by Vonnie Davis
Niko told her of his love for this young woman. In the video, she appeared beautiful and vibrant. Alyson felt older and tattered. She fought to retain the progress she’d made in her feminine rebirth. Still, a dread crept in.
“Now that I think about it, the pattern is the same.” Jean-Luc tossed the apple core into the trash. At her questioning look, he continued. “Dembri faked his death and we stopped looking for him. Now, there’s a good chance Hae-Won did the same thing. If you’re sure…”
She wrapped her arms around her waist. The sight of Niko, leaning forward, engrossed in that video of Hae-Won destroyed something in her. The heartache she felt over Chaz’s betrayal was nothing compared to this. Getting over this would involve more strength than she could muster at this time. Maybe next month, next year, but not now.
Right now, she could barely gulp in enough air to keep from passing out. Her stomach cramped. Dear Lord she fell for a man in love with another woman. He still grieved for Hae-Won after two years. What was she? A willing substitute? Second best?
“Alyson?” Jean-Luc touched her shoulder. “Are you sure?”
She closed her eyes for a minute and remembered. “When the gunmen and I left here that night, I knew I would die. After all, they, or someone in their organization, just killed Giselle.”
“Yes, you’re right. Recall the scene for me. Describe it in every detail.”
She kept her eyes closed. “Like I said, I knew they would kill me. Made me mad as hell, so I put on a mantle of major attitude like a wool coat. I charged down the steps ahead of them, thinking and planning. I wanted to get them off this property before they killed me. I didn’t want the Reynard family to live with that memory. The female yelled at me to stop or they’d shoot. I told her I wasn’t trying to run away.” She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Her stomach clenched and she felt sick. What would this do to Niko? To them? Her knees grew weak and she stumbled. Jean-Luc wrapped his arm around her shoulders to steady her.
“I held the door open for them. Acted all brave and bitchy. The larger of the gunmen stepped outside, but the smaller one, the female, came face to face with me. I saw the hatred in her dark eyes, the same eyes on that screen just now. The woman stepped closer, within mere inches, and said, ‘Fool, your baseless arrogance fuels my hatred.’ The same phrase Hae-Won uttered in that video Niko couldn’t tear his concentration from.”
A wounded sound drew their attention. Both turned toward the noise. Niko stood there, eyes wide. His face, a portrait of incredulity. Although his mouth worked, no words emerged. Pain filled his eyes. The color drained from his face. Then he visibly tensed as if gaining control. Anger replaced the pain in his eyes. They hardened. His anger became so palpable, she felt as if it reached out and slapped her.
“What the hell are you saying?” The sharpness of his voice cut her.
Jean-Luc stepped between them. “Alyson recognized Hae-Won’s voice on the video you were watching.”
“That’s impossible! She died two years ago, long before Aly came here.”
“We never saw her body, buddy.”
Niko glared at his friend for a minute before turning his gaze on her. “Aly, what the hell are you implying?”
Her heart beat so fast, she grew unsteady. Spots danced in her vision field. This continual nightmare grew more grotesque by the hour. She reached a hand out to the counter to steady herself. “Jean-Luc, would you leave us alone, please?”
“You sure?” Jean-Luc tipped her chin up with two fingers and studied her face.
“Your job isn’t to protect her. That’s my job.”
“Then get your head out of your ass and pay attention. Start weighing the facts. Hae-Won manipulated you. That time you rescued her from a gang of ruffians in the hotel bar in Kuwait? I bet that whole scene was staged to reel you in.”
“Bullshit!” Niko’s hands fisted. “I would have known. I’m trained to know when I’m being played.”
“Hey, any man can yield when sex is dangled in front of him the way she tempted you.”
Oh dear God, I do not want to hear this. She turned and started to walk away.
“That continual bitching about your job was, no doubt, intended to turn you against our government. It was all planned. All designed to undermine your loyalty to France.”
Niko charged and punched Jean-Luc in the face.
At the sound of flesh striking flesh, Alyson gasped and turned. Her eyes barely comprehended what they saw.
