Sanders 01 - Silent Run (31 page)

She paused for breath. When Jake didn't comment, she continued. “Victor and his friends were handsome, smart, rich blue bloods, everything I wasn't. They'd all gone to Harvard. One of their grandfathers was a state senator. Another was a billionaire. When Victor asked me out, I couldn't believe my luck. I thought he lived in this beautiful world, a world I'd never thought I could belong to. For a while it was great. He wined and dined me; he swept me off my feet. He told me I was beautiful and desirable and that he'd never met anyone like me.” She'd been so stupid, so easy to manipulate.

“Teresa didn't like Chicago and decided to go home. After that it was just Victor and me and this fairy-tale romance I thought we were having.” She inhaled, knowing she had to confess another sin. “I told Victor a story about myself that wasn't true. Teresa and I played this game on our trip that whenever we hit a new city we'd be someone different. I know it probably sounds crazy, but our childhood lives were filled with a lot of crap, and playing ‘let's pretend to be someone else' always made us feel better. With Victor I was the disowned granddaughter of a rich Texas oil man. That's why I was working in the law office. I said it was just a temporary thing. My grandfather wanted me to learn to appreciate the money that I'd be coming into with my trust fund."

Jake's eyebrow shot up in disbelief, and he gave her another amazed look. “You lied to him, too. Do you ever tell the truth?"

“The truth is hard to live with sometimes. You wouldn't understand, Jake. You didn't grow up like I did."

“That's an excuse?"

“No, but when I met Victor I was barely out of my teens. I knew if I told him who I really was, he'd walk away. In the beginning it was just a way to be Cinderella for a night. But once I started the lies I couldn't stop them, and then I didn't really want to stop, because I was falling in love. Victor seemed to feel the same way. He called me all the time. He bought me pretty clothes and paid for me to get my hair cut and have manicures and pedicures and days at the spa. I'd never had anyone care so much about me. I thought for sure I'd wake up any second. Then the unthinkable happened. Victor asked me to marry him. He gave me a huge diamond ring. He took me to the bridal salon to pick out my dress."

“That was the memory you had earlier,” Jake said. “Did you marry him?"

“No. A few days after that I found him in bed with another woman. My little fairy tale came to an abrupt end. I tried to break things off, but he begged me to reconsider. He told me that it was a mistake and he'd been drunk and it meant nothing. He still wanted me.” She stared down at her fingers, remembering how beautiful and yet how wrong the ring had looked on her finger. She'd known she was living a lie, but she hadn't been able to stop. “Growing up without a family, I wanted to be wanted. In the beginning, when I'd go to a foster home I'd try to be perfect, so they would want to adopt me. But no one wanted to make me a permanent part of their lives. I was just a temporary guest. Victor was the first one who wanted a legal contract."

“A legal contract based on a lie. Didn't he ever ask to meet your family?"

“I put him off. Victor had so much pride and money that he thought it would be fine to get married and tell them afterward. He said he wanted to pay for the wedding anyway; he wanted it to be the highlight of the Chicago wedding season."

“So you took him back."

She nodded. “Stupidly, yes. I didn't realize that Victor was more than just a cheater. He was also dealing in stolen art. I thought he was a reputable businessman. I knew he had some family contacts in Russia, but I didn't realize they were fencing stolen art from the war. Apparently it brought in millions of dollars. But that money wasn't enough for him. Victor and his friends wanted more. So they began smuggling heroin inside the frames of the art that came into the gallery. I didn't know it at the time. That is the truth. And I certainly didn't imagine that men who were born into such a wonderful life would want to risk what they had to break the law, to smuggle drugs."

She'd thought she was street-smart, but she'd been naive when it came to how the other half of the world lived. “I grew up with kids who had nothing -- who had to steal to survive. But Victor and his Harvard buddies had everything they'd ever wanted. In retrospect, I realized that they didn't care about money, because they'd never had to earn it. I thought Victor was my ticket to a good life, the life I'd always wanted to lead, and not just because of his money, but his respectability, his family connections. I didn't understand that evil could wear an expensive suit and have an Ivy League education. That was a shock to me."

