Eva had been the one to call a halt, pulling away, apologizing. Alex has been a perfect gentleman since. But he’s been back to the apartment to bring her food and other supplies, and she can’t deny that her hand has lingered on his or that she thrilled when his arm accidentally brushed her breast.
The shore opposite her window ricochets with a fresh display of colored lights. The hotel where she left Pete sleeping taunts her by adding to the show with a rainbow-hued arc that streaks the night sky.
Guilt. Fear. Confusion. Suspicion. Just add some sour lemon and stir. The perfect anniversary cocktail. But funny—I haven’t wanted a drink since I landed in Hong Kong.
Eva turns away from the view. She wanders the peculiar apartment that is both her prison and her safe house. Cartons containing flat screen TVs, Bluetooth speakers, and laptops are stacked against every wall. One bedroom is stuffed to the gills with designer handbags, real or counterfeit, Eva can’t determine. The furniture is limited to a pair of cots, one long sofa, a couple of rudimentary chairs, and a folding card table. For all of the luxury of the building’s construction and design, the apartment itself resembles a warehouse.
But chief among the hideaway’s assets is a garage that connects to one of the giant malls thronging the area. Once you’ve parked inside, it’s relatively easy to disappear into the maze of connected corridors and underground passageways, elevators and stairways, retail and apartment buildings.
Eva had agreed it was best and safest that she remain here while Yuan and Alex tried to find out a few things about her predicament. But her bizarre surroundings coupled with her bird’s-eye view of the hotel where she left her husband are constant reminders of the wretched turn her life has taken.
The reunion with her old friend Yuan Dai was no exception to the ridiculous, fantastic, completely inescapable fact that Eva’s life has spiraled into a spy novel. It was Alex’s idea. Eva followed his suggestion blindly, somewhat surprised the two were still in touch. She’d been their common link that summer ten years ago. They’d always sort of bristled at each other back then. It turned out they still do.
But Yuan ran a restaurant empire now. And her boyfriend was an “uncle,” a senior member of one of the local Triads, which meant she had access to protection and the vast underground network of knowledge the Triads collected about everything happening in Hong Kong. Relying on Yuan’s connections would be safer even than the police, Alex had assured her.
This apartment is one of Yuan’s; she apparently owns several in this largely empty tower. The building itself, Alex had told Eva, is so sparsely populated because it’s a dumping ground for rich Mainland Chinese looking to hide assets offshore. It’s eerie knowing not a single other apartment on this floor is occupied.
Safe, said Alex. Creepy, insisted Eva.
She pokes around in the meager offerings in the refrigerator and comes up with a papaya. As she pares away the skin to get at the soft pulp, Eva composes an email to her sister in her head, one that she knows she will never send. Her phone is dead, but that’s almost beside the point. How could she send something this absurd?
TO: Jenny Fitzgerald Mooney
FROM: Eva Fitzgerald Lombard
RE: Adventures abroad!
Dear Jenny,
Remember how I was complaining that I was bored? Well, this week has turned into an object lesson in the admonishment to be careful what you wish for! I’m a fugitive in Asia, hiding out from an unknown threat in a likely criminal’s apartment, estranged from Pete, and on the brink of adultery with the “one that got away.” How’s that for excitement!!!
The rap at the door makes her jump. She checks the time. Alex isn’t due back for hours. Cautiously she makes her way over to the peephole embedded in the door’s center and peers out. She sees the now familiar face of one of Yuan’s soldiers, introduced to her as Henry. Eva unlocks the door and pulls it open. Henry pushes a man and a woman she’s never seen before into the apartment. He follows them in. Yuan trails behind.
“Who are they?” Eva spits, rapidly assessing the couple: Caucasian, likely American, both a little younger than she. The bearded man is well dressed, the woman a little trashy. They certainly don’t look like they belong together.
“My name is John Bernake,” replies the bearded man. “And this is Stevie Nichols. Forrest Holcomb hired us to find you.”
