In the Shadow of Malice Book 3

by Nancy C. Weeks

  Calista searched his pockets. “Here, Adam. I’ll call 911.”

  “No. No!”

  He dropped his head back against the seat. Everything around him faded in and out of focus—except Calista. The pain pounded between his ears as dark, red spotted dots swam over his vision, allowing only minimal light in. Sweat beaded around his eyes and screamed down his spine. He shook his head to clear his vision and grabbed the phone. It took a couple tries, but a line on the other end rang.

  Calista gasped, her hands covering her mouth. “God, you’re bleeding again, but not from the wound on your head. It’s coming from your eyes.” She swiped a finger at the corner of his eye, and it came away dripping with his blood. “I need to get you to a hospital.”

  He shook his head, but the pain was so bad, he froze. The phone continued to ring in his ear. Eighth ring, ninth. On the tenth ring, it connected.

  “Rina.” His best friend’s name came out in a raspy whisper. “Rina.”

  “Katrina is a little busy Blake. Why don’t you join the party?”

  The man’s voice came out in a thick, rough, Eastern European accent. Adam recognized it and a chill spiked through him.

  The agony in the scream he heard next pierced Adam’s heart. He shoved down the sharp pain in his head and allowed the years of training to resurface.

  “You’re dead, Ludis. You hear me. Your fucking life is over.”

  “Big words. I will carve her open, then hunt down the kid. Your kid, you motherfucker. And when I’m done with her, I’m coming for you.”

  The line went dead.

  Two

  His muscles trembled beneath her touch as he shoved the phone into his sports coat. He pressed his temples with his fingertips and said, “I’m sorry. Your home is just two blocks away. Please, get out of the car, Calista.”

  “No. I’m not leaving you. You need a doctor.”

  Her voice sounded calm to her own ears, but everything in her wanted to run. Tidbits of Adam’s conversation with a man named Ludis mixed with Calista’s nightmarish visions of her best friend’s screams; Hanna Tu’s blood smeared over the walls and matted in her hair, the agony from the monster’s knife so excruciating, Hanna’s mind slipped into the darkest hell, never to open again.

  Calista’s eyes filled. She shut them, bit down on her bottom lip before drawing in a deep, cleansing breath. This wasn’t the time to fall apart. Blood mixed with tears streamed down the side of Adam’s face. Air, maybe he needed air. She turned the key and hit the button on the door. The window slid down, letting in the cool night breeze. With the sleeve of her blouse, she blotted the bleeding from the corner of his eye.

  Was this an aneurysm? She knew next to nothing about medicine. But damn it, eyes didn’t bleed.

  “Get out, Calista. I have to go.” Adam’s voice grew weak. The last word was almost inaudible.

  “You can’t drive.”

  Her heart pounded between her ears, drowning out the world around her. Only Adam existed. She tried to remember her first aid lessons, but nothing she had ever learned covered this.

  “It’s better. The pain is lessening.”

  “Liar. Your face is as white as your shirt. I’ll drive you.”

  “No! Hell, no.”

  “Damn it, Adam. Change seats with me and tell me the address.”

  “I can’t get you involved.”

  His pain-filled voice squeezed her heart, and she silently prayed. God, please don’t let him die.

  She clutched his hands in hers. “I’m not leaving you.”

  Since Hanna’s death, Calista had walked out of her own life, slamming the door to the reckless, fun-loving person of her past, and hid under the shield of her grandfather’s diner for the last fifteen months. But that shield didn’t protect her from the nightmares or guard her from the violence in the world she couldn’t control. It found her anyway. As easy as it would be to open the door and step out of the car, she would never forgive herself for leaving Adam alone.

  She yanked the key from the ignition, got out of the car, and raced around to the driver’s side. She threw open the door and tried to shove him over into the passenger seat.

  “Move over.”

  “Give me the keys. Now.” He grabbed for them, but she stepped out of his reach. He glared up at her. “You do not understand what you’re getting yourself into. This can’t touch you.”

