by Cate Noble
Remi responded with a sly wink. Before leaving, he handed out nice bonuses—which Cat had welcomed since she was planning her own maternity disappearance at that time.
But Giselle…had deserved better. Here’s a gold watch and a bonus for fine service. Men could be such heartless imbeciles.
Remi had made it worse, by later confiding in Cat about his illness and making her promise to tell no one. Remi was certain he’d recover, confident he’d make it up to Giselle after he was cured.
Maybe when Cat got back to Paris tonight, she’d call Alfred, see if he could talk Remi into relenting. Giselle looked…fragile. And love was so precious. It was terrible that Remi and Giselle weren’t together.
What Cat wouldn’t give to see Dante again…
Giselle was on her cell phone when Cat returned to the car. “Yes, I’m certain we weren’t followed.” Giselle looked at Cat, rolled her eyes. “Very good.” She disconnected the call and cranked the engine. “He sounds scared to death. Afraid we might sell him out to the CIA or something.”
“We’re still meeting at the inn?” Cat asked.
“Yes. He said a public spot would make him feel safer.” Giselle made a face. “We should have made him drive to Paris and meet us atop the Eiffel Tower. We could have gone totally film noir—freaked him out.”
Cat smiled. For a moment, she’d sounded like the old Giselle, the bold, sometimes reckless Giselle that had befriended a shy Catalina in London.
The car slowed as Giselle made a turn. After a half-mile, Cat watched for the sign. She checked the time, calculated they should be back in Paris before midnight.
Cat pointed to a sign. “There.” Oiseau Bleu. She translated the name in her head. Bluebird Inn.
They drove past, checking it out before returning. There were no cars on the road and only one vehicle at the small inn. Cat’s heart thudded and she realized she’d been praying under her breath.
One alive.
Let it be Dante, please God.
Giselle pulled into the narrow drive and parked beside the green Renault. Cat grabbed her backpack and climbed out. They had agreed to leave the money locked in the car until they saw what the man had. If it was as good as he’d promised, Cat would get the money while Giselle grilled the man further.
“Slow down.” Giselle grabbed her arm so they could walk together. “You don’t want him to see how eager you are.”
“Part of me is afraid—” Cat bit her lip. Afraid Dante was dead or that he would never love her.
But even if he hated her, she still wanted him to be alive.
Alive, there was hope.
They stepped up to the small covered entry. Giselle reached for the door’s handle. “That’s strange. It’s locked. Let’s go—”
Her sentence ended with a scream. Cat turned and then she, too, was screaming, falling, convulsing on the ground beside Giselle.
Taser registered in Cat’s mind.
When the agony subsided, she struggled to roll away, but her limbs wouldn’t move. Then she was jolted again, pinned to the ground by more spasms of jerking pain.
“That’s enough, Karl.”
There was something familiar about the voice, the accent, but Cat’s ears were ringing. She turned her head to retch and felt her arms being tugged behind her and secured with handcuffs.
As she was hauled to her feet, she tried to count how many there were. Two? Three? A man stood behind her, another behind Giselle.
A stinging slap nearly knocked Cat back down.
“I said, look at me!” That voice…it couldn’t be.
Cat looked up, prayed she was wrong.
She wasn’t.
Viktor Zadovsky smiled. “Let’s see if I can help jar your memory of our last time together,” he said.
Then he slapped her again.
Chapter 25
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
July 12
(Present Day)
Dante leaped off the roof, skinning his knuckles as he shoved upright and took off sprinting.
Cat had already reached the end of the alley. Turning right. she disappeared from sight.
“No!” He pushed harder. Pain shot up from his groin. He ignored it. Christ! He deserved it for being so fucking stupid. For being taken down by a couple of the oldest tricks in the book.
That he’d recognized the first ploy, a fake faint, didn’t matter. He should have been expecting it. Instead he’d allowed the red-hot heat of anger to fog his judgment. He’d compromised his grip on her the moment he’d switched to one hand. Wanting to look straight in her eyes had cost him everything.
She’d slung her weight just enough to tip the balance, forcing him to compensate. And in that one nanosecond of movement, she’d nailed him in the balls. Strike one. The sheer agony of that moment had trapped him between passing out and puking.
His crowning moment of total idiocy quickly played out. That he hadn’t checked Cat for a weapon first thing was one hundred percent unforgivable. Strike two.
Dante careened around the corner and into the crowded street. Pushing against the sedate flow of foot traffic coming toward the brothels gained him more than one irritated look.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Where had Cat gone?
He slowed, taking in what now looked like wall-to-wall bodies, approaching in waves. Shit! He continued heading forward, scanning faces as he went.
At five-six, Cat would be shorter than most of these men. Her dark hair—dark! not blond—had been loose to her shoulders. He scanned the crowd farther ahead. If she was up there, she was blending in too well.
He paused at the first intersection. A narrow alley ran crossways but appeared empty in both directions.
The futility of searching on foot became glaringly obvious. Every half block there was another alley or street. She could have cut down any of these and gone God knows where from there.
