Wiser Than Serpents (26 page)

“Okay, so you called him.” Gracie lifted her hands. “No big deal, we’re four hours from Seattle, and—”

Ina got to her feet, throwing the pillow across the room. It hit the window, skidded to the floor. “I
borrowed
the cell phone from a lady in McDonald’s—and when you were checking us in…I called Jorge.”

Gracie froze. She remembered that woman. She’d been on the phone, relaying a take-out order for her family. Gracie remembered thinking,
six
Happy Meals? She must have put the phone down, only to have Ina swipe it.

Which meant Gracie was an accessory to a cell phone robbery. Getaway driver/missionary. Perfect.

She tightened her jaw. “Well, he still can’t find us. Because Paradise Cove isn’t easy to find.”

“No, you don’t get it. I called him from McDonald’s, from the bathroom. And then, again when we got here. I told him where we were.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Okay, okay, uh…” Wait. “Do you still have that cell phone? Because maybe I can call Mae and—”

A noise, outside on the porch step, made her jump. She looked at the door, at the way the lock rattled and her only thought was…

So much for Paradise.

Y
anna finally fell asleep against David, her head up against his chest, and didn’t wake until the sun began to dent the horizon. David shook her awake and helped her onto the back of the bike. And drove her back to Trish and Cho’s house.

She crawled into bed, shivering, and fell into a hard, dreamless sleep.

Unfortunately, while she’d been sleeping, David had briefed Roman, showered, and headed back out to Kwan’s lair.

Without her.

She was going to strangle him. Yanna stood on the roof in a pair of Trish’s yoga pants and a T-shirt, overlooking a thousand other roofs, the kitchen gardens overflowing with peppers and tomatoes in pots. She folded her arms over her chest, not sure where to put the anger that wanted to seep out.

Maybe she should scream.

Because she’d finally figured it out.

David had said he respected her. At the time, she’d found it sweet, a sort of peace offering after her abysmal decision to go after Kwan. But his kiss last night had been filled with pity, not passion.

Goodbye, even.

And now she realized it was just a lousy way to say,
I’ll put you in a tower and throw away the key.
A man who respected her, who
believed
in her wouldn’t leave her behind like a three-year-old while he tailed the man who had kidnapped her sister. And apparently, it was a fraternity, because Roman had gone right along with him.

Clearly, she’d have to strangle Roman, too.

Wrapped up in her fury, she didn’t hear Trish approach from the open door to the terrace. “Yanna, how are you feeling?”

Yanna looked at the woman, so cute in her little pink maternity top, her short caramel-brown hair blowing in the slight wind.

She didn’t want to answer that, so she shrugged.

“I know you’re upset about not going along—David said you would be. But he was worried about you. He said you were tired.” She touched Yanna, but she shifted away. “He has the cell phone.”

“I’m not calling him on a stakeout.”

Trish looked as if she’d been slapped. “Sorry. I agreed that you needed some time to rest. You looked worn pretty thin when you came in last night.”

Oh, great, another person telling her how she felt, what she needed. She tried to smile at Trish, something to soothe the fracture between them, but it didn’t work. Trish didn’t smile back, and in fact stepped forward, past Yanna, to stare down at the road, the scooter traffic. The wind chimes caught, tinkled their sound across Yanna’s nerves.

“He’s just trying to keep you safe, and help you find your sister.”

“I know. It’s just that…I didn’t come to Taiwan looking for help,” Yanna sniped, although, what would she have done if David hadn’t been here? She hadn’t spent enough time, probably, thinking about that. About what he’d given up for her—i.e., his mission, his goals, three months of disgusting undercover work stalking Kwan and his pals. She didn’t even want to think about what he’d had to do to earn a trip to Kwan’s yacht.

And now, after everything, they had even less than they had before. Before she had some sort of unfounded, ethereal hope.

Now, she just had reality.

“Sometimes we need help, even if we don’t think so. Even when we don’t want it,” Trish said quietly.

Yanna glanced at Trish, who picked up a watering can and went over to the outside faucet to fill it. “Besides, I think David has some deep feelings for you.”

