by Trish Loye
She wasn’t sure whether she should back away or interrupt. So she continued to watch them together. Derrick’s eyes lit up when Rose made a joke and he wore an easy smile as their daughter told him about her school. She knew then that Derrick would continue to be a part of their lives. He wouldn’t disappear on them and there’d be no way to get rid of him, so she needed to find a way to see him without falling in love again.
Stop kidding yourself. You’ve never stopped loving him.
Not true. She’d definitely fallen out of love at some point.
Hadn’t she?
“Hey Mom, want some breakfast?” Rose’s voice broke into her internal argument.
Derrick smiled at her and gestured to the bacon and pancakes on the table. “I’ll get you a plate.”
“Thanks.” She slid into the seat across from her daughter. “Are they edible?” she whispered.
“I can hear you,” Derrick said.
Rose laughed. “They’re good, Mom.”
Derrick set a plate in front of her, along with a coffee with cream and sugar.
She took a sip. Just the way she liked it.
He took his empty plate and put it in the dishwasher. “I need to check on my team.”
“Would any of them want pancakes?” Cassie asked. “I can make more.”
“Derrick already made them. There’s a whole stack in the oven.”
“I’ll bring them in one at a time to feed them. So far everything’s been quiet.”
Cassie nodded. “Is this all really necessary then? Will they care about one little reporter?”
“Mom.” Rose extended the word into at least two syllables and added a heaping of teenage disdain. “North Korea isn’t going to just let you walk away and print a damaging story. Someone will come.”
Pride shone in Derrick’s eyes. “She’s right. They will come and we’ll be ready.”
Cassie looked at her daughter. “You seem very calm about all this.”
Rose shrugged. “Derrick got you out of North Korea. He can protect us from one assassin.”
“Speaking of that,” Derrick said. “I’d like you and your grandmother to stay inside until this is over.”
“That’s okay. It’s a good excuse to have a movie marathon.” Rose stood.
“Dishes,” Cassie said.
Rose rolled her eyes and put her dishes in the dishwasher before she left the kitchen.
Derrick’s gaze followed her. “She’s a great kid,” he said. “You’ve done really well with her.”
“Thanks.” She stuffed a piece of fluffy pancake into her mouth.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” His voice held both regret and grief.
She took a breath. “I’m sorry you weren’t either. I should have told you about her.”
“I know you would have if I’d been around,” he said softly. With his words, he shouldered all the responsibility of both their mistakes. She couldn’t let him do that. She opened her mouth, but he held up his hand. “It’s okay,” he said. “Let’s try to leave it behind us and move forward.”
They stared at each other a moment, their words a soothing balm to the hurts of the past.
He gave a small, regretful smile. “I’d better see to my team.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’ll put out some more plates.”
“Thanks,” was all he said before he left.
She could hear his voice on the radio he communicated to the others with. He laughed at something someone had said and the sound eased the tension in her. She put out clean plates and ran some soapy water in the sink to wash up the fry pans. Someone had closed the curtains on the window above the sink. She pulled them open. Golden sunshine shone in from her east-facing backyard. It was postage stamp-sized, but she filled it with flowers in warmer weather. She loved having her morning coffee out there.
Derrick pulled her away from the window, to his chest, and she gasped. He yanked the curtain closed. “Don’t stand in front of a window. You make a clear target.”
Target.
She breathed in deep a few times and nodded. “Sorry. I forgot.”
He rubbed her arm. “It’s okay, and don’t worry, I don’t think this will be for too long.”
“On that note, I’d better start on my story.”
“How long do you think it’ll take you?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Two days. Three at most.”
“Then we’ll be gone before you know it,” he said.
And just like that, her breath left her again. He’d be gone again from her life. Not from Rose’s but from hers.
That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?
Before she could answer that, he walked out of the kitchen. “Remember. Stay away from the windows.”
24
Cassie sat at her laptop, going over what she’d written, trying to remain objective. She was making sure any details of Derrick and his team weren’t in her story. She hoped he wouldn’t mind if she told Rose about what he’d done. Her daughter would like to know and Cassie thought it would deepen the connection between father and daughter. Cassie wouldn’t be surprised if Rose decided she wanted to be some sort of operator when she grew up.
Oh Lord, what would she do if Rose followed in her father’s footsteps?
Her computer screen went dark and she realized she’d been musing instead of writing. She moved her mouse and the screen lit up again. She’d been going through her photos and had stopped on the one of Jin-sun.
She bypassed the ones of Choe and Dr. French. Those she’d save for the government and the people who could actually do something about them. She’d been told Dr. French was under protection in the US somewhere. She didn’t want the story to be about him, though; she wanted it to be about the people of North Korea and the atrocities their corrupt government inflicted on them. This wasn’t a story about politics, but about people.
She immersed herself back into the work, arranging the photos she needed and making notes about what she’d use.
A plate with a sandwich, carrot sticks, and a handful of potato chips appeared beside her. Derrick stood there. “It’s one. I thought you might be hungry.”
