Saint/Sinner (3 page)

“Who are they?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“They knew about the house.”

“The house?”

“The front door was still intact when we got here, remember? They didn’t break in, Walter. They knew enough to keep your alarm system online when we showed up. You had to disarm the front door to let us in. Remember?”

He nodded slowly, and she could see his mind processing the information. But the fact that she’d had to tell him worried her, because she wasn’t going to be able to do this alone. She didn’t
want
to do this alone. She needed Walter because she couldn’t count on Lucy, who was still stuck to her chest, the girl’s body so tightly pressed against hers that Allie could hear and feel every shallow breath the teenager took.

No, Lucy wasn’t going to be of much help tonight. That left Walter. But she needed the
smart
Walter, the one who ran his own department at the company, who could calculate the size of a tip to the cent before she could take out her phone to use the calculator app. What she didn’t need—or want—right now was this confused Walter who hadn’t even recognized that these men had been here this entire time, waiting for them.

And they hadn’t come here for her or Lucy, but for
him.

“You’re right,” he said.

“And you don’t know what they want with you?” she asked.

He shook his head again.

“Think, Walter.”

“I’m trying…”

“Try harder.”

He sighed and looked back at the door. “I don’t know what they want. I don’t have a clue.”

“Keep thinking; maybe it’ll come to you.”

He nodded, though it clearly lacked conviction.

Allie turned back to Lucy and pried the girl from her chest. “Hey.”

Lucy glanced up, cheeks streaked with dry tears. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her hair was a mess and looked as if it hadn’t seen a comb in weeks.

Allie brushed the teenager’s hair out of her eyes. “You okay?”

Lucy shook her head, her lips quivering.

“It’s okay,” Allie said. “We’ll be fine. Your father and I will figure this out, and we’re going to get through it.” She picked through the girl’s hair, noticing some dry blood at the roots. “Hurts?”

Lucy shook her head, though she must have been reliving the memories, because she cringed a bit.

“It’ll be okay,” Allie said again, as much for the girl as for herself. She would have liked to say it was for Walter, too, but he was already so focused on the door again that she didn’t think he would have heard her anyway.

Lucy leaned back against her, and Allie tightened her grip around her thin body. Too thin. It was one of the very first things Allie noticed about the fifteen-year-old when they first met, and all their dinners together only reinforced that first impression. Lucy didn’t eat enough, and that was more evident than ever.

“He knew your name,” Walter said.

The sound of his voice surprised her, and she looked over. By the way he was staring back at her, she could tell that a new factoid had just occurred to him, and he was certain it was vital information. Walter was so easy to read.

“How did he know your name?” Walter asked.

“I’m guessing they did research on you,” she said. “Makes sense they’d know who you’re dating if they went through the trouble of knowing where you’d be this weekend and how to get past your home’s security.”

“They knew about the vacation…” The gears were spinning again, new information being added. “You think this is work-related?”

“I don’t know, Walter. Is it?”

Again, that cloud of confusion. “I don’t know, Allie. I swear, I don’t know what’s happening here or why.”

She nodded, believing him.

Or, at least, she believed that he didn’t know. But the man named Jack
(Yeah, right)
hadn’t left any doubt that all of this was for Walter; she and Lucy just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Suddenly, Lucy pulled away from her chest.

“What is it?” Allie asked.

“Apollo,” Lucy said. “Did you let him out of the car?”

“No; I didn’t get the chance.”

“You think he’s okay?”

Allie smiled and nodded. “I’m sure he’s fine. I’m more worried about us.”

Of the four of them, Apollo was the last one she was afraid for. Lucy and Walter had only seen the domesticated dog that lived in her apartment in the city, but Allie knew what he could do. What he could
really
do.

“I didn’t hear any gunshots,” Walter said.

“You wouldn’t,” Allie said. “They have suppressors on their weapons.”

“Suppressors?”

“What people call silencers in the movies.”

“Oh.” Then, giving her an almost amused look, “How do you know that?”