He acknowledged his final fatal mistake. Underestimating his opponent was strike three. Cat was formidable. She knew the rules of evasion as well as he did. Maybe better, considering the thrashing he’d just been handed.
She also had a home field advantage that might prove unbeatable. The countless unmarked streets and walkways that wove randomly through the favelas frequently led to dead ends or traps. Going in alone was foolhardy. He’d already met his dumb shit quota for the day, thanks.
Turning back, he approached the brothel he’d just passed. The man at the door smiled and waved him in.
Dante shook his head. “Did you see a woman run past here a minute ago?” he asked in Spanish. “Dark hair, this tall.” He held his hand at shoulder height.
The man’s smile increased. “We have lots of dark-haired women that size. With nice big titties.” The man held his hands out in front of his own chest.
Others who were standing around started laughing.
“She would have been running that way.”
The man shrugged, his eyes flitting to the blood on Dante’s hand. “I hear nothing, see nothing…except of course, for our beautiful women. They will make you forget about the one that got away. Go inside, see for yourself.” The man’s voice dropped. “Or move on!”
Dante forced an apology he didn’t mean and took off, not wanting to call more attention to himself. He continued down the street, away from the brothels. The ache in his testicles had dulled, allowing the sting of defeat to register. He flexed his hand, grateful she hadn’t cut deep enough to slice tendons.
He bought a bottle of water from a man pushing a cart. “Did you see a woman—”
The man blinked and cut him off with a rattle of Portuguese that Dante couldn’t follow. He did, however, understand the headshake. No.
After using the water to wash the worst of the blood from his hand, Dante tugged out his cell phone and dialed the person he should have called first.
Travis Franks’s voice mail picked up on the first ring.
“Dan Dipshit Hogan here. Hit the jackpot, but already blew it. Call me.” Dante
closed his phone.
The crowd thinned out as he drew close to the city proper. The streets of the business district just ahead were choked with cars and busses. If Cat had made it this far…
Disappointment drove a stake in his chest. It was hard to believe that a mere—what?—ten minutes ago he’d had Catalina Dion in his arms.
Cat in his arms. The head rush he’d felt washed back over him.
To say she had been blown away was the mother of all understatements. Once she’d recognized him, shock, surprise, denial had widened her eyes. Color had drained from her face, as if she’d seen a ghost. Him. She’d thought he was dead, blown to bits along with his sailboat. She’d thought her identity and her hiding spot were safe.
Terror had kicked in then. He’d watched a flash of guilt cross her brow, then—boom!—she’d gotten pissed.
And Dante had almost caved. Most women wore their anger like horror masks. Cat’s beauty transformed it; on her it beguiled. Hell, he could remember teasing, trying to make her mad—
His phone rang.
“Yeah,” he snapped.
“Dipshit.”
Dante gave Travis a fast update. “She could be anywhere by now.”
“We need to monitor the airport, though she’ll be expecting that,” Travis said. “How soon before Rocco gets there?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Damn. I’ve come up with a couple Rio addresses that match one of Giselle Barclay’s old aliases. I’ll text them to your phone shortly. I’ll also lift a few rocks, see if I can scare up some local muscle till Rocco gets his ass down there. In the meantime, go back to your hotel and cool off.”
Dante hung up. The thought of going to his room smacked of hiding.
Instead he headed back to Pouca Flor. Dozens of questions reverberated in his mind. He needed to find out where Cat lived, what places she frequented. Who were her friends? Giselle remained unaccounted for, though hopefully one of the addresses Travis had would pay off. He wondered if Giselle, too, worked at the brothel. If so, she’d likely already fled. However, if Giselle worked elsewhere, and if Dante could find her first…
The owner of Pouca Flor was out on the front porch, speaking to one of the hawkers. Judging by his red face and hand gestures, he wasn’t happy.
Dante walked straight toward him. “Hey!”
The owner stopped talking and put his hands on his hips, switching from Portuguese to Spanish. “You owe me for a broken window!”
“You mean the one your cleaning lady broke?” He held up his bleeding knuckles. “Right after she pulled a knife on me and stole all my money? What kind of place are you running here?”
As others stopped to listen, the owner’s anger morphed to a syrupy sympathy.
He put a hand on Dante’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “Please come back inside, señor, where we can discuss this like gentlemen and find a mutually agreeable resolution.”
Chapter 26
Jakarta, Indonesia
July 12
(Present Day)
In spite of the hour—2 a.m.—Viktor grabbed the ringing cell phone from his nightstand. He hadn’t been asleep yet anyway, his mind too active on all the wrong subjects. Where were these lively synapses when he needed them during the day?
The caller ID displayed OUT OF AREA. He didn’t answer. If it was a call he was expecting, they would leave a message.
His eyelids felt heavy, but wouldn’t stay shut. Nights were still the worst. The wispy dreams of Lera were seductive. But always they ended in a shattering of glass.
Lera. Adrik.
Tossing away his covers, Victor climbed out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Again. Fucking prostate. He caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. A sleep-deprived zombie.
He had medications for the insomnia, but the toll they took on him the following day—fuzzy thinking, sluggish responses—wasn’t worth it.