Her stomach chose that moment to rumble. “Apparently I am.” She smiled. “Thank you for thinking of me.”
“It’s what I do.”
That line was too good to pass up. She tilted her head and teased, “Meaning you always think of me?”
Instead of stammering or avoiding the direct question, he stared into her eyes. “First thing in the morning and last at night.”
She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “I…” Tell him, her inner voice urged. Tell him you think of him too.
But that way lay pain when they began fighting over careers again. She broke eye contact and reached for her sandwich.
“It’s okay,” he said gently. “I look after all members of my team. I’m always thinking of them. Just pretend you’re a member of my team and we’ll get through this.”
He left the room as silently as he’d come and she slumped back in her chair, feeling like a door somewhere had slammed shut and locked her out.
It took her too long to get back into work. But once she started, she kept at it.
Dante brought her pasta for dinner and then left quietly. Cassie didn’t let herself think about where Derrick was and why he hadn’t come. It didn’t matter. Just the story did. He’d want to come check it, so she knew she’d see him soon.
She worked late into the night and then started early in the morning. Her mother brought her breakfast and her daughter stopped in with food at lunch.
“Do you think I could have a friend come over?” Rose asked.
She just looked at her daughter.
Rose sighed the long-suffering sigh of a wronged teenager. “It was just a question.”
“How about doing some homework?”
“I finished.”
“Why don’t you watch a movie?”
Rose threw her hands
out. “Derrick said not to go online and I’ve already seen all our movies.”
Cassie wanted to sigh now, but refrained. “Why don’t you go bug Sarah?”
“She’s off shift and sleeping.”
She understood her daughter’s frustration at being cooped up came from the underlying tension in the house and Cassie sympathized, but she needed time to work. “Dante or Derrick?”
“Derrick’s out on patrol—whatever that means—and Dante’s on watch.”
“Don’t you have a book to read?”
“Fine.” She stomped out of the room and upstairs.
Cassie went back to work and sent a text off to her boss to have him call her about her short piece for the evening news. She tried to ignore the fact that she hadn’t seen Derrick all day. That was for the best.
Her phone rang moments later. Her boss calling? “Hello?”
“Hello, Cassandra Kwon,” a smooth male voice said in Korean. “I have your daughter in my rifle’s sights. She is on her laptop, sitting in her bedroom. She very nicely opened the curtains for me. If you hang up or say anything beyond what I tell you to, I will shoot her. Do you understand?”
The assassin. Her heart imploded. Rose! She stood, her gaze darting around the study.
“She’ll be quite the beauty one day if I don’t kill her,” he said. “I asked you a question. If I have to repeat myself again she will die.”
“Yes,” she said, hating the quiver in her voice. “I understand.”
“Good.” The satisfaction in his voice slithered over her. “You have ten seconds to walk out the back door. Bring any photos you took in Chosōn and your laptop.”
Adrenaline shot through her, pumping her heart harder, but almost slowing her thoughts and burying her panic. The panic was still there, fighting to come out. For now she had control, but that wouldn’t last long. She needed to think while she could.
The assassin would kill her as soon as she handed her laptop over to him. She couldn’t give it to him. But the assassin would kill Rose if she didn’t follow his orders. That thought crushed her under a weight so heavy she almost slumped to the floor. And it would devastate Derrick. She’d seen how he already looked at Rose, with pride and…love. They had to have a chance at a relationship. She had to make that happen and to do that she had to get this killer away from her house.
“They’re at my office.” The words rushed out of her. If he went there, then Derrick and his team would have a chance to get this guy. She thought of how she’d left the fishing boat without trusting Derrick’s years of experience. She hoped he knew this was different. She trusted Derrick to come after her.
“Do not lie to me.” His voice held the cold of glacial ice.
“I’m not,” she improvised. “I thought they’d be safer there.”
“Then we’re going for a ride. Five seconds left, Cassandra. And remember, don’t say anything.”
Shit! She snatched her office keycard from her purse and walked toward the back door. Her clarity left her as panic reared. She didn’t want to leave the house. She stopped just before entering the kitchen. Dante sat at the table, typing on his laptop. He looked up at her and his gaze narrowed at whatever he saw on her face.
“Three seconds,” the oily voice said through the phone.
She rushed to the back door.
Dante stood. “Cassie, wait.”
She didn’t look at him, her heart beating triple time in her throat. “I want to go outside,” she said, her voice a squeak.
“Stop,” Dante ordered.
“One second,” said the assassin.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Dante and flung open the door and raced through her beloved yard to the back gate.
“Cassie!” Dante sprinted after her.
Crack!
Dante’s body jerked and fell back. He cracked his head against the steps.
Cassie stopped, horrified. Dante had been shot and lay still on her steps. Was he dead? She took a step toward him.
“Come to the back alley now or I will kill you and your daughter,” the voice said.
Cassie realized she’d still been holding the phone to her ear. She looked to her daughter’s window to see Rose standing there, her mouth open.
