“Zelda.”
“Of course. Now I remember.”
Zelda was smiling as she shook her head. “No, you don’t.”
“You’re right, I don’t. Shit.”
Jessica set the glass on the edge of the sink and got shakily to her feet. She cringed when she looked in the mirror. Her makeup was smudged and her hair was a mess. She pushed her hair back, sliding her fingers through it as she tried to shape it into something presentable. Her reflection didn’t improve much. Jessica was normally very self-aware and had taken her above-average looks for granted for a long time. Maybe too much so. There were hollows under her eyes that had never been there before and very faint lines that were disturbing. She knew she would still clean up nicely given the chance, but right now she looked like a homeless person—a hot homeless person, but a homeless person nonetheless.
“Fuck. I look like shit.”
Zelda nodded at the tub behind Jessica. “You could take a shower.”
Jessica only wanted to get out of this place. On the other hand, a chance to wash away the grime and sickness would be nice. “Hmm, maybe. Do you mind stepping out a minute? I really gotta pee.”
Zelda winced. “Yeah. Me, too. Don’t take too long.”
“Okay.”
Then the woman was gone and the door was shut.
Jessica lifted the toilet lid, pushed her jeans down, and lowered herself to the disgustingly stained seat, realizing too late she should have lined it with strips of toilet paper. A shudder of revulsion rippled through her. It was worse than if she’d plopped herself down on the nastiest gas station toilet ever, another point in favor of opting to take that shower prior to her departure. As she relieved herself, however, her thoughts turned again to that door out in the hallway.
Just a plain white door. Nothing special about it. So why did just the thought of it set her nerves on edge?
Only one way to find out…
Jessica pulled up her jeans as she rose from the toilet seat and walked out of the bathroom without flushing or washing her hands, that was how anxious she was. She stopped in the middle of the little hallway to stare at the unassuming door. She squinted hard at it, straining to probe her still-foggy memory for information about what might be on the other side of it. Her heart thumped harder as some dark shadow seemed like it was about to emerge from the mists of her subconscious, but whatever it was faded away in the next moment. Her hand went to the doorknob and grasped it. Rather than opening the door right away, she paused as she recalled the vague reference Zelda had made to their “host” a few minutes ago. She held onto the doorknob a moment longer, concentrating furiously as the memory fragment that had eluded her seconds ago struggled back to the surface.
And then it was there, an image of a shiny blade catching the light. And then the blade cutting into quivering pasty-white flesh…
Jessica turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. The room was an office of sorts with a lot of crap crammed into it. A bulky old computer monitor sat atop a cheap desk. Boxes of random junk were piled against the walls. A bicycle that looked like it hadn’t been used in years was wedged into a corner next to the desk.
Also, there was a dead man in a grimy wife-beater shirt duct-taped to a chair in the middle of the room. His big belly strained the front of the blood-stained shirt. His head was tilted back, allowing for a sickening view of the interior of his throat. The blade from her memory fragment had been used to cut it open. The man’s face was frozen in a twisted expression of agony. His flesh showed evidence of torture. Cuts and burns on seemingly every inch of bare flesh.
It was an appalling, horrifying tableau, but Jessica did not scream, nor did she whimper or shrink away from what she was seeing. She had seen dead bodies before. And she had killed people before, so many she’d lost count long ago, in the war zones overseas and right here in the states. Some of them had been guilty of nothing other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She was a morally compromised person on just about any level you could name. This meant she didn’t shock easily. But one thing she had never been was a thrill killer. She had only ever done it under orders or when she felt like she had no choice. What she was seeing here, however, was something else altogether.
This man had been brutally tortured and then executed.
She turned around as she heard footsteps behind her.
Zelda was fully clothed now, wearing jeans and a dark, form-fitting top. She also had a gun in her right hand, an automatic with a suppressor. It was aimed at Jessica’s stomach. “I see you found our host.” She smiled. “We had a wild night.”
Jessica made herself look the other woman in the eye. “What happened here? Who is this guy?”
Zelda smirked. “Good job staying calm. They told me you had nerves of steel. I had my doubts last night, but you’re starting to live up to the hype. As for what happened here, we had ourselves one hell of a party. Isn’t that obvious?”
Jessica noticed some things now. Zelda’s eyes were clear and bright. She didn’t have the haggard look of a hungover person. Jessica still didn’t recall much, but she began to intuit some of the larger picture. This woman might have had a drink or two last night, but she had nursed them while goading Jessica into drunkenness. She might even have slipped her something to heighten the effect.
“You drugged me, didn’t you?”
“Of course.”
Jessica’s veneer of calm slipped some, anger showing through the cracks. “You got me so fucked up I couldn’t do anything but watch while you tortured this man.”
Zelda nodded. “That’s right. Want to guess why?”
Jessica thought she already knew, her intuition rapidly filling in the blanks Zelda was being so coy about. “You’re an assassin. Someone hired you to kill me for something I did in Kabul. But that’s not all of it, is it? You were told to discredit me, too.”
