The Red Ledger, Book 5

by Meredith Wild

  Tristan goes to the bag, rolls it up, and stuffs it under his arm. “I’ll make sure it goes down that way. Give me the keys. I’ll drive.”

  Townsend hesitates a moment before dropping them into Tristan’s hand.

  Tristan looks at me. “You go with them.”

  I tense. “Tristan, you’re still—”

  “I’m fine,” he says, his tone sharp. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  But I know he won’t be. He’s going to get Jay. He’s going to the church to find her.

  He breaks our stare and shoves Townsend past us, through the door. I hurry behind him, knowing all the while I can’t argue with him when he’s like this.

  I squint in the sunlight. The neighborhood is quiet. Two more condemned houses sit across the street with red Xs spray painted on the vinyl siding. The lots on either side of the house are empty. No one would have heard my screams. No one but little Mariana swatting grass in the backyard…

  Townsend gets into the passenger side of the SUV.

  Noam puts his hand on my shoulder and looks me over. “What the hell is going on? What happened to you?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, but I’m fixed on Tristan.

  He’s already rounding the vehicle. We lock eyes for a brief moment. He shakes his head. There’s no stopping him. No point in even trying.

  The tires squeal against the road as they pull away, and then they’re gone.

  I turn back. “We have to hurry.”

  Noam and Zeda don’t ask questions until we’re piled into Noam’s vehicle.

  He throws it into gear, and we lurch forward. “Isabel. Want to clue me in here? Zeda told me about Jay needing a place to stay at Halo.”

  Noam has a lot of catching up to do, but he’s come this far to save me.

  “Tristan’s a hitman.”

  “Sorry, a hitman?” His eyes go wide before returning to the road.

  “He was hired to kill me but decided not to pull the trigger at the last minute. So now the people he worked for are after both of us. Townsend is one of them, but he’s here for Jay. It’s a long story. She used to work for the Company too, but now that she’s with us, she needed a safe place where they couldn’t find her. She and Townsend have some kind of personal connection, so he basically nabbed everyone he could get his hands on who might know where she is, including Skye.”

  Zeda’s reflection meets mine in the rearview mirror. “We split up after you disappeared. I made her promise not to go back there without me.”

  “Well, they’ve got her now. And she’s telling them Martine has Jay at the church.”

  Noam and Zeda share a quick look.

  “What is it?”

  “I just don’t think the reverend wants to get involved with this is all,” Noam says.

  “Isn’t he part of this? Isn’t he with Halo?”

  “He helped Martine with a few things before,” Zeda says. “He never came right out and criticized her, but the relationship cooled at some point along the way. Skye said he wanted to keep his focus on the congregation and not complicate it with Halo business anymore. It’s all niceties on the outside, but that’s Martine trying to keep him close. She hates losing connections.”

  I frown and whip my gaze over my shoulder. “Did you have any idea they might be there this whole time?”

  She throws her hands up. “The church is like five blocks away. If Martine thought Halo wasn’t safe, I figured she would have taken her a lot farther away. Especially considering who we’re dealing with here.”

  I curse under my breath and straighten in my seat. “Nothing quite like hiding in plain sight.”

  Noam glances over at me. “If that was Townsend, who was the guy on the floor?”

  I close my eyes a moment, collecting my armor against the deluge of emotion waiting to crash down on me the minute I let it. “Someone in the Company who was here to bring Tristan back in for the price on his head. Bones… That’s what he called himself, anyway.” I ball my fists against the seat, flooded with satisfaction that I won’t be joining the graveyard of tattoos on his arms.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I do a mental scan. My adrenaline’s waned enough that I notice several thrumming pains along my right side where I landed after Bones threw me. I push my fingers into my hair and massage my scalp, which is sore where he yanked me off him.

  I exhale a shaky breath, coming down from the high a little more. Jesus Christ. What possessed me to jump on him? What was I thinking?

