The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel (15 page)

She turned to meet his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

“Why’d you leave?” he asked. “And don’t say you did it for Logan or the assignment or because of the nightmares,” he said. “They’re reasons, but not
the
reason.”

Munroe was silent for a moment and then finally whispered, “He didn’t know me. Couldn’t know me.” She paused, and Bradford made no move to break the silence.

“For a while, I fit an image in his head,” she said, “and as long as what I did and said conformed to that image, he was happy.” She shook her head slightly, sadly. “But even if I try, even if I want to suppress my nature, it still surfaces. I am what I am, Miles, and the glimpses I allowed him clashed with the image he wanted. No matter how he argues it or even how he tries to accept me for me, he can’t, and I can’t conform, so it’s better this way.”

She stared out into empty space. “I already bring so much suffering into the world,” she said, “I never wanted to bring it to him. We had a good run, you know? I loved him—love him—always will.” She traced her fingers in a random pattern across the top of the document folder and said, “But sometimes love is its own reward, Miles. To struggle to turn it into more is to murder it slowly.”

“You could go back when this is finished,” Bradford said.

“I could,” she said. “Although Noah made it painfully clear that I’m no longer welcome, and I don’t really blame him. It doesn’t matter why I had to go—a man’s pride can only take so much.”

She paused. “Oh, but I have considered it, you know? Going back, unwelcome as I am.”

“You won’t?”

“No,” she said. She raised her eyes to his. “The reasons I left are
there now as much as they’ve always been, and all I have to offer is more heartache. He can hate me—despise me if that’s what he wants. I choose to treasure what we shared, no matter how it ended.” She paused and again met Bradford’s eyes. “And yes,” she said. “It has ended. That
is
what you wanted to know, isn’t it?”

It was nine in the morning and Munroe stood in the hotel foyer, waiting for Raúl. She’d left a note taped to the TV as a courtesy against Bradford’s panic. He would have bolted upright the moment she slunk out the door, and her rapid scrawl would at least allow him peace and a few more hours of rest.

The next phase was set for midafternoon, and as Bradford hadn’t fallen asleep until after five, she expected he’d be out until she got back.

Her first stop was Logan’s hostel, where two weeks’ advance payment on the rooms had been her insurance that the trio would stick around long enough for her to return. She had called ahead, confirming with the proprietor that the boys weren’t in, although how long they’d be gone was impossible to gauge.

With instructions to Raúl, Munroe wound through the narrow courtyard to Gideon and Logan’s quarters, and there, after confirming again that the room was empty, she let herself in with a skeleton key. Being discovered invading Logan’s space ranked low on her list of potential disasters, but an encounter was something she wished to avoid, and so she moved to get out as quickly as possible.

Between the beds she shifted the middle table and, behind it, removed an electrical faceplate, fingers deftly wiring in a bug. She then moved across the room and repeated the procedure behind another. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Logan—Gideon was another story—she was simply playing it smart, and Logan, knowing her as he did, would expect nothing less.

Having accomplished what she’d come for, Munroe retraced her steps, momentarily backing into an alcove to escape detection as Heidi
passed. Expecting the boys to follow shortly, she paced a quick return to the front, arriving a half minute before the taxi pulled into place. Slipping into the backseat, she checked her watch. Two hours to prep for the next phase.

She returned to Paseo Alcorta for another shopping foray, this time swinging to the extreme girly side, sticking to the high-end boutiques and couture labels. The trip inside was a focused mission of matériel acquisition, a trip that under any other circumstances would have been far more enjoyable and lasted well beyond today’s time constraints.

Bradford was still face to the pillow when she returned, and he did not stir as she closed the door. It was a perfect act, so well did he hide his attentive awareness and project the appearance of sleep. Amused, Munroe dropped her bags on the bed and moved to the computer.

She was fast-forwarding through video footage collected from the Haven cameras when Bradford said, “What time is it?”

Without turning she said, “Almost one o’clock.” A pause, and then, “Have you seen any of this?”

