The Mistress (25 page)

“Feisty bitch,” the man said. “She’s stronger than she looks.”

Another man knelt on the floor at Nora’s head and checked her neck for a pulse. She apparently still had one.

“It took you two long enough to get in here,” Marie-Laure said, her voice raspy and strained. She held a gun in her hand. So did the man. A Taser lay on the bed. Both of them had their weapons pointed at an unconscious Nora on the floor.

“You wanted to be alone with her.”

“I thought she was tied up. How did she cut through the ropes?”

“No idea. We checked her for everything.”

Kingsley glanced down and saw a glint of silver on the floor—a simple razor blade. So that’s what Nora had used to cut through the ropes. It must have gotten knocked from her hand during the struggle and landed by the door. He crouched down and picked it up, slipping it into his back pocket. From his low post on the floor he watched and listened.

“When will she wake up?”

“Soon.”

“Tie her up. And do it right this time.”

Three shots would be all Kingsley needed. The back of the guards’ heads. The back of Marie-Laure’s head. The men, whoever they were, had the look of mercenaries about them—hired killers, completely disposable. But there...there she was, his sister, only ten feet away from him, and she had no idea he stood looking at her back.

“Any idea how much longer we have to keep her here? We shouldn’t stay much longer. The family could be back any day.”

Kingsley started to raise his gun.

“One more day, then we’re gone.”

“What are we waiting on?”

“Him.”

“Your brother?”

Kingsley froze.

“Of course not. My brother doesn’t care if I live or die. He didn’t then. He doesn’t now.”

“You sure he even knows we’re here?”

“He knows.”

“You want to kill her now? We’ll get it over with and leave the body on his doorstep.”

Kingsley held the gun steady. The men first, then Marie-Laure. He could do this, had done this a thousand times. Strangers, though, all of them. Enemies of the state. Monsters who made Søren’s own father look like a candidate for sainthood. The mercenaries, he could kill them easily. But Marie-Laure...she was his sister, no matter what had happened. They were blood. He’d spent thirty years drowning in guilt because he thought he’d killed her the first time. He wouldn’t survive killing her again, not in cold blood with her back to him. But he had to, he had to for Søren. He could do this. Three shots. That’s all it would take. Nothing to it...only three bullets.

He stared down the gun and saw the end of the barrel shiver.

“
Non.
I don’t want to kill her. I have a better idea. We wait.”

The man on the floor by Nora’s head started to rise up. The second he stepped from the room, they would find Kingsley outside the door hiding in the shadows. He had only a split second to decide. He could make a noise, cause them to turn around and see him. They’d fire at him first, then he could fire back without remorse.

How strange...for the first time he realized Marie-Laure had grown up to look so much like their mother.

He lowered the gun and disappeared into the room across the hall. Could he go back out, try again? But it was too late. He’d lost his chance, lost his nerve. Kingsley stayed crouched in the room, in the dark. When the silence settled on the house again, he opened a window and dropped to the ground. He ran through the woods and to the car. Once inside he picked up his phone and dialed.

“Kingsley.” Søren’s voice sounded so relieved Kingsley had to blink back tears.

“I don’t have her,” Kingsley confessed.

“She’s alive?”

“
Oui
. She’s alive. But...I couldn’t take the shot. I couldn’t kill my sister. She had her back to me. I would have had to shoot her in the back. And she said she doesn’t want Nora dead. So I couldn’t... I killed her before. I couldn’t do it again.” He leaned his head against the steering wheel. “Forgive me.”

He heard silence on the other end of the line. He died in that silence, died a thousand deaths.

“Come back. It’s late. She’s alive. There’s nothing to forgive.”

“I’ll get her back. I’ll find a way. There’s two of them at least but there might be more. I can wait it out and—”

“Kingsley...listen to me. Come back. Do as I say.”

Kingsley could only nod first before he could speak.

“Yes, sir.”

Part Four

CASTLING

27

THE PAWN

L
aila felt the bed shift. Her eyes flew open and she rolled up immediately. Wes sat at the end of the bed, his back to the bedpost, watching her.