“Forrest hired you?” The revelation does nothing to calm Eva’s nerves. Not with the mental gymnastics she’s been engaged in while she’s been stranded here in her fortress. Who would want to attack me? How is Pete involved? Who can I trust?
“Your husband is beside himself with worry,” Bernake continues. “I’d like to contact him to let him know you’re all right.”
“No!” The word shoots from Eva’s mouth and hangs suspended in the air by her vehemence. Yuan nods and a Glock appears in Henry’s hand.
Bernake raises an eyebrow, but he continues, his voice even. “Eva, I can see that you’re scared. I don’t know why, but I can tell you this—I’ve met with your husband. He’s wrecked with worry about you. Why are you afraid to let him know you’re safe?”
Eva shoots a look at Yuan. She knows Yuan wouldn’t have brought these people here if she hadn’t done some vetting. “I need to speak to my friend,” Eva tells Bernake. She pulls Yuan into the designer-bag-packed bedroom and closes the door before the interlopers have a chance to respond.
In the exchange that follows, Eva learns that Yuan has investigated the pair to the extent she could, their key validator being a woman named Gracey who runs an Internet café. Gracey was able to vouch, if not for the pair themselves, for their employer, a darknet-based organization that Gracey has relied on from time to time for certain unusual deliveries.
“For her Internet café?” Eva asks with a little snark. She’s still astonished that Yuan, her carefree “girls’ night out” drinking buddy, has morphed into a Triad-connected entrepreneur.
Yuan shuts her down. “You ask too many questions. You always have.”
“Hazard of my profession.”
“Maybe. But I suggest you stop asking and tell them what you know. They might actually be able to help you. Gracey doesn’t vouch for anyone lightly.”
Eva strides out of the bedroom. Peers first into the man’s eyes and then the woman’s. Both meet her gaze evenly. What do I have to lose at this point?
She asks the pair to sit. They do, perching side by side on the edge of the sofa. Henry leans against the wall opposite them, his gun casual in his palm. Yuan swings herself up to perch on the edge of the card table.
Eva paces as she speaks. “I think it all comes down to a photograph I took back in London,” she begins. “I was taking a picture of something else altogether. But after I took it, one of the two men in the background of the image started following me.”
She continues, taking them through their flight to Hong Kong and her movements up until now. “The guy who attacked me in the park is one of the men in the photo. And at first I couldn’t place the other one. But I think he might work for Forrest too. So tell me, who do I trust? Why should I trust you? I don’t know if I can trust my own fucking husband.”
Suddenly wobbly with the relief of laying it all out there, Eva drops down onto her haunches. “I don’t know if I can trust myself,” she murmurs. She squeezes her eyes shut, making a wish for a different truth.
Stevie Nichols addresses her in a soft voice, inflected with a familiar New York tinge. “Eva,” she says. “Keep your eyes closed for a minute.”
Eva’s eyes snap open.
“No, I mean it,” Stevie presses. “Close your eyes.” Her tone is both soothing and commanding. Eva complies. It’s a relief to be told what to do.
“Think about Peter, Eva. Your husband. The man you promised to love and honor. You two made a commitment to each other. You chose each other.
”
Eva flashes on the silver-framed, frozen image from their wedding left behind on the dresser in their London townhouse. God, London seems like a long time ago. Our lives in New York another lifetime. How is this real? How can Pete and I be so far apart? How can it be that I’m terrified of him?
Eva’s snapped back from her fearful musings by the woman’s low tones. “You pledged yourselves to each other in front of your friends and family. Promised to love and honor each other through good and bad. What a lucky thing to want to make those promises to another person! A rare thing. A beautiful thing.”
A wisp of the song they’d picked for their meticulously rehearsed first dance spills into Eva’s thoughts. She can practically feel the warmth of Peter’s hand on her lace-clad waist. That had been a beautiful day. Pure happiness.
“Think about the first time you kissed Peter.”
Oh, that first kiss. All melt and yearn and promise.
“Think about the last time.”
Did I kiss him before I left the hotel? Eva can’t remember. Then the memory floods into her. Yes! I kissed him on his forehead before I left. I thought about coming back to make a baby.
