Faking It

by Holly Hart

  I rest my head in my left hand. The numbers start to blur. The page just keeps scrolling down. Ten thousand dollars here, twenty thousand dollars there… It just keeps going …

  … all the way to the bottom.

  The cursor blinks.

  “No,” I moan. I don’t want to let myself believe it. I don’t have a choice.

  The last entry is listed with today’s date, like all the rest. Except this time, I recognize the account number the money was transferred to, and the amount.

  It’s my bank account. It’s for eighty thousand dollars.

  Part of me knew this was coming all along. It’s the reason I started saving the logs from Boris’s half-cooked trading program: the logs he didn’t want anyone else to see. It doesn’t matter though; seeing the results of his scheming on the screen makes it hit home doubly hard. I don’t know how my life has come to this.

  A month ago, I was poor and unhappy.

  A week ago, I had a good job, and a man who looked at me like I’d always dreamed of being admired. But now it’s all slipping through my fingers. There’s only one outcome to this situation. I feel so freaking stupid for letting it happen. I should have told Nate the second Boris started acting suspiciously.

  But I didn’t, and it’s too late.

  “I’m going to jail,” I sob. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, but there aren’t any tears. I’m dry. There’s nothing left to give.

  Nate.

  His cocky, boyish face pops into my mind. For a second, I imagine what life will be like in six months’ time. Will he visit in jail?

  I choke out a laugh. My stomach protests, but it feels good. I just can’t imagine speaking to Nate through a telephone while wearing an orange jumpsuit and pressing my palm up against his through a glass partition.

  My mind prods more insistently. Nate.

  Then I understand what it’s trying to tell me. Maybe Nate can help. Perhaps I need to trust him. After all, when I was texting him sexy messages in that lecture theater, he was asking people to come forward with the truth. If I throw myself down to my knees, there’s a chance he’ll understand. Maybe he can help.

  It feels like a light opening up at the end of a tunnel. It’s a small hope, I know it is, but it’s something.

  I know what I need to do now. I need to speak to Nate. But – first things first, I need the proof of what Boris has done. Then I need to get the heck out of here. Running seems like a smart idea anyway. After all, if the police catch me red-handed at the scene of a crime I didn’t commit…

  It won’t be good for me.

  I block out the world around me. For a second, I feel like I’m back at college – hard coding a computer program with two hours left before a deadline. Heck, who am I kidding? I never let myself dance with missing a deadline…

  But Frankie did.

  Be Frankie.

  I open a window on my terminal, and start hacking together a computer program. Not just a program – salvation. I feel like I’m lost in a nightmare, stitching my parachute while the plane’s engines flame out on either wing. The code I’m writing won’t win any awards – but it will work.

  I link it to my phone – a dead man’s switch, I think the movies call it. If I don’t check in every hour, or my phone dies, then the program will get to work. I gulp. I don’t want to think about the things that could stop me checking in.

  I download the logs from the server where I stashed the evidence, build a wall around them, and upload them to the Internet. Then I pause – fingers hovering over the keyboard.

  I feel like I’m writing a letter, the kind that gets opened in the event of my untimely death. I hope it doesn’t come anywhere close to that, but right now I’m not so sure. It feels like the floor is falling out from underneath me. I close my eyes and think. Who am I going to send this to? Frankie?

  No – this isn’t her fight. The answer comes to me. Nate.

  I need to hurry. I enter Nate’s Landwolfe email address, and I type in a password. The corners of my lips kick up in a fatalistic smile as I do. I hope he guesses it right; because if not, then I might be done for. I hit the return key.

  It’s time to go.

  I run to the elevator, and smash the bottom button with the base of my palm. It doesn’t close the doors any faster, but it makes me feel better.

  The sound of my deep, frantic breaths seems completely at odds with the jaunty elevator music. I barely hear it; I just keep staring at my phone. My thumb is hovering over the little icon of Nate’s face, desperate to tap it.

  “Come on, come on,” I mutter, echoing myself from the journey up. This time, I’m in much more of a rush. This time, it’s personal.

  We pass the second floor, still nothing. There’s a brief flicker of signal bars as the elevator slows to a halt, but they disappear.

  It’s not until I’m out in the lobby that I finally get enough to make a call. The screen fills with half a dozen text messages – all from Nate. I don’t check them. I don’t have time. Nate’s face disappears under my thumb, and …

  “Nate –.”

  “Kim,” Nate says, cutting across me, “I was so worried. You read my texts?”

  Nate doesn’t give me a chance to answer. The security guard glances at me curiously, and I quicken my pace. I know there’s no way he can know what happened upstairs, but I’m not taking any chances. I need to get out of this building.

  I push through the heavy glass doors, and the cold Fall air bites at my face.

