“Gentlemen? Are we having a problem here?”
“Please,” Heather cried. “I don’t know how they got in here. Please get them out.”
The guard stepped closer to them. “How did you get in here? You’re not supposed to be in here.”
“We do know her,” fake Josh replied with his best attempt at a defusing smile. His thug accomplice made a pathetic attempt at a smile as well, but with a bloody nose and a huge lump on the back of his head, his credibility was way below zero. Besides, it was obvious the guard wasn’t the least bit interested in hearing a story. He eyed both of them one more time, and that was clearly enough for him.
“You and you,” he said, pointing a stern finger at each of them. “You’re out of here. Now. I’m escorting you out of this hospital. And I don’t want to see you back in this hospital, you understand?”
He placed his hand over the holster of his gun just to be clear. But they weren’t going to bother putting up any resistance at this point. Loki would surely find some other way to infiltrate. But this particular attempt was officially history.
Gaia fixed a cold stare on each of them as they followed the guard out the door. She knew she would most likely see at least one of them again in the very near future. If and when she found Loki and confronted him, she had no doubt that QR1 and who knew how many other Josh clones would be close by. But for now, she was more than a little pleased to say her good-byes.
Once they were gone, she stepped back toward Heather to check on her, but the nurse was still standing in the room, looking generally concerned and perturbed.
“Miss?” She stared at Gaia and crossed her arms. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go as well. Visiting hours are over and—”
“No, please,” Heather pleaded from her bed. “Please…she’s my sister. And she’s been keeping me company, and…I’m kind of scared of being alone right now. Would it be all right if she stayed with me?”
Gaia turned back to the nurse and waited for her answer.
“Yes, of course,” the nurse said. “Of course. I understand. She can stay.”
“Thank you,” Heather uttered, finally beginning to calm down a bit. “Thank you so much.”
“All right, then.” The nurse smiled. “You try to get some rest now, all right? Just rest. I’m sure your sister will take good care of you.”
“Oh, I will,” Gaia said. That was for damn sure. If the nurse hadn’t allowed her to stay, they would have had to find Heather a new nurse. Because Gaia wouldn’t be leaving Heather’s side again. Not for two minutes. No one would be dying on her watch. No one.
The intensity in Gaia’s eyes seemed to make the nurse a little uncomfortable. She smiled a slightly awkward smile and then said good night, closing the door behind her.
Finally Gaia and Heather were alone in the room. No thugs, no clones, no doctors, no nurses.
And finally Gaia could admit that she was about ten seconds from blacking out completely. She let down her strong face and slumped over. She stumbled to the other vacant bed in the room and collapsed on top of it, sprawled out in a diagonal, her shoes dangling over the side.
“Heather,” she muttered out of the side of her mouth. “The thing about me is…sometimes after a fight…I need to pass out for a little while. So I’m going to pass out for a little while now.”
“Gaia, wait,” Heather begged. “Do you think…Could you stay awake for just a little while longer? I was…kind of losing it in the darkness and the silence, and now, after everything I’ve been through tonight, I really don’t think I can take much more of it. Not just yet. Could you stay up with me for a little while?”
Gaia checked her body. The room was definitely getting dimmer, and her eyelids were most definitely fluttering. But she could stay awake for a while longer. If she focused hard enough, she was sure she could do it for Heather. Gaia knew all about the darkness and the silence. They weren’t her favorites, either.
“Okay,” Gaia muttered from her totally flat-faced position on the bed. “I can make it—don’t worry.”
“Thank you,” Heather intoned, sounding genuinely thrilled that Gaia would stick it out with her. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up, Gaia. No, I do know what would have happened. I’d be gone. God, I’m so lucky you were still here. What were you still doing here?”
Gaia felt a twinge in her chest at the question. She was so exhausted, she wasn’t even sure whether the twinge was good or bad. Was it the physical memory of finally being back in Ed’s arms, or was it another painful pang of guilt at having stolen a genuine moment of joy while Heather was living out a nightmare right down the hall? Whichever it was, Gaia had fewer and fewer regrets about her time in the closet with Ed. Not only could she not wait for the next time she’d see him again, but she was also beginning to feel far less guilty about it. After all, if they hadn’t spent their time in the closet and if Gaia hadn’t decided, after her few minutes of private thinking time, to check one last time on Heather…
“I was just…straightening some things out,” she said, opting to keep things nice and vague for now.
“Well, thank you, Gaia,” Heather said, sounding deeply grateful to the point of tears. “Thank you so much. I just wish I could see you right now. I wish I could look you in the eye and thank you for saving my life.”
She had, hadn’t she? Gaia had saved Heather’s life. She had been so busy fighting, she hadn’t really thought about it in those terms. And she couldn’t help thinking that maybe this was some kind of karma? Giving in to Ed earlier. Saving Heather tonight. Maybe, in some strange cosmic way, Gaia had finally found a way to make up for nearly getting Heather killed that night in the park? Maybe everything was coming full circle tonight. Heather even seemed to be getting some of her lucidity back. Maybe it helped to know that she was no longer on her own.
