Even accounting for the long distance connection, Bradford answered immediately.
“Michael?” he said, and that one word, her name on his lips, like fire deprived of oxygen, suffocated the adrenaline of rage and suffering, suppressed the voices and tremors rumbling in the background, and she fell instantly into a vacuum of nothingness.
“Me,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he whispered back.
Receiver in hand, the cord taut, she slid down the wall and sat on the floor.
“Did you ever get my messages?” she said. “Were you able to find Logan?”
“We got them and we found him.”
The air went out of her. She closed her eyes, breathing in the words she’d feared she’d never hear. “Thank you,” she said. Paused. “Thank you,” she whispered again. And then: “I’ve seen some nasty video footage. How is he?” When Bradford hesitated, she said, “Please tell me.”
“They fucked him up pretty bad,” Bradford said. “He’s hospitalized right now—kept sedated for the time being. He’s going to need reconstructive surgery at some point, but it’s hard to get information because I’m not a relative.”
She drank in air, one long, drawn-out breath following another.
Decompression.
Logan was safe, and the joy of that fact washed over her.
She’d given him up for dead to do what she had to do, and somehow, in the midst of everything, running blind and without options, she’d brought Neeva to safety and Logan was still alive.
He might be damaged, but he was, unbelievably, alive.
She wanted to shout. To dance. To scream Fuck you to Lumani, who by now was certainly hidden in some enclave where he could target the consulate entrance. But her reaction remained muted as she stayed sitting, one hand pressed into the carpet, fingers playing with the fibers. “If you contact Charity, she might be able to help,” Munroe said. “She holds a medical power of attorney for him.” Charity, keeper of secrets from Logan’s previous life and mother of his daughter—a child Munroe had risked her life to save. “How are you?” Bradford asked.
“I’m okay,” Munroe said. “In one piece—no bullet holes. I’m at the consulate in Nice, and I’ve brought Neeva Eckridge with me.”
Bradford waited, and then said, “How are you?”
With the unspoken and valid concerns, her smile faded and she searched for words to properly give meaning and context to what he truly wanted to know.
“They killed Noah,” she said, and on the other end of the line Bradford swore unintelligibly. She lowered her voice and added, “Truthfully, I’m not well.” They both knew she wasn’t referring to mourning.
“Africa?” he asked.
“Not as bad,” she said, and then after a heartbeat, “Miles, I’ll be okay, I promise. As soon as I fix things on this end, I will be okay.”
“Argentina?” he asked.
She sighed and half-smiled over her failed attempt to get him to let the subject go. “No nightmares yet,” she said. “Just the darkness, and it fades quickly.”
“I worry,” he said.
“I know,” she whispered.
“Do you need help getting home?”
“Soon,” she said. “I have unfinished business, but I think there might be an APB out for me. Is there any chance Jack could poke around? See what’s out there?”
There was a long pause, the kind of pause even the worst delay on a horrible international line couldn’t account for.
“Jack’s dead,” Bradford said finally.
She’d anticipated something like this and steeled against it, and yet the news still hit hard and overwhelmingly, the rawness inside made worse by Bradford’s having fussed over her while giving no clue to the depth of his own cruel anguish.
“How did it happen?” she whispered.
“Explosion at the office,” he said.
“And Samantha?”
“ICU. It’s touch-and-go.”
“Oh, God, Miles,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
“We both have unfinished business,” he said, and his tone hardened, shifted from emotional to professional, almost as if he’d wiped his eyes and straightened his spine. He said, “What do you need, Michael?”
She hesitated, cautious of her wording. In a U.S. consulate, speaking on one of their landlines, which, even if not tapped, was still one of the least opportune places to discuss forged documents and guns and explosives. “I need everything,” she said. “Do you know a guy?”
“You’re in Nice?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Nice. You can pull from my emergency reserve, all of it if necessary—it’s no good to me if I’m dead. Can you work that?”
“Call me back in an hour,” he said. “I’ll let you know what I’ve got.”
Munroe nodded to empty space, abhorring the idea of getting off the phone, of being separated from him again when what she wanted more than anything was to crawl into his arms and feel peace once more, to forget the moment. “An hour,” she said, and added the words she wished she’d had the chance to say before she’d been ripped away. “And I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “Always.” And so ended the call.
Without moving from the floor or leaning back against the wall, Munroe reached her arm up to the desk and groped until she found the hole under the glass. Shoved the receiver inward and then slowly stood. Needed to step outside into the hall for a bit, needed to be alone.
In the small security room she collected her things. “I’m just going to the foyer,” she said. “I’ll be back in about ten minutes.” The guard nodded.
Munroe turned and the side door opened. Neeva stood in the doorway, still in the doll clothes, still in the jacket, feet together and hands folded and looking more haggard than she had when they’d first arrived. “You probably want quiet,” she said. “Could I have just a few minutes?”
Munroe hesitated and then motioned Neeva on ahead.
The metal door shut loud behind them.
“Was that your boyfriend?” Neeva asked, and Munroe nodded. Didn’t want to go into any detail or explanation, didn’t really want to talk at all.
