Authors: Tiffany Reisz
“She cared. I promise, she cared.”
“I told her that if she wanted, we could be married, but it would be a marriage in name only. I told her about the trust fund I’d receive if I married. She and Kingsley could have every penny of it. God knows I didn’t want a cent from my father. I would ask nothing in return from her. She could be as free as she wanted to be with anyone she wanted. All I asked was that she let me finish out the school year at Saint Ignatius. For legal reasons I thought it would be best if we at least lived together for a few months.”
“She agreed to that?”
“Readily. She said she understood, and that it was kind of me to offer. Kind, she said. More like stupid and foolish. I’m not stupid very often, Grace. That was stupid.”
“You were in love, not stupid. They’re two very different diseases with identical symptoms.”
“I was in love. I’d never felt anything like that before. I wanted to tell her but Kingsley wanted to wait. I thought she’d understand eventually.”
“But she didn’t understand.” It wasn’t a question. If Marie-Laure had kidnapped Nora, clearly the woman didn’t understand.
“I didn’t even allow us to kiss at our wedding. That was one of the conditions. I knew it would hurt Kingsley too much to see. And yet, on our wedding night, as soon as we were alone, she threw herself at me. Everything I told her, everything she’d agreed to, she pretended like it hadn’t happened. She acted as if the only words I’d said to her that day in the woods were ‘We can be married.’”
“Love can give you tunnel vision. I know I had it with Zachary. I only saw the possibilities, never the danger.”
“Love made Marie-Laure very dangerous. She touched me constantly. I hated it. Especially being touched in my sleep.” Something flashed across his eyes—an old memory, perhaps, and a very bad one at that.
“Was it difficult to rebuff her advances? After all, if she looked anything like Kingsley, she must have been beautiful.”
“Many thought her so. Some who saw her declared her the most beautiful girl they’d ever seen. But she held no interest for me. None whatsoever. All her beauty was on the outside. I cared for her because Kingsley did. That was all.”
“I’m sure she thought you’d change your mind eventually. Women do that, convince themselves men will change when they won’t. If Marie-Laure believed in the power of her own beauty, I’m sure she thought she could change your mind. Must have been a great blow to her ego when she couldn’t.”
“She was less than pleased, obviously.”
“I’ve known my fair share of women like that. Beautiful, dangerous girls. Any man who didn’t fall at their feet...they considered it an insult and a challenge.”
“You speak of beautiful women as if you weren’t one. I assure you, you are. The freckles are an especially nice touch.”
Grace hoped the low light in the room masked the blossoming blush on her face.
“I’m not sure I agree with you. My husband would, but Zachary’s a freckle fetishist, if there is such a thing.”
“Your husband and I have excellent taste in women.”
The blush deepened at the insinuation. Grace took a deep breath.
Show no fear,
Nora had cautioned. Now she knew why.
“Nora was right about you.”
“About what?” Father Stearns asked. “Or do I not want to know?”
“She told me you’d play with me, play with my mind. You intimated that you know my husband has slept with Nora. Trying to gauge my reaction?”
“Perhaps. It’s not typical wifely behavior to show such concern over a woman who her husband has been with.”
“You can play all the mind games you want with me. I do care about Nora. My marriage is better than it’s ever been because of her. It’s the two of us in our marriage for the first time ever. Me and Zachary. Not me and Zachary and his guilt.”
“Doth the lady protest too much?” Father Stearns narrowed his eyes at her and Grace found herself squirming under the intensity of the gaze.
“No, I’m simply speaking the truth. I love Nora. She’s a dear friend, and considering I slept with someone even before Zachary had his night with your Nora, I think all is forgiven between us and then some. And Nora was absolutely right about you.”
“Was she?”
“She told me to show no fear around you. Said you’d play with it like a cat with a catnip toy.”
At that, a laugh filled the room, warm, rich and masculine. It made every nerve in Grace’s body want to stand at attention and salute someone.
Then the laugh died and Father Stearns closed his eyes again. Once more he leaned his head back against the bed. He seemed to be in prayer.