  Calista nudged Adam with her hip, trying to force him out of the driver’s seat. “I’m not leaving.” She shoved one more time, and he scooted over the console into the passenger seat. If she could split her emotions in half, one half would celebrate a battle of wills won, while the other half was scared shitless.

  “Address?”

  “Take the Chevy Chase exit.”

  She started the car and backed down the embankment. Spinning the steering wheel, she sped onto the ramp. Once on the Beltway, she weaved through three lanes of traffic. The adrenaline pumping through her veins kept the fear in check, and she pressed down on the accelerator. The speedometer hit ninety.

  “Slow down, Calista.”

  “No.”

  Thank God traffic was light. She eased off the pedal just long enough to take the Chevy Chase exit. “Who was that guy on the phone?” She didn’t want to know, but she had to ask.

  Adam rubbed his hand behind his neck, his eyes fixed on the highway. “No one. You’re giving me a ride. That’s it. Take the next left, and for God’s sake, slow down.”

  Calista spun around the neighborhood street so fast she gripped the steering wheel to keep her shoulder from slamming into the door. Her speed dropped to fifty. From the corner of her eye, she could see the color in Adam’s face return.

  “How’s the pain in your head?”

  “Almost gone. Take the next right.”

  She slowed down and drove into an established neighborhood. She again glanced at Adam. Another blood-soaked tear streamed down the side of his face. He lifted his hand and swiped at it, leaving a smear near his hairline. “What happened on the entrance ramp?”

  “I don’t know.” His voice came out in a forced whisper, and he cleared his throat. “I got this excruciating pain behind my eyes and then…I have no explanation. Next right,” he said, pointing to the upcoming street.

  “There was a man’s voice on the other end of the call. He said after he carves her open…”

  She clamped her jaw tight to keep the sob at bay. If Calista allowed the dam to open, she would be of no use to anyone.

  Adam rested his palm over her hand clamped on the steering wheel. “No questions, Calista.” He paused then said, “You have to go on as if this was just a nightmare, but never happened.”

  “How do I do that, Adam?”

  He removed his hand and pressed her shoulder, the warmth easing away a little of the panic.

  “The same way I do it. Time. Pull over next to the oak tree, two houses up on the right.”

  Calista maneuvered the car into a spot and turned off the engine. She twisted in her seat to face him. He reached behind him and pulled a black duffel bag from the back seat. He unzipped it and pulled out a gun. She couldn’t take her eyes off the offensive weapon.

  Pete made sure she could handle a gun because he kept them in the house. He told her grandmother it would be safer if she learned how to use one than to hide it away under lock and key. But Calista always hated the weapons and wanted nothing to do with them.

  The handgun seemed to fit Adam’s hand perfectly, an extension of himself. Her heart drummed so loudly in her chest, it surprised her the sound didn’t vibrate off the car’s interior walls. “What do I do? How can I help?”

  “You can’t help. As soon as I get out of this car, you will drive away. Understand?” His hand clamped down hard on her hands intertwined in her lap. “Look at me.”

  Calista met his glare. “I can help. Pete has a Glock and taught me how to use it. I don’t understand what’s going on, but you’re not one hundred percent. You can’t go i
nto that house the way you are…”

  “No.” He unbuckled his seat belt, switched off the overhead lights on the dash and opened the door. “Get the hell out of here. Now.” His dark eyes seemed to burrow right into her heart. “Sorry about all of this. It was just supposed to be a normal ride home.”

  “Adam, wait,” she whispered, but he shut the door, cutting off her reply. He placed the Glock in the waistband against his back and darted behind the car. Calista followed his progress across the street. He disappeared behind the side of the house two doors up.

  Everything was eerily silent. It was as if someone clued all the nightlife into what was happening behind closed doors. Calista’ scanned the street. The few cars parked on the curb were empty. She should leave just like Adam commanded, but she couldn’t.

  There was only one other time in her life that she’d felt the same gut-wrenching pull to stay put: the day she abandoned Hanna to her fate, too eager for a weekend trip to wait for her friend. That feeling she ignored, and she would pay for that mistake for the rest of her life. At Hanna’s memorial service, she’d made a vow. No matter how busy, complicated, rushed her life became, she would never turn her back on a friend again. She didn’t have a clue who Adam Blake really was, but the Adam from the diner was a friend.

