Blood Trust

The woman seemed delighted. “But it is.”

“You’re Annika Dementieva.”

FIFTEEN

HE STANDS in the darkness. Alli can’t see him, but she can feel him, which is much worse. He is like a nightmare given life; she has a sense that her life is over. And even though she’s smart enough to know this is precisely what he wants her to feel, she cannot help herself. The situation is beyond her control.

As she feels him approaching, she struggles against the restraints, but she’s held fast by wrists and ankles to the metal chair bolted to the floor. She wears what she had on when he abducted her out of her bed at school— panties and a men’s T-shirt. Whatever semblance of dignity she had when he brought her here is now gone. He has seen every square inch of her body—not merely seen, but observed, as a surgeon will examine his patient, as a thing to be slit open. But this man has no intention of healing her—though that is, of course, his claim. This is early in her incarceration. Later on, she will agree with him. She will renounce her parents, her life up until this moment. She will be eager to do as he says.

She feels the burst of frigid Moscow air as she sees the limo her father is in skid off the airport highway and slam into the electrical pole. She sees her mother gasping for air, her father white and dead, laid out on a makeshift bier inside Air Force One as they take off on their way back to D.C. She hears the frantic calls of the physicians who are trying to save her mother’s life, and in the cracks between the soft sobbing of someone crying. Jack is with her, as is Naomi. But she feels nothing. She’s withdrawn into the familiar icy shell. There are too many things she feels about her parents, conflicting currents that buffet her as if she’s a sailboat in an Atlantic storm. At every moment, she’s in danger of capsizing, and then there’s nowhere to go but down into darkness.

She knows her parents love her, but it’s the way they love her that hurts and disappoints her. Hell-bent on micromanaging her childhood and adolescence, they have lost sight of her individuality. Instead, she has become an extension of the Edward Carson brand.

She resigns herself to being raped; had, in fact, prepared herself for whatever forms of sexual perversions he undoubtedly harbored. The thought of what is surely coming terrifies her, but she knows she can lock at least part of her mind away, keep it safe from whatever he might do to her. Emma had taught her how to do that; Emma was a master at locking herself away.

But she is wholly unprepared for how deeply and intimately he has invaded her life. And from the outset, he uses his knowledge to worm his way inside her brain and take up residence there.

His heat permeates the air and she smells him as he leans over her, his rough, scaly hands covering hers, his lips in the fringe of hair over her forehead.

“I’ve seen you walking across campus with Emma McClure,” he says. “I know you two were roommates.” He laughs softly, unpleasantly, and a sudden whiff of rotting meat comes to her, almost makes her gag. “Well, but everyone at Langley Fields knows that you two were roommates, that you were best friends. But I know something more.”

She closes her eyes against the assault of his voice, but it pushes farther inside her. She has no defenses against what he says next.

“I know that you and Emma were lovers. How do I know this? I’ve heard your squeals and moans of delight. I’ve heard you call her name just before it ends, I’ve heard her cursing softly when you did those things to her she liked best.”

She doesn’t want to respond, but she can’t help herself—the first time of many during that week of darkness and disorientation. And the words are wrenched out of her throat, almost as a sob. “How? How?”

He breathes on her again, almost as a sigh of pleasure, but it might only be satisfaction. “She was a good teacher, wasn’t she, Alli? A gentle and loving teacher, yes?”

Alli starts to sob, hot tears sliding down her cheeks, and she thinks, Oh, my God, Emma. Emma!

“Just as I am a gentle and loving teacher, Alli. In the coming days, I propose to show you what a lie your previous life has been, how you have been betrayed by those who profess to love you the most. Your parents don’t love you, Alli—they never did. They used you to further their ambitions, their political agenda. You’ve always hated them, you simply need to be made aware of it. They have debased you, stolen your identity, your very humanity. I will return these precious things to you. I’m the only one who can. You may not understand that now, but in time you will, I promise you. And the first step is to renounce them. This is the only way to gain back what they have taken from you. You will do this, I know you will. I have absolute confidence in you, Alli.

“A new day has dawned. From this moment forward, your life has changed. Isn’t that what Emma told you that night she held you in her arms, one warm thigh slipped between yours, and rocked you to sleep?”

* * *

ALLI, SURROUNDED by the high crags of the Korab mountains, the wheeling hawks and black kites, her cheeks scrubbed by the harsh wind and grit of the increasingly steep trail, felt that week rush back at her like a tidal wave of rot. She began to retch, and almost vomited up whatever was in her stomach. But all she could expel was acid and bile. She felt abruptly dizzy and so ill she wanted nothing more than to lie down on her side with her knees drawn up to her chest. She wanted to go back in time. She wanted to take a pair of pliers and pull her destroyer’s tongue out by its roots; she wanted to press her thumbs into his eyes until they turned to bloody jelly; she wanted to willfully ignore his pitiful pleas for mercy.

She wanted to go back to her parents seeing them as she does now, in the fullness of time. Did she ever tell them she loved them? She couldn’t remember, and this, in itself, frightened her. She missed them now, but in a way that was unfamiliar and inexplicable to her. Can you love people only after they’re gone? she asked herself. The possibility sickened her and she doubled over again on a boulder, though there was nothing left to vomit up.

She cried now for them, for herself, for the normal childhood she desperately wanted and never had. She hated them, forgave them, and loved them all at the same time. Dizzy and confused, she labored on, out of sight of the others. She couldn’t bear anyone to see her like this, even Jack. She wished she could talk to Annika, because Annika could understand how you could love and hate a parent at the same time. And if she could understand it, maybe she could explain it to her.

So she wept for the loss of her parents, for herself, but also for Emma. Because, most of all, she wanted to change the moment Emma had asked her for help—asked Alli to come with her in the car that crashed, a crash that had taken her life. She wanted Emma back. Billy had been an experiment. It had been nice—he’d really cared for her, and he was gentle. But the relationship had only underscored how much she missed Emma.

She wanted Emma back. My best friend, my only love.

Then Jack was there.

“I’m fine,” she managed to get out. “Please…”

But his strong arm holding her close undid her, and, sobbing, she buried her face in his chest.

“I don’t…”

Her words were muffled; Jack felt them more than he heard them.

“Alli.” He bent his head. “It’s all right.”

Her tears were bitter in her mouth.

“I don’t deserve to live.”

* * *

“I DIDN’T think you’d ever come back here,” Naomi said.

Annika gave her a sharp look.

“I saw the e-mail you sent Jack. I know you killed Senator Berns.”

A shadow passed across Annika’s face and vanished.

They were still in Naomi’s car. Across Cathedral Avenue, the entrance to McKinsey’s apartment building had come alive with residents on their way to work. The dampness was all but gone from the concrete and macadam.

Annika laughed. “Someone sent an e-mail accusing me of murdering this senator—what did you say his name was?”