Sarah glanced out the window as a dozen emotions ran through her. It felt good to let it all out. She'd never told anyone the whole story of her foolish affair with one of the most dangerous men in the world, a man who now wanted her dead. Not even Andy had known everything. He'd known just enough to get him killed. She couldn't let the same thing happen to Jake. He had to know exactly the kind of people they were up against.

“So what happened?” Jake asked. “How did you find out what was going on? How did you end up on Victor's hit list?"

She turned to face him. “Two agents from the DEA approached me and told me that Victor was smuggling drugs. They presented the facts to me in such a way that they convinced me I could either be charged as an accessory and go to prison for a very long time, or I could help them set up a sting operation. They scared the hell out of me. They made it sound as if I had no choice. It was jail or turning on Victor. They said Victor was going down either way, but their way I could protect myself by helping them, and in return they would put me into the Witness Protection Program. They would give me a new identity, and I would be safe from any repercussions."

She thought about those terrible moments of shock and fear when she'd learned the truth about Victor. “I wasn't going to do it at first. I told them I didn't know anything. That I couldn't help. But they kept pushing me. They showed me a photo of a woman who'd been strangled. It was the woman I'd seen in bed with Victor. The agents told me that Victor had killed her when she found out too much. I didn't know if they were lying or not, but I couldn't get the image of her dead body out of my mind, and I knew they'd been together."

Her voice caught, but she cleared her throat and kept going. “I had a date with Victor that night. I was earlier than I was supposed to be. I overheard Victor on the phone making a deal. Suddenly all the mysterious phone conversations, the people who came to the door in the middle of the night, the odd times when Victor would have to go down to the gallery to check out a shipment began to make sense. I knew deep in my heart that I'd been so caught up in my fairy tale that I'd denied what I'd seen with my own eyes. I was so afraid that night that I was going to make a mistake and Victor would know that I was considering turning against him. I thought I might just run away, not work with anyone, but then I remembered the woman and figured she'd probably tried to run, too.

“So the next day I went back to the agents and I agreed to help. I still wasn't sure that what I was doing was right or smart, and the next two days were really tense as I waited for them to set up the sting. They wanted to raid the art gallery just after a shipment was received. In the end they arrested Victor and his partner, Rick Adams, for drug smuggling and murder. After Victor was arrested, the U.S. Marshals whisked me away, keeping me in a safe house until I could testify. They convinced me that since Victor was in jail, I would be safe. After the trial I would be given a new identity and moved to a new location."

“But something went wrong. Didn't it?"

She nodded, meeting his gaze. “Victor had a lot of connections. He was very rich. He found out where I was. Somebody leaked the information. The man I saw in my dream with the tiger tattoo on his wrist was Shane Hollis. He shot one of the guards. But there was another guard in the back room. He got into a fight with Shane, and while they were battling it out, I ran like hell. I climbed out the bedroom window and I never looked back. I knew I was on my own from then on. I couldn't trust the police or the government or anyone. I later read in the paper that both agents had been killed. Shane had gotten away."

“You didn't go back to testify?” Jake asked, glancing over at her. “You didn't tell them what you'd seen at the safe house?"

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I was too scared to go near anyone in a uniform. In the end they didn't need my testimony. They had enough evidence without me. Another one of Victor's Harvard buddies, Timothy Fontaine, pled out to a lesser charge in exchange for his testimony against Victor and Rick. In case you were wondering, Timothy Fontaine ended up dead six months after the trial. Apparently he wasn't safe in Witness Protection either. I knew that Victor would keep trying to get me. I had betrayed him. And he would get his revenge. So I lived on the run, moving from town to town, state to state, changing my name, my hair color, my background. Sometimes I lost track of who I really was."

“But you got some help."

“From Andy Hart. He was the only one I confided in. He swore that he would never tell anyone, and I trusted him."