She sways. Sinks down from her haunches so she’s sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Stevie continues in her soothing voice. “We’ve met your husband, but you know your husband, Eva. Could that man knowingly put you in danger? I don’t think so. Not the man we met. It’s obvious he loves you, that he’s worried sick about you. Let us take you back to him. And then the two of you can figure out whatever’s going on together.”
The thought of actually being face-to-face with her husband after the events of the last few days is paralyzing. Eva’s poised perilously on a balance beam, as terrified of falling into the abyss of knowing the truth about Peter as she is of not knowing. Sickened by her doubts, she can only croak out a feeble “I don’t know.”
Stevie nods. “I understand you don’t know who or what to trust. I get it. I have trust issues myself. You’re kind of a fool if you don’t. But look at it this way. Your friend Yuan went to considerable lengths to protect you, yet she brought us here. And we can all go to Peter together. Talk to him. You owe that to your marriage. If he’s involved in any way in trying to harm you, we’ll get to the bottom of it and be there to protect you. Maybe you two are on the same side, after all. I bet you are. Talk to him, Eva. Find out the truth.”
Eva’s so tired of running. Tired of being scared. Ready, she hopes, to figure out what’s going on with Pete. Even if that truth is the worst thing imaginable. She tips off the balance beam and falls: She has to know.
She opens her eyes. “Let’s go.”
SKILLS
Stephanie Regaldo, aka Stevie Nichols,
Kowloon
Stephanie settles Eva Lombard into the backseat of Yuan’s Tesla. Henry’s at the wheel. Yuan graciously offered them the use of her car and driver, before vanishing into the night. Stephanie suspects Henry is actually there to keep watch on them, not provide a service.
“You’re secretly a romantic,” John says quietly as she shuts the car door.
Stephanie snorts in reply. “Hardly. I didn’t believe a fucking word of that crap. Our job is to get her back to her husband. I would have said whatever it took to get her to come with us. I just played a hunch. It’s her fucking anniversary.”
She circles the car in order to climb in next to Eva, enjoying the stunned look on John’s face and leaving him to ride shotgun.
They drive in silence. Henry’s aggressive, cutting off other cars and laying on the horn. Stephanie keeps close watch on Eva, who tightly grips the edges of her seat with every swerve. She’s very pale; dark shadows bruise the tender skin under her eyes.
Eva wilts even further as they pull into the circular driveway of her hotel. Henry says something in Cantonese and the valet hops to, bowing and scraping obsequiously as they climb from the Tesla sedan.
But Eva’s not the only one looking ragged as they enter the hotel; John is distinctly green. “He’s a maniac!” he mutters, gesturing at Henry. “Nearly killed us half a dozen times on the way over here!”
“We’re on the verge of ‘mission accomplished,’ ” Stephanie hisses. “Pull yourself together.”
The lobby of the hotel is thronged with well-dressed patrons. Live music floats out of two different bars, soft jazz from one corner, bluesy rock from another. That pleasant buzz born of cocktails, conversation, and laughter permeates the space, rising upward in gusts to the vaulted ceiling.
The four of them pierce this fizz of happy like a needle pricking skin. They ride the elevator to the thirty-second floor in weighty silence. Eva draws back into one corner, wary eyes following the illuminated numbers flashing above the door.
PING!
The elevator door slides open. Stephanie leads the way down the hotel corridor to Peter and Eva’s corner room. The DO NOT DISTURB tag hangs on the doorknob.
Eva turns to Stephanie, her eyes anxious. “I don’t know what to say to him.”
“As soon as you see him, I’m positive you’ll know exactly what to do and say,” Stephanie reassures her. “Trust yourself. Trust him.”
“Okay,” Eva breathes as she waves her card key in front of the lock panel. “Here goes nothing.”
Stephanie catches John’s eye and gives him a little wink. To her astonishment, he rewards her with a lopsided smile.
Eva opens the door and pushes it open. Gasps.