“Forgive me, Grace,” he exhaled his apology. “I try not to—” he paused as he seemed to search for the right word “—
inflict
this side of myself on the unwilling or unsuspecting. I’m afraid it simply comes out at times.”
Grace scooted a little closer to him again so that their legs were mere inches apart. She reached out and laid a hand on his thigh right above his knee. She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do that other than she’d touched Zachary a million times that way when offering support or comfort.
“The woman who you’ve loved for almost twenty years has been taken. You were drugged and handcuffed to a bed. You’re a Catholic priest and if any of this gets out, your reputation and career will be ruined. Please...” Grace squeezed his leg and felt muscle hard as steel under her hand. “Please do not apologize to me. God knows I can’t do anything to help this horrible situation at all. If at the very least I can be a sympathetic ear, then please, inflict whatever you need to on me.”
Father Stearns raised his eyebrow at her, and Grace sensed even the shadows in the room scuttling into the corners and pressing their backs to the wall.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, removing her shaking hand from his leg.
“Are you sure about that?”
“You are terrible. Seriously,” she said, trying to laugh off her nervousness. “I’m going to take the handcuffs off you now, but I can tell I’m going to regret it.”
“You will.”
“How on earth can anyone concentrate with you being...you?” she teased as he reached behind the bed and found the keys again. “You must delight in scaring women.”
“Men, too. Ask your husband.”
“Oh, he’s told me.”
“I should apologize to him. When we met I was feeling unnecessarily territorial. Eleanor never brought outsiders into our world. I knew he had to be very special to her to show him that side of her. I took my irritation out on Zachary.”
“Don’t apologize. He’s shredded the egos of so many writers I’ve lost count. It’s only poetic justice you shredded his a bit.”
“You have no sympathy for the male ego, do you?”
“Of course not. I’m a wife. I’m rather glad you terrified him a little.”
“You don’t seem terrified.”
“I am, I assure you. But Nora warned me how terrifying you are. I’d prepared myself.”
He smiled then, a genuine smile entirely devoid of guile or artifice.
“Eleanor is not even remotely afraid of me.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Grace came up to her knees and reached behind Father Stearns. Here she was a grown woman married for twelve years and she felt as awkward as a schoolgirl around her secret crush.
“I assure you it’s true. I learned long ago that it was for the best that I erect a very high wall between myself and the rest of the world. She and Kingsley are the only two people I’ve ever met who simply ignored that wall as if it didn’t exist.”
Grace’s hands fumbled to find the keyhole. She found it with a fingertip and pushed in the key.
“Kingsley and Nora ignored your wall. I have to ask...what is the reward for getting past that wall of yours? Or is it a punishment?”
“Both reward and punishment.”
“How so?”
Father Stearns turned his head to her and the handcuffs popped open. At that moment their faces were so close together if she leaned in an inch they’d be kissing.
“I fucked them.”
Grace sat back on her knees, the keys falling from her hand.
Father Stearns brought his arms around and removed the cuffs. He massaged his wrists and Grace could see purple bruises peeking out from underneath the black cuffs of his clerics. Even drugged he’d clearly put up a fight.
“Thank you, Grace.” Father Stearns came to his feet. “I no longer wish to kill Kingsley. No more than usual, anyway.”
“You’re welcome, Father.” Grace’s voice quivered but Father Stearns was polite enough not to point it out. Perhaps he’d had enough playing with her mind tonight. Pity. She already rather missed it. At least it had distracted her from the gnawing terror for a few minutes.
He reached a hand down to her, a hand she took with more pleasure than she felt comfortable admitting to herself.
“You’re welcome to call me Søren. I’d prefer it if you did.”
“Of course...Søren. That’s what Nora always calls you. She says she can’t call you ‘Father Stearns’ without wanting to giggle,” she said, coming to her feet. She straightened her clothes, which had gotten rumpled while sitting on the floor. “Søren’s a Danish name, yes? What does it mean?”
“It means ‘stern.’ A good name for me, I’ve been told.”
“I beg to differ. I don’t think you’re quite as stern as you’re letting on.”
“Careful, Grace...it’s dangerous behind the wall.”
His tone was teasing but she heard a real warning in his words, a warning she decided to heed.