“Hello?” Wes said, laughing at her sudden alertness. “You get lost?”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry.” She grabbed a pillow and pulled it to her chest. “Grace and I are sharing a room. She was crying. I wanted to give her some privacy. I only meant to hide in here a few minutes.”

“You fell asleep. It’s okay. You can stay. I’ll sleep somewhere else.”

She started to stand up, but Wes waved his hand at her.

“Stay. Seriously,” Wes said. “There’s a bunch of bedrooms in this house. I’ll grab my stuff.”

“No, I’ll stay with Grace. I doubt she wants to sleep alone tonight, either. It must be hard for her, being apart from her husband.”

Wes kicked his shoes off and sat back down on the bed cross-legged.

“Yeah, I’m sure it is. They’ve been married like twelve years.”

“But she’s so young.” Laila thought Grace looked no more than thirty.

“She got married at your age. Seemed to work out. They’re still together.”

“You have a girlfriend?” Laila asked. She wished she had more clothes on than the white T-shirt and boxer shorts she’d put on to sleep in. The last thing she’d planned on was falling asleep on Wes’s bed.

Wes came up on his hands and knees and reached across her to switch on the bedside lamp. For a second he was so close to her she could have kissed his arm. She gave herself two seconds to imagine kissing his arm, the ridges of muscle leading from his elbow up to his shoulder.

“Not exactly,” he said, sitting back on the bed. He couldn’t seem to meet her eyes. “Or boyfriend. I feel I need to clarify that.”

“Why?”

“I got a few jokes in school. Side effect of not having a girlfriend and not sleeping around.”

“I get some jokes, too.”

Wes reached into the bedside table and pulled out a small leather case.

“No boyfriend?”

“Never.”

“Don’t feel bad. Trust me. I know the feeling.”

“I don’t feel bad,” Laila said.

“You blushed so bright they saw it on the space station.”

Laila buried her face in the pillow.

“I can still see you.” Wes narrowed his eyes at her. “And the blush.”

“I give up.” She turned her head and faced him.

“If it makes you feel any better, I was still a virgin when I was your age. God, I sound like Nora. She was an ‘old virgin,’ too. Her words, not mine.” He unzipped the leather bag and pulled out a blood-testing meter.

“You don’t feel well?” she asked, the blush fading.

“A little light-headed. I don’t know if it’s my blood sugar or talking to your uncle, though.”

“He has that effect on people.”

Grinning, she scooted closer to him on the bed and picked up an alcohol swab.

She took his hand in hers and swabbed the pad of his middle finger.

“Do you mind? I never get to play with humans.”

“No, go for it. You’d probably have better aim than I do right now.”

Laila took Wes’s hand in hers and pushed up his finger, forcing the blood to pool at the tip.

“Why don’t you use a pump?” Laila picked up the lancet and pierced Wes’s finger. He didn’t even flinch.

“Tried it for a while. Didn’t work. I ride horses, go running, swimming. I can’t deal with something being stuck on me all the time.”

“You ride horses?”

“All the time.”

“I love horses. We sometimes get to treat them on house calls. But not many horses in Copenhagen.”

“Come visit me in Kentucky. I’ll show you horses like you wouldn’t believe.”

Laila put the strip in the meter and waited for the beep.

“You’re okay,” she said. “One hundred five.”

“Good. Thank you.”

She took the bag and packed up the supplies neatly.

“So, no boyfriend?” Wes asked, and she noticed him staring at her hands. “Really?”

“None. It’s his fault.”

“Your uncle?”

“He keeps telling me I’m joining a convent. He has one picked out for me already.”

“How nice of him. You want to be a nun?”

“No.” She laughed a little. “I don’t think he wants me to be a nun, either. He just doesn’t want me to date. He takes sex very seriously. He considers it sacred.”

“Do you?”

Laila scooted back on the bed, needing a little breathing room. She was on a bed with the most attractive guy she’d ever seen in her entire life, and they were talking about sex. Someone needed to check her blood sugar right now. And her vital signs. Heart attack seemed imminent.

