Frailty of Things

by Schultz, Tamsen

  She thumbed through the photos again, thinking. The three men surrounding her remained quiet. Her life was staid and quite boring, so how could she possibly be the cause of Costello casting off everything she’d built her life on? Had Kit seen something or heard something somewhere? If so, she hadn’t a clue. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was linked to war criminals and drug cartels—at least not now that her father was dead. She paused at that thought, then raised her eyes to Caleb.

  “You were talking about whether or not this could be about our father. Do you think that might have something to do with it?” she asked.

  For a long moment, Caleb was silent. Then he shook his head. “Carmichael thinks it’s worth exploring, but I don’t think that’s it. It’s been years since he died. Why now? Why you? It just doesn’t make a lot of sense,” he finished.

  She mulled his answer over before answering herself. “But you said yourself that the Michaels men were trying to step into our father’s shoes, or at least use some of his old methods. Maybe that has something to do with it?” she suggested.

  Caleb lifted a shoulder and she felt Garret’s fingers tighten on her hand that he still held. “I suppose it’s possible,” Caleb said. “But I have a hard time imagining it, knowing what I now know about the Michaels.”

  She swung a questioning gaze to Drew, whose expression was flat as he began speaking. “We’re exploring it as a potential lead, but I have to agree with your brother. It doesn’t seem likely. Our man on the ground says Henry Michaels is incredibly incompetent and isn’t likely to survive more than a year in the business. We’re hoping that’s the case and we don’t have to do anything about it, but it certainly doesn’t inspire confidence that he could be behind hiring Kašović to kill you. The biggest impediment being that Kašović himself doesn’t suffer fools lightly.”

  Kit heard them, but her mind still lingered on the possibility. She hadn’t been close to any kind of violence since her father’s death, and it only made sense that he was a part of what she was going through now. Even after being nearly fifteen years in the grave.

  Or was he?

  Her heart caught in her throat as she pulled another photo closer. She blinked and stilled. And then in a rush, the blood seemed to pour through her veins, pounding through her heart.

  “Kit?” Garret said from beside her. She felt him lean toward her and heard the concern in his voice. But her eyes were focused on one thing.

  A face.

  The face of a young man. Waving at someone. Handsome and smiling. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  And it was a far cry from the way he’d looked when she’d last seen him.

  “I know him,” she managed to say, pointing to the man. She set her mug down and focused on the image, she asked, “Who is he?”

  Drew leaned over the table to get a better look. She flipped the photo around to face him. “This man here,” she said, pointing him out. “Who is he?” she repeated.

  “That’s Louis Ramon,” Drew said. “Maria Costello’s son.”

  CHAPTER 15

  “HER SON,” Kit repeated as she dragged her eyes away from the image. Drew nodded. She looked to Garret and Caleb, who both confirmed Drew’s statement with their own nods.

  “I saw him in San Francisco when I was there in October,” Kit said.

  “Impossible,” Drew cut her off. “He hasn’t been allowed entry into the US for years. Not even when his parents are traveling here for business. His ties to his mother’s family aren’t as severed as hers are,” Drew continued. “That fact, and a minor drug bust he was involved in when he was partying on South Padre Island at age sixteen, have landed him on the list of those not welcome in the US.”

  Kit looked at Drew and frowned. “I have no reason to doubt you, but I can assure you, I saw him in San Francisco last October.”

  Drew met her gaze and she held it, certain in her bones she’d seen that young man in the US less than six months ago. Something in her expression must have caused a shadow of doubt to creep into Drew’s frame of reference.

  “Tell me what you saw,” he all but commanded.

  She took a breath as deep as her aching body would allow and spoke. “I was in the city for business, doing some research, like I already told you. It happened to be right when the San Francisco Giants swept the World Series. People were dancing on the streets, partying everywhere.” She paused to both catch her breath and remember the scene as precisely as she could.

  “I was down on the Embarcadero early in the morning the day after they’d won. I’d gone for a run along the bay and ended up down near the park where the Giants play. Of course they weren’t there, since they’d won the series on an away game, but people were celebrating everywhere. I stopped to watch for a bit.” She paused as another cup of tea was placed in front of her. She hadn’t even noticed Caleb get up.

  “Anyway, I was standing next to a young woman and we got to talking. Turns out she was from Israel but studying with the San Francisco Ballet. We didn’t exchange names or anything, just talked the way strangers talk in crowds sometimes. We chatted for, oh, I don’t know,” she paused to remember, “maybe five minutes, maybe ten? But no more than that. And then she spotted her boyfriend, or someone she said was her boyfriend.”

  “You didn’t believe her?” Garret interjected.

  Kit pursed her lips and thought back. After a moment, she answered. “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, but she just didn’t seem happy about it. I remember thinking at the time that if the guy was really her boyfriend, he probably wouldn’t be for long. She just didn’t seem happy to see him, or even to have him nearby.”

  She drummed her fingers on the tabletop for a moment, then took a sip of tea. “But I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I was wrong, because she left with him. With him,” she said, pointing to the photo of Louis.

