Hidden Steel (11 page)

She snorted. “That’s what they called me, and it’s a name I know, but … it’s not me.”

“You sound pretty sure.” He suddenly realized they were heading for the local roach motel, and put the brakes on. Or tried to. She wasn’t having any of it, and she seemed to know how to shift his weight just
so
until he found himself moving right along. The ease with which she did it made him realize all over again that there was more to her than it seemed … and that he’d really taken a hit this evening. Lucky to still be on his feet.

Foolish to have gotten into that kind of trouble in the first place.

It was how his brother had died.

“I
am
sure,” she said, undiverted by his hesitations. “Memories, I don’t have. But reactions … those are there.”

He pulled back again as they reached the Star Motel—
rates by the week, by the hour
—and this time she let him go. Of course he staggered; of course she righted him. And she said, “This is it. You lost your chance for your own nice soft bed when you walked away from the mini cop-shop. Now I’m not giving you the choice—you’re not staying out here all night, and don’t even try to convince me you’ll make it back to the cop shop.” She opened the dingy door and gave him what was probably a gentle shove; he made it inside just in time to grab himself upright at the nearby stair railing, and then gave up and sat on the stairs.

Mickey made quick negotiations for a room, paid in mugger cash, and returned to Steve with a key flashing in her hand. “Here we go,” she said.

Right.
Here we go.
Steve had no idea just where they were headed … but he was beginning to think that if anyone could get there, it would be Mickey.

With or without anyone’s help.

* * * * *

Mickey rinsed out the dingy washcloth and squeezed it until runnels of pink water made their way down the sink. “Ought to be in the ER,” she said to him through the open bathroom door. In truth,
open
was the only way it came, as the warped door refused to move from its permanently ajar position. “Or an all-night clinic.”

“You knew this place was here?” he asked.

“I seem to have.” She returned to sit at the side of the bed—a twin bed, not at all happy to hold the weight of two. He sat propped against the headboard, one arm protecting his ribs and a hand exploring the side of his head. She gently slapped it away, separating the wet waves behind his ear to get another look at the cut there. “It’s hard to tell what I know. Sometimes I don’t realize it until afterward. And sometimes I get these …” she trailed off, no longer seeing his hair or his blood, but the now-familiar image of Naia, accompanied by that now-familiar wave of urgency.
Do you have something I want? Are you
someone
I want? Am I using you? Do I care about you?

A little of both, she thought. There was more to that urgency than calculated goal. There was caring … there was familiarity and responsibility.

And as memories went, it was the clearest thing she had. The
only
thing she had. If she couldn’t find Naia, she’d find the people who had drugged her—who had put her in this state, fumbling around San Jose in confusion, not sure if she was the hunted or the hunter.

Steve’s voice grabbed her out of that potentially endless reverie. “You okay?”

She refocused on him. He was close—closer than she’d expected. He’d leaned forward, she realized—but he was sore and tired and it showed in his eyes, and he didn’t stay there long. Not once he saw he had her attention.

Poor guy. He’d only wanted to help. It was what he did, obviously enough. Helped those who struggled against what fate had dealt them …helped those like his brother who didn’t have any true hope. So of course he’d gathered her up when she’d come staggering into his gym. Of course he’d found it no surprise that she’d fainted at his feet. She sighed, and dabbed the dried blood on his neck. Stubborn thing, dried blood. It found every crack and crevice of skin.

Dried blood, a dead woman on the floor and partially covered with a lemon yellow raincoat. Expensive London Fog raincoat, not hers … because it wasn’t big enough to hide the blood, or the shoulder-length grey hair fanning across the plushly carpeted floor.

What the hell? What was that? New, these stains of violent death in her memory. New, and yet … the true start of it all.

“Mickey?”

There she was, frozen in mid-dab. “I’m sorry,” she said, and then caught his gaze to say it again. “I’m really sorry. You had no idea what you were getting into when I showed up. It really wasn’t fair.”

