Club Alpha (17 page)

Tor smiles, picking up the cell and swiping her image away. His head shakes very slowly from side to side. “No.”

“What?” I ask from my smothered mind, though my body knows. An elephant plants its ass on my chest, and my breath whistles through a rapidly narrowing esophagus.

His slap crushes my face against the wall, and my cheekbone bounces against the surface. Agony bleeds into my facial bones, and I cry out.

“No hysterics,
fitte.
”

It registers Tor just called me a cunt in Norwegian.

I begin to slide down the wall, my head spinning.

Tor wears gloves—a little detail that escaped my attention earlier.

My memory supplies the rest.

Mewling, I scramble past him as adrenaline surges through me, making my limbs heavy and my mind unnaturally sharp.

But he's nearly a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier.

He kicks me from behind, and I fly forward. My chin bounces on the plush carpeting.

He lands on me, shoving his erection between the crack of my ass, and I scream as my cell phone starts shrieking Gia's ring tone in the background.

His breath whispers against my ear like a breeze of terror. “That pathetic wop friend of yours doesn't know when to be silent.”

He seats his penis deeper, I feel him spread my ass apart through the layers of clothes.

No, no—no!

My hoarse shout swells out of lungs flattened by his weight, silenced before it’s born.

He throws my cell phone against the wall. I slam my eyes shut as the impact shatters the glass.

The ringing falls silent.

“Do not move or make a sound, or I will impale your ass with my dick. Are we clear, Greta?” he asks with horrible intent.

I nod vigorously.

I can't do this.

He flips me over, ripping my wrists above my head.

Warmth spreads beneath me, and his mouth twists in disgust. “You're a disgusting whore.”

I’ve wet myself.

My body's natural need to hold urine has fled. I'm so debased by fear, I can't think.

But out of my mouth come words wrenched from my soul: “I'm not a whore.”

Tor sneers, taking the time to tear something out of his eyes one-handed.

He tosses away tiny bendable contacts. Pale-green eyes stare down at me, and my breath catches.

I'd know that gaze anywhere.

I've seen them through a mask before, but those four sets of eyes are burned into my brain for all eternity
.
One of the sets gazes down at me now.

Rage fills the nooks and crannies of my mind, overriding the fear. My anger overflows, and I spit in his face. This man raped me two years ago.

He's got it wrong.
“Nothing you can do to me will make me a whore.” My voice shakes. Adrenaline, terror, and the sharp-edged knife of rightful anger cut into him.

Tor smiles and raises his fist.

“You have always been a whore, and now you will be
my
whore.”

My consciousness is shattered by his fist. As I slip away my one thought is of Paco—and what could have been.

Paco

Tallinn claps me on the back, and I tense. I have been anxious since leaving Greta. I would give much to have stayed by her side. But without trying to pay this doctor off for his silence, how can I face Greta?

It would be akin to killing her sister—again.

Tallinn's hand falls. “Jumpy, Paco.”

I simply nod.

Lisbeth sidles beside us silently. Our backs skate along another waterfront house's clapboard exterior. The gentle sounds of the sea lull me, but do not lessen my awareness of the danger of our mutual goal. This house looks like every other one in the row of brightly painted sea cottages.

We come to the front door. Chill and damp creep into my bones; my southern heritage protests the Nordic bite.

Tallinn peers along tall and narrow sidelights, murky with filth.

“Stand-up establishment.” He snorts softly, giving the dirty glass pane a gentle tap.

Lisbeth cocks a brow in Tallinn's direction.

This expression, I know. “It's of ill-repute.”

“Clearly,” she says with a snide thread in her voice.

Tallinn rolls his eyes when she turns away.

Americans are so distrusting. I do not need Tallinn to tell me that he is—
What would he say?
The idiom comes to me:
not a fan
of Lisbeth.

We know little about Lisbeth. However, knowing she is Greta's sister is enough for now.

“Let's go around back.” Tallinn jerks his chin, indicating a narrow deck that runs the perimeter of the seaside shack.

I glance down. Barnacles like rotting teeth cling to slick wood pilings driven into an unforgiving sea.

The sea of my home has always calmed me. The frozen ocean below riots around the pilings, lifting angry fingers of water toward the dilapidated shack, churning beneath our feet.

Lisbeth is already moving in her sure-footed way, seemingly oblivious to the slickness of the boards that serve as a walk leading around to the presumed back entrance.

I am last to traverse the antique moorings.

Tallinn is between us as Lisbeth rounds the back.

