Enemy Closer, page 19
“Luke… you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
I heard an aggrieved sigh. “Stay here a sec.”
Footsteps carried him down the stairs, where he found a light switch and flicked it on. I followed him down and saw he’d pulled me into a storage basement. Before I could read the labels on the hundreds of boxes that nearly filled the tiny space, he grabbed me by the face just as Alice had done; but it wasn’t to kiss me.
“Don’t look at anything. Do not come back here, you understand?”
His imperious tone finally cut through my fear, angering me. I snapped, “Yeah, I got it.”
“That door leads to the street,” he said, turning me to face said door. “Make sure it closes behind you.” He pushed me toward it.
That was too much; I spun around, demanding, “Why’d you tell me you’d be in London, then? You said I could come and find you, so I did. Why are you being such an asshole?”
I was pleased to see his stony expression waver a little at this. He glanced jerkily toward the door upstairs and then turned to me, forcing out, “Where are you staying?”
I spat out the address, and he repeated it back to me. As though against his better judgment, he said, “If I can, I’ll come by tonight. That’s the best I can do.”
“If you’re still an asshole tonight, don’t bother,” I spat.
Without waiting for his answer, I threw myself through the outer door and up the metal staircase, onto the street.
Fuming, I began walking without any real idea where I was going; at least I was fairly certain I was headed in the general direction of the apartment. About the time I calmed down enough to take note of where I was, I found myself in front of a grocery store. At least Alice would get her Christmas wish.
I bought their most expensive bottle of wine, which wasn’t really saying much, and started to call for another Uber when I saw a handful of people emerging from the Underground station across the street. I decided to take the Tube instead, if for nothing else than to give myself time to think before being peppered with Alice’s questions.
I heard sirens before I even gained the street level at the station half a block from our apartment. Given my experiences that morning, my heart immediately began to race at the sound. I took the remaining stairs three at a time and ran toward my building, stopping at the street corner and peeking around the concrete fence post that stood there. Sure enough, several police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance blocked the street directly in front of my apartment.
My blood froze, my head pounding with sudden, excruciating force. Realizing how suspicious I looked, I forced a few deep breaths in and out and rounded the corner.
A small crowd had bunched together at the caution tape stretching from the gate next to the building to the fender of the fire engine in the street. Forcing myself in among them, I asked no one in particular, “What happened?”
“Someone’s been attacked in there,” a man to my right said confidently. “They’re not letting anyone in.”
“Do… do they know who?”
“Sure, but they’re not telling us, innit?”
“Right,” I mumbled, already backing away, looking for an escape. I couldn’t fathom what was happening, couldn’t shake the feeling that Alice—no, I had no reason to assume it was her. It might not be. Even if it were her, maybe she was only hurt. Desperate to flee and with no idea where to go, I simply turned around and headed back to the station.
I rode the Tube for an hour, got off, and boarded the next train headed in the other direction. Then I did it again. After four hours on the Underground, I returned to my apartment to find the caution tape torn down, the emergency vehicles gone, and the crowd dispersed. Without giving myself time to think or dither, I walked right into the building unchallenged.
Our apartment was on the tenth floor, and for once I rode the lift, not trusting my legs at the moment. The trip from the lift was short, ending when I spotted the uniformed constable posted at my door. I turned on my heel and rode the lift back down, feeling numb and directionless.
What had happened? Was it safe to call her, or did the police have her phone? If they answered, I’d be in for questioning by the end of the day. Certainly, they’d want to know who was living in the spare room, since Alice’s name was the only one on the lease. It was only a matter of time before the police talked to Cat and the others and got my name, even if they didn’t out me as her roommate. I needed every spare minute between now and then.
I stopped at the mailboxes inside the door, pulled a permanent marker out of my backpack, and drew a chess piece, specifically a bishop, on our mailbox. If that wasn’t enough of a clue for Luke, he didn’t deserve to find me. I set out on foot for Saint Paul’s Cathedral, hoping to find its doors open.
Halfway there I stopped dead in my tracks, as though struck by lightning: I was forty-five minutes late for my check-in with Jim. Hands shaking, I pulled out my cell phone and dialed his number, reaming myself under my breath. He answered on the first ring.
“Anna?” He packed a lot of anxiety into those two syllables.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m fine, I just got distracted.”
“It better have been something big!”
“I think my roommate was attacked today in our apartment. Because of me.”
The words tumbled out on their own, words I hadn’t even been able to articulate to myself yet. My eyes started to water, hands shaking so badly I was afraid I’d drop the phone.
After a tense, lengthy silence, Jim asked, “What happened?”
I explained as clinically as I could, starting with where I’d gone that morning and why I thought I’d find Luke at a building associated with Frères Enterprises. I was on the brink of a total meltdown, and Jim had no trouble picking up on it.
“Take a breath, Anna. You sound manic.”
“I am!”
“You don’t know for sure she’s… For all you know she killed an attacker and ran off.”
“That’s—yeah,” I gasped, clinging to the idea like a drowning cat. “She could have. I bet she did.”