“I wasn’t always your secretary, Walter. I had another life before I went to work for Gorman and Smith.”

“Something with guns? Dan showed me your résumé. I didn’t see anything with guns on it.”

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,
she thought
. And I don’t want to tell you. I don’t want to tell anyone.

“It’s in the past,” she said instead.

“Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with this? What’s happening tonight?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

“Are you
sure?
”

“Yes. This is about you, Walter. This—whatever it is—is one-hundred percent about you.”

“Maybe…”

He drifted off again, this time his eyes downcast on the carpeting in front of them. She didn’t know what he was looking at. If there were no answers at the door, there were even less chances of an answer popping out of the carpet.

“Walter,” she said, injecting just the right amount of emphasis to get his attention.

“What?” he said, turning back to her.

They were only a few feet apart, with just Lucy between them, but he looked distant, lost among the wallpaper behind him.

“We have to get out of here,” she said.

“I know that.”

“No, Walter, you don’t understand;
we have to get out of here.
”

She held his eyes, hoping he would understand. She didn’t want to say it out loud, didn’t want Lucy to hear. The girl was already terrified; Allie didn’t need her paralyzed with fear of impending death, too.

Do you see it, Walter?
she wanted to ask him.
Do you
see
it?

Finally, he nodded. “I know,” he said quietly.

She sighed with relief, but it didn’t last long, because she heard the padlock on the other side of the door jingling. Lucy tensed against her and she had every right to, because the door opened a moment later, and Jack stood in the open frame.

“Time to go to work,” he said.

The woman was
staring at him in a way that unnerved Jack as he stepped into the room, but he didn’t let it show on his face—or, at least, he didn’t think he did—and said, “Time to go to work.”

She sat against the far wall, the teenager in her lap. The man sat next to them, and he tensed noticeably as Jack entered the room and rested his hand on the butt of his holstered sidearm. It wasn’t exactly the most subtle of moves, but Jack was aiming for effectiveness.

“What do you want?” the woman asked.

He ignored her question and pointed at Walter. “You. Come with me.”

“Why?” Walter stammered.

“Don’t make me tell you twice,” Jack said. While the man staggered to his feet, Jack fixed the woman with a hard look. “I’m leaving your arms and legs free as a sign of good faith. Make me regret it, and I’ll have both of you tied up and gagged. Understand?”

“That’s very decent of you,” the woman, Allie, said.

He smirked. “You’re his secretary, right?”

“That’s right.”

“You don’t look like a secretary.”

“What’s a secretary look like?”

“Not like you.”

“Maybe you just haven’t been around enough secretaries,” she said. “You don’t strike me as someone who spends a lot of time in offices…Jack.”

He smiled. Of course she knew his real name wasn’t Jack. A woman like her…

Which was what, exactly?

Jack flipped through what he remembered of the woman’s file in his head. It wasn’t much, just a couple pages including a list of surviving family members (none) and jobs (probably more than the average early-thirty-something, but nothing that really stood out), and the last year at Gorman and Smith as an executive assistant for one of the higher-ups. Dan something. There was nothing about her life that had set off any alarms, to him or the client; or, at least, nothing that would explain why she wasn’t more afraid of him or what was happening to her at the moment.

And that, more than anything, disturbed him.

He knew a problem when he saw one, and Allie Krycek was giving off all the signs of a troublemaker. The smart thing would be to remove her now before he was proven right, but he couldn’t do that. Not yet. There was a chance—a small one, but a
chance
nonetheless—that Walter might not cooperate the way they needed him to. When that happened, they’d need incentives. Like a daughter…or a girlfriend. He could make do with just the daughter, but why settle for one when he had the option of two? If one insurance policy was good, two was better.

Still, maybe he was making a mistake. This woman, staring back at him right now without an ounce of fear, might be more trouble than she was worth.

Or was he overthinking things again?

“Come on,” Jack said, and beckoned for Walter to move faster across the room—the man kept looking back at Allie and the girl, Lucy. “They’ll still be here when you get back.”

