Betrayed (11 page)

“Well, thank you, Gaia,” Heather said, sounding deeply grateful to the point of tears. “Thank you
so much.
I just wish I could see you right now. I wish I could look you in the eye and thank you for saving my life.”

She
had,
hadn't she? Gaia had saved Heather's life. She had been so busy fighting, she hadn't really thought about it in those terms. And she couldn't help thinking that maybe this was some kind of karma? Giving in to Ed earlier. Saving Heather tonight. Maybe, in some strange cosmic way, Gaia had finally found a way to make up for nearly getting Heather killed that night in the park? Maybe everything was coming full circle tonight. Heather even seemed to be getting some of her lucidity back. Maybe it helped to know that she was no longer on her own.

“Seeing is overrated,” Gaia said, trying to at least flop herself onto her back. “I mean, what's there really to see? I'll tell you what. I'll close the curtain around my bed, and then I won't be able to see you, either. We'll be even.”

Heather seemed to consider this suggestion for a second. “You really are a freak, aren't you,” she concluded.

“Yes, and…?”It went without saying that Gaia was a freak.

“And I am, too,” Heather said.

“
Oh,
yeah,” Gaia agreed. “Big freak.”

“We'll be
even.
”Heather repeated it to herself quietly as if she were savoring it. “I like that. We
are,
Gaia,” she said, with an odd tone of official declaration. It sounded like her mind might be falling a little out of sync again. “We're even. Okay? From now on? Even.”

“Even,” Gaia agreed, half asleep. “Just give me two seconds to get blind.” Gaia hoisted herself up and tugged the dark blue plastic curtain all the way around her bed, dropping back down on the pillow as the notion of staying awake became more and more of a fantasy.

“Heather, I'm sorry, but I think I have to sleep a little, okay? I really think we're safe in here tonight. We've got the guard out there, and I don't think Loki is going to hit the same place twice in one night. So let's just try to relax. Heather…”

Gaia heard a faint snore coming from the other bed. Heather must be just as exhausted as she was. How could she not be after everything they had been through in this interminable day of horrors? They'd both basically been fighting off death almost hour by hour, and somehow or other…they'd both won. At least for today. They deserved at least one good night's sleep. They had earned it.

TOM FELT A TWINGE IN HIS SPINE
the moment he saw it. He'd barely pulled his car up to George's Perry Street town house when he felt the spark of pain ignited by the sight of a simple piece of yellow plastic.

Police tape.

All he'd seen was the crime scene tape floating in the wind, broken in two pieces on either side of George's front door. And he already knew.

He knew what had become of George Niven. And he finally understood what that grinning little bastard on the fire escape had meant when he said, “Why don't you ask your buddy George?”

Because Tom knew his brother. He knew what Loki did to people who'd outlived their usefulness. And George should have known it, too.

Why did you do it, George? How could you be so foolish? We watched him operate for years. Didn't you know where it would lead? Didn't you know what he'd do to you? God, George, were you my last hope for finding Gaia tonight?

Those were just a few of the hundreds of questions Tom had for George. And questions were only the beginning of what Tom had planned, to be followed by the most scathing brand of verbal abuse and then, most likely, unless George had some kind of earth-shattering explanation, some form of severe physical punishment. Nothing deadly, much as Tom's most vengeful self might have wanted it, but certainly something to ensure that George felt the appropriate amount of regret for what he'd done. And then an immediate interrogation. Squeezing out every bit of knowledge George might have had about Gaia's whereabouts.

But Tom was already rather sure that none of his questions would ever be answered. And as for George's punishment, it appeared someone had already taken care of that.

Now Tom had been forced to shift gears completely. And his heart was no different than any other engine. If it wasn't prepared to shift gears, it was going to stall. All those years of trust and faith and admiration for his friend. And a few days of despising him. Tom didn't know what to feel. But no amount of speculation or confusion was going to stop him from going inside. He had to see it for himself. He needed some kind of visual confirmation other than one yellow piece of plastic.

He climbed the stone steps as he fished for his spare key to George's place, but when his hand grabbed the knob, he realized that the door was unlocked. Someone had done all of this already. Someone had broken the tape, unlocked the door, and ventured inside. And they hadn't bothered to lock it when they left.

Gaia.
It had to be. She'd been here and gone
already.
When? Tonight? Days ago? Maybe there was some clue inside?

