Living Lies (35 page)

Melanie awoke in her room, Adam still holding her, with her cell phone ringing downstairs. It was difficult to maintain a sense of dignity while trekking down a flight of stairs in the buff.

Her voice mail had picked up the call – it was Jane. Melanie redialed.

“Oh, Agent Ward, I’m so glad you called. It’s almost six and no one has heard from you and I was worried you’d been abducted like Agent Parker.” Jane’s voice wavered as she spoke.

“Parker deserted, he wasn’t abducted, but I appreciate your concern. Jane, could you send Marcos for me in about an hour and a half?”

Melanie heard Adam shuffling about upstairs as she closed her cell phone.

How strange to have someone else in this makeshift house,
she thought as she stretched out flat next to Adam, smiling and wondering if this was going to be a regular thing.

I’ll have to get some furniture
, she considered,
maybe a set of dishes
.

“Good morning,” he said, winding his arm around her waist.

“Hi,” she said, snuggling in close to his warm body. He was comfortable and for the first time she regretted having to go to work. “I wish we could stay here all day.”

“We can’t?”

Melanie shook her head. “No, I’ve got to go in for a couple of hours. But after that, if you’re free, we can meet up.”

“Since you are the only reason I’m in D.C., I think I can make time for you.” He looked handsome with his hair in disarray and eyelids heavy from lack of sleep.

Thirty-five minutes later she and Adam had showered and dressed. He rummaged through her kitchen cupboards, refrigerator and freezer as she sat in her usual spot atop the heinously colored counter.

“What is this?” he asked, the refrigerator light shining on a couple of bottles of water, three beers left from a six-pack and an old package of individually wrapped slices of American cheese. He held up a square Styrofoam box.

Melanie laughed and shook her head. She couldn’t ever remember seeing that container, none of her usual deliveries used those kinds of boxes.

Adam returned it to the top rack.

“And, Mel, you have only one pan.” He couldn’t hide his dismay.

“I have a pan? If I’d known that, maybe I’d have cooked something.”

“Come on, do you even live here?” His brows were knit in tight and when he shook her shoulders she could tell it seriously bothered him.

“I pay rent, yes, but I spend most of my time at the work. It’s easy, convenient and they’ve got showers, so mostly I stay there,” she stroked his forehead to smooth out the lines. “Don’t worry so much.”

“Have they got beds?”

“Yeah, and really comfy couches.” Melanie hopped off her makeshift orange bench and cozied up against his freshly cleaned body.

“I hate that you live like this.”

He rubbed her back, closing the refrigerator door and setting her one pan on the old Formica counter. “Where do you eat?”

“Here on the counter or up in bed.”

He sighed in resignation, his shoulders dropped and he kissed the top of her head. “Okay, so, where can we grab some breakfast?” he asked, shaking his head.

“There’s a little bakery down on the corner. We could walk there and be back in time for my driver to take me to work and you back to your hotel.”

“You don’t have some aversion to furniture, do you?” Adam chuckled and unlocked the front door. “I mean if I were to happen to run into a chair or let’s say cookware and brought it back to this apartment, you wouldn’t break out in hives, right?”

“I’m not sure!” she giggled, actually giggled, as she stepped out onto the portico.

A hint of autumn was in the warm morning air as she locked the door and slipped the key into her jeans pocket. She had no plans to rid herself of her ear-to-ear smile anytime soon.

“Hey, did you just…” inside her front yard Adam stood with two men and all three were staring at her.

Standing shoulder to shoulder just off the steps she recognized the men instantly. Fear oozed from her body and out the bottom of her feet. Adam. Her empty stomach twisted into painful contortions – she had to keep Adam safe. But the men from the surveillance video were not concerned with Adam. Actually…

Shocked into silence, Melanie worked to unscramble the puzzle that lay before her. The older man’s arm rested on Adam’s shoulder, clasping him on the back, engaging in what looked like a reunion of sorts. Adam was smiling, laughing and speaking perfect Spanish.

Holy shit!

Her glance flipped to the young man anxiously waiting off to the side, his brown eyes holding fast to her. Unwavering, he didn’t even blink but gripped a pistol tightly in his right hand. Melanie sensed he was scared enough to use it.

“You’ll have to excuse my rudeness, Agent Ward. You see, my very good friend Adam and I have not seen each other for years. But I have not forgotten about you.” His mouth warped, in a leer, both his thin upper and lower lips disappeared into his dark, cavernous mouth. Dark raisin eyes glowered from beneath heavy brows and the pleasure in his voice was chilling, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

She was in danger, trapped and completely vulnerable. She took a risk and gazed at Adam, six inches taller than his compatriot. His expression was foreboding. His posture had changed, stiffened. His chiseled jaw was clamped shut, the furrow above his eyes was hard, his shoulders were squared. But it wasn’t the physical change that was the most alarming. It was his once-dazzling emerald green eyes. They were lifeless and stone cold. A shiver rose along each vertebra.

