So, I dropped down the far side of the wall and walked toward the gate. There was a small button beside. I pressed it, and the gate slowly drew open.
She walked in, glaring at me.
“I’m sorry about the car,” I said.
“I thought you said I could leave when you found my boss,” she barked back at me. “Why do you suddenly need me to come with you?”
“In case things don’t turn out the way I thought,” I answered. I wanted her here, close to me, in case her boss wasn’t home. Or in case I needed to use her as a bargaining chip, as much as I hated to go that route. Then again, her boss might not care about her safety one bit, and wouldn’t bat an eye at seeing her killed in front of him.
“Let’s go.” I took her by the arm. “Take me to a back door.”
We walked silently up the driveway. Nothing but the soft clunk of my boots and the sharp knock of her heels against the concrete.
When she led me past a carport with a few vehicles shaded beneath an aluminum roof, I realized this place was bigger than I thought. In fact, it looked like two places—two equally large houses around a lagoon-like pool, complete with stone grotto and recirculating water.
I saw a pair of glass patio doors up a set of wooden steps, lit by recessed lighting.
“Is that the back door?” I asked Carolina.
“Yes,” she said in a growl.
I looked around my feet. We were on a stone walkway with a manicured bushes and flowers on either side. There had to be a loose stone somewhere—something that could break one of the glass doors and get us inside. I kicked at the rocks in the pathway with the toe of my boot until one of them wiggled.
Then, I stooped down and picked it up. I bounced it in my hand a few times, feeling its heft. Wasn’t the most elegant option, but with little more than the clothes on my back, I had to make do.
I eyeballed the door. I pulled my arm back.
“You don’t need to do that.” Carolina reached her arm over me and I stopped. She took her car keys from her pocket and jingled them at me. “I was this Mr. Diaz’s secretary. I dropped off his dry cleaning every evening.”
She walked up the steps to the back door, and slipped a key into the lock. She opened the door glaring at me like she was my mom, and I was coming home with another black eye.
“Thanks,” I muttered as I walked into the house. Smelled liked cedar and vanilla inside, and the air was cool and crisp. Almost felt like I was walking out of hot bath water, into a relaxing poolside resort. I tossed the stone back through the open door. Guess I wouldn’t need it now.
When I heard the door click shut behind me, I snapped into gear. I pulled out my Glock. Ready for anything.
“Stay behind me,” I whispered to Carolina. “I don’t want you running off.”
She grumbled but did as I asked.
We went through a four-seasons room—a back porch encased in glass with nice outdoor furniture, then took a step up into the house through a wide, open doorway. Ahead, I saw a hallway, and the same flickering light from the TV playing on the walls. To my right, an open kitchen, lights off, save for the one over the sink. To my left, a step down into a large living room with a sectional, TV the size of a movie theater screen (currently off), and a long, low, blue flame. Some kind of modern fireplace. Nice touch. Too bad the guy who lived here was probably some prick knee deep in whatever scheme Greer was cooking up.
I snapped my fingers and pointed at the couch. “Stay there, stay quiet,” I said over my shoulder to Carolina. I imagined her expression behind me, a mix of annoyance, anger, and sass, but, again, she did as I asked.
Slowly, I crept forward. Past the kitchen island. Past the pantry. Into the hallway. The walls were boarded in dark, moody wood. The floors were white tile polished to a mirror shine. In those tiles, I saw the TV, half blocked by the open bedroom doorway, almost perfectly reflected.
I moved my neck side to side as I came closer. I had to scope out as much of the bedroom as possible. No telling if Julio Diaz heard me coming and stood beside the door with a knife, ready to gut me from jewels to jaw, or if he was half-in-the-bag, stewing in his own juices in bed.
Now, one step from the door, I pressed my right shoulder against the wall. Past the half-opened door, I saw the TV in full view. The news, talking about the riots, assassinations, families being murdered in their own homes.
Then, I kicked the bedroom door open. With the business end of my Glock, I swept the room from corner to corner in a split second. Saw nothing vaguely human-shaped. Settled on the bed, and saw the rumpled sheets. I pulled them back.
