Girl of Lies (35 page)

Dylan’s eyes popped open. Andrea was standing in the hallway, a confused look on her face. He stood and walked toward her. “What is it?”

“This…” she said, pointing in her room. “I went to check out some of the clothes Carrie loaned me, and…”

Dylan frowned. Inside the closet, underneath the pile of clothes, was a cardboard box. Several plastic baggies were in it, filled with white powder.

“What the fuck?” he asked. He walked closer, and picked up one of the bags. Underneath the plastic bag—money. A lot of it. Twenty-dollar bills, stacked.

“Something’s wrong,” he said.

“Those are drugs,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“A lot of them.”

“Yeah,” he replied.

Her face was pale. “Those weren’t in here yesterday, or this morning. I know—I went through the closet before I left to get the blood test this morning. Who was in here?”

Dylan tried to think back. That morning, he and Alex had gotten breakfast at the corner diner while Andrea went with Sarah to get the blood test and Carrie went to the Pentagon. The condo was empty except Rachel and the nanny. And their guards.

“I don’t get it,” he said. “I think we need to call the cops.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, Andrea.”

Both of them froze when the phone rang. Neither of them had ever heard it before—it was the house landline.

Adelina knew exactly when they drove into cell phone range again, because both of their phones started to ring with message after message.

Jessica said. “We’re popular, aren’t we?”

“It was like this when I drove to town last Friday to talk to Julia,” Adelina said. “Sometimes I wish I could just get rid of the damn thing.”

But of course, she knew she couldn’t.

“I got like fifty text messages from Sarah,” Jessica said. She frowned as she scrolled through the messages then sat up straight. “Mom!” she said in a squeal.

“What is it?” Adelina said, alarmed by the sudden note of urgency.

“Pull over, Mom. Check your messages!”

“I’m sure there’s nothing that urgent—”

“Mom! Do it!”

Adelina didn’t argue. She pulled the car to the side of the road and pulled up her messages.

Julia had sent her two dozen text messages. Carrie just as many. One message from Richard. It simply said, “Call me.”

“Oh my God,” she said, when she saw the message from Carrie:
Andrea kidnapped. Call. Now
.
She looked over at Jessica and said, “Call Carrie now. I’m getting us home. I’ll call Julia.”

She put the car in gear and began to drive, too fast, out of the mountains. She reached for her phone again to dial Julia’s number, when it rang.

She stopped the car again as she recognized the beginning of the incoming number.

She answered it. “Hello?”

“Adelina Ramos, please.”

Adelina
Ramos.
Of course he wouldn’t use her married name.

“This is she.” Her voice shook. She hadn’t heard that voice in years except once or twice on television, and it shook her to her core. A yearning she didn’t think she was even still capable of washed over her, along with fear, because this phone call could only mean one thing. He’d said he would never call again, unless it was the end. He’d said—to forget about him. To forget about what could have been.

“You need to get them out,” the voice said.
Them
meaning her children.

“Are you sure?” she said.

“We intercepted some calls. You need to act right now, you’re all likely in danger.”

Adelina gasped. “All right. Where do I go?”

“Try to make it across the border. I may be able to get you more help there.”

She sobbed. Then she threw caution to the wind and whispered, “I still love you.”

There was a long pause. Then the response.

“Always, Adelina. Always.”

The phone disconnected. In the seat next to her, Jessica was talking too rapidly. “Yes, of course I’m okay, I’ve been up in the mountains with Mom. Yeah, at a retreat. It’s… complicated. But Andrea… she’s okay?”

Adelina dialed Andrea’s phone without hesitation. She would be the first and most in danger, followed by Carrie.

Andrea’s phone went straight to voicemail. She tried again. No good. Was she back in Spain?

No. The text messages from Carrie were clear. She leaned toward Jessica. “Who are you talking with? Is Andrea with them?”

“No,” Jessica said. “Andrea’s at the condo. I’m on the phone with Carrie, she’s out to dinner with Sarah and Alexandra.”

Adelina nodded. “Tell Carrie to make sure she’s in a public place with lots of people. Tell her she’s in danger.”

Jessica’s eyes widened in confusion. “What?”

“Just
do it.
”

Jessica started speaking rapidly into the phone again. Adelina dialed the condo.

It rang. Three. Four. Five times. Six.

A moment later a voice answered, a male voice with a voice bordering on a Southern accent.

“Hello?”

“Dylan Paris? This is Adelina Thompson.”

“Mrs. Thompson? Everyone’s been looking for you!”

“No time for that now. Is Andrea there with you?”

“Yeah…”

“Get her out. You’re in danger. Do you understand me? Whatever you do, you need to get her out of that building.”

“I don’t understand—”

Dylan’s voice cut off suddenly. At the other end of the line she heard something terrifying. A loud crack.

A gunshot.

“T
ROUBLE,” Crank said.

Julia looked up from the file. Crank was standing against the window, his face looking tense and alarmed. “What is it?” she asked.

He shook his head slightly then raised a finger across his lips.
Quiet.
Then he whispered. “Two guys. Suit jackets. They’re armed. I don’t think they’re cops.”

Julia stopped breathing. It never occurred to her that they might be in danger. But the last forty-eight hours had changed a lot. Andrea had been kidnapped. Her father worked for the CIA. Her mother had been attacked.

She didn’t move. A drop of sweat rolled down her forehead. She whispered, “Crank, I’m worried.”

“Out the back door,” he said. “Grab the file.”

She scrambled to gather up the police report describing her mother’s assault. Crank grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the door. A deep anxiety lined his face like nothing she’d ever seen before.

He paused at the door to the office, listening. Anthony also stood stock still, face frozen.