Peering around her shoulder, Stephanie sees why: The room is in chaos, the place well and truly trashed. The tables are upended; the decorative furnishings broken, clothes scattered. A shattered glass ice bucket lies in glittering pieces amidst a puddle of water.
“Stay back,” Henry urges, pushing past them, gun drawn. He disappears inside.
“Oh my god,” keens Eva. “What’s happened now?”
“Stay calm,” Stephanie commands her. “We’ll find out.”
Henry returns moments later. “Empty,” he reports.
John steps into the room and surveys the damage. Stephanie and Eva follow. Henry turns away, punching in a number on his phone and conversing in rapid Cantonese. Stephanie guesses that he’s reporting up. She and John are going to have to do the same soon enough.
Whoever had been here had been thorough. Not only is the living area of the suite ravaged, all of Eva’s and Peter’s clothes are dumped in unceremonious piles. Empty drawers hang open. The bed is stripped, the mattress gutted. The minibar hangs open and empty, its former contents scattered in front of the glow of the gaping door like crushed offerings to a god.
Stephanie pushes open the door to the master bathroom. There’s a bloody towel on the bathroom floor. Not blood soaked (Stephanie has seen blood soaked), but heavily splattered, certainly. Stephanie’s gut twists at the scent: iron, copper, death. Glancing at John she realizes she’s not alone in her reaction; he’s gone pale under his gingery beard, a muttered expletive escapes his lips.
He turns Eva back before she can enter the bathroom. “Check the closet first,” he snaps, steering her away.
“Is there something in the bathroom?” Eva demands, charging past them both.
“Eva, wait!”
But Stephanie’s too late. A low moan torn from somewhere primal crawls from her mouth in an attenuated stutter, “Unhhh…unhhh…unhhh…”
At that instant Stephanie feels a moment of real kinship with Eva. She’d known instinctively how to play her—let’s just be girls talking about boys—all that bullshit. But now, this woman with the fancy education and clothes, the opulent hotel suite and loving husband and family, this woman who had every damn thing Stephanie didn’t, now they are linked forever in a sorority of a different sort, all of their other differences be damned.
They’ve seen the shed blood of a loved one and known uncertaint
y about its meaning. Stephanie’s trail of blood led to the murdered bodies of the two people she’d loved best in the world. Eva’s path is still unfolding.
Stephanie feels it like a current between the three of them—she, John, and Eva. Her own story didn’t have a happy ending. From what little John’s told her, his didn’t either.
This is why I want to do this, Stephanie realizes with sudden resolve. Because I want to give other people happier endings.
“We’re going to find him, Eva,” Stephanie promises. “He’s going to be all right.”
Eva Lombard gulps in a breath. She tears her gaze from the spattered blood and offers Stephanie a wretched smile. “Well, you found me, didn’t you? Okay. Let’s go get him.”
Well, shit. That’s a surprise. I was sure she was going to fold.
Stephanie likes Eva more for the offer, but she’s already saddled with one lame-ass partner and she’s not taking on another. No effing way.
STRANGER
Jake Burrows, aka John Bernake,
Kowloon
Back in Yuan’s safe house on the forty-ninth floor of the apartment building on Kowloon, Jake paces the polished wood floors and thinks he might lose his mind. His inclination for action (equally matched by Stevie’s, he has to reluctantly admit) had been quelled by Henry’s insistence that if anyone was going to locate Peter Lombard in Hong Kong, it was going to be the Triad network, not these two American strangers.
Faced with the stark reality that this is indeed a task best left to Yuan’s foot soldiers, Jake allowed himself to be brought from the Lombards’ hotel room back to the apartment in Kowloon along with Stevie and Eva Lombard. But he can’t stay still.
His jittery mind keeps bouncing from the blood in the Lombards’ suite to a different bloodied hotel room back in Paris, still probably the worst day of his life (even though he’s had plenty of others that could qualify: The day Mom went missing. The day Dad was found murdered). But that day in Paris is still the topper. It was the day all of the mysteries of his family began to unravel, and Jake learned the ugly way that love isn’t enough to conquer evil and that fear can corrupt even the most solid affection.
The Empty Bed Page 18