  For a long moment, everyone was silent. Then Drew leaned forward and fingered the picture she was pointing at. “Are you absolutely certain it was this man you saw in San Francisco?”

  “Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “And if you want proof, I have a video.”

  “A video?” Drew repeated.

  She nodded. “I was filming the antics of the partiers with my phone, and I know I caught the two of them on video—Louis and the young woman I was talking to.”

  “You have a video of Louis Ramon in San Francisco?” Caleb repeated.

  Kit spared a glance at him, just barely containing an eye roll. What was so hard to believe about what she was telling them? “Yes, I do. And I can show it to you too, if you give me a minute,” she added.

  “And your phone,” Garret said, holding out her cell phone to her. She glanced at it, then really did roll her eyes.

  “I lose phones like every two months. I think that is my second replacement since October,” she said, still scanning the room for what she needed.

  “So then you don’t have the video?” Caleb asked with equal parts irritation and disappointment.

  “Of course I do. Like I said, I lose phones all the time, so after the first two times, I learned a valuable lesson. I always buy insurance, and I always set my phone to wirelessly back itself up to a cloud storage account every four hours.”

  “Are you telling me you have a video of Louis on your cloud storage account?” Garret asked. He dropped her hand to rummage in his bag for a laptop.

  She didn’t deign to answer and as soon as he was logged in, he pushed the computer over to her. She typed in her account information and pulled up the videos. “It’s here,” she said, sliding the computer back to its owner. “They’re date stamped. You’ll find it in the October folder. I’d find it for you...” Her voice trailed off as Garret began opening files.

  “Have I told you lately that I love you?” The excitement in Garret’s voice made him sound younger than he ever had before. But still, that didn’t excuse him.

  “No, you haven’t ever told me you love me, and if you think
that counts as the first time, I would strongly urge you to reconsider.” She meant to tease him, and really she was, but she hadn’t done a very good job of keeping the fatigue she felt crawling through her body from affecting her voice.

  He glanced up sharply and took one look at her face. Less than ten seconds later, the computer sat in front of Drew as Garret helped her out of her chair.

  “You need to get back to bed,” he said, guiding her back to their room. “We’re fine here for now. You’ve given us a massive tip, something that will take us a while to dig into. You rest and we’ll fill you in when you wake up.”

  He was babbling. A bit. But he was doing it to make her feel better, to make her feel like she wasn’t quitting on them. And though she saw through it, she appreciated the effort. And slowly, as he held her, she sank back onto her bed and back into a dreamless oblivion.

  CHAPTER 16

  ONCE AGAIN, Kit pulled herself from a deep, dizzying sleep to hear voices in the other room. Only this time, she knew what they were talking about, if not exactly what they were saying. She glanced at the IV bag beside her and noted that it was empty. She frowned and looked down at her hand. The needle was still there. Garret must have hooked her up at some point while she was asleep.

  And he would have had plenty of time too. A look at the clock told her that six hours had gone by since she’d slipped back under the sheets. It was long dark by now, more than forty-eight hours had passed since she’d first fallen ill. At least now she was starting to feel, if not better, a little less like she’d been stuck in a vise and squeezed from every which way.

  She lay still for a moment longer, letting the conversation she’d had earlier with Drew, Garret, and her brother filter through her mind. It was still somewhat unbelievable that a hit man had been hired to kill her—and a war criminal assassin at that. But she had to trust what she’d been told—whether or not she found it believable would have no impact on whether it turned out to be the truth.

  Kašović wasn’t a name she’d heard before, or that she remembered having heard during her time in Europe. Then again, that wasn’t exactly surprising. The Balkan War was more complex than the media portrayed it to be, as most wars were. They wrote of Milošević, Karadžić, and Mladić often, but Kit knew enough about life and had met enough people who were survivors of various wars to know that while there were often a few names and faces that grabbed the attention of the international community, there were usually hundreds, if not thousands more that perpetrated similar crimes without ever coming into the glare of the media spotlight.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly as this truth sank in. She wished they could find a way to capture Kašović. The people he’d hurt, those whose lives he’d ruined, deserved to see him brought to justice. But how? Kit knew that the most obvious way would be to use herself as bait. And the idea, as soon as she let it form, felt as right as it felt terrifying. She didn’t like it one bit, but what was her fear when measured against the lives of so many who deserved justice?

  But to put such a plan into place, she’d need Drew, Garret, and her brother to buy into it. The thought of relying on them wasn’t as scary or improbable as it had been a few weeks ago. She’d been living on her own for so long, however, that even though Garret and her brother were proving to be steady and reliable, the thought of her life being in their hands still didn’t come easy. And it would be in their hands, of that she had no doubt. If she—they—had any hope of capturing Kašović, it was something she couldn’t do alone. It was something she wouldn’t just want help with, but something she would need help with. And Kit hadn’t needed help with anything since she’d taken a stand against her father and realized just what she was capable of.

  Then again, if she was willing to risk her life to capture Kašović, would it be so hard to let Drew, Garret, and Caleb run the show? With a rueful laugh at her arrogance, Kit shook her head at herself. Of course it wouldn’t be hard to turn over the planning of something like what she was contemplating to the three men in her living room. Because ultimately, capturing Kašović wasn’t about her. It wasn’t about her damaged relationship with her brother or her fledgling relationship with Garret. It wasn’t about the life she’d built for herself or the years she’d lived on her own. It was about something much more than any of those things—something far greater than her own fears.

