He didn’t have a cough. Her hands trembled, but she followed his instructions.
“Two stretch wraps.”
She had a picture of herself, drugged and tied, and she froze. Pick them up, she told her hand, or he’ll do that squeeze.
Slowly she dropped one, then another, into the basket.
His orders went on. Each item—surgical tape, nail scissors, ear plugs—made her temperature drop until she wondered if she would become an immobilized block of ice here in the store.
They turned at the end of the row, Skafe keeping himself between her and the cashier, and started up the next aisle past magazines, sticky notes and pens. At the end of the office supplies section, a pregnant woman focused on restocking shelves from a rolling cart.
“Get a roll of that.” Stig pointed to packing tape.
Suddenly the memory of the nerve pinch didn’t matter, because she couldn’t let him wrap her in tape. “I won’t.” The glittering darkness in his eyes was as impossible to decipher as a stone. “If you’re going to kill me, do it here, because I’m not touching that tape.”
“Listen up, little girl.” He crowded her backward until the metal edges of the shelf unit pressed against her spine and the back of her thighs. “I don’t kill women. Not unless they try to kill me first. But I have a job. Shut up and let me do it, and I’ll leave you tied up in a bathroom on the Heathrow train. It’s that simple.”
“I don’t believe you.” Her right arm twitched as if to remind her that she could slip a hand under her jacket and find a gun.
The sour smell coming from him grew stronger as he leaned closer. Even through Stig’s jacket and her dress she could feel the pressure of his knife low between her ribs and her hip. She’d be filleted on the floor before she had the weapon clear of the leather straps.
“Look past me,” he said.
The pregnant lady put a hand to the small of her back, making her belly look huge.
“Have you ever seen a cesarean birth?”
Time stopped. She’d seen him nick Stig’s throat hours ago when the tension hadn’t been as high. Her eyes rested on the other woman. No. Not a baby.
Making the right decision was her total defeat, and she slumped under the weight of her silence.
“Put the tape in the basket and everybody’s happy.” He eased a step away from her, letting her breathe but also showing her the knife in his palm. Its blade had dark stains around the edge. Stig’s blood, she assumed.
That brown crust confused her. Skafe had wiped his knife at Bodeby’s. She’d watched him gleefully mark Stig’s tuxedo shirt. In the street, he’d given Stig a nosebleed, not a cut. Or had Stig concealed his real injury to shield her?
“Tape,” her captor prodded.
Her hand shook so hard the first roll tumbled to the floor.
“Leave it.”
She took another from the shelf. The sound of plastic packaging dropping into the metal basket roared in her ears, but it wasn’t loud enough to cause the clerk to glance up from the cover of the paperback she’d paused to read while restocking the book rack.
Skafe handed the basket to Wend and told him to buy everything. “The girl and I will get a table for four.”
When the man cleaning the glass-enclosed seating area started to tell them to move, Skafe’s glare silenced him. The chairs and table were out of the wind, making the space slightly warmer than the platform, but Christina’s skin recoiled at waiting alone with Skafe. He’d released her arm, but he loomed next to her chair, his barrel-chest and gut violating her personal space until Stig and Wend arrived, carrying plastic shopping bags.
Stig set a wrapped sandwich and bag of chips in front of her. “Yesterday’s, sorry to report.”
“That was the last time I ate, so they’re about the right age.” Her lips shifted, trying to let him know she was grateful, but she doubted the result qualified as a smile. “Thanks.”
He sat next to her and folded one of several newspapers to the crossword puzzle.
The sandwich was crummy bread and unidentifiable processed meat concealed under industrial cheese, but she choked it down while Stig filled letters into the squares.
The other two settled in chairs opposite and silently ate similar sandwiches, until Wend reached across the table to a section of newspaper.
Stig smacked his hand on the top and drew the pile toward himself. “Buy your own.”
“Come on.”
“Oddly enough, I’m feeling petty.”
Again, the silence stretched except for the sounds of chewing, rustling plastic wrap and Stig’s pen scratching on the puzzle. Skafe’s eyes constantly shifted from her to Stig. She never saw him blink, but he must have. Watching to try to catch him blink made her feel like a rabbit, so she dropped her gaze to the table.
Stig shifted position and stretched, then continued methodically filling in words and checking off the matching clue numbers. She hadn’t done a crossword since the nights she’d sat beside her mother’s hospice bed, doing her homework and reading out loud while Frank took her little brother home to sleep. Her mother had liked to think her American-educated daughter could do the things she herself hadn’t been able to do, including English-language puzzles, so Christina had blindly filled in squares.
Stig’s answers didn’t make any more sense than her tear-stained eighth grade ones had. One across, “held beside the golden door” was L-A-M-P, not P-R-E-P. And five across, he’d written A-R-A-T-E, not a word, and then he had A-G-R-I-T— Holy shit.
The letters weren’t answers, they were a message written in Spanish. She scanned that line and the others in capitals, ignored the random letters going down and saw it.
Preparate a gritar Officer Down. Asiente tu cabeza.
Be ready to shout Officer Down. Nod your head.
She coughed into her hand and nodded twice.
He turned the paper over and began to work on a Sudoku.