Tom walked into the dark apartment, feeling that eerie sense of stillness—his least favorite part of the job. Even to this day, he despised the sensation of walking through a crime scene. That sense that nothing in the room pertained to the present anymore. Everything in this house was now a part of the past. The George and Ella Niven Museum. A study in betrayal and poor judgment.

Tom climbed the stairs to the top floor and flipped on the hallway light. He immediately began checking the rooms, doing a quick cursory glance in each bedroom. But it didn't take very long. He found what he was looking for on his third opened door. Gaia's bedroom. The flash of stark white lines contrasting with the dark floor had caught his eye instantly. He flipped on the light in the room and confirmed his first fear from the moment his car had pulled up to the house. An outline of a body in white tape. Bloodstains that had turned from red to black.

And only now did he realize the real reason he'd needed to see it. Because before he'd even had a chance to truly take in the image, he'd already found himself kneeling next to what was left of George Niven, his greatest friend of more than twenty years. White tape and black smudges of dried blood. That was all that remained of George. And although Tom's heart might have been too hardened for him to cry at this point, he suddenly realized why he had made himself enter this house.

It wasn't just to settle his confusion. It wasn't just to confirm what he'd already known the moment he arrived or even to find another clue about Gaia. He knew there were no more clues. It was none of those things.

Tom had come into this house to mourn.

The human heart was indeed a most bizarre phenomenon. He'd come here with nothing but spite and scorn in his heart. He'd come here to punish George, to hurt him if he had to, to force the truth out of him about Gaia and where Tom could find her. But the moment he had realized that George was dead…he'd come in to forgive him.

I'll never understand it,
he thought as he knelt by the closest thing there was right now to George's grave.
I'll never understand why you did it. But in all honesty, in spite of all my rage and all my vengeful impulses, do you know what I really believe in my heart of hearts, George? I should be locked up in an insane asylum for this
…
but I honestly believe that you somehow thought you were doing good. However horribly misguided your judgment, however stupid and shortsighted and naive and idiotic you were, I believe you thought you were somehow being
…
noble. I suppose that makes me almost as much a fool as you. But that's how I'm going to choose to remember you. I'm going to remember you for all the noble things you did in your life—and there were many. And the rest of it
…
I don't think I'll ever forget what you did to us—what you did to my family. But I'll forgive you, George. I do forgive you.

I just wish I could understand how it happened. I wish I could have been standing in the room the moment you
decided to sell me out. We were like brothers, George. How could you turn on me like that when we were practically
…
?

The thought was almost laughable. It was even too absurd a thought for Tom to finish. How could a brother turn on his own brother? Was he seriously asking himself this question? He'd thought he stopped asking that idiotic question ten years ago. Because it was about ten years ago that he'd realized the answer.

He'd discovered it while reading a book that he'd found in his motel room one night in Dallas, Texas. A little book called the Bible. While skimming through that very familiar book, it had finally occurred to Tom that a brother's betrayal wasn't such a mystery after all. In fact, judging from this
very
old book, he thought it was one of the oldest traditions in human nature. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Esau. Joseph and his brothers…

The conclusion was simple enough, and if George was any indication, it still held true today.

A brother's betrayal wasn't so uncommon at all. It was a brother's
loyalty
that seemed to be the real rarity. What a very, very sad thought.

Tom rose and stepped back from the ghostly outline. He had nothing left to say. And Gaia was still his only priority. He'd spoken his piece, and now it was time to move on.

He made his way down the stairs and out the front door in seconds. But the moment he sat down in his car, he realized…

George had been his only hope. He had no leads, not one message on his Blackberry. The Agency still didn't have a thing. Not a thing.

Tom blew out a long, frustrated sigh. He was getting so very tired. There was nothing in the world more exhausting than failure. It seemed he had already reached that dreaded moment that always seemed to present itself with his tragically independent daughter. That moment when he was utterly impotent. When he was drowning in his own futility. That moment when he realized yet again that Gaia's life was entirely in her own hands.

Ten o'clock tomorrow
…Did it mean anything? Did Gaia have any idea about ten o'clock tomorrow? Did she have any idea what might happen to her tonight?

Tom had no more choices. If he was to be of any use tomorrow morning, he'd need to get some sleep tonight. He'd need to believe that Gaia had found herself a safe place to stay. In essence, he'd need to ignore that little voice in his head telling him that place didn't exist.