“Let me introduce myself. I am Hector Ortiz. This is Raul, and of course you know Adam.” He stepped uncomfortably closer.

“No, I don’t know him,” she answered with more confidence than she felt.

Hector laughed. “Very well, this is Adam.” Giving a nod to Raul he turned back to Melanie. “Okay, Ms. Ward, disrobe.”

“What?” Melanie glared back, doing her best to maintain her composure and waste time.

“You heard me, do it,” Hector commanded and Raul lifted his right hand.

“You’re fucking with the wrong person.”

“I ask nicely only once,” Hector snarled and Raul followed the example.

“No.” Her eyes settled back on Hector, boldly.

“Do it.” Adam’s voice was a growl.

Raul’s sneer morphed into a grin.

Melanie tightened her lips and looked up and down her street. Not a soul. Holding back the frustrated, angry stream of emotion, she bit down hard on the inside of her cheek.

The first two buttons were the hardest.

Stripped to her underwear, she stood defiant.

“Everything.”

Raul exposed a set of gray teeth as his grin widened, unabashed, and he lifted his eyebrows.

She did as instructed, not wanting to give them an extra minute to anticipate the show. She looked directly into Adam’s dark, dead eyes as she unhooked her bra.

“Ha, very nice, my friend,” Hector chortled and ogled simultaneously.

The three men enjoyed themselves before Hector tossed her a blue jumper. Without instructions Melanie dressed, shoving one bare foot in after the other and then quickly pulling up the long zipper.

Unceremoniously Raul corralled her to the back of a Ford Taurus.

“Get in,” Hector demanded, opening the trunk.

“Go to hell.”

She glanced out the corner of her eye in hopes that someone would come.

She didn’t see the backhanded slap coming, but she felt the tiny asphalt pebbles wedge into her palms and the side of her cheek when she hit the street.

She tasted the blood on the corner of her mouth where his knuckle slammed into her tooth.

“Fuck you.” She spat the blood on a leather loafer.

“Get in,” Adam’s voice was ice, and Melanie had to look to make sure it was he who’d spoke.

She strained for one last glimpse down the empty street as a pair of hands grasped the back of her blue jumpsuit and heaved her into the trunk. It slammed shut before she even had the chance to pick her road-rashed face up from the floor. Her intuition pressed her to quickly investigate the tail lights, the spare tire and the keyhole, but the entire cavity had been cleared. She did, however, discover that if she leaned her ear against the back she could hear the conversation in the front.

She closed her eyes and listened to what she did not want to hear – Adam and Hector chatting.

“I’ve wondered about you through the years. It’s good to see you again, my friend.”

“You’re looking great, you haven’t aged a day.”

“I’m a medical mystery,” Hector laughed, “I owe it all to plastic surgery and having no conscience.”

Melanie winced as the car erupted in laughter.

“So, Adam, tell me, who hired you?”

“Ah, but I don’t take names, remember? My concern is the target and my bank account.”

More laughter.

“How are Terese and the girls?” Adam asked.

“Terese has gotten into another one of her phases. She’s selling jewelry on that television show. And the girls, well, they’re teenagers now.”

Melanie could listen no more. She sunk down into a ball and did what she could to keep herself from panicking. Exhaust was seeping into her cave faster than fresh air and she was unnaturally sleepy.

CHAPTER 22

Melanie roused from her unconsciousness with a burning pain in her ribs. Groggily, she blinked her unfocused eyes, trying to ascertain where the hell she’d been taken. The stale air was heavy with chemicals, and the summer heat was sweltering.

Her head weighed a ton and her stiff neck ached. Her arms were stretched above her head with her wrists shackled to a wooden rafter. A scent of decay and mold hung in the dust of what appeared to be one of the many abandoned barns that speckled the countryside of D.C.’s neighboring states. Aged gasoline and oil stains still marked the dirt floor that reached across to the oversized sliding barn doors. A work bench, long ago forgotten, was cluttered with jars and paint cans connected by cobwebs and covered in dust.

Melanie surveyed her environment and her situation, locked in heavy chains and bound to a sturdy beam that structurally supported the dilapidated building.

Sunlight was gently streaming through the cracks in the wallboards and ceiling.

Assessing that it was sometime around one or two o’clock meant that she’d been missing for hours. The protocol, as she knew so well, was that if they’d known where she was, she’d have been rescued.

Painfully she swallowed, her dry tongue sticking to the back of her throat. She could hear her captors behind her left shoulder, but they were out of visual range. The three men were playing a loud game of poker as Melanie was being pulled like taffy. Her arms were stretched taut, causing her sides and lungs to ache and the manacles to dig further into her already broken skin.

