Killer (13 page)

Ella shrugged. “He wanted me to protect you because he couldn't do it himself.”

Gaia froze in her tracks. For a moment she was almost tempted to laugh. “You were supposed to protect me? Then what the hell was up with the gun? The shooting? The attack—”

“Shhh.” Ella's face grew serious. She glanced warily down the street. “That's why he's after me now. Because I tried to kill you. He . . . he cares about you.” Her downcast eyes fell to the sidewalk. “He loves you more than anything. But his job ...see, his job prevented him from making contact with you before now....”

Suddenly everything fell into place.

Blood turned to ice in Gaia's veins. She felt like she'd been standing at the edge of a vast precipice for
years,
always looking down . . . and Ella had just shoved her over the edge.
His job.
Only one kind of job could have prevented somebody with a name like “Loki” from seeing her.
Someone with a job that required an alias. A code name.

Someone like her father.

 

One
of my greatest fears is that someone will attempt to tell my daughter why I left her. The reasons are complicated and involved and can be understood only by someone who has actually lived through it.

I'm afraid that if Gaia hears about it from someone other than myself, she'll get the wrong impression. There are important parts of the story that will invariably be left out—like how much I love my daughter, how thoughts of her consume my every waking hour, how I write letters to her only to file them away because they cannot be sent. Only I can express to her the ache in my heart at having to leave her alone. Or the pain I feel on her birthday when I can't call or even send a card.

If Gaia doesn't know any of these things, if she doesn't have the complete story, then I'm afraid she could get hurt from the misunderstanding. I'm afraid I could lose her.

That's why I have to find a way to tell her myself.

But things were different now. Much different. The hunters were the hunted.

 

ELLA KNEW THAT GAIA DIDN'T
believe a word of this. Then again, Ella never really
expected
Gaia to believe her. But there was something new in Gaia's eyes now . . . something Ella had never seen before. Was it curiosity? Anxiety? Fear? Any of those emotions would have made sense. They were all fitting when it came to Loki.

A Dangerous Place

“Tell me about him,” Gaia said.

For a moment Ella just stared at her.
Discussing Loki's life was dangerous territory.
The more you knew, the more jeopardy you were in. Of course, Loki would never harm Gaia. That was the one certainty. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Everything,” Gaia stated. As if to prove her point, she sat down on the curb. Ella hesitated. Her eyes roved the street. There was a very good chance that Loki was already coming after her. They should get somewhere . . . somewhere safe. Away from Chinatown. Her gaze came to rest on a large window display. There were carvings and vases and a huge tapestry of a mountain landscape, woven with silver thread. Just like the one she had seen at Mr. Xi's . . .

No. Mr. Xi.

Gaia had a contract out on her life. But Gaia had just saved Ella. There was no way. . . . Okay, yes, Ella
had
wanted her dead. But things were different now. Much different.
The hunterswere the hunted.
Ella would need Gaia's help if she wanted to survive. And vice versa. Ella had to tell Mr. Xi the deal was off ...if it wasn't already too late.

“There's something I have to take care of right away,” Ella mumbled, her feet already in motion. A vague feeling of panic tingled at the base of her spine. “It's important.”

“Hey!” Gaia shouted, leaping to her feet. “You can't just leave! You owe me some answers!”

Ella quickened her step. “It'll have to wait until later.”

“Not later—
now
.”

Ella stopped. “Look, Gaia—this is a dangerous place for you to be right now.” Her voice was trembling. She stared at Gaia intensely, making it clear that defying her was not an option. “Meet me tonight at the building on the southeast corner of Avenue C and Eighth Street. We'll talk then—I promise.”

“Why the hell should I believe you?” Gaia cried.

Ella didn't even attempt to argue. There was no point. “I can't answer that,” she said. “Now get out of here.”

Thankfully, Gaia turned and walked away.

 

ELLA WAS PANTING BY THE TIME
she burst through the door of Mr. Chin's. The old Chinese woman looked up slowly from her newspaper. Not even the faintest glimmer of recognition flashed across her weathered face.

Savage Swing

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Mr. Xi,” Ella gasped, struggling to catch her breath. Sweat poured down her forehead, even though it was freezing outside.

“Can I help you?” the woman repeated.

“I was here less than an hour ago,” Ella stated, her brow furrowing in anger and confusion. “Take me upstairs.”

The woman turned back to her paper. She didn't even blink.

Ella smacked her open palms on the wooden counter. “This is an emergency!” she shouted. “I need to see Mr. Xi now! Okay?”

Unruffled by Ella's outburst, the woman licked her gnarled thumb and delicately turned the page. Her lips silently formed the words as she read.

Shit, shit, shit
. . .

“I've made a big mistake,” Ella pleaded, on the verge of tears. Panic raged like a flash fire across her entire body. “A girl's life is in danger.”

Still the woman kept reading.

Money.
Of course. The woman needed a bribe.
Ella gritted her teeth as she dove into her purse and pulled out a fifty. She slid the crisp bill across the counter.

The woman didn't even look away from her paper as she slipped the bill into her dress. “Mr. Xi is not here,” she said.

Ella was half tempted to lunge across the counter and strangle this woman. “Well, where did he go? I have to talk to him immediately.”

The old woman shrugged.

Fine. Ella was sick of playing games. Anyway, why was she even wasting her breath on the old hag when she already knew the way to Mr. Xi's lair herself? She stormed around the counter. With a look of alarm, the old woman jumped off her stool and threw herself in front of the curtained doorway, arms outstretched. Ella snorted, shoving the frail old woman aside as easily as if the woman were a straw mannequin. She headed for the stairs.