“What do you want with me?” Walter asked.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

“I want to know—”

Walter was close enough that when he got the word “know” out, Jack was able to lean into the punch, sinking a balled fist into the other man’s gut.

“Dad!” the girl screamed and tried to get up, but Allie grabbed her and held her back.

He ignored them and grabbed Walter as he was falling to his knees. He caught the man halfway down and pulled him up again, Walter’s body trembling, his breath coming out in short, labored gasps.

“Take it easy,” Jack said, patting Walter on the back. “In and out, in and out. There you go.”

When Walter’s breathing had (mostly) returned to normal, Jack looked across at the fifteen-year-old glaring at him from Allie’s lap.

“Relax; he’ll be fine,” Jack said. “He’ll do a little work for us, then the three of you can go back to your vacation. You want that, don’t you?”

The girl didn’t answer him, and instead leaned against the woman. Allie slipped one arm around her smaller shoulders in a protective move.

“The daughter and girlfriend don’t get along,”
someone had noted in the files.
“You should probably keep them apart so they don’t cause you unnecessary problems.”

They’re getting along pretty damned well now,
Jack thought.

He heard footsteps behind him and glanced back as Jones and Jerry filled up the doorframe.

“Take him next door,” he said, and pushed Walter toward the two men.

“Come on, you, time to make me rich,” Jones said as he clamped one massive hand around Walter’s arm.

“Shut up,” Jerry said.

“What?”

“Need to know.”

“Oh, relax; gonna be over by morning anyway,” Jones said, as the three of them disappeared down the hallway.

Jack looked back into the room at Allie. She hadn’t made any attempts to get up, or tried to stop him from taking Walter. In fact, she didn’t seem to have moved from her spot at all, and had just sat there processing everything.

“You’re no secretary,” he said.

“Aren’t I?” she said.

He shook his head. “Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

“Then I must have imagined the last year of my life.”

“Oh, I’m sure that was a real job at Gorman and Smith. But I have a feeling you were settling.”

“That’s an interesting theory. Would you mind telling my boss? Maybe I’ll finally get that raise so I can move out of my shitty one-bedroom apartment.”

“I’ll get right on that as soon as we’re done here.” He winked at her, just to show her that he was still in control—though by her reaction, he wasn’t sure if he actually succeeded—before turning to go. “Until then, be very good girls and sit tight.”

Jerry was waiting for him in the hallway, leaning against the wall between the two rooms, as Jack closed the door and put the padlock back into place.

“Good to go?” Jones asked, keeping his voice low.

“Good to go,” he nodded.

“What’s the deal with her?”

“The woman?”

“Yeah.”

“No deal.”

“That’s not what Jones said. He’s telling me you think she might be trouble.”

“Jones talks too much,” Jack said, and walked past Jerry and into the next room.

Jones was already inside with Walter, who sat in the same chair Jack had occupied earlier, in front of the bulky laptop. He was staring at the screen as if he didn’t know what he was looking at, but of course Jack knew otherwise.

“What is this?” Walter asked.

“I need you to do something for me,” Jack said. He fished a small metal container out of one of his pockets and snapped it open, revealing a flash drive about half the size of his thumb inside. It was metallic and durable, and wouldn’t have cracked if he ran a car over it. “You’re going to need this.”

He tossed it to Walter, who caught it, if just barely. It was like looking at a man who had just learned how to use his hands for the first time, struggling to put it to use. Jack had a hard time reconciling how a woman like Allie had ended up with a doofus like Walter. The whole secretary job
(Just a secretary? Fat chance.)
notwithstanding, Walter was definitely dating up.

“What’s in here?” Walter asked, staring down at the device in his palm.

Jack didn’t answer him. Instead, he walked over and put a hand on the laptop. “Put it in and find out.”

“That’s what she said,” Jones said from behind Walter.

Walter must not have heard him; he was too busy staring at the laptop. Jack saw fear, confusion, and something that almost looked like…excitement
(?)
on the man’s face.