by Jonas Saul
Kierian lifted almost a foot off his seat and banged his knee on the steering wheel when someone knocked hard on the frosted window beside his head.
He shouted and cursed as he opened the door to Clint’s smiling face.
“Reporting for duty. Shift-change time.”
“You asshole. You scared the shit out of me.”
“Oh, sorry about that. Just wanted to see if you were awake.”
Kierian got out of the car, pulled his jacket tight around his shoulders and started away from the Impala.
“When I come back in the morning, I’ll see just how awake you are too,” he said. Then he added under his breath, “Asshole.”
When he looked back at Aaron’s apartment before turning the corner, the light in the living room was out.
He turned the corner and hustled along the snow and ice-covered sidewalk toward the hotel three blocks away, hoping Clint had seen the light go out.
If Sarah left the apartment and performed a task under Vivian’s direction and they missed it, there would be hell to pay.
At least that’s what their superiors had told them.
They could not have a vigilante running around causing havoc. Not anymore. Too many people had died and not a single charge had ever been brought against Sarah Roberts.
The FBI aimed to change that.
Chapter 5
Sarah let the curtains of the living room window fall back into place. When the men switched places in the driver’s seat of the Impala across the street, she was sure it was the same two guys who had been following her since Vegas. She had lost interest months ago, but now that Vivian had her busy again, she didn’t want those two sticking their noses where they shouldn’t.
They had kept to the shadows for the most part, so she hadn’t been able to get too close to their vehicle. But today in the back of the taxi during the soft snowfall, which seemed to be letting up, with a limited amount of vehicles on the road, she had spotted the tail easily.
She remembered the note Vivian gave her to lose them on the highway as she left Vegas. How Detective Collins of the Las Vegas Police Department said that the FBI wanted to talk to her about a ‘deal.’
They had tried to follow her out of Vegas, but she soon lost them as her BMW motorcycle had more guts in it than their fed-issued cruiser.
In Maine, she had noticed them again.
If they weren’t going to approach her, then maybe she needed to make their acquaintance. Since Vivian had been quiet over the past few months, it hadn’t really bothered her that they were there. It seemed harmless. But now that she had errands to run and tasks to perform, she couldn’t have the FBI watching everything she did.
It was almost five in the afternoon and the sun had dropped on this cold, overcast, snowy day. Perfect timing to have a chat with her local FBI agent.
She grabbed her jacket and put it on, slipped into her boots and touched the door handle, then stopped. A better idea struck her.
Down the hall in the bottom of the linen closet, she located Aaron’s tool box. She lifted off the top that held nails and screws, picked up the hammer, and shoved the toolbox back in the closet.
Hammer in hand, she left the apartment, locked the door and started for the stairs. The elevator dinged behind her. The doors slid open. As she swung the stairwell door wide, someone called her name.
Aaron?
The door to the stairwell was almost shut. She turned and opened it again to see him running down the corridor.
“Where are you—” He looked down at the hammer in her hand. “Where are you going with that?”
“To have a chat with someone.”
“And you need a hammer to talk? Even after the last five months of training on street fighting?”
“Old habits. I need the hammer to break the car window. I’ve done this kind of thing before.”
He looked her up and down. “Sometimes you scare me.”
“You’re not alone. Sometimes I scare myself.”
“Can we go back to the apartment and talk about this before you end up in jail on assault charges? Or worse?”
She thought about it, weighing what consequences would cost more. On one hand, it was a perfect time to talk to the agent in the car and find out what their agenda was. The lone male in the car had just arrived and would be alone for some time. On the other hand, Aaron would be angry and they would fight again. Yet another argument over something that had to do with Vivian.
“You’re thinking about it,” Aaron said. “Why is there a dilemma? You can’t talk first and then solve whatever issue you have using that hammer later?”
“It’s not that simple. It’s not an issue I have.”
“Okay, I’ll be in the apartment.”
After a few minutes of breathing in and out slowly and calming her heart rate, she let the stairwell door close and followed Aaron to the apartment. When she entered, he was sitting in the living room, two glasses of red wine on the coffee table and soft jazz playing on the stereo from their Smooth Jazz Cafe series.
“What?” Sarah said. “You just knew I would come back?”
“I had hoped.”
“Watch the assumptions with me. You don’t want to be surprised.”
She set the hammer down on the little table by the door where they always placed their keys.
Something about living together had been fun and new. But there was also something about it that was starting to rub her the wrong way.