“Seeing is overrated,” Gaia said, trying to at least flop herself onto her back. “I mean, what’s there really to see? I’ll tell you what. I’ll close the curtain around my bed, and then I won’t be able to see you, either. We’ll be even.”
Heather seemed to consider this suggestion for a second. “You really are a freak, aren’t you,” she concluded.
“Yes, and…?”It went without saying that Gaia was a freak.
“And I am, too,” Heather said.
“Oh, yeah,” Gaia agreed. “Big freak.”
“We’ll be even.”Heather repeated it to herself quietly as if she were savoring it. “I like that. We are, Gaia,” she said, with an odd tone of official declaration. It sounded like her mind might be falling a little out of sync again. “We’re even. Okay? From now on? Even.”
“Even,” Gaia agreed, half asleep. “Just give me two seconds to get blind.” Gaia hoisted herself up and tugged the dark blue plastic curtain all the way around her bed, dropping back down on the pillow as the notion of staying awake became more and more of a fantasy.
“Heather, I’m sorry, but I think I have to sleep a little, okay? I really think we’re safe in here tonight. We’ve got the guard out there, and I don’t think Loki is going to hit the same place twice in one night. So let’s just try to relax. Heather…”
Gaia heard a faint snore coming from the other bed. Heather must be just as exhausted as she was. How could she not be after everything they had been through in this interminable day of horrors? They’d both basically been fighting off death almost hour by hour, and somehow or other…they’d both won. At least for today. They deserved at least one good night’s sleep. They had earned it.
Yellow Plastic
TOM FELT A TWINGE IN HIS SPINE the moment he saw it. He’d barely pulled his car up to George’s Perry Street town house when he felt the spark of pain ignited by the sight of a simple piece of yellow plastic.
Police tape.
All he’d seen was the crime scene tape floating in the wind, broken in two pieces on either side of George’s front door. And he already knew.
He knew what
had become of George Niven. And he finally understood what that grinning little bastard on the fire escape had meant when he said, “Why don’t you ask your buddy George?”
Because Tom knew his brother. He knew what Loki did to people who’d outlived their usefulness. And George should have known it, too.
Why did you do it, George? How could you be so foolish? We watched him operate for years. Didn’t you know where it would lead? Didn’t you know what he’d do to you? God, George, were you my last hope for finding Gaia tonight?
Those were just a few of the hundreds of questions Tom had for George. And questions were only the beginning of what Tom had planned, to be followed by the most scathing brand of verbal abuse and then, most likely, unless George had some kind of earth-shattering explanation, some form of severe physical punishment. Nothing deadly, much as Tom’s most vengeful self might have wanted it, but certainly something to ensure that George felt the appropriate amount of regret for what he’d done. And then an immediate interrogation. Squeezing out every bit of knowledge George might have had about Gaia’s whereabouts.
But Tom was already rather sure that none of his questions would ever be answered. And as for George’s punishment, it appeared someone had already taken care of that.
Now Tom had been forced to shift gears completely. And his heart was no different than any other engine. If it wasn’t prepared to shift gears, it was going to stall. All those years of trust and faith and admiration for his friend. And a few days of despising him. Tom didn’t know what to feel. But no amount of speculation or confusion was going to stop him from going inside. He had to see it for himself. He needed some kind of visual confirmation other than one yellow piece of plastic.
He climbed the stone steps as he fished for his spare key to George’s place, but when his hand grabbed the knob, he realized that the door was unlocked. Someone had done all of this already. Someone had broken the tape, unlocked the door, and ventured inside. And they hadn’t bothered to lock it when they left.
Gaia. It had to be. She’d been here and gone already. When? Tonight? Days ago? Maybe there was some clue inside?
Tom walked into the dark apartment, feeling that eerie sense of stillness—his least favorite part of the job. Even to this day, he despised the sensation of walking through a crime scene. That sense that nothing in the room pertained to the present anymore. Everything in this house was now a part of the past. The George and Ella Niven Museum. A study in betrayal and poor judgment.
Tom climbed the stairs to the top floor and flipped on the hallway light. He immediately began checking the rooms, doing a quick cursory glance in each bedroom. But it didn’t take very long. He found what he was looking for on his third opened door. Gaia’s bedroom. The flash of stark white lines contrasting with the dark floor had caught his eye instantly. He flipped on the light in the room and confirmed his first fear from the moment his car had pulled up to the house. An outline of a body in white tape. Bloodstains that had turned from red to black.
And only now did he realize the real reason he’d needed to see it. Because before he’d even had a chance to truly take in the image, he’d already found himself kneeling next to what was left of George Niven, his greatest friend of more than twenty years. White tape and black smudges of dried blood. That was all that remained of George. And although Tom’s heart might have been too hardened for him to cry at this point, he suddenly realized why he had made himself enter this house.
It wasn’t just to settle his confusion. It wasn’t just to confirm what he’d already known the moment he arrived or even to find another clue about Gaia. He knew there were no more clues. It was none of those things.
Tom had come into this house to mourn.
