manufactured stories. He was a shadow who took orders from Otto Kaitlin and no one else. Someone to fear. A cipher. That’s how it had been designed twenty years ago-Jimmy’s idea-and Michael, too, was careful. He’d never been arrested or printed. He had a dozen false identities and they were all rock solid. “Why would Falls think I have something to do with Otto Kaitlin?”
Abigail narrowed her eyes, and Michael sensed the return of her earlier implacability. Whatever fear she harbored, she’d made her decision. “What do you think I am, Michael?” She opened the manila envelope in her lap. “A rich man’s wife who spends her days in idle pursuits? A dilettante?” She slipped a photograph from the envelope and handed it over.
Michael tilted it in the light. It was a copy of the only picture in existence that showed him and Otto Kaitlin together: Michael and the old man and the 1965 Ford GTO Kaitlin had given him for his sixteenth birthday. The photo that had been in his duffel bag. Michael studied the photograph, then handed it back. His face betrayed none of the emotions that tugged at him: love and regret at the sight of the old man; anger that his photograph had been copied and was being used against him. “It’s only a photograph,” he lied.
She slipped it back into the folder. “There’s quite a stir in the city right now, talk of terrorism and organized crime. Police are looking for a man and woman.”
“New York seems a long way from here.”
“Not that far.”
Michael shrugged. He had plenty of money. Julian was protected. All he had to do was find Elena and walk. “So what?” he asked. “Falls thinks I’m bad, and you don’t?”
“I think I don’t care.”
“Why not?”
“Because I think a body is going to come out of that water.” She leaned forward, her mouth a bitter line. “And I think you know something about it.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When Elena woke, she heard engine noise and the hiss of traffic. She was blind in the dark, her wrists bound behind her back, ankles crossed and tied. Her limbs had gone numb, but she tasted tape on her lips-a bitter, chemical gum-and when she tried to move, her head struck metal in the blackness. Pain shot down her neck, and in the stifling heat, she panicked. Thrashing and rolling, she smashed her knees and elbows, the small bones of her toes and the soft bottoms of her feet. The air was close and thick, a gasoline burn so strong in the back of her throat it made her gag.
It was a nightmare, she told herself, the skin of some horrible dream; but the skin stuck. She was in the trunk of a killer’s car.
None of this could be real! The motel. The shower. But she felt the hotel robe on her skin, electrical burns on her side. She tried to stay calm, to think of the baby; but somewhere, the car would stop, and when that happened he would drag her out at the bitter end of some thin, dirt road. She would see a last wedge of sun, and then it would happen. She would die in the mud, and her baby would die inside her.
The thought made her nauseous, but she tried to think clearly. What would Michael do? God, the question was insane. She didn’t even know who Michael was. But, she had to think like him. She had to be strong.
Elena tried to make herself small, but when the lid rose she saw the same man leaning over her. He wore sunglasses, and there were other men, too, hints of whiskers and unblinking eyes. They ringed the open trunk, and studied her as if she were a fish in the bottom of a bucket. The man she thought was Jimmy said something and two men reached in to pick her up. They caught her by the robe, her arms. She fought, and one of the men laughed as they heaved her up and out, then dropped her as she struggled.
“Jesus,” she heard a man say, and thought it was Jimmy.
“She’s slippery.”
Elena rolled her eyes and saw a small, green house circled by trees and dead grass. The driveway was long and dirt. The car was silver and smelled of burnt oil.
Hands came at her again. Two were brushed with hair; two were lean and tan. “Nice tits,” somebody said, and she realized her robe had torn open.
“Just get her in the house.”
Hands gripped her again, and when they got her up, she thrashed and fought until they dropped her a second time.
“For God’s sake…”
“Damn, Jimmy. She’s strong.”
“This is ridiculous. Step away.” Jimmy appeared above her, his face a pale blur under a canopy of high, green leaves that moved exactly as she’d thought they would. He held the stun gun an inch from her eyes and made blue sparks snap and sizzle.
“You remember this.”
She felt herself nod.
He lowered the stun gun, and closed her robe where it had opened. “Be a good girl.”
She let the same two men lift her off the ground, and did not fight as they hauled her up four stairs and onto the half-rotted porch of what looked like an old farmhouse. A screen door hung in the frame. Green clapboarding peeled under a baking sun, and from the porch she saw a barn in a sprawl of milkweed and brambles. Beside the barn were a half-dozen dusty cars.
“Back bedroom,” Jimmy said. She felt a wave of heat as her body broke the plane of the entrance. The room was filled with ancient furniture and brown carpet tracked muddy. She saw hints of other men, guns on a table. “Right side.”
They angled her body around an end table and then into a hall with floors that creaked. The room on the right side had a single chair and an iron bed. They dropped her on the bare mattress, and a musty smell rose up to fill her nose. Men crowded the door as a mosquito whined in her ear. She looked, but there were too many to process. She saw eyes here, a belt buckle there. Hands that opened and closed. No one spoke as sweat rolled on her face, and hot air stroked skin where the robe rode up on her hips.
“Out,” Jimmy said.
And everyone left.
Jimmy smoothed his sleeves and closed the door. In spite of the heat, his skin looked as fresh as if it was powdered. He checked his shoes for mud, and then dragged the room’s single chair across the floor. When he sat, he removed his sunglasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his jacket. Then, he leaned forward, got his nails under the tape and ripped it off her mouth. She wanted to speak rationally. She wanted to yell and scream, but nothing came out. All she could think was
“Let’s start with what I know.” Jimmy pinched a mosquito from the back of his neck, rolled blood between two fingers. “Your name is Carmen Elena Del Portal. You were born in Catalonia twenty-nine years ago and have been in this country for three years. You’re pregnant. You worked at what used to be a nice restaurant.” He smiled coldly. “You would be considered attractive by men who go for the obvious-meaning, Michael, of course-and yet one breast is slightly smaller than the other, and you have an unfortunate blemish on the inside of your high, right thigh.” Elena shrank away. “Did I miss anything?”
