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Some days, one cup of coffee wasn’t enough to get Irina through the day.
She felt sluggish, blamed it on everything from the marine layer to the
tension in her neck. It was damp and muggy, a slime of moist cool covering
her skin. Tasting the savory sea with every breath, she wondered why she
didn’t come more often.
The car was loaded, sitting ready on the dock. She walked down to the beach
and scanned the area for a heavy stone, finally settling on a jagged rock.
She examined it, curious as to how a rock could stay sharp and dangerous
when it had the water to wear away it’s edges.
She carried it back to the car as if it were a fourteen-pound bowling ball – hands
gripping the sides, arms hanging long and outstretched. She lugged it through
the passenger window into the front seat, a piece of insurance to make
certain that what goes down stays down. She walked around to the driver’s
side and took her seat behind the wheel.
One foot sank onto the loose clutch while the other pressed the brake.
She turned over the ignition. The engine growled, anxious to pull away
from her, but she wanted to listen to the hum for a little while longer.
The thrum of the engine cycling through its idle, its own fluid ebb and
flow, relaxed her. Her hands gripped the wheel, the water awaited her impact.
This was all for him.
She inhaled deeply and made the switch, one foot leaving the brake for
the gas, the other slowly releasing the clutch. She wasn’t used to this
stick, so the engine revved loudly during the crossover until the gas took
full hold. The wheels spun and screeched, driving her and her secrets off
the pier.
As the car hit the water, her body jerked back. She wasn’t afraid, she’d
been here before. The adrenaline coursed through her brain, bringing a
smile to her lips.
Some days, one cup just wasn’t enough.
* * *
She woke to find that nothing had changed.
Jack was sitting at the kitchen table, head down, cheek resting on an old
newspaper. His hand still embraced his snifter. She wasn’t sure whether
it was his dinner shot or the breakfast one that he hadn’t the will to
finish. The sticky mouth of the Lagavulin attracted the attention of small
flies, diverting them from the sink full of dishes that Irina never bothered
to wash. There was a stench – there had to be, judging from the looks of
things – but it didn’t register. Grief had evolved into anger and anger
into resolve, but the liquor interfered some days.
The phone rang, rousing Jack.
He cleared his throat. “Bristow,” he said, pretending that he hadn’t been
asleep. She could see the blood rushing to his face. “I just want to know
who did it. Tell me who was behind it.” The neighbors always knew when
Jack was awake. His face was still flush, but a vulnerability emerged,
as if he knew that he had no cards to play. He hung up the phone.
Irina touched his shoulder, but he shrugged her off. “I don’t trust them.”
She took a seat beside him, welcoming his apologetic gaze. They were both
frustrated.
“
I think you need to not think about her for a day.” She leaned forward,
hands caressing his jaw. She brushed a kiss against his stubbly cheek.
“
I never thought it would come to this.”
Irina stood up and moved behind him. Her strong arms dragged him and his
chair away from the table. Then she climbed into his lap straddling him. “Reinforced
aluminum chair.”
“
Modern technology.”
And she loved that she could give him something that no one else could.
He grabbed her hips and stood up. She locked her legs around his waist
and grinned as he carried her over to the couch. He fell back, landing
on the worn cushions, pulling her on top of him. “Never did need a bed,” he
whispered in her ear.
“
Just a flat surface, like a tabletop,” she said.
He rolled her onto the floor and held her firmly in place. “Like this?”
“
Guess we don’t need the couch, after all.” She winked as she struggled
to flip him over. He was resisting for the sake of resisting, to remind
her that he was stronger, but she knew it wouldn’t last.
“
I wouldn’t say that. You and I and this couch have plans,” he smirked.
He slid his hands under her camisole and pulled it over her head.
She jerked his belt, disturbing his balance. “Can’t wait.”
Just as she felt him giving in, the phone rang and stole his attention.
He pulled away from her hastily. “Could be important,” he said, rushing
to pick it up.
And indeed it could. Every ring of the phone contained not only an implicit
promise of revenge, but also the threat of closure that she wasn’t prepared
to accept. Their daughter’s murder made them allies in a way that their
passion never had. She watched as he stood in the kitchen, scrawling something
on a piece of paper. He hung up, then came back. She hadn’t moved from
the floor, relishing the feel of the shag carpet against her bare skin.
“
Change of plans. They want to meet sooner. I’ll be back.” His desire had
the polarity of a light switch.