“Yes, but not in the same way as him. Tante Elle and I talked about it. She believes sex is sacred, too, but in a different way. He says that the only people he’s ever been with, he loved them. Tante Elle thinks sex is like...” She unzipped Wes’s bag of testing supplies and held up a bottle of insulin.

“Insulin?” Wes asked.

“Medicine. She thinks it can help heal people.”

“It can hurt people, too.”

Laila nodded as she zipped closed Wes’s bag of supplies and put it back in the nightstand for him.

“She knows that. She told me that all she hoped for me was that my first time would be as special as hers. And that I would only have sex when I wanted to and for the right reasons.”

“And what are the right reasons?”

“When I wanted to.”

Wes laughed and rolled onto his back.

“Of course. That’s Nora for you.”

Laila stretched out on her side and propped herself up on her elbow.

“You don’t like her reasons?”

“I think ‘wanting to’ is maybe not the best reason to do something. Sounds like a recipe for chaos.”

“Chaos sounds like a good description of her life sometimes.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Wes said, and she saw a flash of bitterness in his eyes. Bitterness and fear. He might smile and chat with her, but she could see the fear there hiding behind it all. What else was he hiding? She’d give anything to know. Even her body. Especially her body.

“I don’t know if I agree with my uncle that you should wait for true love to have sex with someone. I don’t even know if true love exists, although he believes it does. And I don’t think you should have sex just because you want to. I think it should at least mean something.”

“What do you mean by ‘mean something’?” Wes rolled onto his side to face her.

“It’s hard to explain. When my grandmother died, my aunt and uncle came for the funeral. I could hear them in the guest bedroom.”

“What did you hear?”

“Talking. Only talking,” she lied.

“Sure. Right. I totally believe you. Go on.”

“First, I have to ask you where you usually take all your insulin shots.”

“My stomach. Why?”

“So I know the best place to punch you when you tease me.”

“Stomach. Definitely the best place to hurt me.”

“Thank you.” She shot her hand out and pretended to punch him in the stomach. He flinched and pulled tight into the fetal position.

“Faker,” she said.

“You’re stronger than you look.”

“You have to be to wrestle with Scottish deerhounds.”

“Those dogs are horses.”

“They aren’t nearly as easy to saddle and ride.”

Wes started to say something but closed his mouth when they heard Søren’s voice in the hallway.

“Nesichah?”

Laila sat up immediately and raced to the door.

“I’m here,” she said, rushing out into the hall. “Wes was checking my face.”

Her uncle cupped her chin and turned her face toward the hall light.

“It’s healing well. You should go to bed. Wesley needs his sleep, too.”

“I will. Promise.”

He kissed her on the forehead and walked down the hall.

Laila went back into Wes’s room.

“What was that he called you?” Wes asked.
“Nesichah?”

“It’s Hebrew. It means ‘princess.’ He’s always called me that.”

“Princess? Nice.” He laughed at a joke only he seemed to get.

“When Gitte’s good he calls her
Malcah
. That means ‘queen.’ When she’s being wild he calls her
Behemah
.”

“Behemah?”

“Hebrew for ‘animal.’”

Wes laughed as Laila laid back down on the bed. He didn’t seem in any hurry to get rid of her, and for her part she kind of wanted to stay in bed with him forever. A bad idea. She’d get muscle atrophy in only a few weeks. They’d probably need to work out in bed if they stayed here. She had a few ideas for some exercises they could do.

“Gitte’s a little hyperactive. We’re hoping she grows out of it.”

“I would have loved some siblings. Brothers or sisters.”

“You’re alone?”

“Yeah. Lots of cousins. Tons of cousins but no siblings. Mom was six months pregnant and miscarried when I was four. Took her a long time to get over it. And I don’t think she ever did. She didn’t want to try again.”

“I love Gitte when I don’t want to kill her. You could get married and have kids.”

“That’s the plan. Fill up the house with them. You want kids?”

“Kids, animals, all of it. No one has big families in Denmark anymore. Small country, small houses, small families. It’s why I’ve always wanted to come to America. Big country, big houses. I have big dreams.”

