by Kim Foster
Now to find what I needed.
This, typically, was a task made easier by knowing what one was looking for. Which I didn’t. I began skulking through the darkness of Atworthy’s creaky old house. The small bright circle of my penlight bobbed ahead of me and slid over walls, carpeted floors, the TV. An office or den might be useful, if I could locate such a thing. Or a bedroom. Typically full of personal information.
Wait. There was the kitchen. Beyond a doorway I saw dishes piled in the sink and smelled the faint aroma of burnt food. The kitchen could be useful—maybe I’d find some phone messages or bills. I tiptoed that way. I was relaxing into the job now. And I was pleased because, if nothing else, I was giving my new soft-soled black shoes a dry run. So far, they were definitely working well. Except for one irritating little spot by my left heel—
Just then, the cold blade of a sizable knife pressed against my throat.
Chapter 11
The hand holding the knife was Atworthy’s. I knew because a sharp voice in my ear said, “Do not move,” and it was unmistakably his. I’d heard it in the lecture hall often enough.
I was frozen, mentally calculating my chances of getting out of this ambush with my carotid arteries still intact.
Then there was a sharp intake of breath, and Atworthy said, “Catherine? Is that you?” He withdrew the blade and spun me around. “Jesus, Catherine, I could have killed you.” He was angry but clearly relieved. “What are you doing here?”
As he flipped the knife closed, I stared at it. The weapon was a balisong, which was no kitchen knife. A balisong is an illegal blade, a classic choice for crooks.
My professor. With the weapon of a criminal.
“Well . . . I . . .” I struggled to find a suitable pretext. I decided to lob the ball back to him and buy a little time. I planted a hand on my hip.
“You know, Professor, I might ask you what you’re doing with a balisong. And how did you learn how to subdue an intruder like that?”
“That does not answer the question, my dear.”
“Right. Well, I really wanted to know my grade on my last paper . . . and I thought you might have it here. . . .”
“Catherine,” he said, holding up a hand, “just stop. I know you’re a thief. I’ve known for a long time, in fact.”
My heart stopped for a second. He knew? Did he think I was breaking in to steal from him? His tone suggested he wasn’t about to clap handcuffs on my wrists or place an imminent 911 call. It also suggested that denying things, at this stage, would be pointless.
“I wasn’t robbing your house,” I blurted.
“I believe you.”
“Are you a cop?” I asked. Truthfully, I didn’t want to hear the answer to this question. I was getting ready to bolt. I’d already assessed the exits. The answer to this question was going to dictate a lot.
“No.”
“No?” I squinted at his face in the darkened kitchen, trying to read his expression and figure out what was going on. Was he lying? I had an uneasy, fun-house feeling of standing on an unsteady floor that was about to tip at an awkward angle. “Let’s say I believe you. How do you know about me, then?”
He scrubbed his face, looking at me uncertainly. Then he sighed and took a seat at the round oak kitchen table.
“Catherine, I think it’s time I told you the full story.”
“Please do.”
“Atworthy isn’t my real name,” he began, loosening the navy rep stripe tie he’d worn to class that day. “It’s Andre Gaston. I’ve been using Atworthy as an alias. It’s a name that was given to me for protection.”
I scraped a chair out from under the table and joined him. “Protection from what?”
I leaned my arms on the table, and a few sharp crumbs stuck into my elbows. A clock on the wall ticked softly, and the refrigerator gave a click and began humming in the corner.
“My old life.”
“And that was?”
He hesitated. He raked a hand through his thick hair peppered with several strands of gray. “I was a hired killer, Catherine. An assassin.”
My mouth dropped open in full cartoon style.
“I grew up in Paris,” he continued. “And that’s where I trained to be a killer.”
I leaned back in the seat with a thud. Atworthy then spun the tale of how this all came to be. A shadowy agency, in the business of seeking out promising subjects, had recruited him at a young age. He came to their attention when he showed an early skill at sport shooting while out hunting every Sunday with his father. He was shipped off to boarding school—which turned out to be a school in the covert arts, training contract killers. After graduating, the agency took him on as an assassin.
I looked down, shaking my head slowly in disbelief. “I had no idea.” I looked up at him again. “So, you actually killed people?”
He suddenly looked very old, like he’d lived a thousand lives. His shoulders sloped under an invisible burden.
“Catherine, you need to understand that the people I killed were marked men. They were dead, anyway. Whether I pulled the trigger or someone else. It’s not an excuse, but—”
“So what happened? Why did you stop?”
He spread his hands out on the table before him. “I had doubts. As I grew older and saw more of the world, I started to see things differently. And then I got an assignment that changed everything.”
“In what way?”
“It was something I just couldn’t do. The target was a woman. And . . . she was pregnant.”
“Oh. So you refused.”