  “It’s true, all of it. I lied to you. You were a mark, a mission. Believe me Kim –.”

  “Nate,” I stammer. I keep walking forward, but I feel like I left my brain a dozen paces back. I need to get away from the light. It doesn’t feel right. I can’t believe what he’s saying. It doesn’t make any sense. I trusted him. I thought he was the one.

  I feel so stupid.

  I feel betrayed.

  “Kim,” Nate says, his voice coming back with redoubled force. “Listen to me. I can live with you never forgiving me. I find a way to live without you, I don’t know how, but I will. But you need to get to safety, now. I’ve put you in terrible danger. Please, just get somewhere safe. Tell me where you are –”

  My footsteps ring out in the empty street. They echo; one, two, three.

  Then they stop.

  “Who,” I say, my voice quavering. “Who are you?”

  “De cell phone, Kimberly,” a man says in an evil, commanding voice. His accent is thick. I’ve heard it before. He’s wearing the same damn coat.

  I swallow back my fear. I haven’t got time for it. I need to run.

  I shake my head. I take a pace backwards, and then turn to run –.

  – And I collide with a man twice my size. His chest feels like a brick wall. He grabs me so hard I feel like my ribs will crack and turn to dust.

  “Tank you, Carlos,” Tan overcoat says, snatching the cell phone from my fingers.

  He puts it against his ear. There’s a wicked, violent fire burning in his eyes. “I’m sorry, Kimberly is busy right now. I afraid is gonna be a long time before she ready to talk.”

  Tan overcoat drops my phone. It clatters against the sidewalk, and then he crushes it underneath his boot. He strokes my chin. His touch feels like a snake slithering around my body. I feel waves of bile rising in my throat. I know where this leads.

  “Nice to meet jou,” he smiles. I can’t take my eyes off his chipped teeth. It’s like someone filed them into points. “I tink we gonna become very good friends, you and I.”

  25

  Nate

  How the hell did everything go to shit so quickly?

  I’m trembling. Mostly with rage, but also a little bit of fear. Not for myself. It’s Kim that I’m worried about.

  My black leather boots are still dripping. I can’t tell whether it’s river water, or just runoff from the deluge of raindrops pounding down on my shoulders. They’re huge, fat, pregnant droplets. Each one feels like a punch when
it lands against my body. Each one is a reminder that I’m out here, seething mad but utterly impotent, while Kim?

  Kim’s in her own special corner of hell.

  The worst of it is, the truth: I don’t know how I’m going to get her out. I don’t know where she is, or where they might be taking her. I’m flying blind.

  A huge, cold droplet of water runs down the back of my neck. It might as well be a horrified shiver. For all I know, Kim is already dead. I didn’t hear the crack of a weapon firing, but that means nothing. The Muerta Brigade isn’t known for their willingness to turn the other cheek. Nor are their bosses back home in Mexico.

  No, there’s one thing that will always make the cartel take a stand. It’s not respect, or pride, or any of that crap the TV tries to tell you. It’s theft. The Templars like to make an example out of people who try to steal from them. If they think that Kim’s the thief – and they clearly do – then it’s only a matter of time.

  Also, the Muerta Brigade killers are sick. Even their name means death, but they don’t just kill. They put on a show. Kim will die slowly, and when her broken body can’t take it anymore, her killers will look to make a statement.

  I look down the river. I run my hand through my soaking hair, and I can’t tell whether my eyes are blinded by the rain forced out of it, or tears. I can see Waterloo Bridge in the distance. I don’t just see the bridge. I see a ghost: an apparition; Kim’s body, dangling from a rope.

  “I won’t let that happen,” I

  I growl. It’s a promise to no one, and no one can hear. The sound of the rain beating down like the booming of the drum wipes out the rest of the world. But I mean it.

  Wherever Kim is, and to whoever’s holding her, I make a vow to her.

  “I’m going to find you, Kim,” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m speaking; perhaps it feels more real said out loud. “I’m going to find you if I have to die trying.”

  If, for some reason, you’re already dead, then I won’t rest until I’ve avenged you. I keep that thought in the quiet of my own head. I’m not a superstitious man. But with Kim’s life on the line, I’m not risking anything.

  My phone chirps.

  I pull it out of a pocket attached with velcro to the front of my black combat vest. My fingers are numb with cold from the rain, but that’s not why I fumble turning the screen on. I know that there’s no way Kim’s on the other end…

  But I can’t help hoping.

  The second I wipe the water from my eyes, my heart stops beating in my chest.

  It’s a message from a ghost.

  A notification blinks on the home screen. One new email, it reads, from Kimberly Sawyers. I don’t hesitate before tapping it. I know that it’s probably nothing – just a calendar reminder, or something equally useless.

  I know that I’m just building myself up for a fall. I shouldn’t cling on to hope. It’ll only make it harder when I’m dashed against the rocks.

