A Risk Worth Taking

by Brynn Kelly

  Now she was at law school, expanding her horizons, while he made sure to operate well within his. He was a trained commando but usually hung back as support. Nobody wanted to risk losing the medic. He was a qualified neurosurgeon but rarely did anything more complicated than dispensing diarrhea remedies.

  What an idiot, to let this be the night he slipped. He’d let Samira push him out of his comfort zone, all right—push him to think, to care, to question the path he’d settled for. He’d vowed to stay in the Legion as long as they tolerated him, then retire to the Legion’s vineyard in Provence with the others who had no hope of reintegrating to regular life. But the vineyard option was suddenly looking lonely, now that Angelito and Flynn had jumped tracks to regular lives—not that Flynn’s was going to plan.

  Speaking of which...

  He picked up Nicole’s phone. First things first. They needed a place to lie low in Edinburgh while they figured out a strategy. The distant future would sort itself out, once he got back to the Legion and banished Samira from his head. But first they had to secure an immediate future, one risk at a time.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JAMIE DIRECTED NICOLE through the Monday morning traffic of the Old Town. She dropped them in a grimy cobblestone lane flanked by the arse-end of blackened stone buildings, roller doors, fire exits and green wheelie bins. He forced a few hundred quid on her and promised to call when it was safe to return home. Hyland probably didn’t even know Jamie’s identity but it wasn’t worth the risk.

  He pulled up at a wooden door next to a barred sash window. He’d checked for security cameras on the street view of Nicole’s phone map. There was only one, facing the other way.

  “This is us,” he said to Samira, as Nicole accelerated away, giving the car slightly more gas than necessary.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “Same accommodation site as the cottage. It’s not booked for days and neither are the neighboring apartments. No alarm. Let’s hope the key fits.” He pulled out Holly’s lock-picking kit. He’d studied the street-view photos to figure out the likelihood the door would succumb to his limited skills. “I’ve told Angelito and Holly to come straight here. We’ll lie low until then.”

  “I can’t believe this sort of thing has become my life,” she said, keeping watch as he jiggled the lock.

  “Don’t worry—we’ve already got housebreaking.”

  “They’re crimes, not collector cards.”

  “We’ll leave it tidy. They’ll never know. And you’re practically a folk hero—when all this is over the landlords will hike their rack rates on account of the infamy of us having broken in. Bonnie and Clyde indeed.” The lock clicked and he opened the door to a flight of stairs. “Don’t know why I bother to carry a set of keys.”

  “Where did Holly get a lock picker? And why?”

  “Holly’s an interesting person,” he said, closing the door behind them. “You’ll see.”

  They climbed several flights and came to another door. As he worked on the lock he could almost feel Samira’s blood pressure rising. After several minutes it opened into a modernized low-ceiling one-bedroom flat. He lowered the rucksack next to a pair of sash windows in the living area.

  “Bonnie and Clyde couldn’t be embalmed—did you know that?” said Samira, walking to the kitchen. “Too many bullet holes.”

  “Police in Edinburgh don’t usually carry guns. Just batons.”

  She searched a few cupboards and pulled out two glasses. “That makes me feel so much better.”

  “You’re starting to sound like my sister.”

  “I’m starting to feel like your sister.” She filled the glasses from the tap, drank from one and held the other out to him. Suddenly he was parched. “Has she always been that cynical?”

  “You noticed?” he said, crossing the wooden floors and downing the water in one. He was hungry as well. “She’s had it tough lately. She’ll make a cracking good lawyer. She’ll not take shit from anybody.”

  “I’ll bet,” Samira said, shedding her coat, planting her knuckles in the center of her spine and arching. “We might need a lawyer before the day is done.”

  “Come here,” he said, rounding the kitchen island. He put the glass down. “Let’s sort out that back of yours.”

  She opened her mouth to object, then closed it. The ache had evidently won out. As he coaxed out a drumroll of cracks, she looked resolutely downward. Adamant it wouldn’t turn into something more intimate, like last time? What if he ran a finger down her cheek...?

  He stepped away and strode to the windows, taking in the view through the net curtains. “Come meet the neighbors.”

  Across the broad street a champagne-colored neoclassical stone building straddled a whole city block. Or was it technically neo-Renaissance? A white security tent was erected outside, acting as a funnel from a turning bay to the building’s entrance.

  Samira joined him, reading aloud the name etched across the facade. “‘The Balfour’... Jamie, what are we doing? We have no hope of getting through all that security.”

  Two police officers flanked the tent opening, and two more stood on the turning bay, talking to a trio of security types in suits, lanyards and sunglasses. No visible weapons but they had to be carrying. A fifth officer stood outside a roller car—the hotel’s parking garage?

  “Just recon, for now,” Jamie said. “I’m not suggesting we force our way in.”

  “What, then? We dig a tunnel under the hotel and come up underneath his room?”

  “His room won’t be on the ground floor.”

  She swiped at him.

  “Imagine if it worked,” he said.

  “Imagine if it didn’t.”

  “Look,” he said, turning to her, “I’m thinking we’ll find a more diplomatic solution. Just give us a chance to make a plan before you veto it. We have more advantages than you might think.”

