A stinging pain across my face awoke me.
"Say hello," a voice said. It sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. It wasn't Nicolas.
"What?" I asked, my voice quiet and slow.
"Danielle, this is Agent Morgan. How are you?"
"I… I can't-" I murmured, trying to open my eyes, but my eyelids were just too heavy. "I wish could say I am well."
"We are working on getting you out, okay?" Derek said, and I swallowed. If they were cooperating with Nicolas, they would gain nothing.
"Don't give them what they want… they're going to-" I said, struggling to get as many words out as I could. A sharp smack that sent my face to the left stopped me from talking.
"Proof of life. I'll send locations of the two groups and directions on how to get the transportation to me. You have until 7pm tomorrow," the voice said. I heard a click of the phone closing. "How the mighty have fallen…"
I managed to open my eyes, my right eye's sight better than my left. The room was dim, but I managed to make out a figure, a woman who was standing in front of me, her hands on her hips.
"Caroline?" I asked, recognizing the woman before me. "What's going on? I thought you were-"
"Dead?" she asked, laughing. "Unfortunately for you, no, I am alive and well."
"I don't understand," I said, my mind buzzing. "Why are you here?"
"Come on," she said, "You were smart enough to figure out the whole thing in Texas, so why don't you use that little brain to figure out this?"
"Figure out what?" I asked. "Caroline, what is going on?"
"First of all," she said rolling her eyes, "Don't call me Caroline. It's Madeline. Secondly, do your investigative journalism work, right?"
I met her eyes, and I for the first time couldn't read her.
Slowly, my brain began to put the pieces of the puzzle together. We met at a yoga class. Despite my best attempts to avoid conversation and companionship, she chased after me, trying to get me to go out more. She took me out to the bar where the guy who ultimately brought me first approached me. She was there when that incident with my door happened.
"Are you involved with this?" I asked. "If they have something on you, I'm sure that I can-"
"How stupid are you?" she said, interrupting me. "Why would I be on the phone with your friends at the FBI if I was just a pawn?"
I faltered for a moment.
"You're not…" I said, "in charge?"
"Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen," she said, smiling wickedly. "I'm just glad you finally figured it out… even if I did have to give you so many hints."
"I don't understand," I whispered, meeting her gaze again. "Why… How?"
"Why?" she said, "Money. Everything in life is an economic proposition, and I just figured out how to make it work for me."
"You're saying that you are Nicolas' boss?" I clarified, it still not hitting me.
"Yes, keep up," she said.
I was in shock.
"I trusted you…" I said, disbelief still racking my body.
"No," she said. "Sarah trusted me…but let's be honest… she was always such a drag. But Danielle? Now, that is a story I can get behind."
"What do you want from me?" I asked.
"I want you to tell me how you busted the operation," she said, sitting down in a chair opposite from me.
"And why would I tell you that?" I said bitterly.
"Because," she said, "then I'll let you say goodbye. To everyone."
My head shot up in shock. I hadn't thought about that. She knew that I hated getting other people involved.
"Fine," I said, praying that this wasn't some elaborate trick. "Where should I start?"
"The beginning."
"I guess that would be when my dad mentioned something about missing college-aged girls when I went home for Christmas. I looked into it and noticed that there were two central locations – San Antonio and Corpus Christi. I didn't think much of it, but after I talked to my supervisor and got her permission to go investigate it, I took a chance. I interview people in both areas and found that in both cities there was a pattern of-"
"Believe it or not, that's not what I meant," Madeline said. "I want you to talk about how you busted the bigger operation.
I swallowed. Of course, she wanted me to.
"I met Nicolas at a bar one night and I didn't go with him, but I connected him to the Cartel del Golfo. I eventually had enough to get the help of the FBI Sex Crimes Division, but that was when the CIA came in, and brought suspicions of something larger at play. The two groups worked together, where it was decided that the best chance to find anyone was to send someone in who Nicolas had seen before… the CIA figured out that he had a type that I seemed to fit. So I started hanging out at bars, shops, and just anywhere where he was known to be, until I saw him and approached him," I said, hating talking about this part of my life.
"And that's when you started a relationship with him?"
"Yeah," I said. "It went on for a year and half, and the whole time I was gaining his trust and trying to find evidence. It took a while, but the break came when he left for "work" in a rush one morning, and forgot to lock his office. I went in…and I found contracts and documents and letters that proved there was something larger at play, mostly related to terrorist activity in the Middle East and human trafficking across the globe."
"Forgetfulness caused this?" she asked, a frown on her face.
"No," I said. "Illegal activities did."
"Besides the point," she said, waving her hand. "Now, I know what we did wrong this time."
"This time?"
"Of course," she said, tilting her head before letting out a laugh. "Oh, no… you didn't think that your sacrifice would mean anything, did you? I'll just relocated my base and the whole operation will start up again… your death will mean nothing."
"How can you look at yourself in the mirror?" I asked. "Do you have no pity?"
"Oh, sure I do," she said, her sickly-sweet smile a contradiction to the words that fell from her lips. "I just stopped caring a long time ago…" With that she turned to leave, but I yelled after her.
"Wait, you said I would get to say goodbye!"
"Oh, sweet, naïve, Dani," she said, laughing from the doorway. "I'm not Nicolas… I don't keep promises."
Then the door shut.
And the tears fell.