Okay. One more thing, and then he could relax.
The girl.
There were three ways he could go in. First, through the common door, if she hadn't locked it from her side. Second, he could use his key card on the regular door, if she hadn't engaged the privacy lock. He wasn't optimistic that either of these would pan out. So the third option was the most promising: just kick open the common door. It was heavy wood, but it opened into her room, and the metal jamb around it would deform enough, and pull free of the surrounding frame enough, for his purposes.
He opened the door on his side, slowly, carefully, wanting to make sure there was nothing emplaced between the door on his side and the one on hers that could close a circuit. He was surprised to find that the door on her side wasn't just unlocked but was wide open. He was glad he'd left the room lights off and the goggles on. If he hadn't, he would have been instantly silhouetted.
He moved in carefully, not liking that the door was open, sensing a trap. In the green night-vision glow, he saw her on the bed. She was on her back, covered to the neck by the quilt, her long black hair spilling across the white linen pillows. Her right arm was back, resting just above her head. Her left was under the covers. He'd seen during the day she was right-handed, so having her strong hand in view, and seeing it was empty, was marginally comforting. She seemed to be sleeping, but she had played clueless in Vesuvio convincingly, too. He kept an eye on her while he silently cleared the room. It was empty.
He walked over to the bed and watched her for a moment. Her breathing was slow and even. She didn't stir.
He'd noted the privacy lock on her door was engaged. Which turned the open common door into a kind of funnel. He didn't like that at all. It didn't matter where he was going, he didn't like coming in the way he was supposed to.
Keeping the Glock on her, he eased aside the quilt and exposed her left hand. It was empty.
He pulled off the goggles, set them down, and flicked on the nightstand light. Her eyes popped open and she sat up violently in the bed, blinking and squinting and holding the quilt to her body. “What the hell?” she said. “What are you doing?”
“You sound unhappy to see me,” he said, relishing the moment despite himself.
“You're fucking right I'm unhappy. You can't just come in here like this. What are you doing? What do you want?”
“Don't play dumb, sweetheart. I know you're good at it, but the act is getting old.”
She looked at the Glock as though noticing it for the first time, as indeed probably she was. “Why the fuck are you pointing a gun at me? Are you crazy?”
He kept the pistol pointed at her. And because it was his own habit never to sleep farther than arm's reach from a weapon, he said, “Get out of bed.”
“The hell with that. Get out of my room.”
He took hold of the quilt and yanked it entirely off her. It flew to the opposite wall and slipped to the ground.
She leaped to the opposite side of the bed. “Get out of here!” she yelled.
She was wearing nothing but white panties and a white camisole, and for a moment he doubted himself. But how many soldiers had made the same fatal mistake about a sweet-seeming woman the instant before she detonated a suicide bomb?
He circled the bed, keeping the gun on her. “Shut up,” he said. “And keep your hands where I can see them if you don't want to get shot.”
She stared at him, breathing hard. “You're crazy. You're really crazy.”
“You're right,” he said, on her side of the bed now and moving toward her. “I'm mad enough to do something crazy, that's for sure. Three people trying to kill me in one day? That'd make anyone crazy.”
She didn't answer. No, of course she didn't. He came closer. She backed into a corner, a wall to one side, the nightstand to the left.
“You really had me fooled for a while,” he said. “I'll give you credit for that. But it's done now. The guy waiting for me at Alex's house? He told me everything before he died. I had to work on him first, but in the end, he talked.”
“I don't want to know this,” she said.
He stepped in closer. “Then you shouldn't have gotten involved. But here's the good news for you. I have one question. Answer it to my satisfaction and you'll be okay.”
“What question?”
“Who do you work for?”
“You're not making any sense!”
“See, that's not satisfying me.”
And suddenly, she was advancing on him. “Will you stop looking at me as the enemy?” she yelled, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “I'm Iranian, so that's all you can see! Everything that happens, you distort it in your mind to prove what you already want to believe! Why? Why do you need to believe I'm the enemy? What are you getting out of it?”
He was so surprised he almost took a step back, but then stopped. He was so sure of himself when he'd come in that he'd been expecting her to fold right away. Or to deny it unconvincingly, and then fold. What he hadn't anticipated was a counterattack. Especially one this loud, which could attract attention. He needed to regain control.
“Someone made a call tonight,” he said. Keeping the gun on her suddenly felt silly. And at this range, and in her agitated state, there was even a risk of an accident. He slipped it back into the holster. “Someone who knew I was going to Alex's house. There was no one else but you.”
“What are you talking about? I didn't know you were going to Alex's house. I didn't know where the hell you were going. All you said was you had something to do.”
“You could have figured it out.” As soon as he said it, it sounded weak. Christ, had that really been all he was going on? No, the guy asked where Alex was, too. But… could that have been because they didn't care about the girl? Alex was the primary, that was obvious. In fact, they might not even have known the girl had gone into hiding. Whoever they were, their resources weren't unlimited. They might have been saving Sarah for later, if they gave a shit at all.
“So this person you say you tortured tonight,” she said. “What did he tell you? Nothing, that's what. You're making this up. Making it up to scare me.”
He hadn't said he'd tortured anyone, exactly, although he'd hoped the idea would frighten her. Regardless, something wasn't right here. Or rather, something wasn't wrong. She was alone in the room, unarmed, asleep or at a minimum doing a nice job of pretending. It didn't make sense.
“Why did you leave the adjoining door open?” he said.
“I felt like it.”
Yeah, he knew she was up to something. “Why?”
“None of your fucking business!” she said. She went to poke him in the chest again, and he snatched her finger in his fist.
“I asked you a question,” he said, squeezing hard and backing her up against the wall.
“Go ahead,” she said, grimacing. “Break it. Break my fingers. Waterboard me. Isn't that what you do? You torture people until they tell you whatever you want to hear?”
Why had she left that door open? It had to be because she wanted to make it easy for him to come in that way. But then why wasn't there anyone waiting in ambush, why wasn't she armed? What was the point? Why would she want him to be able to Oh, you idiot.
It all fit. It was all obvious. It was embarrassingly simple, and you'd have to be blind or, let's face it, fixated to have missed it.
He looked down, aware for the first time of how little she was wearing, how little was covering her. The shape of her breasts beneath the sheer material of the camisole, the smooth, caramel skin of her belly above her panties…
He let go of her finger and put his palm on the wall, next to her head. “Why did you leave the door open?” he said.