Neeva clasped her hands together and then separated them. Shifted from foot to foot. Munroe understood the body language. They’d shared almost exactly twenty-four hours, most of that time as prisoners in a car—the kind of experience that made it awkward to say good-bye, made it feel as if there should be some formal ceremony to acknowledge the moment.
Munroe said, “Did you reach your parents?”
Neeva smiled. “They cried a lot,” she said. “I cried a lot, too. Everyone says I’m really lucky. They talk about you like you’re some sort of hero but like secretly you’re in trouble or something.”
“I probably am,” Munroe said. “So.” Paused. “What happens for you now?”
Neeva turned and looked toward the metal door. “They’ve called the FBI. They’re arranging for a passport from the embassy in Marseilles. After that, flights and stuff.”
“The pretty boy is still out there,” Munroe said.
“They know. They said they can keep me safe and get me home.” She sighed. “My dad said they’re going to put me into protective custody, but I don’t know if that’s enough.”
Munroe shrugged. “Hard to say.” She slid down the wall and stretched her legs. Tipped her head back and up in Neeva’s direction. “Anything that makes it more difficult is going to help.”
“What about you?” Neeva asked.
“I’ve got a few things to take care of, someone’s got to end this mess. Where I’m going, that type of protection wouldn’t do me much good.”
“Thank you,” Neeva said.
“It’s not just for you,” Munroe said. The door opened and the guard asked Neeva to step inside to take a call.
Arben’s phone, which had remained in the backpack, went off with a text alert. Neeva, who had begun to walk toward the door, froze. Blanched. Caught Munroe’s eye
with that deer-in-the-headlights look. They both knew the sound, the harbinger of evil. To the guard Neeva said, “Give me just a minute.”
Munroe didn’t move.
“Are you going to find out what it is?” Neeva asked.
Munroe pulled the phone out of the bag and turned on the screen. The text had come from Lumani’s number, and in a Pavlovian reaction, her stomach churned. She didn’t want to look, didn’t want to hurt anymore. Wanted to put off whatever news this was until it didn’t matter.
The Doll Maker’s words mocked her: There are others who matter to you.
Voices in her head rose in chorus, a damning reply to the men who were the cause of this turmoil. If you had let them live, I would not kill you.
Munroe pushed the scripture back.
The image loaded, and in response to the visual of yet another life taken from her, her throat burned and her eyes smarted.
Neeva remained motionless, her face reflecting the horror. “Who is it this time?” she whispered, and when Munroe’s only answer was to take the back off the phone and remove the battery, Neeva said, “What do they want?”
Munroe tossed the pieces of the phone into the pack and, without truly seeing, looked up at Neeva. “They want you,” Munroe whispered. “Just as they always have.”
The consulate waiting room had long since emptied, and in an unabashed land grab, Munroe stretched out on the longer couch, one arm draped over her face, the other by her side. An hour until she could contact Bradford, an hour for the Doll Maker’s latest trick to turn around and around inside her stomach, feeding and nourishing the cancerous hatred that poisoned her.
She hovered above the mental abyss, kept from falling by force of will. Shut out the world by descending into darkness, the closest she could get to putting herself into suspended animation while she waited for time to pass, waited to take matters into her own hands and either through her own death or someone else’s put an end to this misery forever.
Conversation between Neeva and the office staff continued beyond the walls, more of the same constant attention that filtered out as an indecipherable murmur and made it easy to imagine rounds of e-mail, one person confiding in the next until inexplicably news of Neeva’s surfacing leaked and Internet headlines swirled with rumors and everyone with an opinion became an instant expert. Neeva could return to her life, to some sense of normalcy, and this time she’d have a wave of media at her back, cresting her celebrity status higher.
Munroe was glad for the girl. At least Neeva’s story had ended happily, and now she could turn her back on that chapter to focus fully on what she must do next. At an hour to the minute, she sat up. Stepped to the glass and knocked for attention. Begged for the use of the line once more, and although the staff member, courteous and professional, obliged, Munroe understood from nuance the inconvenience her presence created.
She didn’t need whispers and surreptitious glances to know that by bringing Neeva to the consulate she’d raised unanswerable questions about her own role. So the staff, with no authority to detain and question her, focused entirely on Neeva, politely providing Munroe with what she needed to sort out her own plans and then left her alone.
The woman put the handset beneath the glass and dialed.
Unlike before, Bradford didn’t immediately answer, and Munroe counted rings. The inner pressure that had been kept in check, one soothing pull of oxygen at a time, amped exponentially higher with each long tone—fear of losing yet another part of what mattered—a pounding tempo that built, frenetic and maddening—proof, if she ever needed it, that she walked the razor edge of sanity—until the line finally connected and Bradford, breathless, as if he’d run for the phone, said, “I’m here.”
The internal pressure released, collapsed into temporary calm.
“I’ve got you set,” he said, “but the closest I could manage was Milan. Can you get into Italy?”
Munroe closed her eyes and sighed. More driving. More time wasted.
“Yes,” she said. “I can do it.”
“I haven’t been able to find an alert out for you yet,” he said. “Doesn’t mean it’s not there, just means I haven’t found it. Do you have access to e-mail?”