She’d been deceived – tricked in the grandest way. Along with the rest of her body, Melanie’s heart moaned with grief. Her cherry-red toenails peeked out from under her blue jumpsuit. She’d painted them only yesterday for Adam and now … now she felt ridiculous. But even in her sorrow she discovered a cement foundation had been poured around the beam. It was three inches high and two inches deep – just what she needed to gain extra height and release the pressure from her wrists. A foot on each side of the post and up she stood, enjoying the relief for a mere moment before the stiff barn door was dragged open. She looked toward the afternoon light and the dark figure of a man slid the old door shut.

Her eyes adjusted and he spoke.

“Have I missed anything?”

It was Finn Parker.

In a rush of emotion Melanie was surprised and sickened but stood expressionless as Parker walked closer, his face drowned in absolute happiness.

“No, she’ll be out for awhile.”

Melanie glared into Finn Parker’s sea-blue eyes and he looked into hers.

“I think we can begin the torture.”

His lips curled with an odd combination of hatred and pleasure, a gruesome grin that beamed directly at Melanie.

I’m going to die right here, chained to this beam.

She had wondered about her death back when Diane March’s body had been found, and here it was. Her heart hammered, but there was a certain satisfaction in knowing.

The scraping of chairs along the dirt floor was immediate.

She stood, stoic and rebellious, staring out above their heads.

“Well, good afternoon, Agent Ward. I hope you had a comfortable nap,” Hector said with arrogance.

Melanie said nothing.

“Business, then. Parker tells us you’ve stolen a disc that belongs to us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melanie lied.

“You know exactly what he’s talking about,” Parker piped in, “you stupid bitch.”

“Well, either I’m a stupid bitch or I know exactly what you’re talking about, which is it?” Melanie asked in a tone filled with loathing and impudence, considering her current circumstance.

“You had someone break into my office and steal that disc. I know you were behind the theft.”

“Jesus, you’re a whiny little prick.”

Parker looked at Hector and back at Melanie, his face pink.

It wasn’t until the laughter began and his face turned to scarlet that Melanie knew she’d gone too far.

In two strides Parker was peering up at her and, although she didn’t think he could reach, he balled up his fist and landed a direct hit to her face. He cocked back his arm and Melanie prepared for another punch.

“You need to learn to control your temper,” Adam said, grasping onto Parker’s arm.

“What? Who the hell do you think you are?” Parker asked, ripping his wrist from Adam’s clutch.

The left side of Melanie’s face pounded. He’d struck her in her cheekbone and eye, and the blow had knocked her off her cement perch. The manacles sliced deeper into her wrists. It was all she could do to keep from passing out.

“Who’s in charge here? Hector?”

“Look, man, do whatever you want to do. But if he knocks her out, we’re looking at another hour.”

Hector scrutinized Adam.

“Hector?” Parker asked, wanting a decision.

Hector narrowed his already squinty eyes but his shoulders relaxed a bit as he nodded. “Well, now perhaps you’ll be more willing to cooperate with us, Agent Ward.”

“Sorry, but I don’t have it on me. Maybe you’ve figured that out already.” Her face was throbbing and she felt it beginning to swell.

“I’m losing patience with you.”

“All this for alternative fuel?
Who
are you working for?” The muscles in her arms burned and she was getting light-headed.
Maybe another slap would be helpful
, Melanie mused. “It doesn’t work, you know, the formula. There’s some problem at the final stage. My people checked it out, something about a boiling problem.”

Hector gave Parker a sideways glance.

“She’s lying!”

Melanie shrugged. “My tech guy can explain.” She rattled off the number to Mike’s direct line using her code. Hector put the call on the speaker.

“Melanie! Oh my Lord, where are you?”

Mike’s typical frenzy at any other time would have made Melanie smile, but today she had to choke down a wave of emotion that such a welcome voice brought to her chest.

“With whom am I speaking?” Hectors rigid voice would have Mike scurrying to trace.

“Um … Mike,” he said, his keyboard rattling away.

And with that the speaker was turned off and Hector roamed to the far side of the old barn so Melanie could not hear the rest of the conversation. She felt pity for Mike, he frightened so easily, but he could find her, more so than Jack. She had no choice but to involve him.

Parker looked lost in thought. Melanie smiled. Parker had confused Mike with Ed.

“He wants to talk with you,” Hector stated with an air of superiority.

He thinks he’s already won
, Melanie thought as Mike’s voice once again filled the old place. She sighed.

“Melanie, Melanie are you there?”

“I’m here,” she smiled, but the left side of her mouth didn’t move. “Mike, it’s all right. Do you know which disc he wants?” she asked, assuring herself that Hector had been straight with both of them.

“Yeah, the one from inside my pants.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Hey, look, Mike, I just want…”

A dial tone echoed from the speakers.