WAS SHE REALLY DREAMING OF
creaking doors and slow, haunting footsteps? She could have sworn they'd both been invading her subconscious for hours. How bizarre and preposterous would that be? Where were the images coming from, those cliché slice-and-dice summer block-busters? What was next? The monster under the bed? The headless ghost of St. Vincent himself roaming the hospital in the wee hours of the morn? The lone severed hand crawling through the hospital, looking for hippies and sexually active teens?

For someone with no fear, there was nothing on this planet more ineffectual than a bad dream ripped off from a lame horror movie.

But there was another footstep….

You're not dreaming, Gaia. You're awake. There's someone in this room.

This would of course be the part in the movie where she was supposed to stare into the camera, widen her eyes to comical proportions, and then scream bloody murder at least two or three times. But Gaia was nothing other than thrilled.

Whoever that someone was, he had been idiotic enough to think that opening a creaky door slowly was a stealthy way to enter a room. But all he had done was give her more time to plan the specific nature and duration of his beating. She'd
known
staying with Heather was the right choice.

She raised her chest gently to a more upright position and stared with anticipation at the blue plastic curtain she had closed around her hospital bed. She couldn't
believe
this was his best attempt at a sneak attack. It was pathetic. The faint light from the hallway was projecting his entire silhouette right through the curtain as he took each cartoonish step.

I hope it's you, Josh. I hope they didn't send that cheap imitation this time. Because you're the one I want. I have
so
been looking forward to this
….

Gaia flexed her fists and switched to a deeper focus. She would start with one perfectly placed shot to that repulsive face. And then she would improvise from there. Just one step closer…
Open the curtain.
…
Come on, asshole, open the curtain.
…

He finally slipped his fingers through the opening in the curtain. And the second he swung that thing open, she cracked his face with a lightning quick jab that knocked him flat on his coldhearted ass.

“You call that a sneak attack?” she taunted, shooting up from the bed onto her feet. “That is
pathetic,
you spineless little turd.
Pathetic.
”

“
Shhh. Jesus
freaking
Christ,
” he moaned from the floor, writhing around with his hand clamped over his eye. “Don't be afraid to tell me how you
really
feel….”

Gaia looked down at him again. Only this time, she looked a little closer. Actually…it was the first time she had really looked at all.

“Ed…?”

“No,” Ed groaned quietly from the floor. “I go by ‘Spineless Turd' now.
Christ,
you can punch….
Owww.
”

“Oh my God,
Ed.
” Gaia collapsed down to the floor and cradled Ed, helping him up to a seated position. “I am
so sorry.
I thought you were…Wait a minute. How the hell did you know I was here?”

“I
know
you,” he said with a sigh. “I knew you would stay over the second you said you were going to check in on Heather again. I would only have been surprised if you
weren't
here. Face it, Gaia. You're a compulsive savior.”

“Gaia…?”Heather interjected with a deeply groggy voice. Waking from hospital sedation had been known to take hours. Gaia didn't even know what kind of dose they were giving the poor girl, but it must have been just a step above horse tranquilizers. “Gaia, are you okay? What's happening?”

Gaia quickly propped Ed against the bed and leapt up to Heather's side.

Heather was still so utterly freaked out by her earlier attack, Gaia could hear the anxiety in her voice, even under heavy sedation. And why wouldn't she still be freaked out? Gaia was probably the only person in the world who wouldn't be.

She couldn't stand to see Heather like this. She honestly would have done just about anything to be back in school again, looking at Heather standing right in front of her, her hair hanging with that disgustingly perfect lilt as she bombarded Gaia with scathing insults about her poor hygiene and her choice of pants. Or perhaps she'd be engaged in one of those unbearable high-pitched group giggles with the FOHs. Anything would do. Any offensive scenario. Just as long as Heather could
see
it.

“It's okay, Heather,” she assured her. “It's okay. It's just Ed.”

“Ed?” Heather whimpered with a faint smile. “Ed's here? What time is it?”

Gaia turned back to Ed with a sudden disapproving glare. Hadn't they
specifically
agreed to refrain from any further contact until tomorrow? Had Ed just
forgotten?
“Yeah, Ed, what the hell time is it?”