Nothing. No one.
My next thought was the rest of the house. Had he heard us coming? Seen us? Jesus, I’d been stupid to walk up the driveway in plain sight. I was losing my edge.
I rushed back through the hallway. Into the kitchen.
A blade flashed at me. Silver. A shard of moonlight. A sloppy arc, uncalculated, without purpose. Amateurish.
The back end of my Glock clapped into hair, thin flesh stretched over bone. The top of somebody’s head.
Carolina grunted and fell in front of me. The kitchen knife slid across the tile floor, then fell off the ledge and into the living room.
She scrambled after it. Crawled on her belly in front of me. I sat down on her back. Not as hard as I could have, but I felt her spine pop, and she wheezed.
“I told you to stay put,” I said.
Chapter 22
I FOUND AN EXTENSION cord in one of the kitchen drawers. It kept Carolina’s hands bound behind her. I sat her down on the big sectional and decided it was time we had a serious chat.
I took a seat on the big marble and black iron coffee table in front of the sectional. Our knees almost touched. I was close to her, but I wasn’t close enough for her to try anything. We stared at each other for a long moment. Across the no-man’s land between us.
Carolina had a bruise on her chin. Probably from when I’d knocked her flat in the kitchen. Her hair was disheveled, but still perfect-looking. Behind a few strands, her eyes flickered like sparks in a powder store. One wrong word from me, and I knew she’d try to kill me, hands behind her back and all. I had to move cautiously.
“I don’t like people taking swings at me with knives,” I said a little more forcefully than I’d intended. But what was I supposed to do? She had me worked up. “Now, I don’t know what’s going on inside that head of yours, but I’m not here to be your enemy. Believe it or not, I’m trying to save your damn life.”
She glowered at me. I thought I saw one of her lips twitch like she was grinding her teeth, trying to make a spark.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” I said. “I don’t want to hurt you. That was never my intent. I just want to find out what in God’s name your boss has gotten himself into.”
“And what if you don’t?” The words boiled out of her. “What if he isn’t into something? Or what if he is, and he won’t tell you? What would you do then? Kill him? Kill me? Shoot us in the street like you did those men?”
I clenched my jaw. She didn’t know who I was. She didn’t know why I was here. And so what if I shot somebody?
“I did that to save both of our lives,” I said. “I’m not the sort of man who—”
“Oh! Bullshit!” she bellowed at me.
I stood up. I wasn’t going to hit her. Just stand. But when I did, she jumped back like I was going to break her nose with an open-handed slap.
“You don’t know the first thing about me, so don’t question what I’ve done to save your ass!” I said just below a yell. “I have been through hell and back! Worse than you know—worse than you’ll ever know. You think it’s so bad back in Caracas, but if you’ve had the year I’ve had, you’d happily starve in the streets here.”
“And what have you been through?” she yelled back at me. “What is it that excuses the things I have seen you do in the one night I’ve been around you? Who gave you the right to kill anyone? Collec
tivos or otherwise?
“You’re right, I don’t know the slightest bit about you, outside of what you told me your first name was! And I am even unsure of that! All I do know is you are a man with a gun, you have held one woman hostage, you have broken into two homes, and you have shot three people!”
Fire raged behind her eyes. The powder had been touched off, and everything was blowing apart around her.
Including me.
I had to get a hold of myself. So, I stomped back over to the kitchen—up the single step from the living room, and to the kitchen island, where my Glock sat. I picked it up and marched back to Carolina.
I held it out in front of me. I dropped the magazine. I ejected the single round from the chamber, letting it hit the floor. Then, I pushed the slide lock down and pulled the slide forward. I dropped the two halves of the Glock at my feet.
Carolina didn’t trust me. And she was right not to. I hadn’t earned any trust from her. I was a psycho with a gun. I muscled her around and vaguely threatened her when she didn’t do exactly what I wanted. I was a kidnapper. Simple as that.