Not enough, however. She folded her arms. “Here’s the thing, Trish,” Yanna said. “David might love me—might be crazy about me, but he can’t act on it. For lots of reasons, mostly good ones, he constantly pulls away from me.” She turned around, facing Trish, who was watering her tomatoes.

“I’m okay with that. I mean, yes, I…care about David. But I was living with reality, the fact that I will probably be alone for the rest of my life, or at least that David and I will never be anything, when he steps right back into my life. I don’t want him, I don’t need him. I just want to find my sister.”

There, that felt good. Like pulling a knife from her bleeding heart.

Or not.

Trish moved on to the next plant. Examined the leaves.

“Maybe I’m
not
okay with it.” She didn’t have to close her eyes to remember David’s arms around her, remember his breath on her neck, remember…“Maybe I am dying a little bit inside, but there is nothing I can do about it. David is a soldier—he always will be. And he doesn’t have room in his life for a relationship. At least not for one with me.”

Trish looked up, gave her a strange look. Sighed.

“What?”

“Are you sure that’s why he pulls away from you? Could it be because you don’t believe in the most important part of his life?”

Yanna frowned, but the words zeroed in and made her flinch. Trish was right. David wasn’t just a soldier—he was a dreamer, the kind that made other people want to believe his dreams, too.

“David is all about fairy tales and God, but I’ve had an up-close-and-personal look at the world and I…I just don’t believe God cares about people. Not like that. And that seems to be an issue for David.”

“Do you know why that’s an issue, Yanna?”

She stared at Trish, then sighed, turned away.

“Because David believes that this life matters beyond the now. That there is an eternity out there, and that the things he does here and now have impact on the future, his eternal future,” Trish said.

See, a dreamer. Yanna stared out at the beautiful tropical island sky. It might be nice to believe that someone—someone big and powerful like God—cared. Was on her side. Watched her back, like David suggested. That the things she did mattered beyond now, that her life mattered.

For a second, she let those thoughts find a home. Wiggle inside.

Perhaps she…maybe she wanted to believe, just a little.

She wasn’t sure why. Possibly because she’d always wondered what made David the man he was—a man of passion and strength. A man who hoped. Who didn’t surrender.

A man she could count on even if it didn’t go her way.

A man whose beliefs were so strong, so vividly written on every inch of him that it made her hurt that she didn’t have that, too.

Sometimes, like now, when she felt the world was caving in, yes, she might want to believe.

But she wasn’t going to say that, not yet, and not to Trish.

Behind her, she heard Trish put down her watering can. She came over to Yanna. “I envy you,” Trish said.

Yanna shot her a look.

“I do,” Trish said. “You are one of the smartest, most creative women I’ve ever met. The way you took apart those cell phones to make communication gadgets. And you were so incredibly brave at the teahouse. I just sat there drinking my tea, thinking I might wet my pants or something.”

Yanna smiled. Yeah, well, Trish didn’t have to know how close she’d come to that, too. More than once in the past few days.

“And I’d give just about anything for the way you fit into that dress.”

Yeah, well, Trish had curves, cute ones, and Yanna opened her mouth to tell her so when—

“But I guess I’m lucky, too.”

Huh?

“Because I don’t have my brains and beauty to keep me from forsaking the grace that could be mine.”

Yanna closed her mouth.

“It’s not a weakness to believe in Someone. To depend on them. Especially if that person is out for your good. Your eternal good.”

Yanna had the strangest, unsettling feeling that perhaps Trish wasn’t talking about…David. In fact, nope, because—

“The world spends an awful lot of time trying to come up with reasons why they don’t need God. But you know, even if you don’t think you need Him, it doesn’t make His love for you any less. And I’ll bet, when you turn around and take a look at what He is doing in your life, how much He loves you, you’re going to rethink whether you need Him or not.”

Maybe Trish might be talking about David, just a little, too.

Yanna opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Not words, at least.

Because at that moment, she wasn’t a supersecret agent, but just a woman, a tired, overwhelmed woman, a woman who didn’t know what else to do when three men rushed at her from behind Trish.