“So, what now?” she asked, deciding a change of subject might be for the best. “What should we do?”
“The only thing we can do is wait. For a week now she’s been playing a game with us. Sending photographs, breaking into homes—my sister’s, Eleanor’s... She stole a file from Kingsley’s office. This is a woman who wants to play a mind game with us. Eleanor will stay alive as long as Marie-Laure enjoys playing the game.”
“She will be fine. Nora will,” Grace said again, more for her sake than his. “I mean if any woman can get through this, it’s Nora. Isn’t it?”
“She’s strong, intelligent and cunning. She’s well-trained. If forced to defend herself, she can. She knows how to hurt people and hurt them badly. As a teenager she got into a few fights, but as an adult, she’s never hurt anyone without their consent. She may have to now.” He paused and Grace watched as his large hands curled tight into fists before he relaxed his fingers once again. “I would pay any price to save her from this.”
She took his hand in hers and held it a moment.
“I know you would. I’d give anything to know something...anything. What is Marie-Laure waiting for?”
“I don’t know. But surely she knows the silence and the waiting are the worst of tortures.”
“It has to end. It’s been a day already. Something has to—”
The sound of heavy footsteps in the hallways cut off the end of Søren’s sentence. She heard doors opening and slamming shut. She and Søren stepped into the hall. The man who’d escorted her to Kingsley’s office, Griffin, exhaled with relief at the sight of him.
“Søren,” the man said, almost panting in his panic. “There’s a girl here asking for you.”
“A girl?”
“She’s down in the front room.”
He looked at Grace and she knew it had happened. Finally. Marie-Laure had started the game.
“Did she tell you her name?” Søren asked as they strode down the hall, Grace following close behind.
“Nope. But she’s looks about eighteen, she’s blonde, she sounds foreign and she’s fucking gorgeous. You got a daughter you never told anyone about?”
“No,” Søren said, his pace quickening. “But I have a niece.”
10
THE PAWN
L
aila pulled her knees to her chest on the sofa and shivered. Why was it so cold in here? Was it cold? Somewhere over her head one man spoke to another man. Although she spoke English almost as well as her native Danish, their words did not register with her. She heard static, white noise, and could only stare with fixed eyes at the doorway.
“What’s your name?” a gentle male voice asked in English. “Can you tell me your name?”
Finally the words cut through the static.
“Laila,” she whispered.
“Laila. That’s a pretty name. I’m Wes.”
“Hi, Wes.” She blinked and looked at him. Her eyes finally started to focus and she at last saw the person who’d carried her into the house. Before he’d just been a presence, male and tall. Now she saw him. He had shaggy blond hair and warm brown eyes and easily the most handsome face she’d ever seen on a man in her life. Man? Maybe not. He didn’t look that much older than her. Nineteen? Twenty, maybe.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t think so.”
“Your face is bleeding a little. It looks like you scraped it on the concrete. We’ll clean it up and you’ll be okay.”
“Okay.”
He spoke with such quiet confidence that Laila believed him immediately even if he meant only the cut on her face would be okay.
He took her hand in hers and she clung to it, desperate for comfort from this stranger. He didn’t feel like a stranger to her, though. He didn’t ask her questions about what had happened to her, how she’d gotten here. He knew somehow. He was part of this. They were part of this together.
“Laila?” A familiar voice cut through the haze and she sat up immediately, throwing herself in her uncle’s arms. The one moment of peace she’d felt looking in Wes’s eyes disappeared as the floodgate broke. She sobbed against his shoulder as he gathered her to him on the sofa. In between her choking sobs, she told him the story. She’d come to surprise him. She’d gone into the rectory. She thought no one was home. She heard footsteps...something covered her head. She fought, she struggled, but no amount of thrashing would get her free. They’d taken her somewhere in the trunk of a car. It felt like days in the car but probably only a few hours. When the car stopped, someone pulled her out and when they yanked the blindfold off, she saw...
“I saw Tante Elle. They have her,” she said, switching to English. Other people had come into the room while she was speaking—a beautiful woman with red hair and freckles and a man with dark hair, olive skin and dangerous eyes. They looked as scared as her uncle, as scared as her.
