by Merry Jones
“Okay. What should we shout? ‘Help’?”
“ Help’s good.”
“Okay.” I could feel her every breath. “On three.”
Together, breathing as one, we counted. And on three, we belted out “Help!” with all the power of our tightly fettered lungs. Luke slept on as we repeated it again and again, until our throats were raw. But, unfortunately, the Four Seasons’ boasts of thoroughly soundproofed rooms were accurate. Nobody responded. Finally, breathless, we stopped shouting.
“Now what?” I croaked.
“It’s getting late. The photographer will be looking for you. Eventually, Karen or Davinder or somebody will come get you.”
Oh God. People would be arriving. Nick and I were supposed to get married in an hour, and I’d just sent a gunman to Nick’s room.
“Let’s try to get out of here.”
“You’re not serious.”
“We have to try. Press your back against mine and push.”
She did, and I did. “Now what?”
We were like two mummies bound together. “I don’t know.” I’d never had to travel without using my arms or legs, much less when tied to another person. We pushed against each other, driving our thighs down to the floor. We flopped forward and back. We twisted our torsos up to a twenty-degree angle and collapsed.
“Hold on. I have to rest.” Susan panted. “I’m getting carpet burn on my face.”
We lay for a moment, breathing, noticing the undersides of the dining chairs and table. When Luke started to crawl, this would be his vantage point.
“Okay. Ready.” Susan had recovered. Against my back, I could feel her heart, still racing. Our bodies were damp, our breathing rapid and shallow, perfectly in sync.
“Maybe we can slither to the door.”
“Slither?”
“You know, push and wiggle. Shimmy.”
“Okay. To which door?”
“Nick’s.” The door that adjoined to Nick’s suite was closer than the door to the hall. Besides, the suite was where Eli and the driver had gone.
“On three.” Again, we counted together. Again, I felt her muscles work in unison with mine. Susan and I didn’t exactly slither; probably we resembled an inchworm more than a snake. We pushed our backs up and thrust our torsos ahead, flailed our united legs back and forth and up and down. We rolled and tipped, groaned and grunted, and gradually, one centimeter at a time, made our way to the door.
Where we lay, huffing and puffing. “Now what?”
It was a legitimate question. We couldn’t reach the doorknob. We couldn’t really bang on the door with our heads or feet. And depending on what was going on in the suite, we might not want to.
We tried to listen through the double door, hearing no gunshots, making out only garbled baritone sounds. And then, when we’d run out of ideas and energy, we heard the click of the passkey in the lock. The door swung open and Molly skipped in, Karen right behind her.
NINETY-THREE
MOLLY HELD MY HAND, stroking my face, asking questions. Were we hurt? Had someone robbed us? Was there still going to be a wedding? Did Nick know we were tied up? Should she go tell him?
The rope was too hard to untie, so Karen used a nail scissors. It took some time to cut the plastic; it was thick and the nail scissors had short, rather dull cutting edges. Susan was busy giving instructions to Karen, so I had plenty of time to answer Molly’s questions. “No. No. Yes. No. No. Everything is going to be okay.”
As soon as my hands were free, I cupped her face and kissed her, assuring her that we were fine.
“But who tied you up, Mom?”
“Uncle Eli.”
“Who’s Uncle Eli?” Karen was confused.
“Uncle Eli?” So was Molly. She’d never met him. “But why?”
Good Lord. I needed to explain, but I couldn’t, not then. “To help Uncle Tony. It’s a long story.”
Susan nudged me. “Zoe. We sent them next door. Should we call security?”
“No. No security.” The FBI wanted the guy to get the drives; security might interfere. Might even get hurt.
Karen watched us, her brown eyes baffled. “Zoe? What can I do?”
I nodded. “Sweetheart.” I took Molly’s hands. “In the bedroom, there are some boxes of jewelry and hankies and stuff. Can you and Karen go into the bedroom and pick out something borrowed and something blue for me to wear?”
I met Karen’s eyes; without words, my gaze told her to keep Molly there.
“Wait. Won’t they both be borrowed?” Molly was no fool.
“I guess, yes. But I need two things.”
“But only one thing has to be blue?”