Her hands trembled in her lap at his knowledge that she spoke Spanish as much as at the thought that he had another plan. He knew too much about her, this man she’d never met before tonight, this embodiment of her imagination, but he was the far lesser of two evils. If they escaped the others, she might work out a deal with him to save her business and her reputation.
“What’s that? A numbers crossword?” Wend was reading the puzzle upside down.
Fear that he’d read the message tightened her butt cheeks on the metal chair, but she fought to seem unconcerned by Wend’s question.
“Keeps the brain young.” Stig looked at Wend. “Might not be too late for you.”
“Funny.” Skafe’s low, uninflected voice made the hair stand up on her neck. “Ha. Fucking. Ha.”
Stig ignored him in order to fiddle with his cuff links, sleek silver-colored squares with a diamond on one side and a black stone on the other. When he held them out to her, his French cuffs dangled like dirty, tattered surrender flags. “Could you put these in your handbag?”
Her fingers brushed his palm as she picked up the masculine jewelry. For an instant he curled his fingers back and squeezed hers, and the contact infused her with as much strength as the sandwich had. Maybe they would escape.
The confidence was, like hope, a crest quickly undercut by aches and exhaustion. Above the far left platform, an ornate black-and-white wall clock ticked to 4:40. Her brain took several beats to calculate that almost five a.m. in London was almost nine p.m. the night before in California. She gave up without determining how many hours had passed since she’d left her apartment with a carry-on and a doomed idea.
A worker rolled a rack of pastries to the shop by the ticket turnstiles. With thirty minutes until the first express train for the airport, employees began to arrive for a handful more stores, preparing for a morning rush. Absorbed in their routines, no o
ne looked at her or Stig. Sitting at a table with newspapers and food wrappers, her broken shoes and skinned knees were invisible. Their foursome looked like any other group of waiting passengers.
At 4:45, Stig folded the front section of the paper around the rest of the stack, tucked them all under his arm and stood. “I suppose you’ll have to escort me to the gents’.”
Wend stood, and she too started to push out her chair, but Skafe was next to her before she could finish rising. “I—” Her voice sounded like she hadn’t spoken in days, not merely an hour. “I’d like to use the bathroom too.” Maybe that was his plan. A breakout from the bathroom.
They made her use a stall in the men’s room, but at least they let her close the door. Sitting on the toilet, she touched the pistol. It was warm from her body and smaller than she expected when she held it in her hand. All those years Big Frank had taken her brother shooting, she’d never wanted to go and hadn’t felt like she’d missed out, but she didn’t even know how to check if there were any bullets in the gun.
“Hurry up or I’m coming in.” Skafe was right outside.
She pointed the business end at the metal door. If he opened it right now and she pulled the trigger, there would be police, lots of them. She was a woman without a country, so what would happen to her if she was slapped in a British jail for shooting a man? She’d read the news stories about other Americans arrested overseas. A person in her situation wouldn’t get help from the American embassy, and she doubted the Mexican one would offer much either. No, she’d be on her own.
“Did the thought occur to you that your lurking might be making her bladder shy?” Stig’s voice carried through the door. “I hear it’s a common affliction among kidnapped women forced to piss with an audience, so perhaps you could back off a bit.”
She had a partner, and he had a plan that hopefully wouldn’t involve getting arrested. Officer down, he wanted her to yell. Simple to remember. She mouthed the words silently while she tucked the pistol back in the concealed holster.
Returning to the concourse, she saw at least two dozen people scattered through the grand space. A few who must also want the Heathrow Express rolled black or red suitcases, and a trio of Asian tourists with brightly colored hard-sided luggage clustered by the turnstile. No children, thankfully. Only adults would be around whatever was going to happen.
Her breathing picked up when she spotted a man in black pants, a black peaked cap and a black jacket topped with a reflective yellow vest. He looked like a cop.
Staring must have distracted her, because her feet tangled with Stig’s, but luckily he caught her before she hit the floor. She felt a tickle of movement brush her chest, momentary, but noticeable.
Stig cleared his throat and adjusted the bundle of newspapers tucked under his left arm. “Wend, one bit of advice, since I’ve always enjoyed your music.”
The group paused in the center of the concourse, and every fiber of her being screamed this was it.
“Next time you do a job for Ivar, watch for leeches stuck to your arse.” He pointed his chin at a man in anonymous khakis and a windbreaker who stood half hidden behind a newspaper. “He’s followed us since a few blocks after Bodeby’s.”
“What? Who?” Wend looked over his shoulder, but Skafe didn’t stop staring at Stig. If anything, his one eye narrowed and he leaned inward to hear, or maybe to take action.
“And Skafe, after you apologize to Ivar’s pucker—” Stig reached into the center of the newspapers, “—tell him if he wants to talk, he owes me a drink tomorrow night at the Greek’s.” Stig glanced sideways at her, and his grin said now.
Officer down must be intended to get the cop’s help, so she opened her mouth and felt her chest rise as she inhaled. The movement made her realize that for the first time in hours, nothing pressed into her armpit.
Boom. The gunshot was so close she swayed from the sound.