Only her profile is lit. Seeing half of her pale face has a strangely prophetic feel, unease are like talons digging into my psyche. The urge to contact Greta surges through me like a compulsion.

Tallinn gives Lisbeth a direct look. “Knock like we discussed.”

Lisbeth gives a curt nod as her reply. She knocks four times in quick succession then silently counts out five seconds before knocking once more. We wait.

My apprehension swells like the tide below.

“What is it?” Tallinn asks, studying my expression.

“I do not know.” My foreboding is both tangible and inexplicable. I cannot articulate my feelings, though they are real.

He shakes his head, his brows coming together. The whites of his eyes appear to float in the haziness that borders sea and night. “You
know
. Spill the details, Paco.”

Shuffling sounds of dragging feet come from behind the door, and Tallinn straightens, forgetting his request. Our attention is now riveted to the back entrance. The distraction temporarily dispels my unease as we move closer to the door. It opens a crack.

The palest blue eye that I've ever seen peers out. A sliver of the man attached to the eyeball resembles a mad scientist. And that assessment might not be too far from the truth.

He is not of high moral character; that much is certain.

The Americans are fond of saying “
don't judge a book by its cover.
”

But in this case, I am free to do so.

*

After staring with his one, unnerving sky-blue orb for nearly a minute, he swings the door wide, allowing us entry.

Lisbeth enters first, then Tallinn and I follow.

“You come here to do the deed, do you?” the doctor's sly voice is remarkably like one I would expect to hear on a radio. Broadcaster smooth.

His dulcet tones are in direct conflict to his stooped posture, his riot of white hair, and his advanced age.

Elders are treasured in Mexico. The lack of nursing homes speaks to their value in my home country. A Mexican can guess the age of an older person within a year or two. We care; therefore, we
know
.

This man has to be in his late eighties, possibly early nineties. I don't know if he is Norwegian, but his accent lends bite to the English—it is not his first language.

Knowing four languages has advantages other than the obvious. I am able to identify other languages, even though I may not speak them. His native tongue eludes me.

The doctor picks up a lock of Lisbeth's hair, studying the soft platinum silk before letting it drop. His eyes roam her face like the touch of a ghost over a desecrated grave. “A shame,” he concedes absently.

His manner chills me.

“I do not intend to kill her,” I say.

“Not awkward—not at all,” Tallinn murmurs behind me.

The doctor's bushy eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Oh?” His eyes flick to Lisbeth again, gauging the knowledge of her own impending death. Noting her smooth expression, he harrumphs. His gnarled hand palms his chin. “That will not please our mutual friends.”

Lisbeth is nonplussed but holds her normally sharp tongue in a show of restraint that seems odd, given our short acquaintance and the ferocity of her character.

Tallinn crosses his arms, and the old man appears to take him in for the first time.

The doctor's face screws into a look of disgust.

Tallinn notices. His eyes on the doctor, he says to me. “Lots of bad vibes around here, man. Just sayinʼ.”

The doctor's lips twist, then he turns his attention back to me, dismissing Tallinn's presence.

“What is your proposal? You have come within the preordained window of time. I have prepared a room for our fair girl to be laid out. So that I might—” He clicks his tongue in parody of an old-fashioned camera shutter clicking to a rapid tempo. “Take many beautiful post-mortem shots for our mutual acquaintancesʼ satisfaction.”

He says
beautiful
as “beau-tee-ful.”

Lisbeth's lips lift in a sneer.

I hold up a palm, attempting to diffuse anything before I can negotiate. I badly wish to return to Greta. “How much money will it take for you to
fabricate
a photo shoot?”

Now it is time for the doctor's mouth to jerk into a rough smile. The expression does not reach his eyes. His gaze narrows into two glacial slits of condescension and greed, a look I'm intimately familiar with. “Much.”

“How much?” I grow tired of the games.

He names a figure, and I can feel Tallinn's indignation like a pulsing heat at my back, even though he says nothing.

But is there any price too high for sparing a life?

“Agreed,” I say without hesitation.

He says nothing for a swollen moment. “She will stay here. I will apply make-up that will give her the look—” He chuckles in apparent delight, though nothing is remotely funny. “Of the recently departed.”

Tallinn grunts in annoyance, which I ignore. I will allow his grievance because I cannot allow my own. It's not a luxury I can afford.

Greta
.

My mind's eye blinks, and she fills my mental vision. “How long?”

The doctor is not a stupid man. “Three hours. No more.”

“I don't like it,” Tallinn states immediately.

“Stay here then, my friend.” The doctor's eyes hold challenge.