The woman—by now Jessica knew her real name wasn’t Zelda—nodded again. “You’ve already done much to discredit yourself, but I was paid to ruin what little of your reputation was left. I took many pictures of you with our friend here, pictures that will soon be in the hands of law enforcement agencies around the world. In your condition, it wasn’t difficult to coax you into posing with the body and the murder weapon. It will be obvious you had an accomplice, but no one will ever know--”
The woman gasped in surprise as Jessica launched herself at her, the gun going off as she slammed into her at just below waist level. She drove the woman back through the open doorway and down to the floor in the hallway, getting a hand around her wrist before the bitch could bring the gun to bear on her for another shot. The woman tried to chop at her throat with her free hand, but Jessica deflected the blow and drove the heel of her hand straight down into the center of her face. The blow was hard enough to bloody her nose, but this was not the intended effect. Delivered hard enough, it should have shattered the cartilage, resulting in a moment of intense, paralyzing pain.
The assassin chopped at her neck again and this time Jessica didn’t get her arm up in time to repel the blow. The edge of the woman’s hand hit the side of her throat hard. Jessica gasped for air and the woman delivered another unimpeded blow to her throat. The second blow dislodged her and she wound up on her back in the hallway, clutching at her throbbing throat.
The woman started to bring the gun around.
Jessica pulled a leg back and kicked out at it. Her whole body was still burning with pain, but her survival instinct had kicked into high gear, dumping much-needed adrenaline into her system. The heel of her boot connected with the woman’s hand and the gun went flying through an archway into the living room. The woman scrambled after it on all fours. There was no time for delay. No time to worry about pain or what damage she might be doing to her body. She had to stop this bitch now or she would be dead.
Tapping what felt like her last reserves of strength, Jessica surged to her feet and ran through the archway. The pain in her throat would have been disabling in circumstances even the smallest iota less desperate, but she pushed through it and got to the woman just as she reached the gun. Her fingers were curling around the automatic’s grip as Jessica launched herself at her again, slamming into her back and driving her to the floor again. She clamped one hand around her wrist and hooked her other arm around her throat. The woman thrashed wildly beneath her, but Jessica held on and continued to apply pressure. Beginning to panic, the assassin reflexively fired the gun twice. The slugs punched into the wall, sending chunks of drywall flying.
Jessica pried the gun from her limp fingers as soon as the woman lost consciousness. Her instincts were screaming at her to start running, but she struggled hard to return to a state of calculating calm. The woman would be out for a few minutes. She had a small window of time to consider her next move. Heart beating faster now, she took a quick look around the apartment and soon located her handbag. A quick check of it verified her wallet and keys were inside it. She could only hope her car was parked somewhere in the vicinity.
Time to go.
There was no disputing that. Once she got away from this place and found somewhere to hole up, she could start sorting through the implications of everything that had gone down. But right now there was no time to think, only time for action.
Jessica left the apartment without putting a bullet through the head of the assassin.
She would have cause to regret this down the road.
2.
This road was the same as all the others that had once led into Hopkins Bend—blocked by barricades and plastered with signage warning travelers not to trespass. The language used was ominous. The land was now property of the federal government. The area was patrolled by armed sentries authorized to use deadly force against anyone caught violating the trespass warnings.
Daphne Sanders glanced at her traveling companion. “Doesn’t that seem a little extreme?”
Adam Vanek drummed his thumbs against the Saab’s steering wheel a moment before replying. He was leaning forward in his seat and squinting at the signs. Finally he shrugged and said, “That’s probably the whole point.”
“What do you mean?”
Adam let go of the steering wheel and leaned back. “The wording is just to put the fear of God into people like you and me. It’s a psychological thing. I bet a million dollars there’s no actual armed guards, but just the idea that there might be is probably enough to scare off most people.”
Daphne nodded.
Adam had parked his Saab at the side of Old Fort Road, a narrow rural road shrouded on both sides by tall trees. A dozen yards or so up ahead the now-barricaded Rural Route 42 forked away to the right. Beyond the barricade, another expanse of trees and lush greenery stretched away toward a bend in the road. The curvature of the road was sharp enough that she couldn’t make out much else in that direction, but there was no visible evidence of a human presence in the area.
She popped open the door on her side and swung a foot out of the car.
Adam seized her by a wrist. “What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like? Getting out.”
Worry lines formed around Adam’s eyes as he glanced at the signs again. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s not a good idea.”
Daphne made a sound of exasperation and twisted out of Adam’s grip. “Are you kidding me? This was your idea.”
Adam nodded. “I know. But that was when I was thinking of this place in an abstract way. I thought it’d be cool to visit a modern ghost town. But these signs and their dire fucking warnings are making me rethink that.”
“Pussy.”
Adam arched an eyebrow. “What did you just say?”
Daphne smirked. “You heard me.”
“I’m not a pussy.”
Daphne shrugged. “So you say, but you’re the one who said the signs are bullshit.”
Adam grunted. “You’re sort of paraphrasing there.”
“Maybe, but that was the gist of it. You said there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Okay, that I absolutely did not say.”
“It was implied.”
“Like hell.”
A silence ensued. As usual in moments like this, Adam was uncomfortable and unsure of what to say or do. Though she was his closest female friend, Daphne was a hard girl to read sometimes. Their relationship had never been anything other than platonic, which didn’t mean there was a lack of desire on Adam’s part. Daphne was beautiful. Her lush blonde hair and sculpted cheekbones compelled attention wherever she went, but there was so much more to her than good looks. She was smart and funny. She had an adventurous spirit, as well as an uncanny ability to make anyone feel like they were the center of the world. Being around her made the world feel more vibrant and interesting. Not falling instantly in love with a girl like that simply wasn’t possible. There was just one problem—she was in a committed relationship with another guy, had been for going on three years.