“My name is Barrett Mason,” I said.
Instantly, her expression changed. From guarded, angry, and fearful to something approaching receptive. Not quite there, of course, but not as far away as she’d been moments ago.
“I was contracted by the CIA.” I sat down on the coffee table. Rested my hands on my knees. Bowed my head. “Extorted, actually. I’ve been in and out of spy work for the last year. Trying to be more out than in, but something happened that I can’t go into, and I was arrested. Thrown into military prison. Now, I just want out, and I’m desperate enough to do whatever it takes to get out. And they know that.”
I took a deep breath. I felt like I was being brought back down to Earth again. Like there was real air around me, stuff I could breathe. I wasn’t just at the mercy of someone far above me, dropping down oxygen tanks.
“Why?”
I’d never heard her voice not tinged by fear or aggression. She sounded like she actually cared. My eyes found Carolina’s.
“Why am I desperate?”
She nodded.
“I have a little girl at home,” I said. “A wife. I haven’t seen them for...” I scratched my head. How long had it been? Since before West Rock. “Five months.”
“Are they in danger?” She was good at picking up subtext, I had to give her that.
“They’re safe for now,” I said. “So long as I do what I’m supposed to do.”
“And what is that, Barrett?”
My blood chilled. The one question I didn’t what her to ask. I hesitated. What was I supposed to do? Tell her the truth? That I had been busted out of prison, smuggled across the Caribbean and brought to shore to kill her? That I was mere feet from her, a bear of a man, and I could end her life a dozen different ways with nothing more than my hands if I so wished?
“I don’t know yet.” Not quite the truth, but not quite a lie. “But, like I’ve said, I think it has something to do with your boss. Can you think of anything he’s done lately that might send someone like me... after him?”
She shrugged. Then winced like the extension cord holding her hands behind her back pinched her wrists.
“I’m gonna untie you,” I said. “If you promise to take pity on a poor wretch like me.”
“I will stay nice.”
I stood up from the table, walked around beside her, reached over the sectional’s white armrest, then undid the knots. The cord was tighter than I realized. Her fingers were milky white. They filled with color as soon as I loosened up my handiwork. Beneath the extension cord’s rubber coating, her skin was banded red and purple.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as I pulled the cord’s tail out from behind her. I tossed it aside. “I did you wrong from the start. You were caught up in something bigger than you, same as me, and I should have kept that in my head.” I stepped away from her, feeling like a damn fool. I tried to rub the heat off the back of my neck.
“You wanted to see your family.” Carolina was shockingly calm. She rubbed the grooves out of her wrists while she talked to me. “I cannot blame you. There was a time when I would have done the same. Family meant everything.”
Something was behind those words. A story I wanted to ask about, but I didn’t have the heart to pry into this girl’s life more than I already had, so I nodded at her.
“Have you eaten anything?” she asked.
I looked at her cockeyed. “You’re gonna cook for me? After the rotten things I did?”
She laughed as she walked past, brushing her fingers through her hair, making it fall straight down her cheeks, once more. She went up the lone step into the kitchen.
“Cooking of a sort.” She walked up to a big, fancy wood-paneled fridge and pulled the door open. Inside, I saw fresh vegetables, milk, cheese, and an egg carton—everything I’d expect to see in a fridge belonging to somebody who lived in the US. Not a man who lived in starving Venezuela.
She took out a plastic container. Leftovers. My mouth watered when she sat it down on the island, then opened another cabinet, with plates stacked inside.
“Isn’t that food supposed to be worth its weight in gold?” I asked. “Don’t you think he’s gonna miss it?”
“If Mr. Diaz is causing some kind of trouble, I think he owes us a meal, at least.” She grinned at me. “He won’t miss it, anyhow. He’s never lacked food, even while women and children go to sleep every night, starving.”
Those last few words left her mouth with weight on them. I knew there was something more. Then I remembered her dossier. Carolina’s father. He was an inmate in a local prison.