“What about your other friends, Catherine and Teresa? Catherine said you never contacted her after you disappeared from Chicago."

“I sent her a note. I didn't want her to worry, but I guess she still did. I didn't contact Teresa at all. It was bad enough that Andy knew where I was. I couldn't risk any leaks, and I couldn't put anyone else in danger. After a while, as the years passed, I started to relax. Victor was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Nothing bad had happened in a long time. I thought maybe they'd given up on me. I was lonely and tired of running, so after about five years I went to San Francisco. Andy was there, and I thought it would be nice to live near someone I knew. That's when I met you."

“And lied to me, too,” Jake said grimly. “It was just another game, wasn't it?"

“No, it was never a game,” she denied. “I was a lot older when I met you. I had suffered for the lies I told Victor. I didn't lie to you on a lark. I was just used to being someone else."

“You should have told me after we moved in together, after we had a baby together."

“I couldn't. You were so great. I didn't want to lose you."

“Stop right there,” he said sharply. “I don't want to talk about us."

“We have to get it out."

“Not now."

“Okay,” she said warily. “What else do you want to know then?"

“When did Victor get out of jail?"

“Eight months ago, he got out on parole. I had no idea it could happen that fast or that he would have to serve only a third of his sentence. I'm sure his family was responsible for getting him released so quickly. At first I tried to tell myself that he wouldn't come after me, that it had been too long. I went to see Andy. I confided to him my fears. He told me I should be ready to leave town just in case. He made up some fake birth certificates for Caitlyn to match my IDs. Three days later, Andy was dead. His house had been ransacked. Andy was the only one who knew where I lived."

“So you ran."

“Yes. I wiped our apartment clean, because I didn't want anyone to put you and me together. I didn't think Andy would have left any clues in his house, but I couldn't be sure. You were out of the country. There was no one to leave Caitlyn with, so I grabbed her and I ran. I took a bus to San Mateo, another to San Jose, a third to Santa Cruz. I hid out in a motel there, thinking I would buy myself some time until you came back from your trip."

Jake started shaking his head. “That's enough, Sarah."

“But, Jake, you have to know that I tried to contact --"

“I don't want to hear any more,” he interrupted. “I don't know whether you're lying or not. But I can't drive and listen to this, and right now we need to get to Caitlyn. So just shut the hell up."

Sarah sat back in her seat and stared out the window, knowing what she'd known all along: that Jake would never forgive her.

Jake's stomach was churning, his heart racing, his mind spinning with a million questions, but he couldn't ask them now. There was a ton of midmorning traffic on the maze of LA freeways, and he needed to concentrate on getting out of town as fast as possible. He forced a lid down on the anger bubbling through his veins. He couldn't afford to lose his cool. There was too much at stake. And while part of him did not want Sarah to utter one more word, another part of him knew he still needed more information.

“How do you think Victor figured out that you and Andy were friends?” he asked. “You said you didn't tell Victor about your past."

“I didn't, but he did have my real name, Jessica Holt. After I disappeared he must have figured out who I really was. I thought Andy was safe, because he actually lived under another name, too -- Xander Cross. But Victor's had eight years to make the connections, and I'm sure he was extremely motivated."

“Which means Victor probably knows where Teresa is, too."

“I hope not,” Sarah said. “Teresa goes under the name Tracy Hutchinson."

“Good God! Does no one live under their real name?"

“Actually, Tracy was her real name; she just liked Teresa better, and she got married for a few years, hence the Hutchinson. Andy didn't even know where Teresa was. Mrs. Murphy found her for me."

“The same Mrs. Murphy who was beaten up,” Jake said, his pulse roaring again.

“She didn't have it written down anywhere,” Sarah protested, but he could see the uncertainty flicker in her eyes.

“Do you know that for sure?"

“Yes, I do. I had told her I was interested in finding Teresa, and she said she'd ask around discreetly. She gave me Teresa's address a week before she was attacked."