Goodness. Why wouldn’t she just go “That’s right.”
“Let’s go, Molly.” Karen hurried her along. “Why don’t we take Luke, too?” She grabbed the handle of his portable rocker and led Molly into the bedroom.
As soon as they left, Susan and I ran to the door adjoining our suite to Nick’s. Susan opened it, but we faced another door, the door on Nick’s side.
“Listen,” Susan whispered. “Hear anything?”
I put my ear to the door, shook my head. “I’ll try the knob.”
“Slowly.”
Slowly, silently, I turned the knob as far as it would go. Then, hoping that the door was unlocked and that the limo driver wasn’t watching it, I pushed against it gently until a sliver of light shone through. Men were talking in the next room. I looked at Susan, and she shook her head. Neither of us could understand. So, slowly, gently, I opened the door another centimeter, then another.
At first, all I saw was the limo driver, his gun raised. His back was to us, so he wouldn’t see us opening the door. I opened it wider, and saw men in identical tuxedoes, standing, facing the wall. Eli. Or was it Tony? About four feet away was Tony. Or Eli. Sam stood on the other side of the sofa. Where was Nick? I opened the door wider and saw him about five feet away, standing at the wall like the others, and it occurred to me that, damn, I’d seen Nick before the wedding. And that was bad luck. But worse than that, the plan to return the jump drives had gone awry. No one but Tony was supposed to have been involved. Instead, all of us had seen the guy. All of us—Susan and I and Nick and his brothers— were witnesses who, if we survived, could identify the limo driver.
Susan put her hand on my arm, pointing to the men. “Look— they’ve spread out.” Her breath tickled my ear. “That’s good—he can’t aim at all of them at once. What should we do? Storm them?” She looked at the phone. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call for help?”
“No—no security.” But maybe I was wrong. Maybe we needed help.
No question, she thought I was crazy.
“Why the hell not?”
Was I supposed to explain the whole FBI plan there and then? “Just don’t.” I was too loud, glanced at the men to see if they’d heard me; apparently, they had not.
Susan gaped at me, silent.
“Trust me.” Maybe I was making a mistake. But I must have been convincing; she stayed beside me, didn’t go for the phone. We crouched, trying to hear what the men were saying.
The driver was talking, aiming the gun at Tony. “Enough talking. Give me what I want or these guys are hamburger.”
“Dude—you’re talking to the wrong guy,” Eli interrupted. “I’m the one you talked to on the phone yesterday. I’ll give you what you want. Just let my brothers—”
“Bullshit,” Tony argued, touching the cut near his ear. “I’m the guy you mugged last week. I’m the one who has what you want—”
“Don’t even listen to him—” Eli didn’t know what was going on. But that didn’t stop him. “He’s trying to stall—”
“Shut up, both of you.” The driver was sweating. He looked from one to the other, unsure and exasperated. “I’ll tell you what. I don’t give a fuck which one of you has my stuff. But if I don’t get the drives from one of you Bobbsey twins, these two are dead men.” He waved the gun at Sam an
d Nick.
“But it’s Nick’s wedding day—,” Eli protested.
“So? Convenient for the family. They’ll be here for the funeral.”
“Forget it,” Nick interrupted. “Whatever he wants, don’t give it to him. We’re all dead anyhow. Why would he let us live after he gets what he wants?”
Why indeed? We’d all seen the guy’s face. Which changed everything. The FBI’s plan had gone haywire. Now, he’d have to shoot all of us if he wanted to get away. But to hell with the drives; I didn’t care what information was on them. I wasn’t going to let Nick or his brothers get hurt. I made hand signals to Susan, and she made some back to me. Then she crawled to the bar, reached up into the silver ice bowl and retrieved two hefty bottles of champagne.
“I’ll tell you why.” Eli smirked. “He’s not going to kill anyone. He can’t afford to let this get complicated. If he leaves a bunch of dead bodies around, suddenly he’s got a lot of attention to deal with. What he wants is to get out of here clean and quiet—”
“I don’t want to kill anyone today—but make no mistake. I will if I have to.”
“Of course you will. We can identify you.” Nick sounded calm.
“Trust me. You can’t.”
