41 No Ready Answer

Despi kicked and tried to shove herself away from Dex, but she was seismically overpowered. He carried her across the barn like a squirming lab rat and set her gently on her feet before René. Dex kept one hand clamped on the back of her neck.

Somehow Evan had managed to find his feet. Four guards ringed him. In case the Kalashnikovs weren’t sufficient, each was armed with a transmitter for the shock collar.

Anyone could get in on the fun now.

René regarded Despi. “Our guest used a car jack to aid in his non-escape,” he said. “Any idea where he got it?”

Evan said, “I stole it from the barn when I snuck in here yesterday.”

René kept his gaze steady on Despi. She writhed in Dex’s grip, and then the muscles of his arm corded and she gave a yelp and stopped struggling.

“If you tell the truth,” René said, “I won’t hurt you.”

“I’d never take anything from her,” Evan said. “I don’t trust her. She’s one of your employees.”

“Despi,” René said gently, “I have cameras in the barn. Is this really a lie you want to stand behind?”

Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet René’s. She gave the faintest shake of her head, the tips of her dark locks swaying.

“Did you give him the car jack?” René asked.

Her lips trembled. She nodded.

“Okay.” He stroked her chin. “Okay.”

“Do you really have cameras in the barn?” she asked.

“No,” René said.

She bit her lower lip. “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“And I will honor that promise,” René said. “Nothing will happen to you. In fact, nothing will happen here at all.”

She closed her eyes, freeing tears that slid down her olive skin.

René turned and started out.

Evan stayed tense.

“However.” René stopped, his back to her. “One of the many benefits of money is that I can commission people anywhere in the world.”

Despi blanched.

Slowly, he turned. “Say, in Rhodes. Athens.” He held out his hand, palm up. One of the narcos placed an iPad on it.

“No.” Despi shook her head. “No, no, no.”

René hummed to himself as he tapped the screen. He held up the device for Despi. Evan couldn’t see what it held, but he saw the glow reflected in Despi’s eyes.

The impact on her was immediate. She took a half step back as if staggered by a punch. Her face shifted, hollowed out beneath the skin, her eyes sunken and glazed.

René swiped a finger across the screen, bringing up the next image.

She strangled a small noise in her throat. Her words came in a hoarse whisper: “No. Not her, too.” She hunched over, her shoulders shuddering. She made sounds befitting war zones and hospital rooms.

Guilt flared up inside Evan, scouring his insides, threatening to consume him.

“Not a hair on your head will be touched. As promised. In fact, you’re free to go.” René rested a hand on Despi’s forearm. “Dex will drop you at an airport of your choice with a full wallet. By helping my guest, you’ve earned your freedom. I hope it was worth it.”

Despi straightened back up. Her face was flushed, streaked with tears, but her gaze was fierce, unbroken.

René said, “I’ll even let you say good-bye to your friend before you depart.” He gestured toward the wrestling mat.

Despi’s stare skewered René. For a moment he even seemed unsettled.

Then she started over to Evan. She looked broken from within, her limbs held at the wrong angles, her gait and carriage different, as if she were learning to walk inside a new body. René indicated for his men to give them some space.

Evan wasn’t sure if she was going to strike him. If she wanted to, he would let her. Instead she embraced him, squeezing him hard, her face mashed to his chest.

He stroked her thick, thick hair. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into her. “I tried to warn you.”

He was shocked at the note of anger that had found its way into his voice. Fire crawled across his skin, matting his shirt to his back. Everything felt jumbled together inside him, trespasses past and present. He pictured Jack clutching at the ball of his shoulder, his hand gloved in blood. A little more pressure, a little more time and he might have lived. If Evan hadn’t asked him to meet. If they’d chosen a different day, a different hour, a different parking structure. If Evan had been quicker on the draw. If he hadn’t taken the car jack. If he’d thrown Despi out of his room.

The photographs René had shown Despi of her slain family would live inside her as surely as Evan’s memories of Parking Level 3 lived inside him. He couldn’t undo it for her. Not just her present anguish but the years of pain to come, dividends paid out over the decades.

She looked up at him with the same fierceness she’d shown minutes before. “You think my family would’ve been safe if I hadn’t helped you? Don’t be naïve.”

He hadn’t thought anything could shock him right now, but there it was. “Naïve?”

“You think you’re at the controls just like René. But you couldn’t control this.”

He felt his face loosening with emotion.

She said, “Accepting that you need help like everyone else — it doesn’t guarantee a good outcome. Nothing does.”

He had a hard time swallowing. “Then why do it?”

She kissed him. Her tears, wet against his cheeks. She pulled away, held his face, her breath hot. “I don’t know how to live with this. With what I saw.”

“I know. I know that’s how it feels.”

“How would you kill me? Right now?” Her voice held a note of pleading.

He looked at her brimming eyes. The wisp of hair caught in the corner of her mouth. Felt the warmth of her pressed against him, her fragile, human form.

For the first time, he had no answer.

Dex snapped a black hood over her head and yanked her out of Evan’s arms. He dragged her to the Rolls-Royce, her legs stumbling to keep up. After cinching the hood and knotting it off, he opened the rear door, depositing her inside. He reversed out of the barn, the back of the majestic car kissing a snowbank outside, and drove off.

Evan felt a sting in his palms and unclenched his fists to see that his fingernails had indented the skin. He looked over at René. “At one point the tables will be turned—”

“And … let me guess,” René said. “You’re going to kill me.”

“Worse.”

René must have read something in Evan’s voice, because he blinked a few times. Regained his composure. Forced a smile.

Outside, a band of gold rode the horizon, tinting the caps of the snowbanks blue. René checked his watch. “The markets are almost open. Are you ready to wire the money?”

Evan cleared his throat, spit a gob of blood on the pristine blue mat. “No,” he said.

René gave a little nod and then breezed out, passing two of his men. “Search him and bring him to the lab.”

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