  “You’re saying I get right of veto?”

  “Samira, there’s never going to be a perfect solution and it’s never going to be risk-free. We’ll all need to weigh it against the bigger risks—that Tess gets convicted, that you have to go back into hiding. And there’s your parents, Charlotte...”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “We need to turn the tables,” he continued. “Once Hyland’s back in the States he’ll be even harder to get to. He doesn’t know what we’re after. The last thing he’ll expect is for us to come to him, here. As far as he knows, we’re right now trying to run away from him.”

  A woman with a little girl approached the tent. An officer spoke to her and she dug around in her bag and showed him a hotel keycard, and some other card—ID? Inside the tent a security screening scanner was visible, like at an airport.

  “‘When the webs of the spider join they can trap a lion,’” Samira murmured.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something my grandfather used to say.”

  “Fitting.”

  “I think we need more than four or five spiders.” Samira swiveled and returned to her glass on the kitchen island. “Jamie, tell me what happened, with your family, your career.”

  He raised his eyebrows, still looking at the tent. She made it sound like a condition of her cooperation. Blackmail. But, hey, no point lying anymore.

  “I think you can guess,” he said.

  “Drugs.”

  “Aye. Prescription, not street—not that they were prescribed, not for me, anyway.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, her quiet tone ripping into him.

  “It was not supposed to become an issue.”

  “The one thing I wanted from you, the one thing I asked for, was the truth. Trust. No surprises.” She spoke slowly, like she was selecting every syllable from a catalog.

  He swallowed. “I know.”

 
“‘It’s rare that somebody we know and trust will betray us.’”

  He turned his head. She was examining the water like it was fine wine. “What?”

  “Something you said, in the car.”

  “I talk a lot of bollocks.”

  She met his gaze, her jaw firm. “Please don’t be flippant.” She sipped. “Your arm’s still giving you trouble.”

  He’d been cradling it with the other hand. He let go. “It’s fine.”

  “There’s that word again—fine.” Another sip. “So that’s why you wouldn’t take painkillers—you’re an addict. That’s what your sister said.”

  “Aye. I’m an addict.” If it was supposed to be healthy to admit that, why did it feel like he was shriveling?

  “There must be something we can do for your wound.” She strolled up and unbuttoned his coat. Getting bolder—not waiting for an answer. He liked that. He’d like her to undress him for a different reason but...no.

  “I can probably fix it myself, using the bathroom mirror,” he said. “Might need a hand here and there, though.”

  “Of course.”

  The bathroom was windowless but had plenty of lights around the mirror. She helped him remove the suture strips and directed the flashlight of her phone onto the wound. He began to excavate. It was as much of a mind-fuck as reversing a trailer—left when you wanted to go right, right to go left.

  “You don’t need to hide from me,” she said, quietly. He got the sense she was studying his face in the mirror. “Or impress me.”

  “I’m guessing there’s no point in either after last night.”

  “I, for one, am glad we’ve moved beyond both those things. So? Tell me your story. The full truth, this time.”

  “It’s not something I like to relive.”

  “You’d rather pretend it didn’t happen?”

  “Pretend what didn’t happen?”

  “You know, it’s strange.” She turned and leaned back against the cabinet, only her back view visible in the mirror. “You come across as so wise and steady. I knew you were hiding something, but this... It doesn’t compute with the Jamie I know.”

  “Well, then, it turns out you don’t really know me, do you?”

  She straightened a little. “Do you feel like you know me?”

  “I see what you’re doing there, Samira.”

  “What?”

  He winced as his tweezers closed in on a black speck buried in the pulp. “I’m supposed to say, ‘Aye, I feel like I really know you,’ so you can turn around and say, ‘Then why is it so hard to believe that I could know you, too?’”

  “So do you?” she said.

  “It’s a funny thing, Samira. You don’t say much—unless you’re obsessing about your fears and then, whoa—but I get the feeling you’re not trying to hide anything from anybody. It’s just the way you are. But me—nobody’s ever accused me of being quiet. I talk a lot but...”

  “You don’t let people in.”

  “It’s not something I’m comfortable with. Nothing personal.”

  “Because you’re worried that if they get too close they might realize you’re human and not this kick-ass doctor-soldier guy?”

  “I am a kick-ass doctor-soldier guy.”

  “You are. But you’re also human.”

  “Human? Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She let out a huff. “And I see what you’re doing. You’re making this into a game of joke tennis.”

  “Joke tennis?”

  “Where you lob a comment and I lob a comment and it feels like we’re getting along well and having a lovely time but when you think back you realize it was all superficial and just your way of shutting things down without seeming rude.”

  He got ahold of the black thing and yanked. “Got the fucker!” he said, holding up a tiny metal shard. “I love tennis.”

  “You see? You just did it.”

  He looked at her face, shielding his eyes from the flashlight app. “Jesus, I did, didn’t I?”

