Killer (16 page)

Safe

She sat up in the cot and rubbed her eyes, then took the coffee.

“We have a lot to do,” Ella said, taking a seat at the foot of the cot. “But I'm glad you fell asleep. You needed the rest. Anyway, I want you to check this out.”
She pulled a shoe box from underneath the cot and dropped it in Gaia's lap.

“Another box of pictures?” Gaia asked.

Ella shook her head. “Open it.”

Carefully Gaia set the coffee aside and pulled off the top of the box. Inside were stacks and stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills.

“How much is it?” Gaia asked, thumbing through the box.

“A hundred and fifty grand.”

Gaia's stomach turned. “You didn't steal this from George—”

“No,” Ella interrupted. “It's Loki's. I mean, it's ours now. When it's all over with him, I'm going to give you half.”

Gaia swallowed hard. She couldn't help but think about those little twerps at the Union Square farmers' market, sticking their greedy little hands in the old man's guitar case for a couple of packs of Pokémon cards.
Weren't she and Ella just as bad?
Maybe it was best not to think too hard about it.

“So when do we go see him?” Gaia asked.

Ella's pale lips twitched. “You don't go see Loki,” she said. “Loki comes to you. He's always moving around, changing his address and phone numbers. We'll have to draw him out. He's got so many spies around the city that all we have to do is stand in one spot long enough and he'll come for us.”

Gaia frowned. “How do you know he will?”

“Because we've got his money,” Ella said with a humorless smile.

Already the adrenaline was beginning to throb in Gaia's veins. She was still aching from the wounds of learning the truth about her father, but she shoved the hurt aside to wallow in a sea of unmitigated hatred.
She would not be weak in front of the man who had single-handedly destroyed her life. She would not soften or break down.
Gaia knew that the only way she was going to survive the confrontation was to turn her heart into a block of ice.

“Let's wait for him in Washington Square Park,” Gaia said. She needed to meet him on her own turf. The home field advantage. Besides, it was late—the dead of night. Her favorite time to be out and about.

Ella nodded. “Just give me five minutes to find a place to hide this,” she said, closing the lid on the money box. “It's not safe to leave it hanging around here.”

As she waited for Ella to return, Gaia slowly sipped her coffee, thinking of all the things she was finally going to get to say to her father.

 

My
world is collapsing once again.

I look back at that twelveyear-old, in the snapshot of me with my parents, and think about how naive she was, believing that nothing bad could ever happen to her. And now I look back at myself over the past five years and realize I was still just as naive—hating my father but never questioning his innocence. I thought my life was as bad as it could possibly get.

And then . . .

That image of my father and mother together, and our supposedly blissful life before the murder, was what I've held on to. I've clung to it the way a drowning person clings to a life raft. Sometimes it's the only thing that kept me breathing. But I see now that I was holding on to a lie. My parents couldn't have been in love if my father murdered her. Things couldn't have been as blissful as I imagined

them. My father certainly isn't the man I thought he was. Ella told me so much, and yet I feel like I know even less.

I don't know who my parents were.

I don't know who my father was.

I don't know who I am.

I don't know anything at all. But I'm going to find out.

But then she saw the blood. It had poured into a thick black pool around her head, almost like a halo. It was more blood than anyone could stand to lose.

 

WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK WAS
utterly deserted.
No freaks. No druggies. No rapists.
Gaia was always amazed at how peaceful the park looked when it was empty. It had been hours since the hot dog vendors had closed their umbrellas and pushed their gleaming metal carts home. The last chess match of the day had ended with the evening light, and now the tables stood empty. By now most NYU students were safe in bed. Sam included.

Allies

Gaia sat beside Ella on the edge of the large fountain in the center of the park, drained of its water. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait for Loki to show up. If he even
would.

But Ella seemed certain of it.

“Are you scared?” Gaia asked. The information would be helpful to her, a way to gauge the situation.

“Yeah,” Ella admitted quietly. “I'm terrified. How about you?”

Gaia shook her head. “I'm never afraid.”

Ella laughed anxiously, peering down a pathway into the shadowy, skeletal mass of trees. “I almost believe you,” she said.

“I'm serious,” Gaia said. “I was born without the gene that makes you scared of things.” The words just sort of fell out of her mouth. But it was a first. It was
the first time she'd admitted her
condition
to someone outside her family.

But Ella didn't even seem to hear her. She slid off the concrete wall and began pacing around, unable to keep still.

“Have you figured out yet what you're going to do with your half of the money?” Gaia asked.

Ella shook her head. “Maybe I'll go out west.” In the dim lamplight her face was deathly pale—like ivory. Or bone. “Maybe I'll settle down and try to remember what it's like to be a photographer.”

“Sounds nice,” Gaia said, even though she knew Ella was lying. The shakiness in her voice betrayed everything.
Ella didn't believe she was going to make it out of thispark alive.
Not that Gaia could blame her. It was best just to keep talking, to keep Ella's mind off her terror. “Do you need a roommate?” Gaia joked.

Ella laughed. “You have to fix things with Sam.”

A gust of wind blew. Gaia shivered. “Sam and I were never a couple to begin with. There's nothing to fix.”

“Don't lie to me, Gaia,” Ella said, but her tone was very gentle. “You two have been dancing around each other for so long, but neither one of you has made an attempt to be honest with how you feel. That's why it was so easy for things to come between the two of you. You let it.”

Gaia couldn't believe this. One day Ella was shooting at her; the next day she was giving her advice about the boy she'd stolen from her. But Gaia was willing to accept it. There seemed to be a kernel of truth to what Ella was saying. And maybe Gaia hadn't been a hundred percent honest about her
own
feelings. She had just kept waiting for him instead of taking the initiative herself.