“Where are you going now?”
“The cathedral… I’m freaking out, Jim.”
“Just tell me you’ll be okay.”
“I’ll be okay,” I intoned dutifully, not even fooling myself.
“Check in again tomorrow, same time. Okay?”
“Yeah, right. I can do that.”
“I don’t have any information for you, I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. I didn’t expect any.”
“I’ll look into Frères Enterprises though.”
“Okay. Bye.”
As I slipped the phone back into my pocket, my cold-numbed fingers betrayed me and it fell to the ground with an ominous crack. I picked it up, studying the spider web of cracks across the screen. I pressed the power button a few times, but it was dead. That did it: I sank to the ground, breathing hard, clutching my knees to my chest. Thankfully no one was around to see my episode except for a few passing cars, though I would’ve been grateful for the comfort of a kind-hearted, total stranger right about then.
It was Tommy all over again. I couldn’t process it, couldn’t master the fury and grief and confusion. I sat there and had out with it until my ass was practically frozen to the sidewalk, then I picked myself up and forced myself not to stop again until I reached the cathedral.
I was so relieved to find the doors open that I nearly fainted. Shivering with a combination of cold and hunger, I paused inside the door and looked around in awe. Feeling tiny and safer than I had in months, I eased into a side aisle and leaned against the marble wall, catching my breath.
There were a lot of people inside, most of them listening to a choir singing Christmas songs in the apse; they were on ‘Silent Night’ at the moment. Others were milling around, tourists taking it all in. A handful of men in cloth were gliding around, answering questions, directing some people to seats, and gently herding others away from roped off areas. One of them spotted me and came over, smiling serenely.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” he asked. He was a short, stocky, man with a steely grey hair helmet. His voice was soothing.
“I just needed to warm up,” I whispered, vaguely surprised to find myself speaking Spanish. That wasn’t a good sign. “Is that okay?”
He understood but answered in English, “Of course. Feel free to sit down, you don’t have to stand.”
“Thank you,” I sighed, sinking obediently into the pew to which he gestured. He wandered away, but I knew he’d be back to check on me. I rubbed my fingers under my eyes, and they came away smudged with mascara and eyeliner; I probably looked like a wreck. I got up to find a bathroom.
Once I’d scrubbed away enough of the melted makeup on my face to not look like such a fucking tragedy, I returned to the pew and rested my arms on the back of the one in front of me, listening to the choir. They were doing ‘Silent Night’ again, but in German now. I was transfixed, soaking up the distraction for as long as it held out.
The priest returned and sat down next to me. “You seem very troubled, dear,” he said in imperfect but confident Spanish. Beneath all the other emotions packed into me, I was impressed.
“Something bad happened to my roommate today,” I confessed, as though I’d done it. “I don’t even know if she’s okay.”
“I’m so sorry. What a terrible thing to happen, and on Christmas.” He paused uncertainly, then added, “Would you like to go and light a candle for her?”
“Can I?”
“Of course you can. You won’t bother anyone, see, there’s someone doing it now.”
I looked up and followed his finger, which was pointing to a bank of flickering candles just this side of the crossing. About twenty yards from where I sat, a man in a heavy black coat was lighting one of the candles. He crossed himself, turned around, and locked eyes with me.
It was the Frenchman from the pub, the one I’d bumped into on Christmas Eve.
Friday, December 25 to Saturday, December 26, 2020
London, United Kingdom
I jumped to my feet as though pinched, causing the priest to lean backward in alarm and ask, “Are you all right?”
“I’m sorry, Merry Christmas,” I gasped, already heading for the door. The bite of cold air outside was painful, but it woke me up enough to get the gears turning in my head, finally.
He had to have followed me from the apartment, which meant he’d waited there for me to show, which meant this was about me, not Alice. I looked left, then right, then across the square. I descended the stairs from the cathedral doors, stopped in front of the statue in the middle of the square, and waited.
Sure enough, he emerged moments later, looking in all directions just as I had done. I waited until he looked right at me, then turned and walked resolutely toward the only other thing that was open, a sushi restaurant right across the street. Without looking to see if he were still following me, I walked straight through the seating area toward the restrooms. A back door led to the street directly behind the restaurant, where I broke into a run toward the cross street that would lead me back to the cathedral.
It was an infantile plan, but that was probably why it worked. I stepped back inside the cathedral minutes later, out of breath and chilled to the bone again, resuming the exact same seat and watching the door while I tried to catch my breath again. The kindly priest did not come back to visit me.
I resolved to wait at least until 8:00, if allowed, before moving on. I wasn’t about to vandalize the beautiful cathedral to leave Luke another clue; and if he didn’t find me there I’d just have to start from scratch later, once I was safe again.
Though my eyes hardly left the doors for nearly five hours, my pesky French shadow did not return through them; but neither did Luke make an appearance. Back and eyes aching miserably from my vigil, I gave up at eight and headed for the doors.