  I wasn’t thinking. I was surviving. He could have killed me in a matter of seconds. It was nothing short of a miracle that he hadn’t already…thanks to Townsend’s calculating patience.

  “I’m fine,” I mutter quietly and rub my dirty hands onto my jeans, which does nothing to improve their appearance.

  We pull onto the highway, and I distract myself trying to look for the SUV Tristan left in. He must be driving like a maniac, because there’s no sight of him. I glance at the speedometer. We’re only going fifteen over the limit.

  “Does this go any faster?”

  Noam smirks. “Yeah.”

  TRISTAN

  The adrenaline rush must have worked, because I’m more alert than I’ve been since Townsend drugged me up. We’re flying down the highway, eating up the distance between Skye and hopefully Jay.

  “How’s this going down?” Townsend finally says.

  I switch lanes and zip past a car that’s holding up the passing lane. I’ve got no interest in outlining a plan for Townsend to twist for his own benefit.

  “How about we enjoy the ride and you enlighten me instead. Tell me what you gave me three years ago. Everything before that’s a blur.”

  “That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” he mutters.

  “And what, do you have like an underground lab where you figure out how to fuck with people’s heads?”

  I glance at him, but he’s staring at the road, his expression grim. “I can’t take credit for all the tricks in my bag. But yeah, sometimes I cook a few things up myself.”

  “What is it?” I ask with more force, determined to get some answers before we leave the vehicle and the game changes.

  “It’s called Elysium Dream.” A long moment passes before he continues. “It’s a strong antipsychotic combined with a bunch of other shit. Originally designed as a one-two punch to combat PTSD and depression. Now it’s a twist on a throwaway drug that didn’t make it through trials.” He blows out a sigh. “I don’t honestly know if it would have worked twice on you without melting your fuckin’ brain. Don’t suppose the Company really cared either way, though.”

  I glance at him again briefly. “Why bother giving it to me to begin with? I was barely alive when they took me in.”

  “Because they wanted you. I figure you were a good soldier, right? Had qualities that probably caught someone’s eye at some point along the way. They didn’t want to waste them, so they turned you into the kind of person who could do the work they needed done.”

  “Seems like a lot of effort. For what they pay us, you could convince a lot of people to do what we do.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself. The rest of us?” He points to himself. “We start out messed up and they train us to be even worse. You just went the other way. It was worth a shot at least.”

  He’s painting me like I was a model soldier. Someone like Brennan. A patriot. But I wasn’t. I was messed up and running away from my life.

  “I wasn’t perfect by any stretch. I know that much.”

  “No, but you had a conscience, and that just won’t do.” He looks out his window, hiding most of his face. “All having a past does is feed you inconvenient emotions. Fear. Compassion. All the little things in life that teach a normal person how to make normal, ethical choices. Be glad we wiped it away in one fell swoop and you didn’t have to watch your humanity get stripped away one hit at a time.”

  I clench my teeth. I do remember my doubts. A natural hesitation occurred be
fore I committed myself to the task of taking lives for pay. But it wasn’t much. Not enough to stop me from going through with it.

  The sick feeling I had before returns because I realize I have no idea who I am or who I was. They stripped me of things I’ll never get back. Even if the memories are flowing in now, I’ve changed. The memories are a start, though.

  “I get visions,” I say quickly, acutely aware of the limited time I have. “Flashbacks. The serum you gave me brought them on like never before.”

  “That’s probably normal. Nothing’s a hundred percent.”

  We get off the highway. We’re getting closer to Jay. There could be more blood. Maybe his…

  “Can you reverse it?”

  We share a quick glance. He frowns. “Never thought of it.”

  He probably doesn’t understand why I’d want to. Sounds like not having a conscience or a past is a desirable circumstance, the way he talks about it.

  “For the record, I didn’t sleep with Jay.”

  He’s quiet for a long time. “I know.”

  “She’s important to you.”

  The corner of his lips lift. “I haven’t lied to you yet. What’s the point?”