Next time,
Gaia vowed,
it'll be different.

She cringed at the thought of all the rotten things she had said at the restaurant. She had called him a liar. She had told him never to touch her again.
The memory of it waslike a dagger twisting in her chest.
Then again, he
had
slept with Ella. But at least she understood the scenario a little better. . . .

It probably didn't matter, though. Gaia might have no experience with guys, but she knew all about rejection. Oh, yes. And after the way she'd acted, no one would be dumb enough to give her another chance.

 

“THIS IS THE FINAL CALL FOR THE
Midtown Direct train to Dover, making the following stops. . . .”

Perpetual Motion

Once again Sam trudged through the waiting room of Penn Station as the announcer
rattled off the list of stops for the next departing train. He was beyond exhausted.
He was in a strange, hallucinatory state that came only with sleep deprivation.
The white fluorescent lights were all too bright. His vision was blurred. He had circled the main concourse more than a dozen times, asking Amtrak ticket agents if they had seen a tall, gorgeous, angry-looking blond at some point in the last twenty-four hours. Sam knew how ridiculous the question was—but he figured it was worth a shot. Anything was.

No one would give him an answer.

His stomach growled as he passed a pizza counter. The only money in his pocket was a handful of change. Cab rides to both JFK and LaGuardia airports had left him flat broke. Right now he didn't even have enough money to take the subway. He was going to have to walk the thirty blocks back to his dorm.

The strange thing was, he didn't even mind.

He was beyond caring about anything. He took the escalator up to the street level. Gaia was gone. She had to be. He had been all over the city since yesterday. He would have definitely run into her by now. Well, no . . . actually, that was ridiculous. The city was huge. He
had
to keep searching. His body was aching, hungry, and tired, his feet blistered and sore. And yet he continued the perpetual motion, his mind with a single purpose.

If Gaia was on this planet, Sam was going to find her.

 

ELLA HUGGED HER ARMS TO HER
chest, trying to ward off the chill that was seeping deep into her bones. Loki would soon be descending upon them. By now he had no doubt learned about the money, about her betrayal.
She could see him now, in that beautiful apartment, pacing the floor like an animal out for blood.

Peace

It probably would have been smarter to run. But Gaia deserved the chance to confront the man who had systematically ruined her life—all for some twisted notion of love he believed he felt for the girl. Ella wasn't about to let her face him alone. In a way, Ella needed this confrontation as much as Gaia did. She had a few choice words of her own to put a final cap on their long-drawn-out saga. Ella had been with Loki long enough to know that the only way to be free of him was to destroy him.

“What if he doesn't come?” Gaia asked.

“Don't worry—he will.”

The wind kicked up, swirling around the two of them. Something faint and delicate fell out of the sky, brushing as soft as a feather against her cheek. Then another. And another.

“It's snowing,” Gaia whispered.

She held her hands up to the sky to catch the flakes.
The faint glow of the city illuminated the edges of her golden hair, making her look asgraceful and fragile asa porcelain doll.
Ella could see in Gaia's face that for a moment there was no Loki, no Sam, no worries or plans. For a moment there was peace.

That's when she noticed the man in the black coat and ski mask coming toward them.

He's here.

Ella's heart clenched. This was it. She could tell that it was definitely Loki, just by the way he carried himself.
He wastall and lean, and hisstrides were graceful, determined—unlike the hulking clods he usually sent out to do hisdirty work.
Ella's shallow breaths quickened in her throat. He wouldn't shoot her . . . at least not right away. Loki would want her to know whose debt she was paying.

Gaia turned her head away from the sky. Her arms immediately fell to her sides as her gaze zeroed in on the figure. So much for her moment of peace.

“That's him, isn't it?” she asked.

“Don't say anything just yet,” Ella warned. “Let me talk to him first.” Her legs were shaking, and her mouth was dry. Yet even though her body was betraying her, Ella had never felt more sure of herself. She knew she was doing the right thing.

“I'm glad to see you finally made it,” Ella called out. “We have a lot to talk about. . . .” Her voice trailed off. Through the holes of the ski mask Ella saw a pair of cold black eyes staring past her. Loki didn't have black eyes. His eyes were blue.

“It's not him,” Ella whispered to Gaia.

“What? Who is it, then?”

“I don't know,” she said. “But it's not Loki.”

Loki must have decided against making a personal appearance and opted to hire a professional instead.
How typical.
Ella's eyes smoldered. Even in death he rejected her. He didn't even think enough of her to say good-bye in person.

At last the dark figure came to a stop right in front of the fountain. Whoever he was, he was as tall and thick as a tree, with muscled arms and legs that were nearly triple the size of Ella's own. She knew there was no way she was going to be able to defend herself against him.
He wassimply too powerful and no doubt trained aswell asshe was.
As she desperately struggled to brace herself against the edge of the fountain, her slippery fingers
lost their grip. The assassin raised his thick arm across his chest. Seconds dragged on like hours as his arm swung out toward them. Ella's muscles tightened in anticipation of the inevitable blow. She held up her arms to shield her head and waited for what seemed like an eternity.

That's when the assassin backhanded Gaia across the face.

 

GAIA FELT LIKE HER HEAD HAD
just collided with a brick wall. What the hell had happened? Why was this guy coming after
her?
Wasn't Ella the target? There was no time to question this mysterious turn of events, however.

 

Fists Like Bullets

Never let your opponent catch you off guard. . . .

Her father's words resurfaced in her mind. Gaia had let her guard drop once, but she refused to let the hulking brute catch her a second time. There was no time to think about who this man was or why he was out to get her—the only thing she had on her mind was survival.