“Come sit.” Aaron patted the cushion on the sofa beside him. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Why are you home already?” Sarah asked.
“To save your ass.”
“Starting the conversation like that will only get you kicked in the teeth. Then we’ll see how well you talk.” She walked over and looked down at him, her insides roiling. “Do not fuck around with me today.”
He looked up at her, his face soft and caring. Then he patted the cushion again.
She moved around the coffee table and sat down.
“Are you going to answer my question?” Sarah asked.
“I’m home a couple of hours early because Daniel is taking over my classes for me. He wanted to give me a break so I could spend some time with you. You seem different the last few days. You haven’t been yourself.” Aaron lowered his head, fiddled with his jeans for a second and then turned to her. “I was wondering if Vivian had said anything lately and that was what had stirred you up. Have you heard from her?”
Sarah picked up her wine glass and took a long sip. After setting it back down, she lifted one leg under her and faced him.
The only way through this was the truth. He was big enough to handle it or he wasn’t the man for her.
“It started in Vegas,” she said.
“You told me everything about Vegas. Didn’t you?”
She drank from her glass again. “Not everything.”
“What did you leave out?” he asked.
“The FBI.”
She started with Vivian’s note about the FBI and what Detective Collins had said. She told Aaron that her cousin, Russell Anderson, was supposed to show up in Toronto at some point but she hadn’t heard from him.
Over the next twenty minutes she explained Vivian’s recent messages and how they made no sense to her whatsoever, but how that didn’t matter. All she knew was that she had to do what Vivian asked of her.
“I guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around the why,” Aaron said.
“That’s the problem right there.”
“What’s the problem?”
“You’re too focused on the why. If I was too, I would’ve never gone to Europe in pursuit of Armond Stuart. He would be free to steal more young girls from their homes and continue his human trafficking business to wealthy men who pay top dollar for sex. I would’ve never played the role of the victim in the streets of Toronto last summer. Could you imagine your response if the message told you to walk into the middle of a busy four-lane int
ersection on a green light downtown Toronto and don’t move? Innocent people could’ve gotten hurt. I could’ve been killed. Instead only the bad guys got hurt.”
“You’re right. I would’ve never done that.”
“Had I not done that, I would be dead right now. The men who pursued me were like ghosts. You remember them. They were there to kill me. Vivian always knows what’s best and how to make sure I walk away, or crawl in some cases. My job is to follow what she says as close as I can and everything will work out.”
Aaron cut in. “When I saw you at the stairwell earlier with a hammer in your hand, was that something Vivian asked you to do?”
Sarah sat back and regarded him with a cold stare.
“Are you toying with me? Is this a game?”
“Not at all,” he said, raising his arms in supplication.
“I opened up to you about my sister. That’s something I hardly ever do with just anybody. I told you everything Vivian has asked of me recently and you didn’t hear a single mention of the hammer. So why ask me that?”
“Why take a hammer to a conversation then? What were you trying to do? What result would you expect?”
Sarah got up from the couch, clutching her wine glass. “I won’t talk in circles with you and I won’t be talked down to. By now, you should know that my life is unique. Nothing you can say or do will change who I am or what I do with Vivian. You’re either along for the ride or getting off at the next stop.”
Aaron stood, too. “Look, I do accept you. But if I could deal with some of your messages, why not give me the chance? Look at how many scars you have. You’re lucky to be alive.”
She spun around to face Aaron. “These scars are battle wounds. For the innocent lives I’ve saved. They’re for the girls who were freed who can now go to college and get married, have kids. If that means I have an extra scar, then so be it. For that alone, I ask for another hundred scars.” She was almost screaming. “Circumstances are what they are. Evil people, bad people run this planet. Only society keeps the beast inside every man quiet. But once in a while, that beast stirs and a man, or a woman, goes astray. I’m honored to be the one who gets to be there when that happens to put things right. Nothing and nobody will ever stop me from being that person.”
“Unless Vivian stops communicating or you die.”
“Exactly. But when I die and God, or whoever is up there that you believe in, asks me what I did with my life, I want to be able to say I tried my best. Imagine looking that entity in the eyes and saying I received messages to help someone and decided to go out for pizza instead? Fuck!”
Sweat rolled down her forehead. She hadn’t been this worked up in a long time. What was it about this conversation that made her dig her heels in? Was she in love with Aaron? Could she accept that and still be who she was? Did he love her? Was that what this was all about?