Atworthy’s face was grim and pale. “There is no turning down an assignment. No, I did it.” I stared at him in horror. “After that I couldn’t live with myself anymore. I wasn’t sleeping. I wasn’t eating. I couldn’t go on.” His eyes looked haunted. It was an expression I’d never seen on my professor’s face before. Streetlights shone in through the window of the breakfast nook, illuminating a row of kitchen knives hanging on the wall.
“So you quit?” I asked.
He laughed without humor. “Quitting wasn’t an option. People own you. Instead, I turned myself in.”
“To the police?” I asked slowly, the very idea of this causing an involuntary physical repulsion in the pit of my stomach.
“I struck a deal. I provided names. And I was placed into witness protection. The only skill I had other than killing was in French literature. Strings were pulled, calls were made, and I ended up being placed as a professor in this little corner of the Pacific Northwest, here at the University of Washington.”
“Okay, but how did you find out what I do for a living?” I asked, leaning forward. Crumbs crunched under my forearms again.
“I still retain some underground connections, and they told me when a professional thief enrolled in my department. Criminals under protection need to know about the movements of other professionals in the area. It wasn’t an accident that I became your academic advisor. I specifically requested it. I thought . . . maybe the time would come when I could help you.”
“Help me? In what way?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I could help you understand the choice ahead of you. Maybe help you choose a less illegal life. Or help you deal with the emotional repercussions of the path you’ve chosen.”
I was quiet a moment. I thought of the Star tarot card I had tucked into the waistband of my black Lycra pants before coming here.
“And was that you . . . in London? Did you follow me there?” I asked.
“I thought you might be in over your head.”
He was right about that. I had been in over my head. And I still was—just now with Faulkner and the Hope Diamond.
“All this time, why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
“I’ve been afraid of openly mingling the two sides of my life. It’s one thing when it’s all covert, but quite another when they mix. I was afraid of falling back into—”
“The dark side?”
He smiled. “I
guess you could put it like that.”
I squirmed in the uncomfortable kitchen chair, thinking about whether I should bring it up.
“Well, since you mentioned helping me,” I said at length, “maybe you’re in the mood for providing some advice? I’m in the market a little bit.”
“Go on.”
This was familiar territory. Since he was my thesis supervisor, I often consulted with him about thorny problems. In the past they’d revolved a little more around Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo, and somewhat less around committing major felonies, but this might work, too.
I told him about my trouble with Faulkner. I told him about the deal I’d made about the Hope Diamond. And I told him about my panic attacks, the fear that would make it impossible for me to actually do the job.
Throughout, he listened intently, frowning.
“So, can you help me?” I asked. I held my breath.
Atworthy sat back in his chair. “No.”
I stared. “No? Just no?” I stammered with disappointment. That was it?
“I can’t help you, Cat. Only you can help you. And the way you can do it? You have to do this job. You have to take the Hope Diamond job. If you want to get over this fear, that’s the only way to do it.”
“But I thought maybe it would be better to lay low for a bit. Stay safe. No?”
“That is the opposite of what you need to do,” Atworthy said. “Running away from fear is the quickest route straight into its arms.”
I said nothing.
“Your brain will, over time, figure out that you can do this, that you’ll be fine,” he said. “And the panic attacks will subside.”
Now that it was said, that it was out there, I knew he was right. I’d been tossed to sea from a sailboat, knocked overboard by a flailing boom. If I didn’t get back in the boat now, I would never be able to.
“Catherine, I have every confidence you will find your way. But right now you need to embrace the fear. You need to do exactly what your instincts are telling you not to.”
Chapter 12
The next day I sat at my desk, staring at a plane ticket to Paris. One traveler. Solo. Leaving tonight.
Earlier today I had told Jack I was going to Paris, and I had tried to convince him to come with me. I thought maybe he’d be able to get away for a few days. Spending a little time together in Paris—the most romantic city in the world—would be wonderful. Of course, me casing the Louvre might not be the most romantic thing ever. But I figured we could spend an hour sitting at a sidewalk café or nuzzling in the park, like everyone else in Paris.
But when I brought it up, he was evasive. Said he had some important stuff he was working on. He started running his hands through his hair and looking away, out the window. Then he began muttering things about making a difference. That this was his chance.
It was one of the things I found most fascinating about Jack. He truly wanted to make the world a better place.
But even if he couldn’t go to Paris, I still needed to. I told him I needed to head out of town for a couple of weeks for business.
When I said those words . . . well, I could see what it did to him. He hesitated a second, during which I knew he was processing the fact I’d said, “For business,” and he knew I meant “To do something illegal, which most likely involves stealing something.”
I could see the conflict on his face. He was simultaneously repulsed by what I did and fascinated by it. And, at the same time, schooling himself to not ask a lot of questions.
But of course he was fascinated. Jack came from a long line of lawbreakers. His father, in fact, was one of the legendary jewel thieves of all time—John Robie, the man who’d been the inspiration for Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, the Cary Grant and Grace Kelly film.
To Jack’s credit, he merely nodded with my news. There were no follow-up questions. We both knew we did what we had to do.