  True enough. He’s been painfully honest. Makes me want to keep him around as much as I want to end him. I can’t think that way right now, though.

  “If you care so much about Jay, then you’ve got to know the Company’s going to want her dead. No matter what deal you struck up with them.”

  “I’m not daft. I know who I’m up against here. But you snatched her, so I didn’t figure it’d be a hardship sending you back in, you know?”

  I hold my tongue, choosing not to dime out Crow, who was integral to Jay’s kidnapping. And worse. I remind myself to be far away when Townsend finds out what Jay endured at the hands of Crow’s goons.

  “I didn’t hurt her. I was after information.”

  He chuckles. “She’s a wealth of information, isn’t she?”

  “Unfortunately for her.” I glance at the clock. “Time to make that call. We’re getting close.”

  He sighs and pulls up the number. “You’re not stopping for the girl, are you?”

  I don’t answer him. “Just make the call.”

  He mutters a curse under his breath and brings it to his ear. I hear Dunny’s muffled greeting.

  “I’ll meet you at the church in five minutes. Leave the girl at the house.”

  Townsend hangs up before Dunny can say anything more. “What do you want, Red? Isabel’s safe now. You should get out of town with her and not waste time.”

  “And I’m supposed to let you take Jay when she’s the only one who knows how to bring them down?”

  He looks at me, silence stretching between us. “That’s your plan? You think you can take them on yourself?”

  “Not without help.”

  “You’re more fucked in the head than I thought. If you want to stay alive and you want to keep Isabel alive, then your best bet is to disappear.”

  “There’s no running from them,” I say quietly, wishing it weren’t true. “Not forever, anyway. They’ll be after you too. Then what?”

  He laughs a little. “I’m good at disappearing.”

  “With Jay?”

  “Given the chance, absolutely. I came here with no other aim.”

  “And your associate?”

  He frowns a little. “If you go into that church with me, Red, it’s going to get real complicated real fast.”

  “He wants the payoff for bringing me in.”

  “He certainly doesn’t care what happens to Jay. How do you think I enlisted their help?”

  I already knew why Dunny and Bones were in this. Townsend’s earlier hesitations gave him away. The second Dunny sees me with Townsend, he’ll know he’s out of a payday and likely a job. Of course Townsend is anything but predictable. And I have no idea where Jay stands in all of this. I still don’t know why she ran off with Martine. Maybe Townsend’s right. Maybe I should drop him at the curb and go back to the house, collect Isabel, and get as far away from this place as I can.

  But letting Jay slip through my fingers means I’ll never get the intel to end this. And I suspect Townsend knows more about why my memory was wiped than he’s letting on. He’s more than the Company’s puppet, especially if Jay’s placed her confidence in him.

  We pass the mansion on St. Charles. All I can see is a bright ceiling light from the library shining through the windows as we speed by. Isabel will be there soon, and hopefully Skye is safe, as promised. A knot of worry lodges in my stomach. Whatever happens at the church has to happen fast. I doubt after everything Isabel has been through that she’d follow me there, but I’m quickly learning to stop making assumptions when it comes to her. This way of life is peeling back her inhibitions, not the least of which is the ability to take a life when her own is threatened.

  I turn onto the street that will take us to the church. Townsend drums his fingers on the armrest as I park down the street in front of Noam’s studio. We wait there in tense silence.

  “I could end this now, you know,” I say.

  Townsend’s blank expression doesn’t change. “You want something.”

  “Jay’s cooperation.”

  He lifts his chin toward the church. “If she’s in there, you could get that on your own.”

  “I want you to figure out how to undo whatever you did to me.” I lift up the bag that’s been tucked beside my seat.

  He glances at it and then to me, his lips a thin line. “I can’t promise that. I’m not in the business of putting people back together, mate. Not my specialty.”

  “Maybe not, but you know enough to try. That’s more than anyone else can do.”