I was ill prepared for the drop in temperature outside. Snow had fallen, and the square was slick with packed snow where hundreds of feet had crisscrossed it. Streetlights illuminated the scene, which was now devoid of any human presence but my own. I wrapped my scarf around my face and descended the stairs once more to go… I had no idea where.
Some tiny corner of my brain that was still functioning told me to walk toward my apartment. I didn’t ask it why. I set my feet eastward and in seconds had left behind the halo of light around the cathedral’s façade.
Hardly had I put a hundred feet between myself and the front of the cathedral before I heard footsteps. I looked over my shoulder and spotted a man mere yards behind me, unidentifiable in the darkness.
I broke into a run, flirting with slipping on the icy sidewalk and literally sliding around the next corner into an open park behind the apse. I turned another corner, rounding the back of the cathedral, blind with panic. I’d really worked this out well, being out there alone at night being pursued by, I assumed, the same person who may have attacked Alice in our apartment.
I lost traction and lurched to a stop, barely staying on my feet; but he crashed into me from behind, knocking us both to the ground. I managed to keep my head from striking the pavement by grabbing his jacket and leaning into him, but the impact still rocked me.
Before I could strike, scratch, or bite any part of him, I heard my name and realized I was hearing Luke’s voice. I peered through the darkness at his face, too winded to answer.
“You dork, why were you running from me?” he asked, and with a jolt of reality shifting into place I realized he was laughing.
I wriggled out from underneath him and sat up painfully, explaining, “I thought you were someone else.”
He stood, offering me his hand. “How many people did you expect to come find you here?”
“Two to three,” I answered with involuntary honesty, not understanding he was mocking me.
“That’s… pretty specific…”
I tried to explain further, gave up, and threw my arms around his neck, sobbing, “Please take me somewhere safe and warm.”
I could tell he was brimming with questions, but he held them in like a champ. He led me to a parked car about a block from the cathedral, and then we drove southwest for half an hour to a tiny row house across the Thames. Through what was rapidly deteriorating into delirium, I noted only that the house was blue before he ushered me inside and flipped on the lights.
I stood in the entryway, lifelessly compliant while he pulled off my backpack, coat, scarf, hat, and gloves. I shivered, and he wrapped his arms around me.
“I’m guessing a lot has happened since you found me this morning,” he whispered.
Without raising my face from where it was pressed into his shoulder, I summarized, “I went home and my apartment was a crime scene. I left you the bishop. This guy who had been stalking us at the pub where I work followed me to the cathedral, but I waited for you until eight anyway. I thought you were him, or his brother.”
“That’s a lot to unpack.”
“I think… I think he hurt my roommate.”
“What?” He let go of me and bent down a little to look me in the eye. “Someone was stalking you and attacked your roommate?”
“Some French guy and his brother. They’ve been hanging around the pub where I work.”
Even in my nearly catatonic state, I couldn’t miss the color draining from his face. “I think you need to back up a little.”
“No,” I groaned. “I haven’t eaten all day. I’m cold and exhausted and confused. Please…”
He took pity on me, pathetic as I was, and showed me upstairs to the bathroom. One blistering shower later, temporarily clothed in a men’s t-shirt and sweats, I followed my nose downstairs to find a grilled cheese sandwich and glass of wine waiting for me in the kitchen. I sat down at the kitchen table, not seeing Luke at the moment and not caring all that much. I was too focused on the food.
I had finished the sandwich and was working on the wine when I finally registered it was a damn good merlot, which just so happened to be what I’d bought for Alice that morning. I had slipped it into my backpack before boarding the Tube.
I leapt up and dashed to the front door, but my backpack wasn’t there. After a quick search through the downstairs rooms, I found it on the living room sofa, open. The only things missing were the bottle of wine and my passport. My laptop was still strapped in and apparently undisturbed.
Luke came downstairs to find me standing over my violated backpack, chewing on my fingernails. He tossed me the passport identifying me as Tegan Mercer.
“I’d love to meet your passport guy. That’s about as convincing a forgery as I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled, stuffing the passport into my backpack and zipping everything back up. “Why were you going through my stuff?”
“We can talk about that later,” he said firmly. When I started to argue, he silenced me with a wholly unexpected kiss. My knee-jerk response was to push him away, and I was far too tired to fight it. He caught my wrists, wheedling, “Later, please. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again…”
Too weak to twist out of his grip as I would ordinarily have done, I settled for glaring reproachfully up at him. “You think a grilled cheese is going to make up for how you treated me today?”
“It’s a start.”
“You’ve got some nerve—”
He cut me off again, pulling me into a kiss and then picking me up. Thinking resistance was probably futile in my current state, I allowed myself to be carried upstairs and deposited on a bed, where he wordlessly pulled off my borrowed clothes and then laid down next to me, running his hands over my skin. I closed my eyes, letting the sensation of touch push away all conscious thought.
“Sorry,” he said belatedly, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “If you want me to stop, just say so.”
“Ass. You know I don’t.”
“Great. I know we need to talk, but for now I’m going to see how many times I can make you come, okay?”