“Who?” Wes asked, over Laila’s shoulder.
“Eleanor,” Søren explained, kissing Laila on top of her head. “Laila and her sister consider Eleanor their aunt. Go on, Laila.”
“She was there on the floor.”
“Was she hurt?” Wes asked.
Laila shook her head. “She has some bruises on her arms, on her face. There was another woman there and a man with a gun.”
“What did the woman look like?” asked the man with shoulder-length dark hair. He spoke in a French accent. Kingsley, that was his name. Her aunt had told her about the handsome Frenchman who she called the bane of her existence. From her tante Elle it had sounded like a compliment.
She stared at him.
“She looked a little like you.” The man shook his head and he swore under his breath. He turned his back to the room. “But older,” Laila continued. “And angry. She was smiling but she looked very angry.”
“What did she say?” Her uncle brushed the hair off her face.
“She said awful things...” Laila returned to her Danish, not wanting anyone else to hear. She told her uncle everything the woman had said, everything her aunt said in defiance. And she told him about the choice they had to make. Laila buried her head against his chest when she confessed what her aunt had done and how powerless she’d been to stop her.
“Søren?” The redheaded woman with the freckles came closer. “What did she say?”
Laila only listened as her uncle recited her tale in English. He left out the part about the woman calling her tante Elle a “whore.”
“Marie-Laure made them choose,” he said, his voice low but steady. “She told Eleanor and Laila that one of them could leave and deliver a message to me. The other one had to stay behind as...entertainment. Eleanor...”
He paused to clear his throat and Laila began to cry again, sobbing silently against his chest.
“What?” Wes asked. “What happened?”
“Eleanor covered Laila’s mouth so she couldn’t volunteer. So Laila was allowed to leave with her message.”
He fell silent and no one in the room spoke. The confession of her aunt’s sacrifice had made mutes of them all.
“Dammit, Nora...” Wes was the first to speak. She winced at his words, felt her own failure to speak in time, felt more than anything shame over how relieved she was that she’d been allowed to go free.
“She gave me a note to give you.” Laila dug in her jeans pocket and pulled out the paper. “She said to tell you that she gave you her death as a gift and now she was taking her gift back. She said God had a message for you, too.”
Kingsley exhaled noisily and with great and very French disgust.
“And what does God have to tell us?” he demanded.
“She said that God says no more sinning. Time for atonement.”
No one said anything as Laila held out the note to her uncle. Without any show of emotion he read the words before handing it to Kingsley. Kingsley took it from his hand and opened the note.
“What does it say?” Wes demanded. Laila was grateful he’d asked. She hadn’t gotten to read it. “Is it a ransom note? I’ll pay whatever they ask.”
“Not a ransom.” Kingsley balled up the note. “And it doesn’t matter what it says because we’re not going to let her play us.”
“It does matter what it says.” Wes stood up and walked over to Kingsley. “I’ll play any game I have to if it means getting Nora back.”
“You’re not the one she wants to play with, Wesley,” Søren said, and Laila looked up at him. “Kingsley and I are the ones she’s angry with, the ones she’s trying to hurt.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Wes faced her uncle with fury in his eyes. She’d never seen anyone look at her uncle like that.
“Whatever I have to.” Her uncle said the words simply and without a trace of fear. For some reason his lack of fear and the quiet determination in his voice scared her more than her own kidnapping had.
“And then what?” Wes asked.
“I get her out,” Kingsley said.
“
You
get her out?” Wes turned to Kingsley. “You and what army?”
“I don’t need an army.”
“What? Are you the French James Bond or something?”
“Of course not. James Bond is vanilla.”
“I feel so much better now,” Wes said as he scraped his fingers through his hair. “Kinky James Bond is going to rescue Nora. Thanks but maybe it’s time we get the cops involved.”