  He rubs his forehead vigorously. “Yes. I can try. If the SP-131 showed results, I can play with the dosage. Do some research. I don’t know. Fuck. Yes. I’ll fuckin’ try, all right?” He waves his hand toward the church. “Can we go in there and get her now? Before Dunny does something stupid and gets her killed?”

  “Speaking of Dunny… What are we going to do about him?”

  He sighs again with a resigned look. “I actually liked him.”

  I withdraw Bones’s gun and release the magazine, checking to ensure it’s full. “I hope you came here with more firepower.”

  He jerks his thumb behind him. “It’s in the back.”

  “Let’s get this over with, then.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Isabel

  We find Skye tied to a chair in the library with a rag cinched around her mouth. Her eyes are red from crying and her face is bruised, but otherwise she seems okay. Zeda rushes to unbind her while Noam stalks around the house, his gun ready. The house is torn apart. Every drawer and cabinet is open and emptied onto the floor. Most of the furniture is turned over and ripped open, almost as if they’d resorted to mindless destruction when they realized they couldn’t find who they were looking for.

  Once she’s loose, Skye lets out a quiet cry, which she covers with her hand. Zeda kneels beside her and pulls her into her arms.

  “I told you not to go. Goddamnit, Skye,” she whispers. “I would have come with you.”

  She hiccups over a sob. “I know. It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m okay. He just scared the hell out of me.” She draws in a shaky breath. “Honestly, I think I’ve been through worse.”

  Zeda shakes her head and tightens her arms around her friend. I want to comfort Skye too, but I’ve been through my own hell. I don’t know if I’m the person to calm her down right now. Also, I need to figure out a plan, because Tristan’s already two steps ahead of me.

  I go deeper into the house and find Noam lingering inside Martine’s office, which appears to be the most wrecked. Paperwork is strewn everywhere. Cabinets are flung open, revealing feeds from several surveillance cameras set up around the house on a large computer monitor. He’s staring at them with an almost mesmer
ized look.

  “Noam.”

  He spins. “Everything okay?”

  “Tristan’s not coming here. I’m pretty sure he went right to the church.”

  He tucks his gun into the band of his pants. “And?”

  “And he’s going there to get Jay.”

  “That doesn’t mean you need to follow him.”

  “This isn’t a joke,” I snap. “People’s lives are in danger. They almost killed us.”

  He lifts his eyebrows and looks me over the same way he did before. “Isabel. You’ve been through a lot. I mean, look at you.”

  I clench my fists. “You can come with me, or you can stay. It’s your choice, but I’m not staying here while Tristan’s on his own. No one he’s with has his back.”

  “You just told me he’s a hitman. Am I supposed to be more concerned for his well-being than yours?”

  “They shot him with a tranquilizer less than twenty-four hours ago, and then Townsend gave him something else that was supposed to get him to spill his guts and confess where Jay was. He’s been slipping in and out of consciousness for hours. He thinks he’s fine now, but if he goes down, they’re going to kill him. I’m not taking that risk.”

  “If it’s as dangerous as you think it is, he’s not going to want you there.”

  This I know. Doesn’t matter. This fight isn’t over.

  “Fine, I’ll go alone.” I walk away, intending to slip out the back door.

  “Yeah right, Izzy. I don’t think so.” He grabs my arm, halting my retreat. “Can you wait a damn minute?”

  I pivot and level a hard stare at him.

  “Noam, listen to me. I’ve been kidnapped. Tied up. Hit. Threatened. I almost got shot up with a lethal dose of heroin. Then I stabbed someone to death. I don’t even have a minute to wash away the evidence of what I’ve done, let alone process it. This is hands down the worst day of my life, but it is not over. You have thirty seconds to help me or I’m leaving, whether you think it’s a good idea or not.”

  A flash of pain passes behind his dark eyes. “Isabel. Jesus, I’m sorry. It’s just that with everything you’ve been through, I’m worried about you running back into this. Why don’t you let Tristan do what he does and stay put? You’re running on pure adrenaline right now.”