He tipped his head back against the water-stained wall. “None of it’s fair,” he said, and she knew he meant more than her arrival, more than what had gone down on the street tonight. “Just for once, give me the chance to really make a difference.” His lips barely moved; his eyes twitched slightly behind closed lids.

She’d meant to get some sleep. Instead she’d be checking him every couple of hours just to see if he could wake up after that concussion. “You don’t even know what you’re saying,” she murmured, and withdrew the washcloth, giving up to rub at the stubborn spot with one wet thumb.

“Do too,” he said, but he didn’t move.

Mickey watched him another long while, cataloging the pasty nature of his skin, the purpling of the bruises—knowing there were more beneath his
Steve’s Gym
shirt. She found herself waylaid by the dark sweep of lashes shadowing the thin skin beneath his eyes, and in remembering the eyes themselves … first so determined to help, and then most recently—whether he knew it or not—so determined to hope.

“We’ll see how you feel about it tomorrow,” she told him, and curled up in the small portion of bed available, pulling up the thin sheet to cover them both.

* * * * *

He remembered that she had a soothing touch. He remembered her quietly sardonic voice in his ear. He even remembered being woken up several times that night, being asked who he was and what year it was and who was president.

He didn’t remember expecting to wake up alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 9

Badra didn’t try to hide her disapproval of Naia’s planned schedule. “Two days in a row? For this clay, you neglect your studies?”

Naia almost succumbed to the knee-jerk impulse to explain herself. In Irhaddan, it was expected. Here, she had no need to remind Badra that she hadn’t neglected anything; that she was well abreast of her studies and that she had no classes this morning in any event. Or that her interest in pottery was just the kind of thing of which her father would approve. It allowed her to mingle with the Americans, allowed her to be seen. Allowed her father’s benevolence to be seen. And at the same time, it was properly conservative.

In the end, she couldn’t quite hold her tongue. She said, “I tried to sign up for parasailing classes, but they were full.”

Badra’s stricken horror was all Naia could have hoped for—except, of course, that she quickly realized she’d been had, and turned the expression into a ladylike snort.

Who would have guessed I would be so good at this?
For by letting Badra come to her own conclusions—letting her rule out the outrageous—Naia had only nudged her further away from any suspicions that she would do outrageous things in the first place.

Such as spying on her own country.

No. Not my country. Just those people in it who are causing damage.

And still, as she ascended the narrow, twisty steps to the second floor pottery co-op, she hoped to find a response from Anna. Anna, on whom her safety suddenly seemed to depend.
Insha’Allah.

The first time she’d met Anna, Naia had been at a famine relief benefit auction, her mind on the Lit 110 test she’d had the following day and her face trying out an unfamiliar public smile. She wasn’t accustomed to being seen at such things. In fact, she was more accustomed to being distinctly hidden.

What had her father thought would happen when he dumped her into this democratic, liberated culture? Had he not understood that she could love her land and her own culture, and yet absorb the good from this one? He surely hadn’t expected her to run into a woman like Anna. Not so very much older than Naia, who at twenty-two had started her university schooling late. And there she’d been, amazing in turquoise and chocolate swirls on silk chiffon, a dress that wrapped her waist and hugged her breasts and fell away from her hips, a dress Naia had instantly wished she had the nerve to wear. On Anna the dress was streamlined; on Naia it would reveal curves she’d only recently realized she wanted to reveal at all.

It took a moment for Naia to realize that what truly made the dress amazing wasn’t Anna’s figure or the art nouveau necklace and earrings that set it off so perfectly or even Anna’s hair, an elegant up-do with enough loose strands at her nape to show her independent personality.

No, it was her smile. The confidence of it, and its genuine nature—no matter which dignitary she spoke to in the crowded benefit reception, extolling the virtues of antique jewelry she’d donated to the cause. And, as far as Naia could tell, occasionally singing along with the live band in the background, even when she was right in the middle of a conversation.

Nothing seemed to faze her.

In that moment, Naia wanted to be her. To be an Anna, completely confident in herself no matter the circumstances. Maybe Anna had seen it in her, that wistfulness. She’d been kind from the start. And she’d eventually shown Naia how to fit in, and how to find her own way.