Just as well
, she thought.
It’s bad luck to say goodbye
.

“Now we wait.” Hector kicked back in one of the wooden chairs and examined Melanie.

“Melanie Ward,” Parker’s voice, sticky with a mixture of glee and abhorrence. “I’ve dreamed about this moment for years.” He glided toward her, his right hand weighted by a gun.

Her blood rushed to her ears, her breath felt heavy and the sharp pains in her body eased as, gratefully, she went numb.

“This isn’t happening now,” Melanie said.

Parker laughed. “It’ll happen when I pull the trigger.”

Hector shook his head. “What do they teach you? Raul, take his gun.”

Beneath her blue jumpsuit a slow drizzle of blood trickled down her arm to her elbow.

“Could I get some water?”

Hector snapped his fingers twice and Raul responded with a squirt from an open water bottle that had been left on a nearby workbench.

The warm water mostly washed her face but the small amount that she did taste held the distinct flavor of O positive.

“Thanks.”

Melanie gently dabbed her swelling face on the shoulder of the stiff cotton jumpsuit.

“I’m curious.” Hector turned his chair, its back to her, and

straddled the seat to face her. Looking intently at Melanie, he asked, “Did you have any suspicion?”

Adam.

Painfully her heart filled with dishonor and shame. She ignored the question.

“No hints? I’m surprised. No offense to my friend,” he said, nodding toward Adam. “But I’ve heard such stories about her

intuition. Agent Ward, you had no inkling as to his true motive?”

Melanie didn’t respond, again.

Leaning forward in his rotting chair, showing piqued interest in the subject, he asked, “Did you fall in love?”

Melanie didn’t answer but she reacted, her body tensed. Hector’s squinty brown eyes penetrated into hers.

“Did he tell you that he loved you?” he pressed.

“Hec…” Adam began, only to be silenced by the palm of the man’s hand.

“Agent Ward, did he tell you he loved you?”

Melanie stared out, across the old barn, dust particles glimmered in the shafts of sunlight.

A booming laugh erased the tension eased on Hector’s wrinkled face.

“Women always believe they’ll be the one to capture the King of Heartache.” His cheerfulness continued. “Would you like to know who you fell in love with?’

“No.”

“What else do we have to talk about? And I’m curious.”

“And all this time I thought you were a lesbian,” Parker sneered.

Melanie rolled her unswollen eye. “Yeah, well, you’re an idiot. I give you three months before it’s you they’ve strung up.”

Melanie could see the hate steaming off his skin.

“Adam was the best assassin in the world a few years back.” Hector ignored them. “No assignment was off limits
if
you could afford his fee.”

“How’d you do it, become the best?” Raul asked. It was the first time Melanie had heard him speak.

“He rid himself of any conscience and simply pulled the trigger. He’s a heathen – it’s not something you can learn,” Hector continued. “Attractive and charismatic is a deadly combination. Adam is the only man I know who walks into a whorehouse and walks out hours, or even days, later without charge. Do you remember?”

Adam sat tilting his chair, balancing on the back two legs, laughing heartily and looking very pleased with himself. Hector looked on like a proud father. Raul dreamed of the day he’d be the best and Parker fumed alone in the background.

“Adam has always been blessed. I don’t know how many times I found him passed out with an empty bottle of whiskey on one side and a line of coke on the other. Tempting death is one of the things Adam does best, even in prison. We were in a Mexican prison, mind you, and Adam, well, he can make the best of friends and the worst of enemies, no?”

“It seems that way,” Adam answered, his laughter gone.

“I hate to break up the party but the file has finished downloading,” Parker said, looking at the laptop on the table.

Melanie’s mind raced. She yanked on her chains, ignoring the pain in her wrists.

The beam was solid, the chains were thick. There was no way out.

Grasping at life, her mind whirled and her heart pounded when her eyes deadlocked with Parker.

“You know, you can still come out of this,” Melanie persuaded. “We can say you were doing undercover work.”

“Good idea. Maybe I’ll try that after you’re dead.”

“Hugh is going to destroy you if these guys don’t kill you first.”

“Do you think I’m doing this on my own? Isn’t it time to kill this bitch?”

“Raul, she’s all yours,” Hector gave the go-ahead, looking up from the computer.

Raul, looking as terrified as she felt, raised his firearm.

“Adam,” she choked out.

She looked directly into the dark eyes that had seemed so loving.

“What?”

“Could you let my family and friends know that I love them?” Melanie’s mouth was dry and the words cracked. “That I was thinking about them. Could you do that, please?”

He cleared his throat. “I can do that.”

She exhaled, relieved that she had some control over her death. She relaxed her shoulders, leaned her head back and breathed slowly. She was dizzy, light-headed, but she got the last word to her loved ones.

“Thank you,” she said when she had her emotions under control. “Okay.” She nodded to Raul, breathing.