She ripped the lid off the plastic container, then flipped it over on the plate. I recognized chunks of beef, in some kind of sauce. Slices of potatoes, carrots, diced up pieces of some sort of green herb. Even cold and congealed into a rectangle, it smelled pretty damn good.
I watched her pop it into the microwave. Treating good beef like that was a sin, normally. I decided to let it slide, in light of the circumstances.
“What is your family like?” Carolina asked. “Is your wife pretty?”
“She’s beautiful.” I looked at my hands. Tried to imagine Libby’s little fingers slipped between mine. “She’s a reporter back home. Big trouble maker. I guess it takes one to know one.” I raised my eyebrows and blinked.
“How long have you been married to her?”
I counted imaginary numbers in the air. Took me a second to fit it all together. “Fifteen years.”
“How did you meet her?” The microwave beeped, and Carolina snatched the plate out. She sat it quickly on the counter, shaking the heat off her hand.
“I met her at a bar in Annapolis. I was fresh out of Recon School, ready to ship out to Afghanistan in another month. Decided to visit a friend from basic at the Naval Academy before I left.” I closed my eyes and sank back into that night.
“God, I remember Libby and her two girlfriends hunting me and my buddy at the bar. She was cute in her tight jeans and low-necked t-shirt, her hair hanging over her ears in loose curls. Her eyes sucked me in as soon as I saw them. Then she smiled and slid up next to me at the bar, ordered two shots of Wild Turkey. I thought one was for me, but she downed them both and winked at me.” I cracked a smile.
“Probably should’ve died right then and there. Gone out on the highest note I ever hit.”
“What about your daughter?” Carolina held a fork out to me. I was so lost in my memories, I didn’t even notice her get it out of the drawer.
“No,” I said, smiling to myself as I skewered a piece of beef. “You gotta tell me something about your family next.”
That seemed to put her off balance. Only for a second, before she finished chewing a carrot and cleared her throat.
“My father was a convict,” she said. “My mother left him when he went to prison. I was eleven years old and I never forgave her for it. I held onto my hatred for her, and as
soon as I was old enough, I left home.”
“Doesn’t sound like an easy road for a kid to walk.” I forked another beef medallion, along with a carrot.
Carolina shrugged. “It was a road. That is all I think about it now, looking back.”
I finished chewing my food.
“What did he do to get arrested?”
Her face darkened. I hadn’t asked very delicately. I guess that was my fault.
“The Chavistas—the communists—said he was a dissident. I don’t know if he was. Anyone who disagrees with the government is thrown in jail at some point.
“For my father, they arrested him the day before I turned eleven, and convicted him on my birthday.”
She leaned her elbows on the counter. Picked through the slurry of beef and vegetables on the plate, not looking like she wanted anything in particular. She picked a potato slice and ate it anyhow.
“He died of old age,” she said. “Three months ago. At least, that’s what they told me in the letter. He was only fifty-four. I think they couldn’t afford his insulin anymore.” She closed her eyes and rolled her neck. Tears weren’t far from her.
“I moved to Caracas so I could visit him more easily—when they let me visit him at all. But I suppose I won’t be doing that anymore. I suppose I don’t know what I’ll be doing.”
She didn’t let herself cry. Carolina kept a brave face. I liked that. But the more we sat in silence, her words hanging over my head like daggers, the more I thought of Kejal.
“The government would have let him go if he renounced his politics.” A slice of bitterness cut through her voice. “That was all they wanted from him, but he was too prideful to do it. And he threw away any life he could have had with his own daughter. I don’t know if I love him anymore or—”
My gut clenched. Carolina kept talking.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I powered through it. I didn’t know if she noticed or not. I didn’t care.
Wasn’t I doing the same thing Carolina’s father did? Choosing my pride over my daughter? If I did the job—if I jumped across this kitchen island, plucked a knife out of the block behind Carolina, and rammed it into the back of her neck, Greer would get me out of here. He had to. He’d had too many chances to screw me over already. He wouldn’t do it after I killed on his order, would he?
Jackal: Barrett Mason Book 3 Page 12