I have to confess, sometimes it bothered me that there was so much we didn’t talk about. We tiptoed around these taboo subjects, and it had become a habit. Sometimes we even tiptoed when we didn’t need to.
I looked at my ticket again, read the details for the hundredth time. The flight time, the baggage limitations, the departure date, April 20. Today.
My heart dropped into my stomach. How could I have forgotten?
There was somewhere I needed to be.
Twenty minutes later I pulled up to Lake View Cemetery in my black Mini Cooper and parked in the lot.
I still wasn’t sure I wanted to be here. Actually, I was quite confident I did not want to be here. Being in a place like this was terrifying for me. Death occupied way too many of my thoughts these days.
But I couldn’t not be here. So I forced myself to put my hand on the door handle and step out.
It was okay, I told myself. I’d just make a quick visit. The cellophane crinkled as I clutched the flowers by my side. I’d do this thing, then get out of here.
I padded across the thick grass of the cemetery. Past some graves that were well tended, some that were ancient and crumbling and looked like everyone who had ever loved that person was now in a grave, too.
I passed some familiar headstones. The looming tomb-like one. The pretty one in pink granite with engraved roses—I’d liked looking at that one when I was a kid. Then, a few steps away, the scary one with the face carved into it.
I tried not to think about what it meant, this place. And what each of the stones represented. People who had all faced their final moment, had stood before death, and had gone through to the other side. It was something that was occupying my dreams, my nightmares, my waking thoughts.
And then, as I grew closer, I took a sharp breath of surprise. Crouched by the side of the grave, hand touching the headstone, was my father.
“Dad?”
He turned, startled. His eyes were red-rimmed. This was a jolt for me. I rarely, if ever, had seen my father cry.
“Ah, Cat. I wondered if you’d be here today.”
“Of course I’m here today. I always come on this day.” Today was the anniversary of my sister’s death.
It was fourteen years ago that Penny had died. On her bike, by herself, a hit-and-run. And it had been my fault.
She had wanted me to—no, she had needed, had begged me to—steal something for her. Her lucky ring. She’d asked me to get it back from the mean girl who’d taken it and stashed it in her locker.
I had refused.
And Penny had taken matters into her own childlike hands.
If I’d just done it, she’d be fine. But I had tried to fight my true nature, the gifts given to me.
And that was one of the reasons I kept doing it. Being a thief, I mean. To honor Penny. At one time I’d thought I might find atonement by doing this. That maybe there was a job out there to release me. I now knew that wasn’t going to happen. This was too much a part of who I was.
Of course, it might be the end of me, too. And this was something I didn’t know how to handle in the least. Not anymore.
I looked at my dad and wondered what it meant that he had started coming to Penny’s grave again. Also, where was my mom?
Truth was, I really didn’t have time for a whole family reunion. I had to get on a flight.
Both my parents knew about my real job. My mom had known for a few years, and she was on board. Actually, more than that—she considered herself my business manager. This was an opinion we did not share.
My dad was another story. He had learned the truth only a few months ago. And he had taken it very hard. “I feel like I’ve lost two daughters now,” was what he’d said.
I placed my cellophane-wrapped tulips on Penny’s grave. My dad and I stood silently for a few minutes. But I didn’t need to look at my watch to feel the time ticking.
“Dad, I know I just got here. But I really have to go.”
I wanted to cry in his arms. I ached to tell him how scared I was. Tell him about the bad guy threatening me. To stand in this
place of death and tell him I was terrified of dying. I wanted to stay there longer. I wanted to give him a hug.
But the time wasn’t right yet for all that.
I desperately hoped he’d come around someday. When I got back from Paris, reconnecting with my dad would be the first thing I’d do.
As long as I got back in one piece.
Several hours later, the plane roared beneath me as we lifted off the runway. I’d made my connection in Washington, DC, with no problem, and now there was nothing standing in the way of this mission except a lot of open sky.
En route to the airport in Seattle, I had sent Faulkner a message on the encrypted cell phone he’d given me to communicate with him. “Mission accepted. En route to Paris.”
The message had come off far more confident than I felt.
At least I was flying business class; that perk came courtesy of Templeton’s campaign with AB&T. It was the least they could do, he’d said.
As the overhead compartments rattled during takeoff and my torso pressed back into the seat, I felt fresh doubt. There was the fear thing, of course. But also, did I really have the chops for this job, anyway? Faulkner hadn’t commissioned me because I was the best. He’d commissioned me because I was the one he could blackmail.
As we bumped through a turbulent patch and passed through thick clouds, I gripped the arms of my seat.
The plane banked to the right as the pilot adjusted his course for Paris.
I needed a distraction, so I turned to the woman sitting beside me. “So what takes you to Paris?” I asked.
She didn’t look up from her book right away. Yes, that’s my favorite. Trying to strike up perky small talk with someone who utterly ignores you. Nothing awkward about that.
At length, she raised her head and turned to me.
“Business,” she said, fixing me with a cold gaze. She didn’t volunteer anything further and went straight back to her book.