What? I looked closer. His too-straggly hair might be a wig. His nose looked too large and pale for his face, might not be real. Was he really thick at the middle? Or was he wearing padding? Who knew what the guy really looked like? Maybe he knew we couldn’t identify him. Maybe he wasn’t going to kill us.
“Good,” Nick went on. “Lose the gun, and we’ll help you find—”
A sudden pop stopped Nick mid-sentence, and a snowstorm swirled. No, a feather storm. Feathers were flying everywhere. At the pop, I’d grabbed Susan and she’d grabbed me; we’d nearly tumbled into Nick’s suite before we realized that the men were all still standing and the only victim of the driver’s silenced gun had been a down pillow. He’d picked it up and shot it, apparently to shock them. We steadied ourselves, each clutching our bottle, poised and ready to strike.
Tony backed away from the wall, hands in the air. “Okay. Okay. Don’t shoot anything else.” He was trembling.
Eli backed away from the wall, too, protecting his brother. “Don’t listen to him. I’m the one who’s got what you want.”
The limo driver shot the wall.
“Eli, cut it out.” Tony’s voice trembled. “It’s gone far enough.”
Tony’s legs wobbled; he seemed about to faint. “Here. I’ll give you what you want. I have to reach into my pocket, though. Don’t shoot.”
“You pull anything out but my drives, I’ll shoot your clone first, then you.”
Shaking, Tony’s hand fumbled in his jacket pocket for the jump drives, but it was shaking so badly that the drives flew out onto the carpet, along with our wedding rings. Tony stooped, retrieving the drives. “These what you’re looking for? I found them in my pocket—”
The driver lunged forward and grabbed them while Tony was still picking up the rings. Eli, unaware of the FBI plan, spun around, charging the driver, trying to retrieve the drives. Oh God.
“Now!” I yelled to Susan, and together we stampeded into Nick’s suite, swinging our bottles. The driver whirled around, shooting, and, above Susan’s head, champagne and glass exploded, raining onto Susan and the carpet. Susan yelped. Eli tackled the limo driver; Tony tackled Eli. As they struggled, I stood at the driver’s head, trying to slam his head as Sam dove onto the pile, trying to separate them, and Nick darted around, trying to disarm the driver, who kept firing until, suddenly, somebody gasped in pain. Oh God. Who’d been hit?
All of us froze. Then, slowly, Sam rolled off Eli, who rolled off Tony. No wounds, no blood. The blood, it seemed, was on the driver. He’d somehow managed to shoot his own forearm.
“I should fucking kill all of you.” Cursing and wincing, holding the gun with his good arm, he barked at Sam to get him a towel. Wrapping his arm with it, he had me remove the belt from my robe and tie it tightly around the terry cloth bandage. Then he backed toward the door.
“Here’s the deal.” His wig hung askew, and his nose was smashed. “Nobody moves for ten minutes. I got people watching. Anybody leaves here, anybody tries to call for help, you’re all dead.” He’d reached the door, opened it and backed into the hall.
NINETY-FOUR
“WHAT THE—” ELI BEGAN. But the others had burst out laughing, giving each other high fives.
“Can you believe the asshole shot himself?” Sam turned scarlet, wheezing as he chortled. “You guys, we should go into business together. Sell somebody the Brooklyn Bridge.”
“Zoe.” Susan turned to me. “What the hell was that?”
“Exactly.” Eli looked from one brother to another. “Can somebody explain what just happened?”
But Tony and Sam, instead of explaining, hugged Eli, barraging him with questions about where he’d been and what he’d been up to lately. Meantime, Nick pulled a cell phone out from his shaving bag and made a call.
“It’s done. The delivery was made, no real collateral damage.” He described the limo driver, listened, nodded. “That’s right, the guy with the towel. No, not serious.”
Apparently, federal agents were already following him, tracing the jump drives to their source. I stepped to the window, trying to spot the agents. Was that one, there in the blue jeans and leather jacket? Or there, in the SUV—the guy with the baseball cap? A limo pulled out of the Four Seasons’ entranceway. Was it ours? Was our limo driver making his escape in the limousine? Across the street, a black sedan pulled into traffic, following. At the corner, a blue one pulled in behind. Were they all agents? Or were the cars just normal traffic?