Tallinn rises to the bait. “Love to. But I'm watching my homeboy here.”

He jerks a thumb at me.

I sigh, hanging my head.

“Lisbeth?” I direct in soft question to her.

She inclines her head.

“Are you willing to let this man make you into a corpse?” I can't keep the dryness out of my voice. All of this borders on ridiculous. But it is a necessary evil on so many fronts.

She eyes him with clear disdain. “I think I can manage one old man while he plays make-up artist.”

The doctor scowls, grunting with obvious offense, and turns to me. “The funds will need to be wired. Immediately.”

And that is how easy it is to manipulate agreements. A cool ten million moves obstacles as though they never existed.

The doctor shuffles to another room. Five minutes pass before he returns and stands before me, holding a slip of paper with his handwritten information.

Tallinn accesses my Swiss bank account via his smartphone. He turns it to me, and I tap in my pass codes three times.

I answer numerous questions to withdraw money in the amount we agreed upon. I interpret the doctor's chicken scratch from the bit of torn paper and transfer the funds.

The silence stretches like a limb pulled to far; amputation is inevitable.

Finally, I receive confirmation of funds transfer and exit the system. Tallinn takes his phone back and slides it into a hidden pocket in his all-black jacket.

“Excuse me while I confirm the monies have been transferred.” The doctor is gone for another five minutes. My body is so tense, my teeth ache from the tightness in my jaw.

When the minutes lengthen to ten, Tallinn begins to look anxious—more anxious than usual and not half as anxious as I feel.

“What's taking that old geezer the time?” Tallinn mutters.

What indeed?

Lisbeth gives Tallinn a look of strained patience.

The doctor returns, his pace a crawl. “Done.” He gives Tallinn a look of intolerance then includes me in the gaze. “She stays—you go. Three hours.”

I hesitate.

I've paid him off. It almost seems too easy. Like all the years of paying off the narco without incident, until one year it all changed.

Would this change, too?
Would I come back to a dead Lisbet
h? A kidnapped one?

“Paco, we've done what we can. This chick can handle herself.” Tallinn grunts. “Let him work his creepy death magic, and we'll get her later. Simple.”

I rotate slowly, giving him the weight of my eyes. “Nothing is simple.” Life is fashioned to be complicated. It is the rule of our time here on earth, not the exception.

Tallinn nods in acknowledgment. “True, but I liked my pessimism better than your glass is half-full shit.”

“Just go. I'll be fine. You will see—this will work out for Greta's benefit and my own.” Lisbeth lightly touches my arm. “Thank you, Paco.”

The doctor's face fills my vision. I fight to not step away from his corrupt presence. “I'll return in three hours.”

He spreads his twisted hands. “I will be finished.”

I walk out of the shack and gratefully suck in lungfuls of air. The smell of the sea is so overpowering that I feel as though I swim as I breathe. Salt and the putrid smell of dead ocean vegetation strangle my senses.

“This place gives me the fucking
heebie-jeebies
. Let's rock.”

Tallinn says it best.

We walk back to our vehicle parked nearly a mile away. Our silent stroll is deliberate.

Each step deepens my foreboding.

I’m not worried for Lisbeth. Tallinn is correct—she's lethal. Especially because of her feminine form, she would take any number of men by surprise. Lisbeth and Greta share a fragile appearance. And that is all they share.

Tallinn drives me back to the hotel in tense silence. We’re both lost in dark thoughts.

“Paco!” he calls as I leap out of the car before it rolls to a stop.

I hear the beep of the alarm when Tallinn locks the car as I stride inside.

Pounding footsteps follow me to the elevator. His hand inserts itself as the elevator doors shut, and he squeezes inside, glaring at me.

I ignore him.

The floors light as the elevator ascends.

The numbers skip eerily past where a thirteenth floor would be and proceed directly to the fourteenth and beyond.

My frown deepens.

A hand lands on my shoulder. “Paco.”

I fight not to toss his hand from me. “I'm fine. I need to see Greta.”

His hand falls away. “Dude, she's sleeping.”

I hastily glance at my sports Rolex.

2 a.m.

I find I don't care. I won't have peace until I see her. Those blue eyes like the waters of the Caribbean, with lashes like sugar sand lace.

An elevator has never taken more time.

The doors part with a metallic sigh, and I step out. My eyes instantly sight her door—which hangs ajar.

I don't realize I'm running until Tallinn is beside me, a gun naked in his hand.

I move to the door, and he shoves me out of the way. I grunt as I hit the jamb with bone-shattering impact.