No. No. No.
She couldn’t breathe through the tight constriction around her chest, and she couldn’t move, paralyzed with fear for her daughter. Her thoughts no longer organized, they spun out of control.
“Now, Cassandra, or she is dead.”
With a last look at her daughter, she turned and pushed through the back gate and into the alley. A tall Asian man in dark pants and top dropped from a neighbor’s tree in front of her. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder and a handgun pointed at her. “This way.”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her into her neighbor’s yard and to a car parked in front of their house. The assassin pushed her into the passenger seat, slammed her door shut, slid into his seat and closed his door.
He pointed his gun at her. “Don’t try anything.”
Her hand had been on the door handle. She couldn’t make herself release it.
He punched her in the jaw. Her head rocked back and she hit the passenger door. Pain hammered her. She fought the blackness threatening her vision and sucking her down.
Stay conscious.
The assassin kept his gun trained on her with his left hand while he started the car and peeled away from the curb with his right.
Numbness spread through her. She was going to die.
Stop thinking that way.
She’d survived torture and escaping North Korea; she could survive a single assassin. And Rose would be telling the team about what had happened.
“Do not worry,” he said, his voice grating ice chips. “While you have been deemed unworthy to live, I will make your death quick if you cooperate.”
She didn’t know whether to thank him or tell him to fuck off. Well, maybe she did. “Go fuck yourself.”
His facial expression remained serene. “It is easy to make a death difficult.”
Cold washed over her. “Don’t you know how hard it is to stop pictures once they’re on the internet? What if I already uploaded them?”
“Then your daughter will die as well.”
“You’d be caught.”
He shrugged and glanced at her, his gun never wavering. “It would be an honor to die for the Great Leader’s wishes.”
Fantastic. She was dealing with a zealot. She gritted her teeth and stared straight ahead, watching the familiar streets pass by on the way to her office building downtown. He knew where he was going and the thought that he knew so much about her made her shiver.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Why?”
She shrugged like he had earlier. “I can call you asshole if you’d like.”
He actually chuckled. “You may call me Lee shi. It is only fair that you know the name of the person who kills you.”
“Why is that fair, Lee?” No way was she going to use the Korean honorific shi. “You’re still going to kill me. It’s not like your name will help me.”
He smiled again. “You are amusing.”
“Glad I can pass the time for you.” She was out of comebacks. Her heart pounded in her chest and she wiped her palms on her jeans for a third time. This asshole was going to kill her. She needed a plan.
Think, Cassandra!
The building would have a security guard. The hope died before it’d even become a spark. The guard didn’t have a gun or anything besides access to 911. Lee would kill him if she drew attention to them.
She needed a plan. Her breathing turned to panting and she struggled to control herself and her thoughts. She was going to die without a plan. Derrick’s team wouldn’t be able to save her in time. She needed to give them time to get to her.
And she knew they would come. She had utter faith in Derrick. He’d come for her in a North Korean prison camp. He’d saved her on that fishin
g boat. He’d come for her here. The only question—would he be in time?
The assassin pulled up in front of her building. There weren’t many people on the sidewalk in front of it, but enough that if he started shooting then innocent people would get hurt. “Get out.”
She looked at him, wanting to plead for her life, but his cold onyx eyes stared back at her. He wouldn’t be persuaded by tears. She lifted her chin. She would not go out begging.
She stepped out of the car with Lee following close behind, his gun hidden in his coat pocket like a bad cliché. She waved her keycard at the security guard. It was on a lanyard and she automatically put it around her neck. She pushed the elevator button. Her mind spun the problem over and over again. How was she going to get out of this?
Her phone rang in her hand. Unknown number. Please let it be Derrick.
“Don’t answer it,” the assassin said.
She didn’t answer but kept staring at her phone. Elevator doors opened in front of them and they stepped on. She swiped her keycard and punched the tenth floor button. Her phone stopped ringing. A moment later, it rang again. The same unknown number.
“It’s my daughter.” She hoped he might let her answer it.
“Give me your phone.”
She hesitated and he showed her his gun. She passed him her phone. He dropped it on the elevator floor and smashed it with his foot, once, twice and a third time. He smiled.
Asshole.
The elevator doors opened. It was do or die time. Literally.
She didn’t have a plan yet.
Her hands clenched into fists unconsciously with her need to fight. She forced them straight. Derrick would come. She just had to survive long enough for him to get there.
25
Derrick raced into Cassie’s house after being called back from walking the block perimeter. Rose stood in the hall in near hysterics, Mrs. Kwon yelled at Marc, who stood like granite, blocking the front door, and Dante held a phone to his ear with one hand and a bloody towel to the back of his head with the other. This couldn’t be good.
“Sitrep,” he said to Marc.
“An unknown assailant shot Dante and took Cassandra.”
His insides sailed and dropped like a car careening off a broken bridge. He closed his eyes and fought for control. Cassie needed him. He needed to stay in charge.
