks down at her plate and starts sawing at a bit of gristle. She cuts off a miniscule piece and puts it in her mouth and starts chewing. And chewing. And chewing. Alex and I watch her not saying anything. Eventually she swallows and puts the knife down.

‘Lila, are you going to tell us why you’re here?’

I see her mind frantically working. I actually see the lies forming. I watch her as she tries them out silently in her head and I want to tell her not to bother because she has the most transparent face on the planet. She’s the world’s worst liar. Even before she opens her mouth I know she is lying.

And yet she still does it. She makes up some crap about it being revision time and wanting to check out colleges and I don’t care if it is a lie, I jump on it because no way in a million years is Lila coming back here for college. I will sooner see her interned in a nunnery in Switzerland or yak-hearding in Outer Mongolia than allow her to come back here for college. Ain’t happening. I tell her as much, though in what I consider a fairly amicable tone.

Alex doesn’t say a word through the argument that ensues. He just watches in silence as she stabs pieces of steak around her plate like she’s spear fishing.

‘Is this about a boy?’ I blurt. I just need to know. I can’t play the whole patient understanding card anymore.

Lila looks totally dumbstruck by my suggestion but then she stares down at her plate and blushes even while she stammers out a denial. I knew it! It
is
about a boy! I’m going to kill him. Alex kicks me under the table though and I rein it in. He’s right. I need to get the boy’s name and she’ll never give it to me if she thinks I’m going to beat the shit out of him. I have to act cool.

‘Lila, you can’t just skip off around the world without telling anyone first,’ I say, employing a tone I’ve heard Rachel use before to tell off new recruits.

Lila starts arguing but I cut her off and before I know it she’s storming out the back door. It slams behind her. I glance over at Alex. He’s leaning back in his chair watching me with raised eyebrows and a semi-amused
told you so
expression on his face.

‘What?’ I say.

He shakes his head at me in silence then gets up from his seat and heads after her. I let him go. I can see that Lila is not going to listen to me but maybe she’ll listen to Alex. When we were kids she used to have a major crush on him. It was too funny. She’d follow him everywhere. I once found a schoolbook she’d covered in hearts and their entwined initials. I showed it to Alex expecting him to laugh his ass off but he didn’t. He actually punched me for the first and last time in our friendship. But the point is, Lila would always do whatever he asked of her. I used to exploit it by getting her to bring us food and drink when we were playing Playstation or dive-bombing in the pool.

I get up and glance out the window to see how it’s going out there. Alex is standing behind her, shielding her and I can see he has his hand on her shoulder. He twists her around to face him and in the light from the kitchen I see the expression on Lila’s face and wonder if it’s possible that she still has a crush on him. But then she scowls up at him in the exact same way she scowls at me and I laugh to myself. Alex clearly hasn’t had much luck at getting through to her either, and clearly the crush is a thing of the past. Which is good because I don’t think I could handle my sister crushing on my best friend now that she has boobs.

I figure it’s my job to fix this though, I can’t let Alex take all the flak, so I steel myself and head outside. I pat Alex on the back and he takes the hint and backs away. But then I don’t know what to say. So I just put my arm around Lila’s shoulder and after a beat she leans into me with a sigh.

As we stand there in the dark looking up at the stars, I feel my heart squeezing tight and that burning sensation filling my throat once again. The garden is banked in shadows and I shudder a little and pull her closer, once again flexing my foot and drawing comfort from the gun at my ankle. She has no idea how much danger she is in here. And I have no idea how I’m going to keep her safe.

The truth is I’ve never been so afraid in all my life of losing something as I am of losing her.

There are eight of us. One team to take down one girl. CCTV footage and an interview with the concierge has confirmed that she’s on her own in the hotel room. Alex was right. It didn’t take long for Suki to start abusing her credit card. I got the call just after midnight and left Alex at the house with Lila.

Hicks is talking through my headset. Normally I try to zone him out but he’s back in the control centre – a van parked down the block. They’ve got satellite and infra-red cameras in position, firing images back to us of the hotel. We’ve locked down all the exits.

‘Lieutenant, it’s a go,’ Hicks barks into my ear.

I signal the other members of my team and we climb out the back of the van, making our way over the litter-strewn lot towards the service entrance of the hotel. Busboys and waiters scatter out of our way as the infrared dots on our rifles glow like fireflies against their uniforms.

I have a blueprint of the hotel on the screen I’m holding in my palm and so I lead the way through the kitchen and into the stairwell. The hotel manager is being briefed by Rachel as we speak but no one is about to argue with a dozen men in black army fatigues who are carrying automatic rifles.

As we sprint up the emergency stairs towards the fifth floor adrenaline pumps through my veins. It crosses my mind it could be a trap. Surely no one is so stupid as to give us their real name and then use a credit card in that same name a few hours later? But if Demos were inside the building we’d have seen it on the CCTV footage.

I grip my rifle closer though, wishing it wasn’t loaded with tranq darts, but with real bullets.

At the door to the fifth floor I hold up my hand and my team falls into a silent huddle behind me. I direct them to take up flanking positions but just then we hear someone shouting something in what sounds like German. I bust through the door, yelling out a command and spot a blur in the distance – someone running towards the far end of the corridor, where the elevator lobby is. We pound down the corridor after her. It looks like a girl – but my first impression is that it isn’t Suki.

