“What about dreams? Anything recurring in the last few months? A face, maybe. A conversation. A place in your dream you keep going back to.”
“I…” Edie stopped. “Nothing recurring, no…”
“Anything,” JC urged. “Try not to edit for logic right now.”
“The only thing that sticks out is the night after the bar incident. It was like I was having a conversation in my dream. And there were lyrics, but maybe that was the band. And I’ve heard lyrics since then.”
“Any specific words you can remember?” JC was obviously trying not to sound too excited.
Edie pressed her palm to her eye and tried to sink into memory. Nothing surfaced. “No, just this…sense of lyrics. Of rhythm.” She shrugged helplessly.
“You’re doing great,” Skye said and rubbed her thumb briefly over Edie’s knuckles.
“You’re doing great,” JC confirmed. “Have you ever been hypnotized?”
“Once, yes.”
“Let me guess. For a story?” Skye said with a half smile.
“Yes, for a story. There was a craze on the West Coast a few years ago. Students were trying hypnotherapy to help them retain information for their exams. They’d study in a hypnotic state, then attempt to induce a similar state prior to their exam. It wasn’t as widespread here, but it sent faculty and staff at the University of Ottawa into a tailspin one semester as students tried to induce hypnotic states in each other at the beginning of an exam. It didn’t quite fit anyone’s existing definitions of cheating, so there was a lot of running around changing policies and procedures.”
Edie felt a shift in her thoughts, a tenuous connection.
“Were you susceptible to hypnosis?” JC said. “I’ve heard some people aren’t.”
Edie ignored the question, trying to attach meaning to the bit of intuition that swirled in her belly and her thoughts.
“That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” Edie said. “That idea of hypnotic induction, using phrases or sensory elements to stimulate a neurologic response. That sounds familiar. That’s been happening to me.”
Not just familiar, Edie thought. This idea feels solid.
“I need to get hypnotized. I need to find out what’s in there.”
No one spoke for a moment.
“Hypnosis has a shaky scientific history, Edie. It’s never been reliably validated as a therapeutic approach,” Skye said. Edie suspected Skye was working very hard to keep her voice even.
“I know. I did the research for my article.”
“Way to mansplain to your girlfriend, Kenny,” JC muttered. It was a halfhearted dig, but it broke some of the tension.
Edie stood up and went into the kitchen. As much as she craved Skye’s touch, she needed to sit in her own head and body for a moment. She grabbed the coffee carafe and walked back to the table, refilling all three mugs. No one spoke beyond a murmured thanks. When she returned, Edie evaluated the two women. JC looked thoughtful, Skye doubtful.
“This is the first solid hypothesis we have. I want to pursue it.”
Skye shook her head, then held up a placating hand when Edie glared at her. “I think we need to be cautious, that’s all I’m saying.”
“We can discuss all we want, but I will make the decision.”
From the set of her jaw and the way she flexed her fingers, Skye clearly wanted to argue. And her quick glance outside meant she wanted to escape and run and burn off the excess of whatever it was she was feeling.
“I know that,” Skye said, still looking out the window. “I agree. I’m sorry.”
Edie silently accepted the apology, knowing it was different than Skye’s approval.
“Is this hypothesis enough to take to your supervisors?” Edie said to JC.
“Yes, I think so.”
“And what will they do with this idea that I am possibly wandering around with unknown information in my brain embedded by Russians with links to arms deals?”
A moment of silence as they all absorbed the scope of the hypothesis they were putting forward.
“They’ll want it out,” JC said. Her eyes were hard. She looked like Skye in that moment. Her protective soldiers.
“Exactly,” Edie said, with a slightly detached calmness. This was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To excise this piece of her. To put this all behind her. She could submit to whatever test or hypnotic state the police wanted if it meant leaving this all behind.
“God bless it,” JC breathed out suddenly. “Fuck.” She sounded edgy and miserable.
“What?” Skye said. “What’s wrong?”
