Orphan X

56 The Tenth Commandment

Evan was enveloped in a deep, satisfying sleep when the buzz of his cell phone pulled him to the surface. He rolled off the floating ledge of his bed and reached for the RoamZone, fresh sutures straining in his stomach.

Before he could speak, Danika’s voice came at him. “Help me. Evan, please. I know I betrayed you, but I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have a choice.”

Her words came in bursts, and she was breathing hard, as if she were running.

“There are always choices,” Evan said.

“I don’t have anyone else.” Her footsteps grew louder, echoing off tight walls. A stairwell? “They don’t need me anymore. I’m expendable now.”

“Who’s after you?”

“The guy above Slatcher, I think. The guy behind everything.”

The chill of the concrete floor numbed his bare feet, and he realized only now that he was standing.

“I’m at your place,” she said.

Slowly, he turned his head to the bedroom door. “My place?”

The sound of a door slamming shut, and then she was panting in his ear. “The loft.”

He eased out a breath through clenched teeth.

“I came looking for you,” she said.

He moved through the bathroom, into the shower enclosure, through the tiled wall. “They know that location.”

“I’ve got nowhere else to go.” She was sobbing. “They paid off my loan. They owned me. If I didn’t deliver you, they were gonna—”

“I know all this.” Evan’s fingers were a flurry across the keyboard, and then the loft surveillance feeds came up.

There was the woman he still thought of as Katrin, her back to the closed front door, one arm flattened at her side as if she could hold off a battering ram, her other hand pressing what looked like a cheap prepaid phone to her cheek. Her chest surged with breaths, a flush creeping up the ivory skin of her neck.

“They promised me that every gunshot I heard would be a bullet through one of my daughter’s limbs.” She was crying freely now. “When we were in the motel, I thought they’d started already. I thought that’s what I was hearing. They were going to maim her. She may not want to see me, but she’s my daughter. My daughter. The only good thing I ever did. I fucked up and fucked up being a mom, but I couldn’t let them do it. No matter what, I couldn’t let them hurt my daughter.”

She moved off the door into the loft. And then, keeping the phone to her ear, she looked directly up into one of the surveillance cameras. An icy fingernail skimmed up Evan’s spine. She’d known about the cameras all along. For the three days he’d observed her, she hadn’t shown a single tell, those thousands of hours at poker tables serving her well.

“The man after you,” Evan said. “He gave you the passport?”

“No,” she said. “I never met him. Slatcher took me to pick it up.”

“Where?”

“The Federal Building. In Westwood.”

That fingernail returned, skimming the back of Evan’s neck, tightening his skin.

The Federal Building confirmed everything.

The cold of the Vault seeped into Evan’s bones, and he had to fight the urge to shudder.

“They told me what to do,” Danika said. “They told me everything to do. But now I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“You know too much,” Evan said. “They will find you as surely as I would.”

A few silent sobs racked her chest. “Please, Evan. I never made it right with Sammy. I don’t care if I die anymore, but I just want that chance first. I need you. I need your help.”

The Tenth and most important Commandment looped in his head: Never let an innocent die. She wasn’t innocent, but she was still an innocent. Every instinct in Evan’s body fought him. Decades of habit, muscle memory.

He had to force the words out. “I can’t help you.”

She was staring at the lens as if she could see him through it, though of course she could not. “Can’t or won’t?”

He stopped fighting the cold and let himself shiver. “Yes,” he said.

She stepped closer to the camera embedded in the hanging kitchen cabinets, peering up dolefully. “You’re gonna just leave me to them?”

Milk-white skin.

The curve of her hip.

Those plush, bloodred lips against his.

“I would’ve helped you,” he said. “If you’d trusted me, I would’ve fixed everything.”

“I know. I know that now.” Tracks glittered on her cheeks. “But they got me first.”

Over the line he heard a screech of tires, and then her gaze shot over to the giant glass wall.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “He’s here now. He’s pulling up. Evan, what do I do?”

Terror emanated off her.

Emotion welled in his throat. “I’m sorry, Danika.”

“Evan, tell me what to do. What do I do?” She ran across to the window, straining on her tiptoes to look down. Then she darted to the front door. She opened it, shrieked, slammed it closed again. “He’s in the hall, Evan!” She scrambled to the middle of the loft, craning her neck to look up, seemingly into his eyes. “Please. Goddamn it, Evan — help me, please!”

Never

let

an

innocent—

The front door rocketed open, a suppressed report sounded, and her head snapped to the side. She collapsed to a hip, her hands catching the floor, her stiff arms sliding her down gracefully, and then she lay on her side, expired.

A broad form eased into the room, shutting the door quietly behind him, shoulders turned to the main surveillance feeds. A few splinters cactused out where the dead bolt had torn through the inner frame. Though both locks were shot, the door could still close. From the hall nobody would notice anything amiss. Keeping his head lowered, the man walked over and put another suppressed round into Danika’s chest, her torso bucking. The pistol spun, clipping up into a tension-hold underarm holster, and then the man crouched to pick up Danika’s still-live prepaid phone.

As he stood, Charles Van Sciver lifted the phone to his face, looked into the main surveillance camera, and smiled.

“Hello, Evan,” he said.