Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters
Thanks for all the positive feedback on the previous chapter. I was all worked up from being so creative!
And big thanks to Royalty09 and emptyvoices for great plot ideas and help!
Chapter 10
I felt the stirrings of a deep sorrow and a strange lassitude when I awoke to find Jackson gone and the police at the door. I rose slowly from the tangled sheets and gathered my clothing. I had just floated the t-shirt over my head when the door to the apartment burst open and two officers confronted me with their weapons drawn (and aimed at me). My arms went up in the traditional posture of arrestees everywhere. I went quietly, as they say.
I was cuffed and escorted out of the house into a waiting squad car in a series of moves familiar to anyone who has ever seen an episode of "Cops" on TV. A couple of student types with bicycles watched with avid interest and an old woman on a porch across the street sipped from a coffee mug and made no effort to hide her enjoyment of the morning's entertainment. I will admit here that in the series of low points I had hit throughout the week, this was the lowest.
"My name is Lisa Reisert," I said as the white squad car pulled away from the curb. "I want to speak with someone from the American Embassy."
"Your I.D. says your name is Marty Hall," said the male cop with thickly accented English. A burly dark haired man with the red veined nose of a drinker, he rooted through my purse while his partner, a petite blonde woman who had shown no mercy when she tightened my handcuffs, drove. "And you routinely carry stun gun, no?"
The Taser dangled from his thick fingers and I closed my eyes briefly, realizing how difficult this would be to explain. "This all a mistake; please, just get someone from the Embassy for me to speak to."
"Yes, of course it is mistake," he said. "But biggest mistake was getting caught, was it not? Not to worry, though. All this will be sorted out soon."
Knowing it was useless to say anything further, I sank back into the seat, tried to ignore the pinch of the cuffs, and stared through the window. Jackson had left me. Had he turned me in? Did he think I was safer in police custody than with him? Did he trust them not to turn me over to Rade? I chose to believe these things were so, chose to remember the words he whispered to me long before dawn broke. I couldn't bear to do otherwise.
Outside my window, Prague passed by in a kaleidoscope of cheerful morning routine. As we skirted the downtown area, I saw mid morning tourists in sturdy walking shoes stop briefly in front of an ornately decorated church. One of them lifted a camera and snapped a photo of its Gothic spires soaring high into the sapphire morning sky. Further on, a bearded man wearing a red parka played a clarinet in front of a busy sidewalk bistro, his instrument case open to entice contributions. Then we left the downtown area for the freeway and I felt a strong sense of foreboding.
"Where are you taking me?"
Neither of them answered me. I chewed my lip and watched as the freeway traffic thinned out and shopping centers and residential developments gave way to stretches of green pasture and new construction. We left the freeway, traveled down the exit ramp, hooked a left turn at the first intersection and stopped directly beneath the freeway. Ahead of us, I could see a parked white stretch limousine. The dark haired cop angled his chin back toward me and spoke with a voice that held no trace of mercy.
"This is where we take you."
I was escorted into the back seat of the limo. Rade greeted me graciously, I thought, given the circumstances.
"Lisa," he said. "I trust you are well." He laid a hand, with beautifully manicured fingernails, upon my knee. "We will leave cuffs on for now, I think. At least until we arrive home.
----------------------------------
I screamed and raged inside during that long ride back through the city; I wanted only to kill Rade Vaschenko. On the outside, however, I remained silent and stoic. My face betrayed nothing.
The reports Jackson cited last night saying Rade had left his chateau were wrong, of course. He took me back there. Repairs were already underway on the damaged wing, but we avoided that area, going in through a back door, past a bustling hive of workers, into that magnificent front entry hall, and up those curving stairs. This time he took me to his bedroom. Closing the door with ominous finality, he tossed my purse onto the satin cover of a huge canopied bed and turned to me. Tucking a hard finger under my chin, he tilted it upward, forcing me to look at him.
"You smell of him." His eyes seemed made of obsidian and his full, sensuous lips curved downward in disgust. "You are slut."
I spoke finally, through bared teeth. "And I loved every minute of it."
On the night of the torture, he slapped me. This time he used his fists.
Afterward he lifted me from where I lay on the fine wool carpet, employing that same cool detachment he'd used while hitting me, and I found myself seated in an ornately carved, richly upholstered armchair. He dropped with elegant poise, into a matching chair opposite me.