“They’ll want Crask on this,” JC said.
“No,” Skye said, her vehemence trailing off with a look of desperation to Edie.
Edie could see Skye struggling. Skye wanted to make the decision for Edie. She couldn’t. She wanted to issue a command, but she couldn’t. She wanted to take control of this situation. She couldn’t.
“Fuck.” Skye ran a hand through her hair.
“When can we take this forward?” Edie said. “Are you going to talk to someone today? Maybe tomorrow, after the meet with Faina. Or before.” Edie was ramping up, her thoughts on fire.
“Let’s hang on a minute,” JC said. “I think we need to take a break. Clear our heads before we talk about next steps. And before we talk about the meet tomorrow.”
Edie was about to voice her own objection when Skye suddenly stood.
“I’m going to check the perimeter.” She stalked through the cabin with long strides and was out the door in seconds.
Edie looked at JC. “I don’t need a break. We’re finally getting somewhere. I want to keep going.” They didn’t need Skye for this, not her flurry of objections and her barriers of caution.
“I know you don’t need a break,” JC said wearily. She put her head in her hands for a moment, rapidly scrubbing at her face before looking up at Edie. “But she does.” JC jerked her thumb toward the front window where Skye was launching herself into a tree, reaching with one arm to adjust a sensor.
Edie didn’t say anything. She wanted to protect her new connection with Skye, but she’d always been independent. And it felt too good to let go of, even for Skye.
“I can do this on my own. I don’t need Skye controlling every aspect of this.”
“None of us can do it on our own, Edie. And before you object, I’m going to take off my cop hat for a moment and put on my friend hat. This,” she said, indicating Skye’s flurry of activity outside, “is not evidence of Skye struggling with her lack of control over decisions.”
JC stopped and grinned at Edie. “Well, not entirely anyway. This is Skye coming to terms with the fact that there is not one blessed thing she can do to protect you against your own brain. None of her strength, her brilliance with strategy, or her off the charts intelligence can protect you. And that is scaring the shit out of her.”
Edie felt some of the fight go out of her. She sat down. It had never occurred to her that Skye could be scared.
“This is why Skye didn’t want to be my security,” she said.
“Yep.”
“But she agreed.”
“She did.”
Edie looked at JC. “You weren’t surprised.”
“Not in the slightest. She has a strong sense of duty, that one. The army loved her for it and didn’t want to let her go.”
“Duty,” Edie said, hating the word. She saw the honour in it, the loyalty and the bravery. But she didn’t want the word applied to whatever was between them.
“That’s only part of why she’s here,” JC said. “The two of you are going to have to figure out the rest on your own.”
Edie sighed. “If we ever get the time.”
“Yeah. We’re working on that.” JC stood and picked up her phone. “On that note, I’m going to go check in with the suits. Then I’ll grab your reluctant but valiant security guard and we’ll talk about next steps and what’s happening with the meet tomorrow. Deal?”
Edi
e kept her eyes on the coffee mug in front of her. “Yeah. Deal.”
She wondered what she was really agreeing to, but she stood and put on another pot of coffee. The three of them were going to make a plan.
Chapter Ten
Faina was late, and the alley was damp and smelled like cat pee. Edie shifted her weight slightly, trying to relieve the ache in her hip from that night she’d slept on the couch. Skye glanced at her from her position covering the street end of the alley and the back door of the laundromat. JC was standing just up the alley, and two other plainclothes cops were just out of sight and inside. A big team.
Skye hadn’t been happy. She and JC had fought at headquarters about the deployment of the team and about the fact that Skye had failed to mention Sasha would be in the neighbourhood. The phrase “lack of cooperation” had been thrown around, and they’d made Edie tense.
She tried to concentrate on what she was going to say to Faina, how she was going to convince her to come with them. She didn’t know. Her lack of confidence, her heightened tension, and some other unnamable anxiety felt like a fierce thing in her chest. She shook her head and closed her eyes. She had no time for this.