Bradford slid his legs over the side of the bed, stood, and walked to the bathroom. “Nothing since daylight,” he said. “But the tracker started moving after ten.”

Munroe hovered over the computer, skimming through the footage, pausing as faces flashed across the screen, images of half a dozen of the Haven’s children. They’d entered the yard shortly after noon, the wall-mounted camera capturing shot after shot as they played. The computer allowed her to zoom and crop the digital information, and by the time Bradford returned from the shower, she had a full array of faces.

“Anything?” he said.

“Not yet, but these all look to be around nine or ten; the others haven’t come out yet.”

“What about the second camera?”

“I’ve got a couple of the vans leaving, all adults, nobody that looks like David Law.”

“Do you want to sleep?”

Munroe paused, turned from the computer, and, silent, stared at him.

“I figure you could use it,” Bradford said, “and maybe if we keep it to an hour or so, you’ll get enough to take the edge off without slipping into a dream.”

She said nothing.

He paused, shrugged. “Or maybe not,” he said. “But I can handle what you’re doing there if you want to take a break.”

She pushed back from the computer.

“An hour,” she said.

Anything longer was not only inviting an episode but would also put her behind schedule for the afternoon.

She stepped aside to let him near the computer and, with a glance over her shoulder, turned to lie down. Bradford leaned back in the chair, watching her in a show of exaggerated observation. She grinned, shut her eyes, and allowed herself to free-fall into oblivion.

Munroe woke to the touch of Bradford’s finger against her cheek. Disoriented, she turned to him.

“Hey,” he whispered. She attempted a grin, and he said, “Any monsters?”

“No,” she said. “No monsters. How long was I under?”

Bradford glanced at his watch. “One hour and three minutes. How do you feel?”

“A little dizzy,” she said, and she sat up, shifting her feet to the floor. “What’d you get on the tracker?”

He smiled an exaggerated smile. “I think we’ve got the third Haven.”

She attempted a return smile, thumbed-up the news, and then stood and made for the shower and what she hoped was instant clarity. She needed to be functioning at full throttle in less than an hour, and the jury was still out on whether or not sixty-three minutes of sleep was worth the cotton-headed mental fog.

By the time Munroe returned to the room, Bradford had already
left, so she dressed and for added femininity liberally applied makeup. Having finished, and with Bradford still out, she turned again to the computer.

According to the data, the van had made only one stop in the hours since she’d returned from her jaunt at the mall, and she could see from the location on Bradford’s map why he’d smiled. The third Haven was less than a ten-minute drive from where they were ensconced. She would forgo the dry run and get surveillance installed tonight.

The pieces were coming together.

As long as Logan’s sources were accurate, as long as Hannah was truly in one of the Buenos Aires Havens, they would soon have her.

Munroe ran through visuals of the garage, located the time frame that the vehicle had left, caught a snapshot of who’d been in it, and, certain that neither Hannah nor David Law had been among the occupants, moved to the recordings captured by the laser mike. She had gotten through only the first five minutes when Bradford called.

Setting aside the equipment, she picked up her oversize purse, left the room, and joined Bradford in the lobby. He grinned as she approached, obviously appreciative of her attire, and then took her arm in his and led her to a late-model Peugeot sedan. Munroe paused to scan the car and nodded approval. He’d procured it from his local contact, and it far exceeded her expectations.

“Is it clean?” she said.

“It’ll trace back to Recoleta.”

Recoleta was a neighborhood of expensive apartment buildings and city blocks filled with mansions, where the most affluent of Buenos Aires congregated.

They drove through the streets of Palermo to Pascual Palazzo, which would route them to the highway that would take them out of town. It was a different route from the one Raúl had driven the evening before, but the destination was the same.

This was the first time in all of their mutual history that Munroe had allowed Bradford the wheel, and she glanced at him now, dressed up and owning the roads. She supposed that his transformation from
jeans and T-shirts to sophistication and the effect it had on her were what people around her regularly experienced when she phased from one role into the next—unnerving, but in a good way.