Nick stepped over, put an arm around me, asked if I was okay, kissed my neck. His finger gently coiled a lock of hair that had fallen loose. Hell with bad-luck superstitions, I thought. And I turned, leaned against him, let myself be wrapped in Nick’s arms.
Molly barreled into us, Karen following close behind, calling her.
“Mom, I picked out these.” She held out a blue garter and a pair of antique gold and pearl earrings.
“I held her back as long as I could.” Karen looked frazzled. In fact, the entire wedding party, gathered together in Nick’s suite, looked frazzled.
Eli and Susan insisted on explanations, and Karen joined them to listen to Sam elaborate. Nick joined them, answering questions, divulging what he could.
“What was on the drives?” Susan frowned.
“I can’t tell you exactly But the dead agent was a weapons specialist.”
My stomach did a somersault. So, the data was about weapons?
“Come on, Nick. We nearly got killed.”
“Out with it. We deserve to know what we’re involved in.”
Nick knew his brothers wouldn’t relent. “Okay. The drives contain information that traces financial transfers that trace dealings in weapons and materials.” He paused, cleared his throat.
“What’s he saying?” Sam asked. “Does anyone understand what the hell he’s talking about?”
“I’m talking about foiling terrorist activities.”
“You mean an attack?”
“I mean avoiding incidents. I mean stopping potential terrorist events in their planning stages.”
Oh God. But the limo driver hadn’t seemed like a terrorist. He’d seemed kind of like a pickpocket. Or maybe a car thief. But he was involved in funding and smuggling weapons? I couldn’t grasp what Nick was saying. I was light-headed, unable to breathe or think. Molly was asking questions. Oh God. Was I going to have to explain to her about terrorists and weapons smuggling?
“What, Molls?”
“The door. Someone’s knocking. Can I get it?”
The door? No, of course you can’t get it. It’s terrorists and smugglers. Or it’s a limo driver with a gun loaded with enriched uranium. But oh, too late—Karen had already opened the door. It wasn’t a smuggler; it was Tim. With my father. My
father, dashing in his tuxedo, white hair gleaming, eyes aglow and ready for the wedding.
Oh—the wedding. I still had to get into my dress, fix my makeup and my hair again. Slithering on the floor hadn’t done much for my chignon. Still feeling off-kilter, I floated over to kiss my dad and greet Tim. Then I started back to my suite, realizing that Tony was behind me, tagging along.
“You’re pale.”
I was? Of course I was.
“Sit down. Collect yourself.” The advice was odd, coming from Tony, who moments before had been trembling and quaking, fumbling with the jump drives and the wedding rings. But now he was steady and grounded, and he put an arm firmly around my waist, probably just in time. Because I felt myself swoon, a damsel in distress kind of swoon. How embarrassing. How mortifying. But Tony’s arm supported me surprisingly well. He was stronger than he looked, and effortlessly he guided me into a chair. I knew the chair well; I’d seen its underside. I’d studied it from the floor.
“Talk to me, Zoe. What can I do for you?” Tony leaned close; his face—so familiar and like his brothers’—was inches from mine.
“Nothing. It’s just—”
“Just?”
“Well. I hope they can track that guy. I hope they catch whoever he’s working for before they do any harm—”
“Oh, no question. They’ve got him.”
How did Tony know? “Come on, Tony. You can’t be sure—”
“Oh, but I can.” His hand on my shoulder was very firm. “Don’t worry. I promise you. This round went to the good guys.”
Tony didn’t sound like Tony. He sounded too confident, like Eli the spy, the undercover agent. Tony looked unlike himself, too. And I realized why—Tony wasn’t nervous. His timidity was gone, replaced by a casual cockiness. His eyes blazed and his shoulders squared, as if he had adopted a whole new persona. And, in a flash, I saw Tony encountering Agent Harris, Tony getting sick when he found out she’d been killed, Tony searching for “loose change” after Oliver had stolen the drives, Tony getting mugged and meeting privately with FBI agents. And it occurred to me that maybe it was not Eli who was an undercover agent. Maybe, just maybe, it was Tony.