I shout an order to two men to check the room while the rest of us sprint after the girl who has now disappeared around the corner. I burst into the elevator lobby and see a door to another stairwell hanging open. We slam through it and out the corner of my eye I catch sight of a movement. Someone flying down the stairs, taking them three, four at a time. I throw myself down the stairs after her, my helmet bashing the wall and my feet sounding like thunder in the confined space. My brain processes that it’s not Suki even as I throw myself over the bannister and leap fifteen feet to tackle the girl to the ground.

We both go flying, smashing into the steps, my elbow cutting her across the eye socket. She grunts and I wrap my arms around her and roll her over, pinning her to the floor. She puts up a fight, managing to land a punch to my shoulder before I can restrain her. I don’t know what she is or who she is but I know she’s one of them by the look in her eye – bright bold fear at knowing she’s come face to face with the enemy and lost. I’m breathing loud, panting, and sweat is pouring into my eyes. Hicks is in my head yelling at me for an update.

‘Subject secured,’ I say breathlessly, as the rest of my team swarms around us, pulling us both to our feet, snapping cuffs on the woman, keeping their guns trained on her the whole time. Red dots dance across her chest, just over her heart. She glares at me defiantly, favouring one leg over the other as she tries to balance. A trickle of blood oozes down her cheek.

‘Is is Suki?’ I hear Rachel demanding in my ear.

‘No,’ I say. I have no idea who she is.

The woman tips her head back to stop the blood trickling into her eye and observes me with a smile that chills me to my core. ‘But I know who
you
are, Jack,’ she says. My heart jerks to a standstill. She knows my name. She holds my gaze, seemingly unperturbed by the fact she has a dozen guys aiming guns at her. ‘You have no idea what or who you’re dealing with,’ she adds. ‘You’re so out of your depth.’

The guys drag her away, down the stairwell and I stand there, my chest heaving up and down, leaning against the wall, listening to Rachel and Hicks yelling in my ear. But all I can think is that she knew my name. And she knew exactly how I was feeling. I am totally out of my depth.

THE MOMENT

A short story from Alex’s point of view

The last time I saw her was in Washington. Three years ago. Just over.

There’s a memory I have from back then that I can’t seem to shake. It’s of the three of us – Jack, Lila and me – we’re playing basketball in my backyard. I think someone took a photo – maybe that’s why I remember it so clearly.

None of us were saying very much. We were playing hard and fast, sweating despite the cold. In the car on the way to mine Jack had had a fight with his dad. He was mad – kept slamming the ball against the hoop like he was trying to knock it clean off the wall, not shoot the ball through it. Lila was trying not to cry and I was trying to intercept Jack’s passes before someone – or the hoop – got hurt.

The buzzer sounds and I cross the hallway to let Jack in. I know it’s him because he always holds his finger on it for as long as it takes me to get there.

‘What’s up?’ he says through the intercom. ‘Do you have company?’

‘No,’ I answer drily. ‘I just hang out all day counting down the seconds until I see you again, Jack.’

I buzz him in and while I wait for him to take the elevator up to my apartment I walk the few steps back down the hallway and into the kitchen to turn on the espresso machine. Today is going to be a long day.

Jack is grim-faced and scowling when I open the door to let him in. He kicks past me into the hallway.

‘Goddamn my sister,’ he says, by way of greeting.

I follow him silently as he heads to the kitchen and watch him as he starts raiding the fridge, tossing aside half a cantaloupe and shaking a jar of salad dressing as though it might contain something more helpful to him in his current mind-set than just olive oil and vinegar.

‘Dude, you live like a monk,’ he mutters to the empty shelves.

I pour most of the milk carton into one mug and pile in some sugar – Jack takes his coffee milkshake style – top it with a shot of steaming espresso and hand it to him without a word. He takes it, also without a word, and starts drinking, his eyes darting to the window, still narrowed in a scowl.

‘My dad’s going to freak out,’ he says.

I interrupt him before he can get going on what I know will be a lengthy tirade. ‘I need to take a shower,’ I say, draining my coffee in one bitter swallow. ‘I’ve just got back from a run.’ I leave him with his head back in the fridge, muttering angrily at the cantaloupe about how it’s got more sense than Lila.

Jack should have warning signs written on him for when he’s in a mood like this. Then people would know to give him a very wide berth and time – lots of it – to chill out.

The shower is good. It unknots the muscles in my shoulders and legs and helps clear my mind which, ever since Jack called me, has been trying to process the fact that Lila’s coming back.

Jack’s raging mad but his anger stems from worry – about Lila being here, in California, and the risk that poses. I don’t think he’s thought about why she’s coming. Or processed the fact that something must have happened in London to make her drop everything and book a flight to LA with no warning whatsoever.

As I towel off, I analyse it some more. Jack got the temper and Lila got the impulsiveness in the Loveday family and I’ve often sent silent thanks to the powers that be for their wisdom in not genetically gifting Jack with both temper and impulsiveness, because he’d be doing time by now if they had. But Lila’s never done anything like this before. There must be something behind it. I wonder whether she’ll trust me as much as she used to and will tell me what it is that she’s running from. And whether I’ll still be able to read her. Used to be that Lila was as transparent as a windshield.

I pause, reminding myself not to second-guess her actions. It could be something trivial – maybe she broke up with her boyfriend. But she doesn’t have a boyfriend, at least, not that I know of. It could be school – but she’s smart. She’s doing OK. I shake my head. Who am I kidding? She’s not OK. I can tell it from her emails. She doesn’t say it in so many words, but it’s there, in the gaps between them, in the way she avoids answering the more probing questions I throw at her.