Poor Jean-Luc had no clue Niko wrestled with that very fact for two years. Only in a different context; Niko felt he betrayed his country by leaving Hae-Won alone with confidential information. Niko struck him again.
Alyson grabbed Niko’s arm. “Don’t do this! This man saved your life. You’ve been together since childhood.”
“Stay the hell away!” Niko raged, his eyes wild.
Jean-Luc wiped blood from his busted lip. “That’s twice I let you hit me. Next time you take a swing at me, I’ll bust your balls. Hae-Won was a bitch. Everyone saw it but you.”
Niko lunged, coiling his hands around his best friend’s throat. “You will not talk about Hae-Won like that. She is not alive. She wasn’t a part of Red Hand. It’s lies, all lies! She was a beautiful person. She…” He released his hold on Jean-Luc and held his hands wide as he stepped back. “It’s a lie.” His breathing was rapid and his face feral with a jumble of agonizing emotions.
Alyson shrunk back from the physical and verbal exchange between Niko and Jean-Luc. Was this man she loved so emotionally tied to Hae-Won he’d fight his best friend? Did anyone mean as much to him as his supposedly dead lover?
“Think it through, man.” Jean-Luc, it appeared, held no animosity toward Niko. “Alyson said the woman in the ski mask uttered the same phrase to her Hae-Won said to you in the video. The same phrase I heard her say to you during her rants. She possessed many of the attitudes of a terrorist—explosive, single-minded, judgmental.”
Niko shook his head. “No. She was good. She was all things good.”
Alyson’s heart shattered. Even now, in death, Hae-Won was more important than she. Niko’s response nailed shut the coffin of her feelings. Now she, too, would mourn. “Jean-Luc, how soon can you get a French passport for me under the name of Cally Aukland? I’m going home when my family leaves.” She turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Is that what you want? To lose her? You’re driving her away with this obsession over Hae-Won.”
Niko ran a hand through his hair in frustration and glanced at the empty doorway. “Of course I don’t want to lose her. She’s everything to me.”
Jean-Luc laughed and opened the freezer to pull out a bag of frozen peas. He held it to his face where Niko’s punch landed. “Well, buddy, you got a piss-poor way of showing it. Granted, I’m no expert in the female department, but even I know you don’t defend and praise one woman in front of another. Hell, you all but accused her of lying. Put yourself in her place, man. How would you feel if she waxed poetically about her ex-husband?”
Niko snatched an opened bottle of wine from the refrigerator, yanked out the cork and upended it to his lips. “You can’t spring something like that on me and expect me to shrug my shoulders and say, ‘oh well.’ Hell, I’ve mourned that woman for two years.”
“You turned her into a saint. Hae-Won was no saint. She was a complaining, whining woman.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? Take time to think back to all her tirades, all her rants. What central theme flowed through them all? I overheard Hae-Won more than once try to badger information out of you.”
Niko took another long pull of wine. “The Red Hand captured her. Held her prisoner.”
“So they wanted us to think. You know how all that played out. Think it through.”
“We got a call from one of our informants telling us she’d been abducted in Iran.” Niko relived that phone conversation more times tha
n he cared to admit. Memorized every detail. Hae-Won traveled to Iran in search of a story; the big story she was always on the prowl for. With information she got off his computer, she went to The Red Hand’s headquarters on the outskirts of Tabriz, hoping to get exclusive pictures. For two long years he carried around the guilt of allowing her access to that information.
“You’ve been dragging around some pretty oppressive guilt over Hae-Won getting hold of some of our intel. You rambled about it in your delirium during those long hours after you were shot in Tabriz. Before we were rescued. I’ve never talked about it, but damn, now’s the time.”
Niko took another sip of wine, needing to ease the pain. He shrugged in response to Jean-Luc’s remarks. This could not be true. If her death was a lie, then how much of them was a lie? For two years he lived on the memories of her. Were those memories meaningless? Was their time together, those wonderful, glorious times merely a means to an end? Had she used him? Had her exotic sexuality overpowered his training? Should he have seen through it all?