The door of the laundromat banged open. Skye immediately moved in, closing the angle and the access to Edie. Faina stepped outside, looking scared.
“It’s not safe, you have to go,” Faina said.
“Come with us.”
Faina shook her head vehemently, her dark hair whirling, but she stopped the movement suddenly and put a hand to her neck, obviously hurting.
“I’ve got a minute only. It’s not safe here. They are closing down. Shutting down. The operation.” Faina’s words were short, frantic bullets of information. She was terrified.
“Walk away from it,” Skye said quietly and fiercely. “Step away from the door and walk with Edie down this alley. We’ll protect you.”
“I can’t.” Faina’s voice was choked. “I’ve done everything wrong. If I stay, maybe I can stop them or warn you. Take Edie away. Please.”
“You’re only putting yourself in danger,” Edie said. “If you really want to help me, come with us right now. If you don’t, we are in the dark and you remain a suspect with questionable motives.”
It was the truth, laid out plainly in the dim alley. Faina’s expression registered shock and then blankness as she all but disappeared.
“They killed your massage therapist, Pino,” Faina said. “They are hunting you. The only reason you are safe is because you disappeared. You have to disappear again.”
Edie heard “hunting” with a repetitive, uncomfortable clarity in her skull. Someone shoved the door behind Faina wide open, sending her sprawling into Skye. Edie reached out to steady them both as the man who emerged from the back door reached for her, his expression murderous. He yanked Faina back by her hair. Faina screamed and Edie launched herself toward them, but Skye caught her around the waist and spun her around, pushing her up the alley.
“Let me go!”
“Move Edie.” Skye kept shoving her away from Faina.
JC ran past them with her weapon drawn, shouting instructions. Skye pulled Edie to the side and pinned her up against the wall. The rough brick scratched at her back through her shirt, but she had no time to think as a man and a woman converged on her and Skye. Skye launched a kick at the man’s knees, then elbowed the back of his neck as he doubled over. She was just seconds too late to block the blow to her midsection from the woman. Edie felt the impact of it against the wall, helpless and struggling to breathe.
Then suddenly Skye was gone and Edie sagged under her own weight.
“Edie, run! Get out of here.”
Skye had the woman by the shoulders, spinning and dragging her back down the alley where Edie could see a confusing melee of bodies, weapons, and shouting. Edie wanted to follow Skye’s instructions, she even looked up at the alley, toward escape.
Then the woman Skye was wrestling somehow managed to wiggle out of Skye’s grasp and launched herself at Edie again before Skye could react. Edie took three steps back, but not fast enough. The woman tackled Edie, sending her flying back into the wall, her head hitting the bricks with a thud that sent shocks through her neck and back and stomach. Edie felt instantly sick, the weight of the woman against her stomach, the feel of her hands tearing into her T-shirt. Then the weight was gone as Skye reached down and picked the woman up, her face a mask of controlled rage.
“Edie, get the fuck out of here. Find Sasha. Now!”
Scrambling, scared, Edie got her feet under her and ran down one alley. Hearing voices, she turned down another. Whose voice? How many were there? She emerged out onto the side street. Better to blend in with the pedestrians, people focused on their phones or their destination? Better to hide in the side streets and alleys, not knowing who was coming at you or from where? Her head pounded, a faint but consistent reverberation that seemed to keep pace with her heart. Or maybe it was a drumbeat. Edie ran from that, too.
Each step sent a pulse up through her legs, through her hips into her torso. It traveled up her neck and throbbed through her head, but it brought clarity with it. She was farther away, closer to downtown. Dodging pedestrians was getting harder, and she was drawing attention to herself. Edie slowed and got her bearings.
Business district. She breathed and let her heart rate settle, surprised when the pain in her head ratcheted down almost immediately. Stopping at an intersection, she looked over her shoulder. Just people intent on getting to their next destination, keeping appointments, talking with colleagues or kids. No pursuit. No one hunting that she could see.