Then she registered the pistol in Stig’s hand and the blood—ohmigod, so red, so fast, so much more than the nosebleed on the street—spreading low across the front of Stig’s shirt where the borrowed jacket fell open. With his empty hand, Stig yanked Skafe closer.
“Officer down!”
Papers fluttered to the floor between the two men.
“Officer down!”
Black-and-white pages sopped the blood. More fell on top of the disarray while Stig held on to Skafe. Their feet scuffled in the papers, smearing vivid streaks of blood across the light golden-colored floor tiles.
She became aware of screaming in addition to her own voice. Stepping away from the grappling men, she yelled as loudly as fear could force from her chest. She didn’t understand the fight, because it seemed as if Stig was trying to shove the gun into Skafe’s hand, rather than escape or shoot the other man.
Part of her saw the scene as if from a distance, colors and movement seared into her brain in awful shocking detail. Skafe was frantically pushing to break free of Stig’s grip. With them locked together, she couldn’t help. Stig needed medical attention, that was obvious from the grimace on his face and the color of his skin, a greenish-white that almost reflected the overhead lights, but he kept fighting. More and more blood spilled and spread.
A few people ran toward them, while others in the station ducked or fled. Beyond Stig’s shoulder an idiot held up a phone, and Christina screamed, “Officer down!” when she really meant, “Run, you stupid asshole, can’t you see there’s a gun!” Shouts clawed out of her chest by way of her throat, their hot trail of terror delineated by the blood on the ground. Red saturated Stig’s shirt. She could see it on Skafe, even spattered on her own legs and hands, like tattoos of fear.
Wend turned and ran, skidding toward a row of glass doors.
“Stop!” The policeman she’d noticed on the platform yelled after him and waved a large radio.
Her legs were bolted to the floor.
Sirens blared outside as another officer dashed at them from the direction of the tracks, quickly passed by a streaking blur of German shepherd. This officer pulled a black gun that seemed much bigger than the little thing of Stig’s.
She had to sidestep to avoid being knocked over by Stig and Skafe, who were still locked together. The pistol had fallen to the floor, but Stig wouldn’t let go of the other man’s arms, so Skafe dragged them both step by step toward the doors.
The policemen closed in, and she put her hands up on command. They didn’t know she’d been kidnapped.
Stig dropped his arms and collapsed to the floor, freeing Skafe to sprint toward the exit.
The dog kept after him, followed by its handler, but the younger officer stopped next to her and Stig.
Skafe hit the doors with both arms full out in front of his body at the same time the officer fired. Glass shattered, more people screamed, but the fleeing man disappeared.
“Stig?” She crouched and pulled his jacket wider to look at the now-red shirt clinging to his torso. She didn’t know much first aid, but in the movies, rescuers always ripped apart the shirt to get to the wound. “Hang on.” No one ever mentioned that good fabric was impossible to tear, so she hunted for the slippery buttons. “Help’s coming.”
She hoped she spoke the truth. Someone must have called the British equivalent of 9-1-1.
His eyes looked glassy and fixed, but he managed to move his lips. “Plan,” he whispered out one side of his mouth. “Closer.”
She leaned toward him until her hair brushed his face. “What?”
“Say I’m a cop. Undercover.” He panted shallowly a couple of times. “Name is Will.”
“Undercover cop?” Tears dripped on his cheeks, and she realized she was crying. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
“Stay. With me.”
“Don’t worry.” The emergency medics had to get here and help him. “I won’t leave
you.”
“Stay. Safer.” His grip was still strong on her fingers. “Promise me.”
“Of course.” Over the long night he’d become her ally, and this crazy thing he’d done, shooting himself to save her, was a debt she could never repay. “I promise.”
* * *
Christina tried to think while she processed the dozen things happening in the back of the ambulance as it veered through one turn and then another en route to an emergency room at a hospital called St. Mary’s. The paramedics who had loaded Stig on a gurney had pulled his hand from hers, but he’d gestured for her to follow. Climbing into the ambulance, she’d recognized his maneuver as a way to evade the police swarming into the station, but one officer had popped through the closing doors to join them.
The uniformed man stared at her with narrowed eyes and she remembered she had more than one problem of her own. Outside of Napa, there was no Big Frank, either in person or in public memory, to provide a protective cocoon. In addition to her lack of citizenship and the passport issue, she was wearing the holster for a pistol at center stage of a crime scene. Her brain knew the holster was empty, but it felt like it weighed more than a quadruple-sized jeroboam bottle.
“How do you know this officer?” the real policeman asked.
Assuming Stig wasn’t part of law enforcement, she’d lied about that too. “He— He—” She let her lips tremble while she remembered her fear in the drug store and the pain of Skafe’s elbow pinch. That was enough to help her eyes fill with legitimate tears. “He saved me. The other two—” She’d better stutter, because she had no idea what to say. “They-they— kidnapped me.”
While EMTs adjusted intravenous fluids and an oxygen mask, the cop stared from the remains of Stig’s white shirt—now a bloody rag stuffed in a clear plastic bag—to her dress and black jacket. “From where? A cocktail party?”
The Second Lie (Immortal Vikings Book 2) Page 6