He turned to Jean-Luc. “I don’t know if talking about it will do any good.”
“Might. Might not. Only you can decide. I can tell you this. Whatever you’re hiding is controlling you and has been for a long time.”
Niko nodded, accepting the time had come to tell his best friend. “You might be right.” He took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. “Remember two years ago when The Red Hand was increasing its activity. Hae-Won was after me to tell her what I knew about them. When I refused, she accused me of caring more about the job than her.”
“She was pretty relentless about that. It was hard for me to hear her bitch and bitch at you and keep my mouth shut. I kept wondering why the hell you took it from her.”
“I loved her. Thought we had a future.”
Jean-Luc tossed the bag of peas back into the freezer, leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “So you gave her information?”
“No. Hell, no. Not on purpose. I walked away from my computer with top-secret intel on the screen.” He gauged Jean-Luc’s reaction. What would his childhood friend think of him now?
“What kind of intel?” His stare was cold, hard.
“The list of possible locations of The Red Hand’s hideouts.”
Jean-Luc swore. “Man, what the hell were you thinking?”
“You think I’m proud of what I did? It’s been eating at me night and day. It was the day after that café bombing on the Right Bank. Hae-Won and I were scheduled to leave in a couple days to go see her parents. I told her I couldn’t go. We argued, and she got hysterical.”
Jean-Luc snorted. “What else is new.”
“I came out here to get her some wine, thinking it would calm her. You called to relay some information. While I was here in the kitchen, she looked on my computer and stole the information. That’s how she knew about the hideout in Iran.”
“You walked away from your computer with open files on it?”
Niko nodded and looked away. Seeing the disappointment in Jean-Luc’s eyes was damned difficult. “Yeah, I did. Those addresses were on my screen. The rest of my files were still password protected. No way could she have gotten into them. Treason goes against everything I stand for…and yet I allowed her access to that list.”
Jean-Luc stepped toward Niko. “Time you ditch that guilt, man. It’s been eating at you for too long. A list of addresses. You allowed her to see a list of addresses. Hell, she probably already knew them. Had probably stayed at most of them, if the truth were known. She used you. You’re not the first government agent to think with the wrong head.”
“You know my personal standards about my job. I thought myself better than that.”
“You’re not infallible, no matter what you might think.” His friend jerked his chin toward the empty doorway. “What about Alyson? You going to let her walk out of your life? That’s what she’s prepared to do. Frankly, you’re an ass if you don’t move heaven and earth to stop her.”
Niko took the bottle away from his lips long enough to shrug. “She’s not going anywhere.”
“Why, because you showed her a good time between the sheets while the two of you were gone? She’s not like the other women you’ve had brief affairs with, who fawn and hang on your every word. She’s too classy for that.”
Jean-Luc’s words stung. He was right. Aly was classy and independent.
“You’re being an ass where she’s concerned. Don’t forget, Hae-Won is no doubt the one who shot Alyson. How do you think she feels knowing you’re protecting her attacker?”
Lord, he hadn’t thought of that, but Jean-Luc was right. He couldn’t face that possibility just yet. “We don’t know for sure.”
“Right, and I’m dancing the part of Giselle at the Opéra Royal de Versailles. Idiot. I’m going back to the office to do some background research on Hae-Won. I want cold hard facts about the bitch. A reality check. No dreams. No fantasies created in your mind. No invented righteousness. Meanwhile, you need to decide which woman you want. ’Cause buddy, you’re two heartbeats away from losing Aly.”
Niko watched Jean-Luc walk out and then tossed the empty wine bottle in the trash. The room tilted a little, a result of the brandy and wine no doubt. A cold haze settled. Again he tried to sort through everything. Could Aly be right? Could Hae-Won be alive? No. No, she couldn’t be. That would mean he lived a lie. It would mean their love was a lie. Not his, of course, but hers.