"You disappoint me, Lisa. But -," his shoulders shrugged in a fatalistic gesture, "What is done is done. The question now is where to go from here."
"From here? You can go to hell." I was bent nearly double with pain from a blow to the stomach, I could feel blood trickling from my nose, and I would probably have a black eye. My hands were still cuffed behind my back, but I braced myself as best I could for more blows.
He sighed, rested his elbows on the chair's arms, and linked his fingers together loosely. "You still have strong spirit, Lisa. I admire this. But I wonder how your loyalty will hold up when you know how your lover has betrayed you. Do you wonder how we found you?"
I said nothing.
"Your lover, Jackson, he telephoned the police this morning, told them he knew the woman they were looking for - told them where to find you." My heart lurched dangerously; Rade continued. "I have friends on the force, Lisa. Some owe me favors. You understand how these things work. Better to call me, I think, than put you through trauma of murder charge in foreign country. So they do me favor and I do you favor – I bring you here instead."
"I didn't kill anyone. You know that."
He sighed and reached behind him. The expertly razored layers of his jet black hair swirled well past the collar on his leather jacket as he pulled a cell phone from his back pocket. "Unfortunately, Mr. Rippner is your only witness to this claim of innocence and he has left the Czech Republic. He boarded early morning Lufthansa flight to Munich. I have video of his departure."
He flipped open the cell phone and showed me Jackson walking through what looked like a boarding gate, with a small carry-on bag in one hand. He wore the same clothing I had helped him cast aside last night. I felt dizzy and breathless suddenly. I focused on my breathing, determined not to pass out.
"Munich is good place for Mr. Rippner. He could make fresh start, new contacts. Unfortunately, one of my employees will see to it he does not make it out of airport alive. I see pain in your eyes, Lisa. Your lover has abandoned you, yes? I feel no sympathy. You made bad choice and now you must face consequences. When I got call this morning, I had to make decision about you. Before you abused my hospitality, I had big plans for you. I put you, as they say, on pedestal. Now you have betrayed my trust. Still, I think perhaps you will please me for a while. When I tire of you, I will perhaps give you to my men. Until then, you will think of ways to keep my interest fresh. You are clever girl, very creative.
"Now I will remove cuffs and you will have bath. Wash away your infidelity. I will have your suitcase returned to you so you can make yourself pretty once more. Tonight you will lie in my bed and you will moan beneath me like whore you are."
After he freed my wrists, he said, "If you try to leave me again, you will be shot. That will be the end of it." He left me alone, then, and I crept into the adjoining bathroom and threw up. I lay on the marble floor for a long while, resting my head against the cool marble tile and wondering if I would find the will to get up again.
After a while, I forced myself to my feet and walked back into the bedroom. I tried the door and found it locked. I went to stand at the bedroom window. Below me, at the edge of the terrace where we had dined on hamburgers and s'mores, a uniformed guard looked up, saw me at the window, and lifted his rifle just high enough to let me know why he was there.
I think this was when I finally gave up. I was tired; tired of fighting, tired of running, and tired of hiding and my mind now turned in a direction it had never been before. I thought about the pills Dr. Finch had given me in what seemed like another life altogether. I wondered how many it would take... I went to my purse and dug around for the little orange bottle. My hand closed over something hard and metal. I drew it out, looking down at one of the prepaid cell phones Jackson had used yesterday, wondering why it was in my purse. I tried unsuccessfully to power it on; I pried off the battery cover and a small black device fell into my hand.
I put the phone back together, and then turned my thoughts once again to the bottle of pills. I wondered if I could use them against Rade - crush them up maybe, feed them to him somehow. I wondered how many pills it would take to kill a large Russian man.
Just then, the bedroom door opened and blonde Aleksei stumbled in, followed by a man in a hardhat carrying a clipboard. As I watched, the man kicked the door closed behind him, tossed aside the clipboard, and slammed the butt of a handgun into the back of Aleksei's head. He ripped a fake moustache from his upper lip, ditched a pair of Oakley's and the hard hat, and stepped over the fallen Aleksei.
He regarded me steadily from eyes the color of a summer sky and asked, "Shall we kill the Russian together, Leese?"