Run Jane Run

by Maureen Tan

  Alex moaned, cried out as the blade nicked him.

  I froze for a moment, then kept working.

  Finally, I cut through the shirt.

  I exhaled and felt my shoulders sag.

  John said: “The knife, Janie. Now.”

  I folded it, threw it back to him, and he returned it to his pocket.

  For a time, I sat quietly looking at Alex, grateful that the knotted veins on his forearm were beginning to relax. I watched his chest rise and fall, listened to his wheezing breath, and wondered—

  Talking to John was an alternative to worrying about Alex. It was an alternative to worrying about death.

  “You work for Sir William.”

  “Sometimes. And, sometimes, so does Mac. He and William worked together in Greece, decades ago. Even then I think Mac sensed William’s corruption. So he sent a young operative digging into Sir William’s activities. She was one of Mac’s favorites, a woman everyone assumed was nothing more than a career diplomat’s pretty little wife. She was a professional. Like you, Janie, but not nearly as tough. She didn’t need to be. Or so Mac thought. Which is why, I suspect, he’s always been harsher with you. In any event, your mother found something. We’ll never know what. Because before she reached Mac, she was murdered.”

  He met my eyes.

  I looked away from him and focused on Alex. His eyelids were beginning to flutter.

  “You murdered her.”

  “Sir William said she was a Communist agent who was stealing top secret files and that your father was a weak man, a dupe in her hands.”

  I defended the parents I didn’t know.

  “He lied.”

  “Yes. But I didn’t know that then. I simply did my duty.”

  He paused for a moment, and his matter-of-fact voice was colored with emotion when he added: “Your parents died quickly, Janie. As did the chauffeur. A shot to the head. Just as we were trained. But what Sir William did to you . . . That was brutality.”

  Tears.

  I turned my head, knowing the action betrayed the feelings I wanted to hide.

  John kept talking.

  “Delphi was my first foreign-duty post. I was barely twenty-three years old, a junior officer assigned to the cultural attaché. I provided intelligence to William and Mac. It was an interesting time—dangerous and volatile. And both men knew how to use history to their advantage. They were intelligent and ruthless and from good families. The sort who rise quickly to positions of power in government service and take loyal subordinates with them. I had ambitions then. But even the silliest bugger grows up. It didn’t take me long to realize that Sir William was not driven by the same—”

  He paused, held his breath as he searched around for the right words, exhaled when he found them.

  “—obsessive sense of duty that is Mac’s particular curse. And yours.”

  I moved to relieve the cramping in my legs, twisted my torso slightly, and gasped as my rib cage objected.

  “Please, Jane. Be still. I think you’ve probably broken a couple ribs.”

  Concern on his face. Caring. I didn’t want it from him.

  “Knowing what he is,” I said, “you still work for Sir William.”

  I made it an accusation.

  John nodded.

  “And you still work for Mac.”

  No answer for that.

  John didn’t seem to expect one.

  “After you and I returned from Scotland, Sir William ordered me to kill you. I was shocked, really, to discover I couldn’t. It was simply . . . wrong. And you’ve come to mean far too much—”

  He shook his head, interrupted the thought.

  “I told Sir William to bugger himself. So he dispatched someone more reliable. Someone not so old and soft, he told me. You survived the fire, disappeared. I was relieved. And I was off the hook. I told myself that you’d manage on your own, as you always have. I thought you’d never recognize me, even if you did remember everything else. So it was none of my business, really. Then Mac called. In the end, I followed you here.”

  “You came here to protect me?”

  “I fired that shot from on top of the market to encourage you to protect yourself. And I wanted the police involved. Callaghan loves you. Probably always has. I didn’t understand why a dozen cops weren’t out there, protecting you. I still don’t.”

  He paused, but I offered no explanation.

  Alex moved his head, muttered my name.

  John glanced at him, then refocused on me.

  “I showed up on your doorstep offering my services and intending to eliminate the immediate threat. Nothing more. Unfortunately, circumstances have changed.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance.

  Help for Alex. Thank God.

  John stood, stepped toward us, looked down at me as he had so many years earlier. This time he wore no mask. But he still held a gun. It pointed unwaveringly at my face.

  This time, I wasn’t a terrified child.

  I ignored the dark view down the barrel and kept my eyes on John’s.

  “Go on,” I said. “Finish what you started. Just leave Alex unharmed. Please. You owe me that much.”

  Then he nodded, and I tensed, waiting—

  Then he did something inexplicable. He holstered the Browning, slipped the SIG-Sauer from his jacket pocket, and handed it to me.

  “Circumstances change. I find that I’m inclined to go back to London and visit my employer.”

  He stood quietly, facing me. Then he turned and walked slowly away.

  I held the gun, aimed it at his back.

  I couldn’t pull the trigger.

  I should hate him, I thought.

  I didn’t.

  I understood too well the twisted morality of our profession.

  John paused when he reached the corner of the bait shop.

  “Goodbye, love,” he said clearly.

  A minute later, I heard the roar of the Harley’s engine as he rode away.

  The ambulance arrived.

  The paramedics spotted the body and called the cops.