They drove for over an hour through gradually thinning traffic before reaching the rural road that passed the Haven Ranch, and here Bradford turned off onto the gravel track that led to the buildings.

The vehicle slowed, Bradford obviously prolonging the approach.

“You ready for this?” he said.

Munroe nodded. “Born for it,” she said.

Bradford stopped the car, and while he waited in the warm interior, Munroe stepped out. She stood at a chain-link gate and, hands shoved into her pockets, searched for a bell—anything meant to alert the occupants that someone waited for entry. Several dogs approached. Their ruckus, absent any other notification, would surely give notice, but after another moment, she found a press-button on a post far to the right of the gate. She thumbed it several times and then returned to the car to wait.

“Still certain they’ll let us inside?” Bradford asked.

“Nearly certain,” she said. “Just give them time to clear forty pairs of shoes out of the foyer.”

As if on cue, a lone figure exited the front door and made the long walk toward them. Worn coat, worn shoes, dark curly hair, he appeared to be in his late twenties, and based on stories she’d collected from Logan and later Heidi, Munroe assumed that unlike the majority of those who lived here, the man was Argentine.

As he drew near, Munroe turned to Bradford, said, “Here goes,” and, with a radiant smile, stepped out of the car and walked toward the gate.

T
he wind blew against the landscape, taking the typical winter chill and turning it bitter, and painting the leaf-strewn expanse with a dreary brush. Munroe pulled the faux-fur-cuffed jacket tight round her neck, arriving at the gate at the same time as the man walking toward it.

Her expression was one of uncertainty, of innocence and curiosity. “
¿Se encuentra el dueño de casa
?” she said. “Are the owners here?”

“
Le puedo ayudar si quieres,
” he said. “What is it that you need?”

Munroe shifted from foot to foot, gave a nervous glance over her shoulder toward Bradford, who waited in the driver’s seat, and then turned back to the man. “I’m looking for God’s people,” she said, and after only the slightest pause, continued on in a rush. “It sounds crazy, I think crazier to you than even to me, but last night God answered my prayers and told me to come here and ask for His people—that God’s people would have answers and that they needed my help.” She paused. “Have I come to the right place?”

The man hesitated. In all of the scenarios he’d expected to encounter at the gate, this was probably the most unlikely. Munroe studied his face and body language for cues and chose silence. This man was not the final authority.

He looked from her to the car and then to Bradford beyond the windshield, and finally said, “Possibly the right place.”

This was good, so much better than a figuratively slammed door. For the sake of her audience, her face brightened in visible relief, and then to push his hesitation toward favor, she reached into her coat and pulled out an envelope. She held it toward him. “God said that His people need this,” she said. “If you really are those of my vision, the people who have answers for me, I want you to have it.”

The man reached for the envelope but before taking it said, “What type of answers are you looking for?”

“I want to know how I can find peace, and meaning to life, and what comes after,” she said, and then in a rush of words that overlapped and retraced, all an excited chatter, she offered little while saying much.

After a bit, he took the envelope and, interrupting her flow, said, “If you could wait for just a few minutes?”

“Certainly, certainly,” she said.

He turned from her and, more quickly than he had come, walked back to the house.

When he’d made it halfway, Munroe returned to the warmth of the car.

“Did he buy it?” Bradford asked.

“I figure ten minutes and we’re in,” she said.

“What did you give him?”

“A thousand U.S. dollars in nice crisp hundreds.”

“Cheap date, huh?”

“The answer to their prayers.”

“So that’s your secret to information gathering? A gold-plated envelope?”

Munroe grinned at Bradford’s teasing. He knew as well as she did that Logan hadn’t come to her simply because she was a best friend who could also conveniently kick ass and hand out bribes. Logan needed her on the inside, had come for the same skill that brought the highest bidders and the biggest players to her doorstep: the capacity to read people and then shift her own personality into whatever was necessary to allow others to believe what they most wanted to believe.