She’d never been pushy. Not even once Naia realized exactly where their friendship was leading. She gave Naia the room to decide what was important, and how she could best act on it. And then she’d given Naia the outlet to do just that. When she’d casually mentioned that some informants received gifts and money for their work, she’d known better than to suggest such a thing to Naia. “Here’s the deal,” she’d said, straightforward as always. “The agency is used to paying for what people bring in. So let’s funnel that money off to your favorite Irhaddan charity—didn’t you mention something about an orphanage?”

And that’s what they’d arranged. They’d trickled off their social outings, meeting only at the same receptions and functions to which they’d each always gone—Anna because she traveled in exclusive circles, providing rare and startlingly valuable antiques to the discerning collector, and Naia because she was expected to be seen. They’d arranged to spend time at this co-op, though rarely at the same time. And Anna had given her the dead drop, the one they’d only begun to use.

Naia wasn’t naive enough to think the timing of the dead drop introduction—right before she left for a long visit between spring and summer classes—was coincidence. Especially not after she arrived home and realized the differences in herself—her confidence, her attentiveness to nuance and detail … a new curiosity that drove her into situations she formerly would have avoided. Drove her right into a bit of startling secrecy that she’d wanted to tell her father above all …

And knew she couldn’t. He wouldn’t believe her; he wouldn’t take her word over that of a trusted colleague. He’d say the United States had confused and corrupted her and denied her the opportunity to return.

And she’d known that waiting in San Jose, she had a friendly ear, someone to whom she could tell everything. A means by which to do it.

No, nothing about Anna was coincidence. Probably not even the way they’d met that first time. And when Anna saw to a detail, it stayed seen to. It did as expected.

Which is why when Naia reached the dead drop and quickly thrust her hand into the hidden space, she was absolutely taken aback to encounter her own note.

Her own cry for help.

Unanswered.

* * * * *

Mickey left Steve sleeping after a restless night of interruptions. Steve was a mess, the bruises stark in the morning light, but his sleep was natural enough; the concussion slight. She paid the desk clerk to leave him alone and headed off to pick up some essentials—precious underwear, a few stretchy sports tops, pocket-filled shorts, sneakers.

Not so easy to shake the guilt over Steve’s battered state, or over leaving him alone in the ratty hotel.
I didn’t ask you to follow me
, she told him in her mind, heading back out on the street. But he had—he was that kind of guy, she got that—and he’d been beaten up for his trouble. Pretty much exactly why she’d left in the first place—so no one else would get hurt because of her presence.

I’m sorry
, she told him. And then she pulled her newly purchased sunglasses from the top of her head and settled them on her nose, and she headed back for Steve’s neighborhood. Not to visit, not to linger—not even to be seen. But to backtrack her steps as best she could.

To find the people who’d done this to her.

Because when it came right down to it, Naia was all she had. Finding Naia was all she had.

Keeping Naia safe …

All she had.

* * * * *

She thought they might still be looking for her … but she didn’t expect the tail she picked up not far from Steve’s gym, carefully backtracking her way out of the neighborhood.

She couldn’t have said just how she knew, or why the thought even came to her. One moment she puzzled over a corner street sign, trying to decide if she’d come that way, and the next she strode briskly off in the one direction she hadn’t even been considering. By then she realized what had triggered her concern, that she’d had a glimpse of the same nondescript hat one too many times—sometimes a block behind her, sometimes much less. By then she’d entered an ice cream shop, slipped straight out the back, and circled around to come up behind her own trail.

She didn’t find anyone. Whoever it was had realized they’d been made … and hadn’t wanted a confrontation. Hadn’t wanted to go public in any way.

She spent the next hour pulling flushing techniques. Alleys, double-backs, lingering at storefronts to watch the reflections. And, finding nothing, she ducked into a bodega to grab a cheap straw sunhat and to turn her tote bag into a something resembling a backpack; she put the old flip-flops back on her feet and stuffed the sneakers away. When she came out, she put more than a little twitch of
hooker
in her hips, and then she ran through all the flushing techniques all over again.