  The cops arrived as Alex and I were loaded into the back of the ambulance. Redheaded Merle, bulky Buchannan, and two rookies I didn’t know. They called Tommy and remained at the scene.

  The ambulance wailed its way to the hospital.

  I reached over, took Alex’s hand, and was surprised to receive a squeeze in return.

  * * *

  Tommy met us at the emergency room door, leaned over Alex’s stretcher.

  “Damn it, man. Snake bit? Can’t you ever stay out of trouble?”

  Alex found enough strength to shift the mask away from his mouth and found enough oxygen to wheeze out an answer.

  “Guess not.”

  The paramedics took him through a familiar set of swinging doors.

  This time, I knew he would live.

  * * *

  When Tommy leaned over my stretcher, he had his copface on.

  I didn’t wait for him to ask questions. I volunteered information.

  “I killed that fellow after he’d ambushed Alex and me. Payback, I think, from one of my old enemies.”

  Tommy’s hostile expression melted into a friend’s concern.

  “There’ll be an investigation.”

  I nodded, smiled up at him.

  “No problem. I plan on staying.”

  28

  A week later, the ringing phone awakened us at dawn.

  Damned phone.

  Alex grabbed it, favoring his bandaged arm.

  “For you,” he said.

  He waited for me to work myself into an upright position.

  The strapping on my ribs slowed me down.

  “William is dead,” Mac said without preamble.

  “How?”

  I tried to keep my voice neutral, but something in that single word must have betrayed some emotion.

  Alex’s eyes darted back to me. His expression was alert, worried.

  Though I thou
ght he’d probably guessed, I’d already told Alex the situation with Sir William was resolved. I’d trusted him not to ask questions.

  Now, I flashed Alex a smile as I listened to Mac.

  “Apparently the nephew killed him. It happened a few hours ago. Hugh had been home from the sanatorium for less than a week and practically took his uncle’s head off with a bird gun. Of course, he maintains that he was sleeping when it happened. He told the police he found his uncle dead in the study and that obviously it was an accident. There were cleaning supplies spread across William’s desk. But the angle of entry was completely wrong and the cleaning supplies were laid out on top of the blood spattering. Stupid, greedy little sod. He’ll probably spend the rest of his life in some mental hospital.”

  Mac paused for a moment, then said: “You can come home, Janie.”

  “No need. I already am.”

  There was little to say after that. Except goodbye.

  I hung up the phone, thinking that John had an exquisite sense of justice.

  “What’s wrong?” Alex said.

  Pure anxiety.

  I cuddled in beside him.

  “Nothing. Except, now that we’re both awake, I was wondering . . .”

  I raised an eyebrow and loaded my voice with pure lust.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said.

  He rolled onto his side, faced me, carefully shifted his bandaged left arm, and laid it along the top of my pillow. He tried not to flinch as he moved it. I pouted.

  “I don’t suppose we’ll ever make love when one of us isn’t injured?”

  He lowered his head and brushed my lips with his.

  “Be grateful,” he murmured. “This particular injury means we can spend some quality time together.”

  “Define quality.”

  He slid his right hand beneath the sheet, trailed his fingers down my belly, and demonstrated.

  I moaned softly.

  Then he moved his hand and slipped it behind my neck. Color touched the ridge of his cheeks. Above them, his dark eyes were dilated. He pulled my face close to his, trailed the tip of his tongue along the cup of my ear, and half-breathed, half-whispered to me.

  “If you’ll allow me to demonstrate, I think you will find—”

  He nipped at my cheek.

  “—my right-handed technique—”

  He ran the tip of his tongue along my lower lip.

  “—quite satisfactory.”

  * * *

  A while later, I repeated Alex’s words, imitating his drawl, creating a lingering verbal caress.

  “Quite satisfactory. Ah’m sure.”

  SPRING

  29

  Alex and I sat in the living room, in front of the telly, dressed much alike—old jeans and faded SPD T-shirts. The French doors were open wide to catch the afternoon breeze. Outside, the sun was shining, the birds singing, and the magnolias were in full bloom.

  We had our feet up on the coffee table and our hands around frosty mint juleps. In fifteen minutes, the Kentucky Derby would run.

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Alex left me to answer it.

  He came back ten minutes later, sat down beside me, and took a sip of his drink.

  “That was the local sheriff in a little river town down near the Shawnee National Forest,” he said. “Southern Illinois. That’s where the Feds relocated Willie. I called a friend in the DEA a while ago, just like you suggested. I told him I needed to know how Willie was getting along. He called the sheriff. The sheriff called me. He says he knew Willie—by his new name, of course. Willie got himself a nice house with a river full of fish practically off the back steps.”

  I smiled.

  “A happy ending.”

  “Yeah. Except for one thing. According to the sheriff, they all had some real bad flooding last year. The levy looked like it might give way. Willie was there, along with most of the town, helping them sandbag. Seems he fell into the river and drowned.”

  I stared at Alex, opened my mouth to ask—

  He shook his head.

  “Best to let it be,” he said.

  Then he snuggled in close, and the Derby began.