Liberty At Last (The Liberty Series) (38 page)

“So we probably know where she is,” he said, hesitating. “That is, if Ethan’s still alive.” He checked his phone again.

Ian took his glasses off and wiped them on the sleeve of his robe. He suddenly looked very, very tired and old to me. It made my heart lurch. “I’ll get a flight later this morning,” he said. “Eva’s husband’s on location. She shouldn’t be alone right now.” He came over and hugged me. “I’m going to miss you,” he said. “You, too, even though you’re not as sweet,” he said to John, patting him on the back. John nodded at him as he left the room. “I’ll keep you posted,” he called as he walked out.

“Are you sure this isn’t too much on him?” I asked John. I was worried about how strained his father looked. The situation with Catherine had been difficult for him.

“It’s too much on all of us,” John said, playing with my hair absentmindedly. “He can handle it as well as anybody else. And Eva loves him. It’ll be a comfort to her now, and that’s the best we can do.” He looked out past me, through the window, lost in his own thoughts.

We both knew that she’d gone back to Angel. She’d never once veered from that course. She’d said from the beginning that she loved Angel and wanted to be with him. She’d also said that he demanded her complete loyalty. If she wanted to be with him, she didn’t have a choice; she couldn’t stay in America to visit with her family. Angel would not tolerate that — he’d made her make a clean break.

So it had only been a matter of time before she went running back. In fact, we’d probably gotten more time with her than we could have expected. I’d secretly been hoping that she’d be locked up in a psych ward indefinitely, but you can’t
always
get what you want.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, a knot forming in my stomach as I considered the possibilities.

He sighed and looked back at me. “I’m going to have her followed. And leave her alone,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose as if the decision pained him. “For now.”

For now.
The words sent shivers down my spine. “You know you can’t make her do what you want,” I said, the words coming out before I had a chance to stop them. “You can’t make her change her mind.”

He looked at me evenly. “I know,” he said. “But I can’t just let her go, Liberty. She’s my daughter.”

I grabbed his hands and held them. “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “Somehow. Maybe she’ll come around.” I said it, but I believed anything but. This was one of the things I was learning about loving someone: part of what was necessary was loyalty to the other person’s feelings. You had to guard your partner’s frame of mind. You had to protect it.

I had to protect him.
I pulled him to me and held him tightly. “We’re going to get though it — all of it,” I said, suddenly feeling overwhelmed.
“
Together.”

Just then Matthew burst into the kitchen. “Busy morning,” John muttered, under his breath. “What’s up, Matthew?”

“Updates,” Matthew said, making himself a cup of coffee and sitting down.

“Make yourself comfortable,” John said and laughed.

“I am comfortable,” Matthew said, and by the way he was oblivious to John’s joking, I knew that something important had happened.

“What is it?” I asked. The knot that had been forming in my stomach proceeded to double knot itself.

“We need to get going to Brazil,” he said. “Our source told me this morning that Darius has made contact again, so we have an idea of his general vicinity.”

“Are we ready?” John asked.

“
We
are ready to go,” Matthew said, looking at him seriously. “
She,
” he said, jerking his thumb at me, “is not.”

I started protesting and John held up his hand. I shut my mouth immediately, not wanting to get even a teensy bit on his bad side. “How long do you think?” John asked.

“We’re out of time,” Matthew said, shrugging.

“What do you need me to do?” I asked, my panic rising.

“Run ten miles and then walk ten miles with a backpack on. Run over roots and tree limbs and through thick underbrush. Climb up onto a roof,” Matthew said, looking at me in a challenging way. “You can’t do any of that.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, desperately. “I’ll do it all today.” I looked at John, pleading. “Please,” I said. “I promised you I’d work hard. I’ve been doing everything you asked. I even set my alarm and got up and drank protein shakes last night,” I said, looking at Matthew. “I’ve held up my end of the bargain. You can’t leave me behind, just because the timeframe’s changed.”

Matthew was looking at John; John looked back at him calmly. “Of course you can come with us,” John said quietly. “I promised you.” Matthew glared at him. “Don’t look at me like that,” John said, a warning edge to his voice.

“Just because you can’t say no to her doesn’t mean we should put her in that kind of danger —” Matthew started, but John stopped him with a look.

“Enough,” John said. “That’s enough. I’m not going to let anything happen to her. You know that. I’ll carry her if I have to. She’s pretty light.”

“Of course I know that,” Matthew said, actually sounding halfway apologetic. “It’s just that we
have
to get him this time. Cruz is freaking out. And after seeing her in Mexico not that long ago, so beat up…” He let his voice trail off. John winced and I put my arms around him.

“And Mer wants me to get back ASAP. She’s freaking out, too.” He shook his head. “Hormones. Like you’ve never seen.”

“She loves you,” John said. “She’s just worried about you. It makes them do crazy things.” He inclined his head towards me and I frowned at him.

“You shouldn’t do all that stuff today. Don’t even try,” Matthew said to me. “You need to save your strength. Let’s just do our planned workout and get packed. I can give the presentation on the plane, if that’s okay.”

John nodded. “It’s gonna have to be okay,” he said. “Put Michael in charge of supplies. Tell him we need to be ready to leave by tomorrow mid-day, if possible. Have Kevin call Cruz to take care of the plane. Have him get everybody’s passports in order. He has to get a new express one for Liberty, so tell him to get that going first thing.”