Had she seduced him so she could use him? He was willing to admit they had a tumultuous relationship. Often when he was ready to end it, she taught him some new sexual trick, deepening his physical dependence on her. Facing that weakness humbled his opinion of himself. Perhaps that’s why retaining control in his sexual relationships, no matter how brief they always were, was so important to him now. He glanced toward the empty doorway. At least until a woman with softness over steel walked into his life.
He opened the old breadbox, removed a baguette and pulled off a chunk. While he chewed on the bread, his thoughts focused on Aly. Why would she lie? She’d always been honest, even when it cost her embarrassment.
Perhaps she was mistaken. He pulled off another chunk and shoved it in his mouth. That was a very real possibility. Many people sounded like Hae-Won. How many times had he mistaken a taped voice for hers? Like that voice on a taped phone conversation last year. Had the woman not sounded eerily like Hae-Won? His hand holding another piece of bread stilled in front of his mouth.
My God!
He was doing deep surveillance of The Red Hand at the time. Chatter indicated a planned attack in France, but not the exact location or date. Cell phone conversations were taped. A chill crept up his spine. One distinctive voice sounded so much like Hae-Won, he sunk into a deep depression for days. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. How blind—and deaf—could he be?
When he stepped back into the salon, the DVD of Hae-Won he watched earlier was clasped in his hand. He would turn it over to Michelle, the unit’s forensic phonetician for analysis and comparison against those taped conversations. Everyone in the salon was quiet. Aly was out on the balcony, huddled against the railing. He should go to her, but before he did, he had to know. “I’m going to the office. There are some tapes I need to review.”
Tony stood, resembling a storm cloud ready to flash lightning. “Aren’t you goin’ to talk to my daughter first?” Evidently Aly told them all of her suspicions.
Niko’s gaze swept to her on the balcony alone. Both of them were in a lot of pain right now. He owed it to her to know the truth or as much of the truth as he could determine, before he spoke to her. “Not now. Not yet.” He turned to walk out.
“Niko.” His maman followed him to the foyer. “You cannot leave without talking to her. She’s devastated. How could you put another woman before Aly? On one hand you say you love her and on the other you defend and yearn for Hae-Won. What message does this send?”
He raked fingers
through his hair. “I’ll talk to her after I know more of the facts. She can’t go anywhere, not without a passport.”
****
They looked like a band of gypsies when the taxi drove up. Gwen, her dad and Aly walked two blocks over to another street to meet the cab. Alyson learned that safety measure from Niko. Never take a cab from or to your place of residence. The cab dropped them three blocks away from the Madison, the hotel she stayed at when she first arrived. With her new hairdo and contacts, the concierge never recognized her. Plus her dad took care of registration and paying for their rooms.
Some might question her judgment in returning to this lovely hotel. She was banking on that logic. In her opinion, this was the last place anyone—The Red Hand or Niko—would look. Her dad, the retired policeman, saw the rationality to her thinking. For that, she was grateful.
Their rooms were adjoining. Her dad took the smaller of the bedrooms while she and Gwen lugged their baggage into the larger room with two beds. A bathroom with a separate water closet occupied the space between the two bedrooms.
“Damnedest thing I ever saw.” Her dad stood in the tiny hall between the water closet and bathroom, motioning to each as he spoke. “You go in this little room to take a leak. Damn thing’s barely big enough to turn around in. Then ya gotta walk across this hall to the room with the sink and tub to wash your hands. Why not put them together?”
“It’s the French way, Dad.” Alyson unzipped her suitcase and started sorting through her clothes. Most of them were dirty from her trip to Villerville.
“Well, I’m not feelin’ too friendly toward the French right now. Hell, with their bathrooms screwed up like this, ain’t no wonder they’re grumpier than a constipated bee. Viviana is a lovely woman, though. ’Course she’s Italian. How she raised an ass like Niko is beyond me.” He yawned. “I can’t go no longer, girls. Couldn’t sleep on that flight last night. Too worried about you, buttercup.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Been up now for thirty-five hours. I’m gonna crash. What are you two gonna do?”