  The screen freezes, and no matter how hard I try to shield it from the rain, water droplets splash onto the glass surface.

  “What the hell?”

  It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The message is completely empty – except for one thing.

  A website address.

  Really, it’s just a meaningless string of letters and numbers. If I had received it at any other time on any other day, I’d have deleted it without a second thought. But it’s not any other time, and it’s not any other day. Kim’s in the hands of killers from the cartel, and this might be my only lead.

  I need a computer. All of a sudden, nothing’s changed – but everything has.

  I have a goal, something to work towards. I’m not just casting around in the darkness anymore, even if no one turned on a light. All I know is that standing in the rain and moping won’t save Kim’s life. Action might.

  My feet start moving on their own accord. It’s like they’ve got a mind of their own. Within thirty seconds, I’m on the Strand. One of the busiest streets in all of London, it’s an explosion of noise, light and color compared with the dark wetness of the river.

  Businessmen and women swarm all around me, trudging through the rain, huddled underneath umbrellas. I guess they’re too tired, it’s too wet, or it’s simply too dark to notice that I’m wearing all-black combat fatigues. Maybe I look like a policeman, I can’t tell.

  I pick up my pace. My eyes scan right and left, looking for an entrance. I head deeper into the city and away from the river, moving towards offices and apartments, and away from the shops, life and bustle all around me.

  I take a left onto Henrietta Street. It’s perfect, almost empty, with rows of old Georgian houses converted into offices.

  “Come on…” I whisper. I’m barely moving now. My eyes dance from side to side, looking for a way in to one – just one.

  I see a chink of light. I hear a rustle of conversation. The door to number seven opens, just a fraction, and I head towards it. My boots splash in the rain and in the puddles.

  Two businessmen step out into the rain, laughing over some shared joke. I don’t know what the hell they are laughing out. They need to get the hell out of my way before I knock them out and push their unconscious bodies back inside to cover my tracks.

  The first of the two men draws up an umbrella to its full size, and they step out into the darkness. I leave it as long as I can, and I dart for the door. I catch it with an inch to spare.

  I sidle inside, eyes roaming to check for hidden CCTV. There is none. The hallway is quiet, and the lights dimmed. I wonder if everyone’s gone home for the night.

  There’s an umbrella stand on my right, and a coat rack high on the wall to my left. I grab a long, dark overcoat, and shrug it on to hide my military attire. The shoulders have the slightest covering of dust. I figure it’s been hanging there long enough that it won’t be missed.

  I keep my head down as I walk into the quiet office. There is a staircase dead ahead, and a reception room to my right. I hear a voice.

  “Janice!”

  I freeze, and press myself against the wall.

  “Janice, I’m off, you hear? I’ve got to pick up me little boy, else he’ll be wondering where I am.”

  There’s no reply. I creep forward. The voice came from a woman with frizzy blonde hair. She’s behind the reception desk, bending down and rummaging for something. I take a chance, and dart across the open doorway for the staircase.

  “Jan – that you?” The blonde says. I must have made a sound. I creep up the stairs, keeping my feet close to the wall to avoid making a giveaway creaking sound.

  I hear the blonde woman muttering, but I can’t make out the words. It doesn’t matter. As long as I don’t stumble into Jan, wherever and whoever she is, then I’m happy.

  By the time I make it to the landing, my chest is heaving from the effort of keeping quiet. Three white-painted wooden doors with chrome doorknobs lie in front of me. I press my ear against the first, but I hear murmuring from inside.

  The last thing I need is to startle a bunch of office workers burning the midnight oil. I keep going.

  I try the second door. It’s locked.

  “Crap,” I mutter. I don’t have time for this. “Third time lucky?” I whisper under my breath.

  I twist the door handle. It catches, and then opens. I close my eyes tight, hoping beyond all hell that there’s no one inside. For once, today, I get lucky. It’s empty. And best of all, the office is filled with blinking computers.

  I shake the mouse of the first, and the desktop springs to life. No password. Perfect.

  I hurriedly type in the nonsensical string of letters and numbers from Kim’s email. Part of me still wonders whether this is all going to amount to nothing. It could so easily be spam. But I can’t let myself believe that.

  I tap enter and the computer hangs for a second, and then gurgles as it loads the page. The browser window goes black. There’s only a tiny space of white lef
t, and it fills me with dread.

  It’s a cursor, blinking.

  It’s titled: Password.

  I sink back into a wheeled office chair. “Oh, Kim,” I groan. “What the hell is this?”

  What the hell have I got you into?

  I try to think, but the only thing popping into my mind is Kim’s face. I don’t understand what’s going on. Is this a message from her kidnappers? If so, what on earth is it supposed to mean? All I have right now is a list of questions, but no answers.