She clenched her jaw, her resentment at his departure outweighing her guilt
over not being a better mother. She should want to find their daughter
as much as he did, but she couldn’t want it every hour of the day, every
day of the week. She heard him grab his keys. His footsteps were quick,
his movement efficient. The door slammed.
She rolled over and reached for her shirt, quickly sliding it over her
head and pulling it down to cover her stomach. She stood up and went into
the kitchen.
As she walked by the table, she snatched Jack’s half-empty glass and tossed
back the remaining scotch. The aroma tickled, then stung her nose. She
chucked the glass into sink. The shatter of Jack’s favorite snifter brought
her fleeting satisfaction.
Shards littered the countertop and the floor. She took a paper towel and
swept the pieces from the counter to the floor. Then she grabbed the small
brush and dustpan, their one gesture toward domesticity. She bent over
and cleared a small spot. Then she knelt, slowly sweeping the areas beside
her, eventually making her way across the floor. She tilted her head, trying
to catch the glint of the smaller pieces that had escaped her when she
saw a slip of paper. She grabbed it and smiled at the messy handwriting.
Scrawled across the note was an address, today’s date and their daughter’s
name. The letters were traced over, the edges exaggerated. He had filled
in the centers of the d and e, the traces of his anxiety coming across.
She put it in her pocket and took her own keys. Maybe Jack needed her after
all.
* * *
Irina rounded the corner, feeling the smooth hum of the motorcycle between
her legs. She turned off the engine and rolled into the alley. Letting
her feet brush the ground, she came to a halt. She slid off her Ducati,
engaged the kickstand, and pulled the helmet from her head, shaking her
matted hair loose.
It was a warm night, the breeze lingering on the surface of her skin like
a blanket. She pulled the address from her pocket and reviewed it once
more: 10782 Washington Boulevard.
She had circled the block on the way there, noting any doors and windows
along the front and back. She walked down the dark alley. The back door
was ajar. Wary, she quietly slipped in.
She heard a click. She stopped, but there it went again. In a far corner
of the garage, beyond the cars held captive by their lifts and the shelves
full of parts and oil containers, she caught sight of a spark, a thin flame
and then the butt of a lit cigarette, its glow expanding and contracting
as the person puffed at the flame. Must be Jack’s contact. Even in the
dark, a cloud of smoke floated high, its smell meandering through the flammable
excrement that surrounded her. “They’re either gutsy,” she thought, “or
stupid.” The entire feel of the meet made her question her decision to
intervene.
She inched along, pressed up against the shelves, until she was so close
that she could feel the nicotine in her nose. The sound of a door closing
made her crouch lower until she was certain that the noise came from up
front. She stood up again and found a peephole.
Peering through it, the light of a street lamp came through the front window
and silhouetted their figures. The woman’s slender body clung to Jack’s,
as her arms snaked around him, her finger grazing his neck. When Jack placed
his hands on her hips, Irina knew it was time to let her imagination supply
what she couldn’t bear to look upon.
“
It’s good to see you, Jack. I’m glad we can help each other.”
Jack exhaled. “This means-”
“
It does.” Irina pictured a broad, satisfied grin spreading across the woman’s
face. “Intel in exchange for the person we discussed. Any reason why you
can’t deliver?”
“
You mean Irina.”
“
Who else?”
Jack hesitated. Irina prayed he would think twice and as his pause expanded,
she held her breath along with him. Maybe he wouldn’t broker her life for
Sydney’s.
“
So?” The woman was prodding him.
Jack’s reticence had passed. “I know how to handle my ex-wife.”
* * *
Irina’s hand was jittery...either that or the key impossibly large for
the lock. She closed her eyes, trying to calm her anxiety. She opened them
and made a second run, steadying one hand with the other. She fit the key
into the hole only to have the deadbolt turn and the door swing open.
“
Where were you?” Jack stood squarely in the doorway.
She went left, ducking beneath his outstretched arm, then she pushed her
way past him. “Went for a ride.”
“
Alone?”
She smirked. “Bike seats one.”
She was in a hurry until the sight of gleaming porcelain startled her.
Not only could she see the drain, but the chrome was even shiny. The stench
of unwashed dishes that had been so definitively theirs was now gone, replaced
by the sterilizing odor of bleach.
Her eyes shifted to the kitchen table, another surface that she hadn’t
properly seen in years. She set her helmet on the table. Gone was the crossword
that they’d never finished from the paper delivered one morning years ago.
There were no half-empty glasses, no open bottle of Scotch. The Lagavulin
was locked snuggly in the glass case in the dining room. Even the fruit
flies were gone.