“They’re messing with the front door,” Anthony whispered.

“Go. Back door,” Crank replied, his voice urgent.

They moved quickly, Crank in the lead, pulling Julia by the hand, Anthony following behind. Julia winced at the sound of boards shifting and creaking under Crank’s boots.

They heard a loud crack downstairs, and a male voice muttering.

Crank didn’t say a word, moving now through the kitchen to the back door. Anthony eased the kitchen door closed behind them.

Eyebrows narrowing, Crank twisted the knob, but the back door didn’t budge. The deadbolt, which required a key inside and out, was locked.

“Shit,” he whispered. He looked desperately toward Julia.

Footsteps up the front stairs. Hands shaking, she got her keys out of her purse. She only had one key to the house and had never tried the back door. Did it use the same key? She had no idea. She got the key out, and tried to fit it in the lock.

It didn’t fit.

The intruders had made it up the stairs. Julia imagined them at the landing, trying to decide whether to move toward the office, the stairs, or the kitchen.

Then she heard a man, cursing, and rapid steps toward the other side of the house. Office it was.

“Block the door,” she hissed. She turned toward the kitchen window and unlocked it, then tried to raise it. It didn’t budge. Damn it. She had to get it open, and get the bars open, quickly.

While she tried again to raise the window, Crank and Anthony lifted the kitchen table and slid it to the door.

“That’s not going to hold them long,” Crank whispered.

Footsteps in the dining room. Julia grimaced and let out a groan as she tried again to raise the window.

“Oven,” Crank said.

Anthony looked at Crank, then to the oven, and nodded. The two of them raced to that side of the kitchen, then slid the oven out, away from the wall. A loud squeal rose from underneath as the metal scraped against the stone tiles.

Julia heard a shout, then footsteps pounding through the house. At that sound, Crank let out a loud cry as he and Anthony lifted the stove in the air. The gas line stretched to its length, then cracked and broke away from the wall at one of the joints.

“No!” Julia cried.

It was too late. They dropped the stove, blocking the table, just as the intruders tried to open the kitchen door. Julia waited for an explosion, a hissing, but nothing came. Instead, Crank dove for the wall and disconnected

the gas.

The kitchen door banged against the table, once, then twice, then again.

“Let’s go,” Crank said. He lifted a chair, and swung it, wide and fast, at the window. With a crash, the glass shattered, just as a hole was blown through the door. A bullet! Julia let out a scream.

“Fuck me fuck me fuck me,” Crank said, fumbling for the lock for the barred windows.

“Got it!” he said a second later. The cage lifted wide, and he lifted Julia off her feet and to the window.

“Go!” Anthony yelled.

The three of them tumbled out the window and onto the stairs, then ran for the gate in the back yard. Beyond was the alley going half a block down a public street. Crank held Julia’s hand the whole way, tugging her along behind him.

Less than a minute later, they were out onto the street. Crank led them to the corner and stuck his head out for just a second.

“Gone. They’re already gone.” He sagged for just a second. Julia collapsed against him.

Five seconds later, with a loud crash, an explosion blasted the house, spewing flame and debris out into the street.

One minute later and three thousand miles away, Leah Simpson stood at the door of the Thompson condominium, a frown on her face. Mick Stanson sat at the desk twenty feet down the hall, cleaning his service weapon.

“What? Who is here?” she asked over the radio again.

John Lochlear, the agent at the front desk, said, “Our relief.”

She sighed. What kind of fuck up was this? “They’ve got valid ID?”

“Yeah.”

She frowned in frustration. They weren’t supposed to have a relief team here until midnight. “Hold them there,” she said into the radio. “Let me call Bear. This is bullshit.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, instead reaching for her cell phone and speed dialing Bear. The phone rang once, twice, a third time.

“Yeah, Bear speaking.”

As Bear answered the phone, she saw the light appear above the elevator. She tensed, even as she said the words, “Bear, is there supposed to be a relief team here?”

His response was instant and vociferous. “No! Keep your guard up, someone just tried to assassinate the head of MI-6.”

Leah’s first response, before she could even think properly, was to crouch and reach for her weapon. The crouch saved her life—when the elevator door opened, a tall man stepped out and sprayed the hallway with bullets. The burst missed her, but took the top of Mick Stanson’s head off, spraying the hallway with his blood.

She ducked back, squeezing her body into the alcove across from the Thompsons.

The sound of the bullets from a light machine pistol, probably a MAC10 or an Uzi, were unmistakable. So was the panic in Adelina’s voice over the phone.

Dylan didn’t have time to deal with Adelina. He let the phone drop and shouted, “Andrea!”

Without thought, he moved as quickly as he could toward the front door. He didn’t have a clue what was going on. But he knew that
someone
had put a great deal of both cash and drugs in Andrea’s room. He knew that, for reasons he didn’t know about, Adelina had chosen
that moment
to call. And now someone was shooting in the hall?

Coincidences were one thing. This was something else.

“What are you doing?” Andrea shouted as he moved toward the front door.

“Finding out what’s going on. Stay down.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Instead, she crouched down next to the couch, where she had a line of sight to the front door.

He put the chain on then cracked it open.

Across the hall, Leah Simpson was in the alcove, her weapon out. Twenty-five feet further down, another one of their guards was down, blood splattered all over the wall.

Christ.
They were pinned in place. No way to escape. Only one defender with a weapon, and that was a lousy automatic pistol with maybe fifteen shots.

Without looking at him, Leah shouted, “Stay inside.”

“I am! How many are there?”

“Three!”

Fuck. There was no hope of holding them off. Dylan left the chain on the door and marched directly to Andrea. His eyes scanned the condo, trying to figure out options.