  “This is restitution for Hanna,” she whispered in the empty car. Before she could talk herself out of probably the stupidest thing she ever did in her twenty-six years, she opened the door and got out.

  Damn, where the hell are the crickets, frogs, fireflies? What do they know that I don’t?

  She crept up against the oak tree and glanced around it. Using the long shadow of the tree, she crossed the street and sprinted over the lawn just like Adam did minutes before. No lights illuminated the porch. She then ran across the driveway into the front lawn of the next house.

  Staying in the shadows, she crossed into the yard, making her way onto the porch. Just as she gripped the doorknob, a crash sounded from inside followed by a loud groan. She hopped down off the porch and crunched behind a large boxwood. Seconds later, the front door smashed open, banging against the wall, and a man raced from the house. Calista curled into a tight ball. He held his shoulder, blood oozing between his fingers. She didn’t breathe, didn’t move an inch, but she couldn’t help memorizing the man’s every feature: tall, slim frame; square jaw; and long, straight, white-blonde hair. He fled down the steps onto the curved sidewalk and darted across the grass. Calista ducked further behind the bush. She watched as he scanned the porch before getting into his car. He sped down the street before he even closed the door.

  Calista inched out of her hiding place. Every nerve screamed to bolt, but her feet edged closer to the door. Her grandfather’s words echoed in her head. Face fear and you control it. Avoid it, fear will swallow you whole.

  This was her taking back her control. She peered around the doorway into the foyer. Adam sat on the floor with a woman covered in blood in his arms.

  “Is she… dead?”

  “Damn it, Calista. I told you to get the hell out of here.”

  Did Ludis see her? The thought terrified him. He was in no position to protect her.

  “The man who just left, did he see you?”

  “No, and he’s gone.”

  Rina’s blood pulsed against the skin of his palm. No matter how hard he applied pressure, she was losing blood at an alarming rate.

  “What can I do?”

  “Hand me the small sweater on the coat rack.”

  Calista grabbed the piece of clothing and knelt next to him. He scrunched it into a ball and pressed it against Rina’s chest wound.

  It took him only seconds to disarm the two men with Ludis. When he lunged toward Ludis, the bastard panicked. He pierced his knife through Rina’s chest, tossing her body against Adam. The wound was too deep. Nothing he did would matter, but he had to try.

  “I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “Put the phone down, Calista.”

  “You can’t help her.”

  “I know. No one can.”

  She breathed in sharply. Then she glared at him in shock and scanned the room, settling on the two dead men. One lay sprawled across the Oriental rug, his neck twisted in an odd angle. The second was slumped faceup over the back of the sofa, with two large knives wedged into his abdomen and chest.

  He broke eye contact with Calista and glanced down at his friend. White, searing anger raged through him. His chest heaved with lack of oxygen as his heart hammered.

  “Adam.” The faint whisper filled him.

  “Rina. God, hang on.” He brushed the hair from her face and lifted her closer so he could hear her.

  “Ludis… he knows…they both know.”

  “Shh, don’t talk…”

  “No. Listen. Vasnev knows–”

  “Knows what? Rina?”

  She touched his face with her blood-covered fingers. He swallowed a sob that threatened to choke him.

  “Everything.”

  Adam shook his head. “No, that’s not possible.” A fist clamped down on his heart and squeezed. How could Vasnev know they lived, that Anna existed?

  The moment they had discovered Rina was pregnant, Adam planned their deaths so carefully. Several witnesses reported Rina’s car ramming the guard rail and flipping off the cliff in the Brenner Pass. His taped execution by a radical group in a hole in Afghanistan, perfectly implemented. Adam’s passing was still talked about in the halls of the CIA six years later.

  He swiped another strand of matted hair from her cheek. “We were careful.”

  “Anna. Promise—she needs you. Keep her safe.”

  Rina’s eyes closed.