“
You’ve been busy,” she remarked. “I’ve never seen you clean anything in
your life. Didn’t think you knew how.”
“
I called the Polish maids. In and out in thirty minutes, the business card
was in the mailbox. We can’t spend the rest of our lives living like this.”
His words chased after her as she marched to the bedroom. She gathered
the edges of her tank top pulled it over her head in one fluid motion.
She sensed that he was behind her. “And the meet?”
“
Still negotiating.”
“
What’s to negotiate?”
“
Terms. Logistics. The usual.” She felt his lips press against her shoulder,
his thumb slide beneath the strap of her bra. He rested his head against
hers, his nose nuzzling her. He always did like to smell her hair, to guess
the aromas. “It was like fine wine,” he used to say.
“
I was worried. Didn’t realize you’d be gone.”
She wasn’t ready to look at him. “We don’t owe each other explanations.
You can’t change the rules, Jack. The game is already in play.”
“
Is that what this is?” He tugged at the strap so that it fell loose off
her shoulder. His fingers traced her collarbone and she lifted slightly
as his nose rubbed the nook behind her ear. He scooped her up and threw
her on the bed.
She lay flat on her back, unbuttoning her jeans as he pulled the sandal
from her foot.
“
Keep your pants on,” he chided. He took her heel into his palm and lifted
her slender foot to his mouth. She didn’t know when this fetish had developed,
but she loved the feel of his mouth, soft and warm and wet, his tongue
suckling each toe in turn.
He pulled away and grinned at her. “Not sure why my response to a thing
of beauty is to want to suck it.”
“
It’s your mother complex rearing its ugly head.”
“
I hated my mother.”
“
Which is why you sometimes graze me with your teeth. A nick here, a bite
there...”
“
Take your pants off.” He came at her, grabbing the loops of her jeans,
but she wasn’t ready to forget.
“
We’re still negotiating,” she purred.
He shot her an offended glare. “What’s left to negotiate?”
She eyed him skeptically. Hours before he was willing to sell her out all
for the chance of avenging Sydney’s death. Maybe he wasn’t as certain as
he had seemed. “Everything.”
* * *
If there was one thing Irina knew better than anything else, it was how
to play the odds. Jack might be serving her up on a platter, but she would
make sure that he would question his decision. His smooth cheek rested
on her stomach.
She blinked. Smooth? “Never trust a clean-shaven man.” She didn’t know
who had told her that.
She looked out the window, the view chopped into abstraction by the blinds.
It was almost night again, another day that she had stolen from under his
nose. That’s what she was – the day thief, slowing stealing Jack’s life
away. Her eyes closed as she struggled against fatigue, desperate to stay
awake and keep watch over the one thing she still had.
* * *
Irina’s eyes popped open. The ringing of the phone, coupled with Jack vaulting
out of the bed pulled out of her languid sleep. She got up and moved down
the hall in time to hear the end of his conversation.
“
Same place,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “Okay.”
His hand was still on the receiver when he noticed Irina at the edge of
the room. She could have asked many questions, but she already had answers
that she didn’t want. Better to play the concerned wife and mother rather
than the jilted lover. “They know who killed her?”
He nodded, ever reluctant to say Sydney’s name. He walked past her, back
into the bedroom. He picked up a pair of pants from the floor and put them
on over his boxers. She didn’t have to ask where he was going.
As he threaded his belt, he looked up at her. “Do me a favor. Don’t go
for a ride tonight.”
* * *
Waiting was always the hardest part. When the KGB trained Irina to be a
sniper, she spent hours shoulder deep in a foxhole, guarding the border.
She could live with the balance that had been struck between her and the
enemy. If she didn’t fire, the other guy wouldn’t either. Those were the
rules.
But she also knew that she couldn’t win by playing by the rules, not when
Jack was breaking them. Tonight she wasn’t trapped in a foxhole, she was
crouching behind the dumpster in the alley, waiting for the meet to be
over.
There was no balance to be struck.
* * *
Hours later, Irina was in the garage, the streetlamp providing a spotlight
of sorts. The woman was handcuffed to a chair, legs tied down, eyes blindfolded.
That was one trick that Irina had learned early on. Let your prisoner watch
you and she may learn more about you than you about her.
“
Who do you work for?”
“
You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” The woman’s voice was rigid, professional. “I
know who you are.”
“
Not surprising. Who do you work for?” Irina pressed the end of her pistol
against the woman’s temple, anxious to move the interrogation along. “Hmm?”
“
I’m CIA, working undercover for the Covenant.”
“
Do you wrap yourself around every spy you meet?”