“Oh my God,” he moaned, gently removing his hand from his eye. “First of all, can we please keep it quiet so I don't get thrown out of here? Second, where is the love, Gaia
?
Can I get a
wee
bit more sympathy for your judo death chop before you go
Gaia
on me?”

He had her on the judo death chop thing. She knelt back down in front of Ed and examined his wound. She touched her finger gently to the little red welt above his eye.

“It's a little after midnight,” he whispered, pretty much disarming every one of Gaia's verbal weapons and defense mechanisms with his one and a half dark brown eyes and his scruffy head. “I brought snacks,” he added.

He pointed his finger at a spot next to the door, where there was a small plastic shopping bag with the handles tied together. “Veselka,” he said. “I got potato pancakes, vegetable soup—”

“Ed, what are you talking about?” Gaia squeaked quietly. “We can't have a sn—”

“Rice Krispies Treats
…,
”
Ed interrupted, staring reverently at the bag.

Gaia froze and looked back at the bag. “You sneaky bastard,” she whispered, beginning to salivate at the thought of a hunk of butter, sugar, and dried rice. Not to mention the potato pancakes…There was no greater use of grease and potatoes than the potato pancakes at Veselka. Ed was no fool. He knew what he was doing.

Gaia wished she could find the strength to send Ed home. She didn't want him in this dangerous room. She didn't want to rub their incredibly recent reconciliation in Heather's face. She didn't want her and Ed getting caught and thrown out of the room, leaving Heather in here all alone again and vulnerable….

“You guys…?”Heather croaked. “Can I have a snack?”

Something about Heather's request for a snack nearly broke Gaia's heart. But it was Ed's confident smile that sealed the deal. He knew Gaia could no longer say no. He knew that Gaia wouldn't dare deprive Heather—who was deprived right now of just about everything else in this world—the pleasure of a snack. She wasn't that cruel.

What he might not have known was that his bringing a midnight snack was probably the kindest, sweetest, most remarkable thing anyone had ever done for her since the age of twelve.

“Okay,” she whispered, doing everything in her power not to grin with gleeful relief that Ed Fargo was back in her life. “One snack. But if they find us in here, then—”

“Oh, no, not in
here,
” Ed corrected her.

Gaia stared into his mischievous, if mildly swollen, eyes. “What do you mean, not here?” she asked flatly.

“Can I have my snack now?” Heather chimed in.

“Hold on, Heather,” Gaia replied impatiently before turning back to Ed. “Tell me now or you lose the other eye—”

“Okay, okay,” he said, grabbing her wrist and lowering her hand.

God.
Could she possibly be more embarrassed about how much she enjoyed just having his hand around her wrist? Gaia still couldn't quite fathom what had slowly begun to happen to her regarding one Edward Fargo. Deprived of him for so unbearably long, it seemed that upon his return, she had begun to develop a thoroughly over-the-top, ultracheesy, schoolgirl-crush-style infatuation for her best friend. Wasn't the infatuation supposed to come first? Before the sex? Before the friendship, even?

It was just another example of Gaia's life being in reverse as usual, but in this case it wasn't necessarily such a bad thing.

“I used to have to come to this hospital all the time to be tortured,” Ed explained. “So I figured out some of the better places to be alone—as in, to hide. And there was only one place where they never found me.”

“Uh-huh…?”

Ed stretched his head over Gaia's shoulder, keeping his hand wrapped around her wrist. “Hey, Heather, do you feel like some fresh air?”

Gaia slapped her hand quietly against Ed's chest, chiding him with her eyes. “What are you talking about?” she whispered. “Heather can't just walk outside. She's hooked up to an IV. I don't even know if she can
walk.
”

“IVs roll,” Ed argued. “And so do people.” He pointed again, this time to the other side of the door, where Gaia hadn't noticed a folded-up wheelchair. “A fine model,” he said. “One of my personal favorites. Great traction. Cruise control. Zero to sixty in roughly fifteen to twenty minutes. Top of the line.” Ed stepped over to the closet and pulled Heather's coat off the hanger. “So what do you say, Heather? A brief journey?”

“Have you guys ever had hospital food?”Heather asked.

“Uh…yeah?” Ed replied.

“Right,”
Heather said, her hands shaking slightly as she raised her voice. “Then you can understand why all I really care about right now…is my snack.”

“Very good.” Ed smiled. “Well, then let's get you up,” he said, turning to Gaia. “We're going to the roof.”