Die For You

head. I saw the gun then.

“Jack!” I yelled, backing away from her. “Jack!”

The hood slammed down then. Only Ales stood, looking at us through the windshield. I tried scrambling for my door but the painful poke of the gun in my kidneys stopped me cold. Ales got in, started the car easily, and locked the doors.

“Where is he?” I was screaming, hysterical, in full-scale panic.

Neither Petra nor Ales said a word as Ales threw the car into reverse and then pulled back onto the road. Petra kept her dead eyes on me, the gun pressed into my flesh. Out the rear windshield, I saw Jack lying on the shoulder of the road.

“Jack! Jack!”

I nearly wept with relief when I saw one of his legs move. Then he was on his feet, running after the car, arms waving. As the Mercedes took a sharp turn in the road, he was out of sight. I barely felt the blow to the back of my head that turned the whole world black. Again.

27

I see Trevor standing in the corner of the courtyard. “Merry Christmas, Izzy”

“What are you doing here, Trev? It’s not safe.”

He walks over slowly. “Izzy, I told you. You needed a gun.”

“I know. I know. You’re a smart kid. Listen, Trevor? Tell your mom how much I love her, okay? Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Tell her yourself.” He says it with a smile.

But no, I’m alone in the courtyard still. I see that it’s filled with junk. A stack of old tires, a splintering wooden table, a box of sodden books. There’s a chair on three legs, some broken planters. A black cat leaps from nowhere onto a metal drum that sags with rust and age. The cat sits, watching me. There are voices now, I think. And the wail of sirens. I think I hear my name. But maybe it’s just the wind.

Isabel… Isabel.

How did I get here? I wonder. Memory comes back in pieces.

WHEN I CAME to again, I was lying on a cold concrete floor. Ales and Petra were gone. But my ankles were bound, as were my wrists. I went from unconscious to hyperconscious, started immediately working at the bindings. There was very little light, just a milky gray coming in from a small sliver of a window up high on the wall. A basement. I could tell by the chill, by the mold, by the dark. I was in a kind of cage. All around me, nearly empty cages. One held a bicycle and a bookshelf. Another held a stack of suitcases and a box of books, an old treadmill. It was a storage basement, I realized. Little used from the look of things.

I had seen how gigantic doors glide open by remote in Prague buildings, and cars disappear into spaces you wouldn’t have believed were there. I have seen this at embassies and luxury condos.

Trying to figure out how I got there, I imagined that my captors had driven my rented Mercedes into such a door, that I have disappeared inside the walls of this old city. Jack would not be able to find me. Panic and anger started their dance in my chest. I worked against my bindings vigorously for a few more minutes before I realized that I was not alone.

He sat in the corner of the room outside the cage, shrouded in the dark. I didn’t have to see his face to know his form.

I really didn’t want it to come to this, you know. I warned you to let me go. He issued a cough. The damp has always bothered him.

How could you think I would? Don’t you know me at all?

I hoped, Isabel. I hoped you would.

Why did you do this to me? A mutinous sob I couldn’t stop. I loved you. Did you ever love me?

Of course I loved you. I’d have stayed if I could.

Was anything you told me about yourself the truth?

No. Nothing.

Tell me now.

Why?

You owe me that much, don’t you? I don’t even know what to call you now.

Just call me Marcus. In the world we shared, that was my name. That’s all that matters.

Tell me.

There’s nothing to tell. His usual cool and disinterested tone. My father died, my mother couldn’t keep my brother and me; she couldn’t afford us or didn’t want us. What does it matter? We were taken to the orphanage you visited. We were old enough to know we’d been left. It was a painful, stark, and lonely way to grow up.

He shifted in his seat, the only sign that his memories made him uncomfortable, that they might cause him pain.

But we managed. We survived, and communism did not. Ivan and I left for the U.S. I applied to colleges, received a scholarship, came on a student visa. Ivan came on a work visa, but the company that sponsored him was not legitimate. Ivan is a small-time criminal, always has been. Even as children, he bullied and stole-

I’m not interested in Ivan.

What do you want to know?

Start with Marcus Raine.

He paused, took a deep breath as if summoning his patience.

I wanted what he had. His money, his girlfriend. I took it.

How?

I seduced Camilla. She loved Marcus Raine-or maybe just his money, I don’t know. But his plan was to return to Czech. He wanted to take the money he earned in the U.S. and start a business in Prague. He went to America, like me, to work, to get rich. But he wanted to go home and enrich the country. He didn’t believe all the intelligent, young Czech people should leave for good. Go, find opportunities, make money abroad, and then return to help the Czech Republic. The last place Camilla wanted to go was back to Czech.

I knew what she wanted. I promised it to her. She got me a key to Marcus Raine’s apartment, helped me get past his doorman. And I killed him-well, Ivan did. His associates helped us to dispose of him, a mortuary in Queens cremated the body. It was seamless. I took his life… his identification, his money. It was really that easy.

I told Camilla that we had to be apart for a while, that it would be suspicious if we moved too fast. Then I met you.

You sought me out.

Yes.

Why?

Because you understood Prague.

So you thought I’d understand you?

Maybe.

Camilla got tired of waiting?

Yes, seven years is a long time to ask someone to wait. For a while, I could convince her that the payoff would be worth it. I gave her money every month. Continued seeing her. Then she realized.

What?

That I had what I wanted. That I loved you. That I wouldn’t leave you unless I had to.