“
I worked for Jack when I first started at the CIA, I knew your daughter.”
“
I know what I saw.”
“
You didn’t see anything. I was trying to help him find Sydney’s murders,
to help you-”
Irina’s hands were shaking, the words taking effect. “You weren’t helping
me, you were taking him-”
“
There is no relationsh-” Irina knocked her out. The woman’s body slumped
forward as blood ran along her jawline.
Irina let out a deep breath. She reached for the woman’s purse, digging
through it until she heard the clang of metal. Keyless entry was no mere
convenience. No, tonight it seemed like a brilliant innovation. As she
headed out the door, she looked back at the beaten woman, nodding. “I know
what I saw.”
* * *
Among the many things that Laura Bristow used to discuss in her literature
students was the concept of structure. Structure was what allowed the reader
to make sense of a story, and the structure of the ring was the most powerful
of them all. The geometrical pattern enhanced memory and added symmetry.
She inadvertently snapped the latex glove against her hand. It was true
in literature, no less in life. Killing this woman wouldn’t be enough.
Jack had to know that she had done it. She twisted the rope around the
woman’s hands and feet and pulled it tight, knotting it twice.
It was early in the morning, but she didn’t have far to go. The unconscious
were always difficult to move, so Irina threw the woman over her shoulder.
When she dropped her into the trunk, a stream of bloody saliva marked Irina’s
shirt. She wiped it off.
Irina sat in the driver’s seat and turned over the ignition. Reading the
instrument panel, she cursed quietly. She had always wondered what kind
of person drove around on empty. Apparently it’s the person who fucks your
ex-husband and wants to have you killed. No big deal, though. She hadn’t
had a cup of coffee and a gas station was as good a place as any to pick
one up.
* * *
Irina stopped the car at the pier. Its boards were worn, weak and blackened
by the oily substance that passed for ocean water. Its docks were out of
use, home to nesting birds and plant life. No one would bother them this
morning. Aware that even the authorities might find a suicide victim tied
up in the back of her own car a little suspicious, Irina popped the trunk.
The woman had regained consciousness, but the gag in her mouth kept her
in check. Irina pulled her out of the car and dragged her to the front
seat. With the click of the restraint, Irina pulled the seatbelt so that
it lay flat and taut across the woman’s lap. Irina resumed her place behind,
sipping at the coffee she so desperately needed.
“
Cold morning,” Irina said. She could feel the latex soften, the warmth
of the coffee radiating from the cup. She glanced over at the woman. “Nodding
in agreement is the polite thing to do. I said, ‘It’s a cold morning’.”
The woman nodded. Irina could hear the muffled sobs. “You didn’t really
think that I would let Jack trade my life for intel on Sydney’s killers,
did you?”
Fear was the only discernible emotion in the woman’s eyes. She shook her
head vigorously. “He and I have a good relationship. Sydney is gone. Nothing
we do will change that.”
Tired of the conversation, Irina got out of the car. “There’s one more
thing that I need. We’re almost there.”
* * *
Irina shakily fit her key into the lock. She was hoping that Jack would
greet her, turn the dead bolt back. She pushed the door open and heard
movement in the next room.
The scotch was out again, his glass coated with a golden brown film, a
tiny pool remaining in the dimpled bottom of the glass. She rounded the
corner. His gaze was contemptuous. “Where the hell have you been?”
“
Busy,” she responded. Not twenty minutes earlier, she had stood at a payphone
and reported the accident. Every false detail given to the operator heightened
Irina’s anticipation, every yellow light she sped through adding to the
momentum.
“
Busy,” Jack mumbled, throwing clothes into a suitcase. “That’s the best
you can do?”
“
Something’s wrong?” She was giving him the opportunity to confront her.
The ring was about to come full circle.
“
My contact. She was CIA working in deep cover with the Covenant. She assured
me that she could find out who killed Sydney.
“
And?”
“
Weiss called.” Jack walked briskly to the hall closet and yanked a jacket
from its hanger. “She didn’t make her meet.” He shook his head in a frenzied
denial. “All she wanted was the intel I gathered on your former organization
to determine whether the Man had any dealings with the Covenant.”
“
But I didn’t-”
“
I knew that, but she didn’t.” He tossed the jacket into the suitcase and
zipped it shut. “I can’t do this anymore. Day in, day out. I don’t know
how to live in the present, but I can’t keep living in the past.”
“
Jack-”
He grabbed his suitcase. His eyes were apologetic, as if he thought he
had failed her. “Some cycles are best broken.”
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