Edie gripped her phone. Where was Skye? What had she said? Find Sasha. The light changed, and Edie let the mass of pedestrians swallow her up as they crossed. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to find Sasha. She’d only seen him once and wasn’t convinced she remembered what he looked like. Edie wanted Skye, but Skye was busy fighting her way out of an alley. A frisson of anxiety made Edie stumble, and she leaned up against the nearest building. Skye would be okay. She was a soldier and a fighter. She was strong.
Edie looked around at the banks and office buildings and storefronts. But this was the nation’s capital, so there were also dozens of embassies and diplomatic missions. Some were massive, like the stone fortress of the US embassy six blocks away, and some were smaller. But each had some security presence.
Edie needed to find a populated area near an embassy and wait for Skye to contact her. She found it half a block later, a tiny courtyard full of men and women on their lunch breaks, with two bank buildings on one side and an office building with ten African embassies and commissions in the other. Perfect. Edie found a vacant stone edge of a planter box, sat down, and pulled out her phone.
Edie stared blankly at the screen. She wanted to evaluate the lump on the back of her head, though she knew full well the damage inside could far outweigh any swelling of her scalp. Enough. She would think her way through this. She would wait for Skye to contact her. She would get information about JC and Faina. There must be people in custody by now, the woman who had attacked her. She’d attacked Edie. Pursued. Take. They were coming after her, just as Faina had said.
The phone vibrated in Edie’s hand, startling her out of her rising panic. A text from Skye, and the relief Edie felt threatened to undo her completely.
Where are you?
Edie began to type back a response. Her gut told her to wait, a red flag of caution. Edie considered the information she had. A text from Skye. No, be more specific. A text from Skye’s phone. Asking for her location.
Take.
Edie, where are you?
Edie typed. I’m safe.
Tell me where you are. I’ll send Sasha.
Another piece of information. Edie remembered Skye yelling at her to go find Sasha. So not exclusive information. More than one side had access to that name. It wasn’t good enough.
I’m calling, Skye typed.
Seconds after
the text came through, the phone began vibrating insistently. Edie’s finger hovered over the green accept button. She wanted to hear Skye’s voice, her reassurance, her single-minded goal to keep Edie safe. But what she pictured was Faina’s look of horror as her phone played music that seeped into Edie’s brain, that twisted her synapses into sleep and unconsciousness. She heard drumbeats. Edie let the phone keep ringing. It wasn’t good enough.
Answer me, Edie.
Edie typed. I’m scared of what I’ll hear. Safe enough words. She hoped Skye would understand, and she hadn’t given anything away if it wasn’t Skye at the other end.
Right. Okay. Keep breathing, Edie.
Tears pricked her eyes. That sounded like Skye. Moments later two more texts came up in rapid succession. The first one was a hyperlink. The second said Meet me at the Twelve. You know username and password.
Edie clicked the link, typed and retyped as her fingers shook. So close to Skye. She could trust this. The image on her phone was a tiny version of what she’d seen on the laptop on their first date, but Edie immediately recognized the Twelve. It took her a moment to figure out how to navigate it on her phone. Tiny figures walked through the office space, their names hovering over their heads. Edie didn’t see Skye. She checked the giant clock on the wall. Just before noon, a meeting was about to start.
The private chat window opened. Gordon was typing.
Friend or foe?
Edie recognized Gordon’s name, the employee who jumped on the trampoline and practically lived at the Twelve.
Friend, Edie typed. I’m looking for Skye.
Another figure dropped into the room, and when Edie zoomed in, she could see Skye’s character with her camo hat. The chat screen flashed.
I’m here. I’ve got this, Gordon. Thanks.
Gordon’s name flashed off the chat.
Edie, are you okay?
Yes, I’m okay.
Where are you?
Metcalfe Street. In a courtyard. By a parking garage.
I’m sending Sasha. He’s not far. Do you remember what he looks like?
Repercussions Page 14