“You have good dreams. I need some good dreams.”

“Is that a hint I should go and let you sleep?”

Wes shook his head. “You can stay. I should sleep but I don’t want to. I feel better talking to you.”

“I like talking to you, too. Although we keep getting off the subject.”

“I don’t even remember the subject.”

“Sex,” Laila reminded him. Wes laughed again.

“How could I forget? I’m twenty and male. That’s usually a safe guess for what’s on my mind.”

“I’m eighteen and female.”

“I’m not buying it. What goes on in your head can’t even begin to compare to what goes on in mine.”

“That’s not fair. There’s no way we can compare without switching brains.”

“That’s not going to happen. No one is allowed inside my brain. It is not pretty in there. All sex all the time. Most of the time, anyway.”

“That must be exhausting.”

“You have no idea.”

“At least you’ve had it. It’s all theory for me.”

“I’ve had it. But you’ve heard it,” he teased again. Laila raised her fist and Wes covered his stomach.

“I didn’t mean to hear it.”

“Did you cover your ears? Leave your bedroom? Start listening to music? Knock on the wall and tell them to keep it down?”

“No.”

“Then you meant to hear it.”

“I didn’t want to hear them having sex, I promise. I wanted to know what was going on. Tante Elle was acting strange when she came for the funeral. I heard them talking about how she left him.”

“Did she say why?”

“I know why she did. I don’t know how she does it, stays with him. I love him more than any other man on earth and even I would have a hard time being with him.”

“She deserves better than to be a secret.”

“He thinks so, too. That night, he said the same thing.”

“What did he say?”

Laila sighed as she pulled her knees to her chest. It had started to cool off in the room, but it didn’t seem right to get under the covers. They were only talking, not sleeping together.

“He said he was sorry that the only time she and he could be together out in the open like this was in Denmark. And that he wished it was under better circumstances than a funeral.”

Wes rolled off the bed and opened the closet door. He pulled down a blanket and came back to the bed.

“What did Nora say?”

“She said...” Laila paused as Wes laid the blanket over her before stretching out on the bed once more. He must have noticed her starting to shiver. “She said that her feelings right now were the last thing he needed to worry about. His mother had died. He was here for the funeral, and she was here for him.”

“Thank you,” Laila heard her uncle say through the wall. “Thank you for coming. I know how busy you are. I know you have other—”

“Nothing. I have nothing more important than you,” Tante Elle said, and Laila had imagined her aunt covering his lips with her hand to playfully shut him up. She did that to him as often as he did it to her.

“Eleanor, please, let me thank you for doing this for me. I’ll feel better.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for. Not coming wasn’t even an option. You should know that by now.”

A long pause followed, a long and painful silence. Laila had to cover her mouth to silence her crying.

“She loved you, Little One. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know. I loved her, too. I think she even liked me. More than my own mother does, anyway, which isn’t saying much.”

“She certainly liked me more than your mother does.”

“Again, not saying much.”

Tante Elle laughed then and it heartened Laila. Such a laugh...it woke the angels up.

“My mother has terrible taste in men. She loved my father. She hates you.”

“You left me. What does that say about your taste in men?”

“It could use some work.”

“Come back to me,” he said, and Laila heard the agony in his voice. “You don’t have to stay away anymore. You never did.”

“It’s such a risk, Søren. Any second now we could get caught. The stories are in the newspapers every day, some priest falling from grace.”

“You’re worth the risk, and you are my grace.”

“I can’t be responsible for ruining your life. I won’t be.”

“Even if they did find out about us and excommunicated me, my life could never be a ruin, not with you in it.”

“I can’t come back...I just can’t. I worked so hard for what I have.”

“You wouldn’t have to give it up, any of it.”

“You say that and I want to believe you. But I remember how it was. I couldn’t even cut my hair without getting your permission. I don’t know if I could go back to that.”

“You miss it.”

“I miss
you.
”

“You promised me forever.”

“I was fifteen when I promised you forever. And you promised me everything the same day. I can no more keep my promise than you can keep yours.”