And one way or another, he’d catch up on rest soon enough. The only question was whether it would be via a sweet dream-filled slumber, or the more permanent bullet-in-the-back-of-the-head-type sleep.
The disappointing reports he’d received today on the latest batch of tests confirmed that he was out of time. Out of options. People were beginning to suspect sleight of hand. There was a limit to the number of rabbits he could pull out of the same old hat.
He flushed the commode, envisioning his career—his dreams—swirling down the sewer. If he didn’t get results soon, he’d have to consider plan B: killing off all his enemies. No simple task, or else it would have been plan A.
Back in the bedroom, he picked up the phone and retrieved the voice mail message.
From Grigori: “I have news. Need instructions on how to proceed.”
Viktor listened to the message twice and found it impossible to contain the swell of hope. Grigori sounded excited. Had a clue been found on Catalina Dion’s whereabouts?
He dialed Grigori’s number. “Tell me your news.” Victor’s voice sounded overly loud to his own ears.
“He did it. She’s been spotted.”
Overwhelmed, Viktor sat down with a rush, half afraid he’d misheard. “Where?” he demanded.
“In the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Doesn’t that just figure?”
Brazil. Of course. While the term “slum” was a misnomer, he didn’t correct Grigori. A picture of the endless shanties formed in Viktor’s mind. With twenty-five percent of Rio’s population residing in the endlessly honeycombed favelas, it was a perfect place to hide.
In fact, they’d looked there before, but it was like searching for one raindrop in the ocean.
“Does he have her in custody?” Viktor asked.
“No. He trailed her to a brothel, but she must have spotted him and fled. He’s searching for her again, but I knew you’d want to know.”
He’d found her at a whorehouse? Poetic justice.
Energized, Viktor stood and moved to his desk, where he began piling papers into his briefcase. “Since we need to get to her first, I am relieved she got away.”
If she disappeared into some secret CIA spider hole, it would be harder, though not impossible, to get to her before she struck a deal with them using his data. “How many people are with him?”
“He arrived alone.”
If true, that wouldn’t last long. Reinforcements were likely en route. “We’re on our way. I’ll bring Karl and Alexander. Continue doing what you’ve done: stay on him. The equipment is functioning properly?”
“When I’m able to use it, yes.”
“He’ll be upset she got away, which will sharpen his instincts. He’ll increase his efforts. But so will she. And she must not escape!”
“Don’t worry. I want her as much as you,” Grigori said. “Maybe more.”
Yes, Viktor had made certain of that. “You’ve done excellent work, comrade. Just don’t let what she did to your brother interfere with our plan. You will get her when I am through.”
“I look forward to it.”
“From here on I want to know his every move. And, Grigori, when he finds her again, remember: he’s expendable. But she is not. I need her alive.”
Viktor disconnected. He dialed Karl and quickly relayed Grigori’s news. “Make arrangements for travel. I’ll be ready to leave within the hour.”
“Do you think it’s wise for you to go?”
“We’ll use our usual precautions. And we’ll be back before anyone knows I’ve left.”
Karl disagreed. “Alexander and I can handle it. And I have resources in Rio, if backup is needed.”
“I have too much riding on this, Karl! I want to be present when she’s captured.”
Viktor disconnected, not quite as excited after talking with Karl. The man had gotten too used to making decisions on Viktor’s behalf. No more! Yes, there were risks in leaving his safe haven but they were minimal. That Mr. Peabody and Company were hibernating worked in his favor.
And Karl had no idea how grim the situation had g
rown. If Viktor didn’t get a solution soon, all his fraud would be uncovered. And at that point, Viktor would be better off dead.
Because there would be no place on earth that would be safe.
Chapter 27
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
July 12
(Present Day)
Cat raced down alley after alley, zigzagging away from the brothel. Away from any place she typically went, avoiding anyone who might recognize her.
Her first priority was distance; next was finding a safe place to hide. Just long enough to think, plan, regroup. But where to go? Right now every place seemed dangerous. Better to stay on the run.
About a mile and a half from the brothel, she slowed as she approached a shopping district. The alley widened behind a bakery. The smell of sweets combined with her overexertion and ended up nauseating her.
She paused long enough to get sick, beside a trash bin. Then she helped herself to one of the bakery’s white aprons that hung on a clothesline. Ripping the sleeves from her shirt and wrapping the apron twice around would help confound someone searching for her by description.
She used the torn scraps of shirt to wipe the blood off her arms and legs, relieved to find that the cuts she’d gathered were superficial. Now that she’d slowed, the numbing effect of adrenaline wore off. She ached all over from crashing onto the roof. She tested her left wrist, grateful it wasn’t broken.
At the end of the alley, she turned south and waded straight into the busy street market. At the first vendor she found, she bought a wide-brimmed straw hat. Piling her hair beneath provided a minor disguise. But not enough.
A bus pulled up near the corner. She darted on just before it left. She watched as they pulled away but no one appeared to give her or the bus a second thought. The relief she felt was momentary.
Though she felt confident she’d lost anyone who might have followed from the brothel, she knew that Dante and friends would have fanned out. How many people was she up against?