The human heart was indeed a most bizarre phenomenon. He’d come here with nothing but spite and scorn in his heart. He’d come here to punish George, to hurt him if he had to, to force the truth out of him about Gaia and where Tom could find her. But the moment he had realized that George was dead…he’d come in to forgive him.
I’ll never understand it, he thought as he knelt by the closest thing there was right now to George’s grave. I’ll never understand why you did it. But in all honesty, in spite of all my rage and all my vengeful impulses, do you know what I really believe in my heart of hearts, George? I should be locked up in an insane asylum for this…but I honestly believe that you somehow thought you were doing good. However horribly misguided your judgment, however stupid and shortsighted and naive and idiotic you were, I believe you thought you were somehow being…noble. I suppose that makes me almost as much a fool as you. But that’s how I’m going to choose to remember you. I’m going to remember you for all the noble things you did in your life—and there were many. And the rest of it…I don’t think I’ll ever forget what you did to us—what you did to my family. But I’ll forgive you, George. I do forgive you.
I just wish I could understand how it happened. I wish I could have been standing in the room the moment youdecided to sell me out. We were like brothers, George. How could you turn on me like that when we were practically…?
The thought was almost laughable. It was even too absurd a thought for Tom to finish. How could a brother turn on his own brother? Was he seriously asking himself this question? He’d thought he stopped asking that idiotic question ten years ago. Because it was about ten years ago that he’d realized the answer.
He’d discovered it while reading a book that he’d found in his motel room one night in Dallas, Texas. A little book called the Bible. While skimming through that very familiar book, it had finally occurred to Tom that a brother’s betrayal wasn’t such a mystery after all. In fact, judging from this very old book, he thought it was one of the oldest traditions in human nature. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Joseph and his brothers…
The conclusion was simple enough, and if George was any indication, it still held true today.
A brother’s betrayal wasn’t so uncommon at all. It was a brother’s loyalty that seemed to be the real rarity. What a very, very sad thought.
Tom rose and stepped back from the ghostly outline. He had nothing left to say. And Gaia was still his only priority. He’d spoken his piece, and now it was time to move on.
He made his way down the stairs and out the front door in seconds. But the moment he sat down in his car, he realized…
George had been his only hope. He had no leads, not one message on his Blackberry. The Agency still didn’t have a thing. Not a thing.
Tom blew out a long, frustrated sigh. He was getting so very tired. There was nothing in the world more exhausting than failure. It seemed he had already reached that dreaded moment that always seemed to present itself with his tragically independent daughter. That moment when he was utterly impotent. When he was drowning in his own futility. That moment when he realized yet again that Gaia’s life was entirely in her own hands.
Ten o’clock tomorrow…Did it mean anything? Did Gaia have any idea about ten o’clock tomorrow? Did she have any idea what might happen to her tonight?
Tom had no more choices. If he was to be of any use tomorrow morning, he’d need to get some sleep tonight. He’d need to believe that Gaia had found herself a safe place to stay. In essence, he’d need to ignore that little voice in his head telling him that place didn’t exist.
The Tao of Gwyneth
How could Gaia possibly have known that Heather Gannis was in fact remarkable?
Grease and Potatoes
WAS SHE REALLY DREAMING OF creaking doors and slow, haunting footsteps? She could have sworn they’d both been invading her subconscious for hours. How bizarre and preposterous would that be? Where were the images coming from, those cliché slice-and-dice summer block-busters? What was next? The monster under the bed? The headless ghost of St. Vincent himself roaming the hospital in the wee hours of the morn? The lone severed hand crawling through the hospital, looking for hippies and sexually active teens?
For someone with no fear, there w
as nothing on this planet more ineffectual than a bad dream ripped off from a lame horror movie.
But there was another footstep….
You’re not dreaming, Gaia. You’re awake. There’s someone in this room.
This would of course be the part in the movie where she was supposed to stare into the camera, widen her eyes to comical proportions, and then scream bloody murder at least two or three times. But Gaia was nothing other than thrilled.
Whoever that someone was, he had been idiotic enough to think that opening a creaky door slowly was a stealthy way to enter a room. But all he had done was give her more time to plan the specific nature and duration of his beating. She’d known staying with Heather was the right choice.
She raised her chest gently to a more upright position and stared with anticipation at the blue plastic curtain she had closed around her hospital bed. She couldn’t believe this was his best attempt at a sneak attack. It was pathetic. The faint light from the hallway was projecting his entire silhouette right through the curtain as he took each cartoonish step.
I hope it’s you, Josh. I hope they didn’t send that cheap imitation this time. Because you’re the one I want. I have so been looking forward to this….
Gaia flexed her fists and switched to a deeper focus. She would start with one perfectly placed shot to that repulsive face. And then she would improvise from there. Just one step closer…Open the curtain.…Come on, asshole, open the curtain.…
He finally slipped his fingers through the opening in the curtain. And the second he swung that thing open, she cracked his face with a lightning quick jab that knocked him flat on his coldhearted ass.
“You call that a sneak attack?” she taunted, shooting up from the bed onto her feet. “That is pathetic, you spineless little turd. Pathetic.”
Betrayed Page 9