  Of course, that meant she was going to have to convince them to go along with her idea. Which she didn’t suspect was going to be even the slightest bit easy.

  Silently, she slid from the bed. She was still wearing the sweatshirt Garret had given her, but when the cool air hit her bare legs, which were still clad in boxers, chills broke out along her body. Giving herself a moment to adjust, she stood still and listened.

  “There are very few people I’d like to bring in more than Kašović,” Garret said.

  “Have you ever worked with Ivo Delic? Or his son Zoran?” Caleb asked, presumably to Drew since Caleb and Garret always seemed to work together.

  “His entire family, with the exception of Zoran, was wiped out because of Kašović’s army. His wife, daughter, and two other sons, just gone, along with most of the inhabitants of the town,” Caleb continued.

  “The only reason Ivo and Zoran survived was because they happened to be visiting Ivo’s parents in a neighboring town when Kašović and his men moved in,” Garret added.

  Kit heard Drew let out a disgusted grunt. “That isn’t the only story like that I’ve heard about Kašović. He wasn’t interested in waging a war, his driving force was always power and preferably power gained through torture and killing. He’s a sadistic son of a bitch. And I say that having seen some of the worst sadists out there,” Drew added.

  Both Caleb and Garret mumbled an assent.

  “Jesus, I wish we could find him,” Caleb said.

  “Then why don’t we?” Kit said stepping into the room. She couldn’t have asked for better timing to propose the idea she’d just come to. But even so, the carefully blank expressions on the faces of all three men did not bode well.

  “If he’s coming after me, use me to get to him,” she continued as she walked toward the table they were once again gathered around. Only this time they were standing, moving a step here or rocking back onto their heels there, as if they were each trying to leash the urge to act, to do something.

  “No!” Garret said.

  “Not a chance,” Caleb echoed.

  She’d expected that reaction from them, so when she came to a stop at the chair she’d vacated earlier, she kept her gaze locked on Drew. His eyes, by their lack of expression, told her what she wanted to know. He was considering it.

  Caleb and Garret must have sensed it too, as they both started objecting.

  “Stop,” she said, raising a hand. When they were finally silent, she asked, “Drew?”

  Standing behind the chair opposite her, his hands resting on the back, he studied her. “It’s possible,” he said after a long pause.

  She let out a deep breath and sat down even as Caleb and Garret did their best—or not—to curb the malice they were feeling toward the idea.

  “You said ‘possible.’ What factors would come into play if we were to use me to lure him out?” she asked.

  “Don’t,” Garret growled, taking a seat beside her. She waved him off and kept her eyes on Drew.

  “His risk tolerance,” Drew answered. She raised her brows in question and he continued. “He’s already made two attempts on your life. With each attempt, it gets riskier. There’s a greater chance he’ll be caught or that he won’t be able to complete the job, and if he can’t complete it, why risk starting?” Drew elaborated.

  “And do we know for certain it was Kašović?” Kit asked.

  Drew nodded. “Once we realized who we were dealing with, we went to the various agencies and asked for assistance running facial recognition software. Our first hit was Kašović leaving Rome to fly to London. We think he must have been wai
ting for you there. How he found out about your London trip, we’re not sure, but the day before you arrived, he flew into Gatwick Airport.”

  Kit frowned at that, then something niggled at the back of her mind.

  “Kit?”

  She dredged through her memories, then caught the thread. “This is going to sound strange, but would it have been possible for someone from the Salazar family to have been in Windsor? Or Riverside, more precisely?”

  How Garret could get his face to look so emotionless, she had no idea.

  “Why do you ask?” Garret asked.

  She lifted a shoulder, giving a slow shrug, then told them about the two men who’d been seated beside her, Matty, Jesse, and Vivi that morning at breakfast. That morning when she’d told them all about her plans to stop in London before flying on to Rome.

  Drew asked her to repeat what the men had said twice, then crossed his arms over his chest and fell silent.

  “It would make sense that Kašović would prefer London over Rome,” Caleb managed to say as he finally sank into a chair and joined Kit and Garret at the table. Garret glared at him, though she didn’t know why. The situation was what it was; talking about it wasn’t going to make it any worse.

  “I was busy in Rome and barely left the hotel. Given that and the fact that, because the prime minister attended the event, security was incredibly intense, I agree with Caleb—London was a much better opportunity.”

  She glanced at the photos still lying on the table and noted that a picture of the young woman she’d met in San Francisco with Louis Ramon had now joined the others. Obviously printed from the video she’d captured, Louis had his hand gripped around the girl’s arm, and the girl looked to be in pain. Louis himself was looking up at the camera, his face in full view.

  “How do you think it all came about?” she asked, moving the photo around with the tip of her finger, still trying to soak it all in, to believe it all. “And while I have no reason to doubt you, it just seems so unbelievable that his mother would go to such extremes to hide the fact that her son was in the US,” she said.