  “Stay with me.” He patted Rina’s bruised cheek until she opened her eyes. “I can’t do it alone.”

  “Promise. Anna. Promise.”

  “Of course.”

  Her gaze locked on his as her hand caressed his cheek, then fell to her side as if it weighed a ton. With a slight nod of her head, her body trembled, and went limp in his arms.

  “Rina! Don’t you dare leave me.” Adam gently lowered her to the floor and began chest compressions. “Anna needs you. I need you.”

  The blood gushed out of the long gashes in her abdomen with each compression.

  The air shifted, and he glanced at Calista. She had knelt next to him and wrapped her arm around his waist, resting her head against his back. With her other hand, she covered his hands. Rina’s blood seeped through his fingers, staining her palm.

  “She’s gone, Adam,” she said, her face wet with tears. “Who is Anna?”

  “Rina’s four-year-old daughter.”

  Calista placed a hand on his shoulder. “Where is she?”

  Adam observed Calista’s mouth move, but her words didn’t register. The blood smeared over his palm did. An icy vengeance crept into his heart, keeping it beating. Ludis would pay. Adam would make him pay.

  Calista shook him hard. “Where’s Anna?”

  The desperation in her voice knocked him out of the trance. He stood abruptly and stepped back from Rina’s body. Closing his eyes for only a moment, he focused on two unbeatable forces from within: the soldier and the father. When he opened his eyes, there was no doubt what he had to do. He yanked out the tail of his shirt and wiped his hands. “In the panic room upstairs. Follow me, but touch nothing. Understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  At the staircase threshold, he stopped again. “I mean it, Calista. I don’t want anyone to know you were here. Your name can’t be linked with mine on a damn police report.”

  “But how…”

  “I can’t explain now. I have to get you and Anna out of here.”

  The upstairs hallway had four doors. He opened the third door down and entered a child’s room, glancing to Calista. “Remember, touch nothing.”

  Moving over to the closet, he pushed the clothes away. On the shelf behind the books, he found the hidden metal panel that matched the bookshe
lves perfectly. He tapped the right corner, and a small door popped open, revealing a touch pad. He punched in an eight-digit code and stepped back. The wall slipped away. A steel door stood in front of him with another keypad. This time, he punched in a code and an iris scanner popped out. Adam placed his eye in the circular disk. It took seconds for a thin light to swipe his eye before the door whooshed open.

  He nearly stumbled in his haste to get into the spacious playroom. “Anna?”

  His voice cracked. She wasn’t there.

  “Anna, baby girl, where are you?” He searched the hiding places behind the sofa and furnishings. He stopped in the middle of the room and listened. Calista stood silently in the doorway.

  After a couple of seconds, a faint whimper came from the wardrobe against the back wall. Adam swung open the door and lifted the child curled into the fetal position into his arms. He dropped to the floor and rocked her back and forth. “Anna, talk to me. Are you hurt?”

  Burning fear sliced through every nerve as his hand roamed over Anna’s shoulder, arm, and leg, searching for injuries. The hint of berries and vanilla from her shampoo mixed with the coppery stench of Rina’s death. The two scents didn’t belong in the same universe.

  Anna had captured his bitter heart seconds after she was born. It was his job to protect her. He wrapped Anna’s trembling body tighter against his. How much did she see? Did anyone see her? The thought of Ludis’s hands on Anna made Adam want to rip the man’s liver out and shove it down his throat.

  How in the hell was he going to tell his precious Anna about her mother?

  He brushed her hair out of her face. “Look at me, baby.”

  Her arms circled his neck, clinging to him as if her life depended on it. Not a sound came from her lips, but she clung to him with such trust as if he would fix everything, make her world normal again.

  “I got you, Anna. Are you hurt?”

  “No, but Mommy…”

  “I know, sweetheart.”

  Her body shook as wrenching sobs took control.

  Calista stood so still behind him. Why the hell didn’t she drive away like she promised? She brought normal to his life. In return, the horrors of his life spread out on the living room floor, branding the scene in her mind forever.