The waiting room had a computer that the consulate staff would connect to the Internet if that was what she needed. “I can get to my race-or-die account,” she said.
“I’ll send you general directions. It’ll get you started. You’ll need to contact me from Italy for the rest of the details. I’m sorry about that.” He paused. “Do you have any money on you?”
“About seventy euros,” she said. “It’s enough to get me to Milan.” She hesitated. “Miles, they have Alexis.”
Bradford was silent a long second. “I was afraid it would happen,” he said. “I tried to protect her. When you disappeared, we started digging and pulled a match on some of the information in the Burbank files. I went to Kate hoping she might have some idea of what was going on. She’s still facilitating, Michael, even from behind bars, only now it’s not for you but against you. She sees this as her magnum opus. Payback, she said. She’s had an appeal running through the courts—her next court date is in a few days—and although I don’t think she expects you to survive what she’s put into play, no matter how things turn out, I think she’s planning to disappear. I’ve got a team keeping an eye on things so we don’t lose track of her.”
Munroe drew in the words. Plotted through them, then said, “They’re threatening to replace Neeva with Alexis if I don’t get Neeva back to them.” Paused. “But it gets worse.” She outlined the logic, the analysis behind her fears regarding the client, the fate she expected either girl to be thrown to, and when she was finished, she shut her eyes against the pain. “They’re forcing me to choose who lives or dies,” she said. “And the result of not choosing is the same as making the decision itself.”
“What will you do?” he said.
“Stay the course,” she said. “If it’s not Neeva, not Alexis, it will be Tabitha, or you, or someone else. It’s not going to end, Miles, unless someone ends it.” Munroe drew another long breath. “The image they sent me was taken in front of her home in daylight. Find her for me, Miles—please, if you’re able. It’s an unfair burden to place on you, and I’m sorry. It’s the only way I can let everything go. I need you to free me so that I can do what I need to do.”
“I’ll give everything I’ve got,” he said. “My friend will have a phone for you. I want you to call me when you get it.” She understood what was left unspoken: call him so they could speak freely.
“I promise.”
“I love you,” he said.
“Always,” she whispered.
She returned the handset beneath the glass and sat for a while, running circles around the effort she’d made to protect Alexis over the years, all of it gone to waste. Could count on one hand the people she’d allowed to become that close to her: Logan, Bradford, Kate Breeden, and a couple of male friends—long-forgotten—whom she’d brought home to her sister Tabitha’s house for shock value during the worst of her inability to integrate into suburban American life.
They had been rough, her early years in the United States.
As a surprise to missionary parents who believed they were finished with child rearing, she hadn’t exactly been wanted. She’d been six when her closest sibling, more like a father than a brother, turned eighteen and left Africa for home. There were two sisters before him who’d been old enough to remain in Dallas when their parents had moved to Cameroon, and until Munroe, just shy of her eighteenth birthday, had showed up unannounced on Tabitha’s doorstep in the United States, whatever familial bond that existed had been based entirely on sporadic photographs and occasional mail that arrived until she was fourteen and had abandoned home for good.
Munroe wasn’t so much the black sheep of the family as a nonexistent child who’d given up trying to belong to sisters she’d never known and a brother who’d abandoned her; had given
up trying to earn parental approval in favor of carving her own niche on Cameroonian soil until, at seventeen, violence sent her running to a country that held no attachment but a passport and strangers she called family.
Moving into Tabitha’s house had meant living with a woman old enough to be her mother, who’d welcomed her because of who she was and resented her for everything she wasn’t; a woman whose eldest daughter, Alexis, was the closest Munroe ever had to a real sister, and now the Doll Maker had her.
Munroe stood. As with Logan, she would abandon what she wanted most to do what needed to be done. Wouldn’t bother with getting Bradford’s e-mail, she knew where she was going, and Internet access here at the consulate or not, she’d still have to find a way to get the details once she was in Italy.
If Neeva had been alone, Munroe would have stopped to say good-bye, but under the circumstances she preferred not to invite the additional attention doing so would attract. In the security area, she retrieved the backpack again with the maps, the tape, the GPS, the pieces of Arben’s phone, and everything else she’d dumped into it before abandoning the Opel.
Passed back through the metal detector—the only way out of the consulate’s one exit—but before she got to the foyer, the side door opened and Neeva was there.
The girl followed her to the elevator. “You’re leaving?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Munroe said, and passed up the elevator for the stairwell.
Neeva didn’t stop. “I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Now’s not a good time, Neeva.”
The girl followed down the flight of stairs. “It’s important.”
On the second-floor landing, Munroe paused. Turned so that she was eye-to-eye with Neeva, who was a few steps behind. “Go back,” she said. “I’ll e-mail; you can talk to me later.”
Neeva was beside Munroe now. “I want to come with you.”
Munroe paused midstep, Neeva’s words like cymbals crashing inside her head, was noise that kept reverberating and drowned out everything else. Hissed, “Are you out of your mind?” Moved another two stairs down and stopped again. Turned again. “I just risked my life and the lives of people I love to get you to a safe place. Get away from me. You have your shot at freedom. Go home.”
The Doll Page 24