“Look,” Aaron said in a kinder, softer voice. “All I was saying was that I want to help and I want to limit the amount of danger you face. We don’t just live together here. We aren’t roommates.” He stepped closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Or are we?”
“You can’t help,” Sarah said. She slipped away from his grasp and moved to the living room window. The FBI car was still there, a streetlight reflecting off its windshield. “I agree. We aren’t roommates. I have …” she swallowed saliva that had built up in her mouth. “I have feelings for you, but it’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Then leave Vivian out of our relationship and you and I won’t have a problem.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It is and you know it. Back when I first met you, I got a note telling me to lure my pursuer into a yoga studio. You argued, why not a martial arts studio where professionals could beat him up. At the time, I had no idea why a yoga studio, either. But it worked out, didn’t it? Who knows what would have happened if I didn’t do what the message said. We argued about that. You walked out. Granted, you followed me the next day, but that didn’t help either.”
She took a deep breath and looked away from the cold night, turning back to him.
“What I’m saying,” she continued, “is you can’t get in the way, or try to stop me or try to do Vivian’s bidding for me. She knows you’re here and if she asks something of you, then you can help. So from here on in, I’ll be open about the messages and you just have to step back and accept it. Deal? Otherwise, I’ll have to close you out.”
“I don’t know if I can agree to that.”
Aaron walked across the room and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Motherfucker,” Sarah whispered under her breath. “He needs a beating on his thick skull. Are all men like this?”
She followed him into the kitchen where she found him sitting at the table, the light off.
“This thing you’re doing tomorrow,” Aaron said. “That’s hard.”
“Sounds like you need time to think about us.” She leaned against the doorframe. “Maybe I do, too.”
The silence between them held tension. Fighting was a way of life for Sarah, but she didn’t want to have to do it with the one man she had really started to feel something for. Aaron had proven himself a true gentleman over the course of their relationship. But every time Vivian came up in conversation, or talk of what she had gone through for strangers, Aaron became judgmental and closed up. Maybe he was a traditional man and that was what appealed to her. But a traditional man could never handle her lifestyle as she performed her Automatic Writing tasks.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” she said. “You get out of a relationship what you put in. When it comes to Vivian, sometimes I have kept her from you. Like these messages recently. If I’m not putting into the relationship, then I can’t expect much back. But without blaming you, you taught me that.”
“How so?”
“People teach you how to treat them. When you got upset about Vivian’s note the first time, when I first met you, you taught me to be cautious about the notes after that. After this argument, I’m not sure we should ever discuss messages again.” She paused and switched to the other side of the door frame. “How about this? Every once in a while, I’ll disappear for an afternoon, a day, a week, and then when I’m back, we’ll have dinner, watch a movie and enjoy life. Until the next message, of course.”
“I can’t do that either,” Aaron said. “Not knowing where you are or what you’re doing. If you’re in danger. Whether I could help or not. What if you were kidnapped again?” His voice raised a notch. “What if you were killed and they come to tell me while I’m sitting here having a beer scanning Facebook? Or I read it in the newspaper or see it on CNN. How would that feel for me? I’m a professional fighter. I can help you, Sarah.”
“We aren’t getting anywhere tonight. Let’s order something for dinner and forget this for now. Think on it.”
“How about we go down and have that conversation with the men following you?”
“We can’t. You could get arrested and charged with something.”
“And you couldn’t?”
“No. They leave me alone. They need me for some reason. Or they’re following me to protect me. I have no idea. That was what I wanted to find out earlier.”
“Are we getting anywhere with us?” Aaron asked.
Sarah shrugged. “I like to think so. It’s you who needs to let my sister go and let me do what she asks. It’s who I am. Not accepting that, means you don’t accept me. Otherwise, I’m good.”
A loud knock on the apartment door interrupted them. They looked at each other.
“Expecting anyone?” Sarah whispered.
Aaron shook his head.
She slipped away from the kitchen door and peered out the living room window. The car was still there.
“Toronto Police,” a man shouted from the other side of the door. “Open up.”
What the hell?
Aaron was already at the door.
“Wait. How do
you know it’s the cops?” Sarah asked.
He looked through the peephole in the door and turned back to her.
“The uniforms they’re wearing.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
She raised a hand for him to wait, set her wine glass down by his on the coffee table and crossed the floor to grab the hammer from the little table. Then she retreated to the kitchen.
“Okay,” she said loud enough for Aaron to hear.
She watched from the dark kitchen as Aaron opened the door.