  “Let me guess,” she said, raising her chin in that way she did when she was confident about something. Her eyes looked smoky beyond the circle of light from her phone. “When things went wrong in your life, you had no one to fall back on, no one to turn to, because you were the guy with a million friends, the most popular guy in the room, but not one of those people truly knew you because you were scared to let anyone see that you had flaws. You were the class clown because people liked you that way, and you learned to give them what they wanted, and not what they didn’t want—what you thought they didn’t want. The real you.”

  “Whoa. You might have to write all that down.” Blood dribbled down his arm. He wiped it, and peered into the mirror. There had to be more than one sliver of metal, with all that pain. “Anyway, I’m a guy. I don’t feel the need to have deep and meaningful conversations with my... What do you call them? My BFFs.”

  “Everyone needs someone, even just one person. Look, I don’t let many people in either but I can say that the truly close friends I’ve had, including Latif... I let them know the real me and they let me know the real them, flaws and all. And knowing they had insecurities, too, knowing they’d made mistakes, knowing they were fallible, they were imperfect... It didn’t ever lower my opinion of them—it brought us closer. And it meant I could help them when they were struggling and vice versa. Which brought us still closer.” She lowered her voice. “Who helped you when you were struggling, Jamie? Because I’m guessing there was a point in your life that you really struggled. Who did you turn to?”

  He swallowed. He’d kept his mouth shut and hightailed it to France. Plenty of his “friends” had known he was using—people whose best interests were served by keeping quiet. He couldn’t talk to his parents about it, obviously. Nicole wouldn’t have understood. She was up to her ears in young children and had never knowingly taken a risk in her life—except unprotected sex as a teenager, obviously. And Samira was right—he hadn’t wanted the shame of facing anybody who knew how fucked up he really was.

  “I can hear you thinking, Jamie.”

  He chuckled. “I see what you’re doing there.”

  She turned to him and laid a finger lightly on his lips. “No tennis. Just talk. No matter how this mess turns out, we probably won’t see each other again.”

  We probably won’t see each other again. The truth hurt ten times worse than shrapnel.

  “But,” she continued, “why not get some practice at making a friend—a real friend? Who would I tell?” She lifted her finger.

  “You’d better sterilize that again,” he said, nodding at her finger. “You don’t know where my lips have been. Well, actually, you d—”

  The finger went back on, firmer this time, stifling a laugh he didn’t feel. He glimpsed a parallel universe in which he pulled it aside, pushed her against the tiled wall, took her in a fierce kiss, stripped her clothes off, got the shower running...

  He forced that sliding door to close. It relented with a shove and a rusty shriek.

  She hovered her finger an inch off his lips, her eyebrows raised in warning. Ah, what did it matter how much she knew? He couldn’t shock or disappoint her any more than he had. And there was already no future for them—she’d said it herself.

  “Okay, okay, you win. No tennis.” He crossed his foot over his knee. “Which is a shame because I really like it when you play with my—”

  The finger, again. He grinned and gently bit it. She pursed her lips, shaking her head.

  “Fine,” he mumbled, releasing her finger and turning back to the mirror. “There it is, look! The mother lode!” A thick metal fiber, the tip just visible. “Can you hold the wound open while I grab it?”

  She met his eye in the mirror. “Only if you talk.”

  “You’re not serious?”

  “I’m not serious
about withholding my services but I am serious about wanting you to talk.” She held his gaze awhile. What happened to her always being the first to turn away? “Jamie, I admire the doctor in you. And I admire the soldier. But the human—that’s the part I like best of all.”

  Okay, so that kind of gutted him. “Fine, you win. I’ll talk.” He closed in on the fiber with the precision of a drunk trying to walk a straight line. “What do you want to know?”

  “The drugs, I guess.”

  “Where do I start?”

  “Try the beginning.”

  He took a breath. “Okay. I was a med student. A few of us started playing with taking uppers to get through shifts, to cope with the pressure, the lack of sleep. With me they helped a little too much. I became the golden boy.”

  She was silent awhile. “You are going to give me more than that, yes? I had to work very hard to...formulate all those sentences earlier, and put them together in a coherent way.”

  He closed the tweezers, felt them grip and gently pulled, steadying his breath. No resistance, it just slid out, bringing a whole lot of blood with it. Jackpot. “Aye, you were very coherent. You can let go now. I’ll clean it, we’ll put fresh strips on and that should do me until Corsica.”

  As he reached for the gauze, her mirror image narrowed its eyes. “So the uppers?”

  He sighed, wiping the blood. “Were supposed to be a temporary fix. I thought I could cope with them, quit at any time, because I knew the theory behind it, I understood exactly what they were doing to my brain. I was arrogant enough to think that that put me in control of the drugs. By the time I realized it was the other way around it was too late.”

  “Go on.”

  “Jesus, you’ve missed your calling. You should go and work for Tess’s TV station.”

  “Jamie...” A warning tone, which kind of turned him on.

  “It’s the classic stupid story. I was supposed to stop before it got to the point where I couldn’t operate without them. But I didn’t see that point coming until I got way past it. I felt sharper with them, until suddenly I didn’t, and by that time I didn’t know how to function sober. I needed the drugs to feel normal, whatever that was. And meanwhile I’d started taking sleeping tablets to switch off at night, and then those stopped working so well, so I...”