“Call the police if you want her dead. By all means, call them. They love to blare their sirens so the whole world knows they’re coming. Do you know how easy it is to kill someone like...” Kingsley raised his hand and snapped his fingers loudly in Wesley’s ear, so loudly Wesley flinched. “Like that. The speed of sound is 342 meters per second. The speed of a bullet is four times that. She’ll be dead before they can even knock on the door. I promise you, she’s guarded. Every minute of every hour someone with a gun is within shooting distance of her. One wrong step equals one bullet.”
“We have to do something. We don’t even know where she is,” Wes said.
“I do.” Laila sat up and wiped her face. “I know where she is.”
“Where?” Wes looked down at her and she saw hope in his eyes.
Laila reached up and unclasped her necklace. She flipped open the locket and passed it to her uncle.
“That room.”
“What room?” The redheaded woman leaned over her uncle’s shoulder and stared at the picture. Laila didn’t have to look. She’d worn the silver heirloom locket for most of her life, knew the photographs in it better than she knew her own face. On one side of the locket was a picture of her grandmother holding her mother as a newborn baby. On the other side of the locket was a photograph of her grandmother holding her uncle Søren as a newborn. Her grandmother had kept a box of photographs that she looked at from time to time. They all seemed to be taken in the same room—a library with a fireplace. Gold walls, green curtains. She’d asked her grandmother about it once and her grandmother had said she would rather not talk about her time living in America. All that mattered, her grandmother said with a sad smile, was that she gave birth to her son while in that country. He made up for everything.
“Are you sure?” her uncle asked.
She nodded. “I saw the pictures in Mormor’s box. There was one where she sat by a fireplace holding you. She wasn’t smiling. But it was that room in my locket, the one Tante Elle is in. I know it was.”
“Søren?” Wes’s voice prompted her uncle to look up from the locket.
“Eleanor’s at my half sister’s house. She’s at Elizabeth’s.”
“Your sister’s house?” Wes asked. “Is she involved in this, too?”
Søren shook his head. “No, I told Elizabeth to leave the country and travel, to stay on the move. I’d been afraid something like this would happen. She and her sons left last week. She’s not home. She’s not part of this.”
“We’re sure she’s at your sister’s?” Kingsley asked.
“Yes.” Søren looked at Kingsley, who nodded as if Søren had given him some kind of telepathic message.
“We’ll go, then,” Kingsley said. “I’ll call him right now.”
“Call who?” Wes asked. “Go where?”
“We have a friend who lives near his sister’s,” Kingsley explained as he pulled a phone out of his trouser pocket. “Only ten miles away. I’ll be able to plan better if I’m closer. I may have to come and go several times. I need a base. His house is perfect.”
“A friend of yours? Can we trust this guy?” Wes stared aggressively at both Kingsley and her uncle. For the first time she wondered who he was, what he was to her aunt that made him so deeply a part of this nightmare.
“We can trust him. He owes me. He owes him, too.” Kingsley nodded at Søren as he scrolled through the numbers on his phone. “And he owes our missing
Maîtresse
most of all.”
Laila sensed excitement in the air. Not excitement, no. More like anticipation and even a measure of relief. They knew something now, something more than they did before. And even more, they knew something the woman who had her aunt didn’t know they knew. They knew where to find her.
“He doesn’t owe you anything,” her uncle said with obvious exasperation.
“He kicked me out of my own bedroom. He owes me.”
“Who is he? Nora’s life is on the line here. If you won’t even let me call the police—”
“He’s on our side, I promise,” Kingsley said. “Trust me, you’ll like him. He’s nice and dull. Married, a family man. He’s even...honorable.” Kingsley said the last word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
“A nice and honorable family man?” Wes repeated, sounding utterly shocked Kingsley would associate with such a person. “Then why are you friends with him?”
“Because he’s kinky as hell, and I used to fuck his first wife.”
“Kingsley, please,” Søren said, scowling.
“This is why no children are allowed in my house.” Kingsley winked at Laila. “You turn everyone vanilla.”
“I’m eighteen now,” Laila protested.
“I was talking about him.” Kingsley pointed at Wes with his phone. Laila smiled at Wes, who rolled his eyes.
Kingsley raised the phone to his ear. Someone on the other end answered as Kingsley grinned like the devil himself.
“Wake up, Daniel. I’m calling in that favor you owe us.”