So, she screamed—and stepped in front of pregnant Trish to protect her as Kwan’s men reached out to grab them.

“I see movement down there.” Roman had his eyes glued to a pair of binoculars—real binoculars he’d purchased last night while David and Yanna were running around Taiwan, her in stocking feet and a silky dress.

While David had been saying goodbye. At least in his heart.

“Is it Kwan?”

Roman didn’t answer for a moment, then, “No, one of his bodyguards. But he’s definitely up to something. He’s climbing into the limo, talking into a radio.” He put the glasses down. “I think one of us should tail him.”

David nodded. “I’m down with that. You go—I’ll stay here and keep track of Kwan. Take the scooter.”

David dug into his pocket for the key to his latest ride—Cho’s scooter. Thankfully, his brain cells had been firing enough this morning to prophecy the scenario that he and Roman might have to separate to tail Kwan.

He’d given approximately zero-point-six seconds to the idea that he should wake Yanna. After finally flushing the panic from his system—probably around five this morning—he had made a final decision.

A decision he knew would seal their fate.

She wasn’t getting near Kwan again. He didn’t care if he had to duct tape her to Trish’s kitchen chair, Yanna wasn’t leaving the house until he brought Elena to her doorstep. And even then, only to get into the van, drive straight to Taipei, and get outta Dodge—or Taiwan, as it were.

And even after
that,
he had made Roman promise to keep an eye on her for a very long time, because neither of them was stupid enough to think Kwan wouldn’t track her down, even in Russia.

Kwan probably had distant relatives on every corner of the planet, every one of them aching to be next in line for the so-called Serpent Throne. Taking out one FSB agent surely wouldn’t give them a moment’s pause. In fact, there might even be a bidding war. Which meant that after David got Yanna on a plane, and after he’d made Roman shadow her every move, he had to return to Kaohsiung and track down the real Kwan. And now, Serpent number two. They just kept breeding…

Again David had the overwhelming urge to simply throw Yanna over his shoulder and disappear. But that cavemanesque response wasn’t what a girl like Yanna deserved.

Not at all.

He put his hand to his chest, right where it hurt as he watched Roman drive away.

Lord, please help us find Elena. And help Yanna see that You do care, You do love her.

He kept his eyes on Kwan’s yacht.

His new cell phone rang. It was a cheapie he’d picked up at the market, with a disposable minutes card. He flipped it open, not able to read the identity. “Yeah.”

“David—”

Just the tone, the way his name came out short, with pain, made every cell in his body tense.

“Trish?”

“David, they came, and they got her….”

Got…oh, no. Breathe. Just breathe. “Trish, are you okay?”

“Cho’s hurt, and I…I…” Her intake of breath cut off her voice, and the sobbing that followed had David already putting the van into gear, already on autopilot.

“Hang on, Trish, I’ll be right there. Just hang on. And lock your doors.”

“Yeah…” she hiccuped. “Hurry, David…hurry.”

Please, God.
He roared out into traffic, nearly taking out a couple of scooters—
watch out, boys—
and sped through the next, yellowish light.

No, no. How had Kwan found—

Oh no. They’d been careful, and if Kwan knew where they were, he could have snatched them last night.

Unless he didn’t want David, just Yanna.

Again, that didn’t make sense, because David had seen him.

No, David had seen his
imposter.
He hadn’t met the real Kwan, he knew it in his bones.

Then why kidnap Yanna? And how?

The bottom line was, this was David’s fault for letting himself be distracted.

He dodged a car and honked his horn at a couple of pedestrians who thought they might be able to win in a metal-to-flesh game of chicken.

The alleyways of Taiwan had about a millimeter of clearance for the van, and he went through them like he might a computer game, fast, following his instincts. He did take out a planter—heard it fly up and splatter on the ground behind him—but didn’t slow, and thanked God that he didn’t also kill anyone.

Yet.

Please, don’t let Kwan hurt her.
Please.
He wiped an edge of wetness below his eye. Apparently, his fatigue and stress had overflowed his cup.

Oh, who was he trying to kid? If anything happened to Yanna he’d never make it. He’d curl in a ball somewhere, dark and horrible, screaming.