“You can't go up there!” the woman called, her Chinese accent melting away to perfect English. “Mr. Xi will be very upset!”

No problem. Ella was upset, too. She bounded up the rickety staircase in pitch blackness, praying that none of the dusty boards would suddenly buckle under her feet. She wouldn't get angry, though. No. She would just politely explain to Mr. Xi that she had
resolved the conflict on her own, so there was no reason to go through with the contract.
He could even keep the money for histrouble. A free $150,000.
How could he possibly refuse?

In the darkness Ella spied the hanging iron ball that served as the door knocker. She even remembered the pattern—six hits, then silence. Then one more hit. Right. This was going to work out just
fine
.

Ella reached for the ball and swung it like a pendulum in the same deliberate fashion that the old lady had done. On the sixth hit she waited. Seconds ticked by. She knocked again—once more. Then she pressed her ear up to the cold metal. There were no sounds coming from the chambers on the other side of the door. Shouldn't the guy in the tunic have let her in by now?

Not good. She knew that fear and impatience were starting to get the best of her. But she couldn't help it. She tried again, slamming the ball harder and harder each round, the beats increasing in tempo. Still no one came.

“Answer the door!” she cried. “Just open the damn door!”

With a savage swing Ella smashed the ball so hard against the door, it broke from its rusted chain and lobbed down the staircase like a bowling ball. Her heart froze. She could hear the sound of decayed wood cracking in the darkness.

 

I've
made some bad choices in my life. There's not a lot to be proud of.

Especially today.

I'm not trying to make excuses for what I've done, and I'm not looking for pity. All I ask is that before you judge me, bear this in mind:

Life doesn't always turn out the way you think it will.

When I was growing up in Connecticut, I dreamed of becoming a photographer. I wanted a husband I was passionate for, a couple of adorable kids, an apartment in the city, and a weekend house in the country. I didn't expect my life to be perfect, but I thought it would at least be comfortable. Normal.

Then one Saturday, when I was sixteen, I took the train into the city by myself to see the Annie Leibowitz exhibit at MOMA. Loki was there. He was the most charming, sophisticated man I
had ever met. He asked me what I thought of the photographs. I couldn't believe he actually noticed me, actually saw me, when so many of the adults I knew only looked
through
me. At the time I was incredibly flattered by the attention. I thought he recognized something special.

Looking back, I now know that the only thing Loki recognized was my innocence. My willingness to trust. My vulnerability.

I won't pretend that I was so brainwashed by Loki that I didn't know the nature of his business dealings. It was obvious that what he was doing was dangerous, wrong, illegal, immoral . . . bad.

What
we
were doing.

But badness has a way of sneaking up on you. You tell a little lie or three—it's not so bad after a while. You skim a little money off the top from a rich terrorist—he wouldn't miss
the money, anyway. The next thing you know you're taking out a contract on someone's life and you can almost justify it to yourself.

What I want to know is this: Is it just as easy to be good?

If I do something small, like smiling at some stranger on the street, can I eventually do something big, like helping orphaned kids? Or feeding the homeless?

Or leading an honest life?

Just once I want to do something noble.

Something I'm proud of.

Okay.

So this is what I know so far. My dad's code name is Loki. For some reason he's in hiding, but he's been keeping tabs on me over the years to protect me. Ella's been working for him, and for some reason now he wants to kill her.

The way I figure it, there's two ways you can look at these facts:

A. Ella's lying through her teeth, and everything she's said so far is just a bunch of bull-shit, or

B. Ella's telling the truth.

If I went with my deep-down, basic-instinct, primal gut reaction, I'd pick A.

But here's the problem.

Let's just say for argument's sake that the answer is B and my dad really has been trying to watch over me all this time. Ella said he wanted to protect me. She also said that he wanted to kill her. If that's the case,
then wouldn't he want her dead because she was probably trying to hurt me? I mean, he wouldn't do something like that unless something big was at stake, right? It makes sense. I keep thinking back to that whole incident in the park . . . the one with Ella pointing a gun to my head. My dad was there to stop her, wasn't he?

So I guess that means if I believe B, Ella unwittingly incriminated herself. And if I believe A, she's a liar just like Sam.

Either way, I can't trust her.

Freedom was terrifying. She'd been a slave for too long.

 

FOR A CHILLY WINTER NIGHT,
Washington Square Park was unusually crowded. Students were huddled together on benches. Even a few in-line skaters were out. Sam was a little surprised, and not because of the weather. Didn't anybody care about the fact that several people had been
killed
here over the past few months? Apparently not.
Apparently
he
didn't, either.
Everybody in this city seemed to suffer from short-term memory loss.

The Words

And he was one of them.

He spied some of his old chess buddies out at the tables ... but his heart sank as he saw that Gaia wasn't among them. Zolov, the ninety-year-old Ukranian. Mr. Haq, the cabdriver. Sam hurried up to them, jamming his hands in his overcoat pockets.

“You come to play game?” Zolov asked, moving his red Mighty Morphin Power Ranger good luck charm to the left side of the chessboard. His eyes never moved from the pieces. Nor did Mr. Haq's. They weren't being rude; they were simply immersed in the game. Sam could relate.

“No time to play today,” Sam mumbled. “I'm looking for Gaia.”

Zolov's bushy white eyebrows knitted together. “Who?”

It took Sam a minute to realize his mistake. He'd forgotten that Zolov made up his own name for Gaia because he couldn't remember her real one.

“Cindy, Zolov. I'm looking for Cindy.”

“Ah. Yes. Ceendy.” Zolov smiled. “She's a good geerl. Pretty, too.”

“I know,” Sam said, trying not to betray his impatience. “Have you seen her?”