Matthew stood up to go. “There’s one more thing,” he said, looking at me apologetically. “Ray showed up. In an alcohol and drug rehab facility. He made contact with our guy. He’d said he’d known he was following him for a long time.”

“What the
fuck
?” John said. “That guy is fired. As in, blackballed. Never going to work for anyone again, ever.”

“I know, I know,” Matthew said. “I already told him. The thing is, Ray is asking for something.”

I saw John turn pale. I wasn’t afraid of Ray anymore, not at all; I was only afraid of John’s reaction to Ray. I was only afraid that John was going to blow his head off someday, if he ever got the chance.

“What,” John said, and he didn’t bother asking it as a question.

“Money,” Matthew said. “Money for rehab and money to get back home. He asked for money to go to community college, too, since he swears he’s gonna quit dealing.” Matthew laughed and stopped immediately when he saw how pissed John was.

“He’s asking
me
for money,” John said, flatly.

“He told our guy he’d go to the press about you and your business. Blow your anonymity,” Matthew said. He had wisely chosen to start inspecting his nails instead of looking at John.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, looking at John, feeling myself turning bright red.
Fucking Ray,
I thought. He was like a bad penny. He just kept turning up.
For a deadbeat, skinny drug dealer, he sure did cause a lot of trouble.

“Can I please kill him?” John asked in a pleading tone, turning to me.
“Please?”

I shook my head, no, even though I was blushing with embarrassment and rage because I hated Ray so much. He turned back to Matthew. “Give him what he wants,” he said. “But tell him he’s being watched. If he goes back to dealing, or if he starts talking about me, I’ll be paying him a visit. Send Lou to watch him for now. And tell him not to fuck it up.”

Matthew nodded and headed off.

“Busy morning,” I said, under my breath.

He pulled me down onto his lap and buried his face in my hair. “I really would like to kill him,” John said softly. “Every time I think about —”

“Stop,” I said, quietly. “I know. But you can’t. You just can’t.” He held me for a minute longer, and we just took solace in each other, the storm of other people and their problems swirling around us.

“Brazil,” John said quietly. “It’s beautiful, but it’s going to be very dangerous. Darius will be expecting us. Are you sure you want to do this?”

I held up my engagement ring and looked at him. “We agreed not to be apart. Not ever again. I can’t let you go without me,” I said. “You go, I go.”
Even though I know I’m being ridiculously selfish.

“Then let’s go have a protein shake and go running,” John said, sounding resigned. “Tomorrow, it will be dragging a back pack through a jungle.”

“The Brazilian jungle probably still beats my old apartment in Vegas,” I said.

“We’ll see,” John said and grimaced. “There are lots of spiders.”

“Small ones?” I asked squeakily, jumping up and following him towards the entryway.

“Some are small,” John said noncommittally. “We’ll learn more about them tomorrow on the plane.”

“Awesome,” I said.

“Totally,” he said.

Before he left for the airport, Ian pulled me aside. John was out at the barracks. “Liberty, Catherine left a note for you,” he said.

“For
me
?” I asked, incredulous.

“Call Eva,” he said.

“I’ll do it now,” I said, and kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Be safe, Ian. We’ll see you soon.” He smiled at me and was gone.

I called Eva from our room, so I could watch for John out the window.

“Liberty,” she said when she answered the phone. Her voice was thick with tears.

“Eva, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

For a second she just sniffled on the other end of the line. Then she gathered her composure enough to speak again. “Catherine left a note for you. I went ahead and opened it. I’m sorry, but I had to know if it said anything that could help.”

“It’s okay,” I said, “I understand completely.”

“I’m afraid it’s not very nice,” Eva said and sighed.

“That’s okay, too,” I said. I held my breath and waited.

Dear Liberty,
Eva read.

You know that I think you are an immature, poorly dressed, ridiculously naive girl. I also suspect that you were a mediocre exotic dancer at best. And you are engaged to my father, who is at least twice your age, and as you know I find that repulsive. You also shot me in the foot. I could go on and on, but I’ll get to the point. You bought me the face cream I asked for. You bought me Belvedere and you snuck that carton of cigarettes to me and didn’t tell John. You are not all bad. Please be advised that I will honor your request to keep the family updated to the extent that I can.

Don’t be surprised if you and John don’t hear from me. But don’t take it personally, either.

Very Truly Yours,

Catherine

“Huh,” I said to Eva. She just sniffled some more, and I didn’t blame her.

I texted Sasha before we left the next day. I wanted to call her, but I was worried about what I might blurt out about our trip.

“John and I are going on a trip…call you when we get back?”

“Lucky u,” she texted back immediately, even though it was five a.m. her time. “Hope u r going someplace fab and warm. Love you <3”

I smiled at her unknowing ball sack. Then I sighed a heavy sigh. Yes, we were going someplace fabulous and warm. But we weren’t going to the fabulous part. John had told me to only pack dark-colored clothing and no makeup, no civilian clothes. He’d actually purchased some camouflaged clothes for me; I packed them all.

“How are we getting our weapons in?” I asked.

“We aren’t,” John said. “We have to pick them up there. I know a guy.”