Ice Storm (Ice 4)

“I think this isn’t a very good moment to complicate things. We need to get Mahmoud out of there, though if the boy is still armed I’d back him against whatever thugs Thomason has managed to hire.”

Isobel felt Killian’s eyes on her, but she wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t meet his quizzical gaze. She’d betrayed everything she’d believed in, by falling into bed with him, and now the worst kind of disaster had happened. There were a hundred different ways she could have handled this, each of them an improvement over what had happened. She had to become who she was, make the hard decisions, do what needed to be done.

“You’re staying here,” she said. “No arguments. You’re much too valuable a commodity to risk for one small child. I’ve told you he’s too much of a liability—you should have gotten rid of him long ago.”

“Is that why your back got shredded when you protected him from the car bomb?” he said, his voice silky.

“Mistaken impulse. We’ll get him out if we can. But this is internal business—they’re just using you, and I’m not going to let that happen. You’re staying put.”

“And if I choose not to?”

“No choice. This place is as hard to get out of as it is to get into.”

She was prepared for anger, for arguments, but he simply shrugged. “All right. If I’m out, then I’m out. I’m going to make myself something to eat. For some reason I’ve worked up quite an appetite.”

No color flooded her face, no expression flitted through her eyes. She was back in control, and the crazy, endless hours might never have happened. “Just give me a minute, Peter,” she said.

She’d left her elegant leather purse in the bedroom, next to the rumpled bed. It was custom made; the inner pockets held two handguns, a syringe, a Tazer that could be set to kill levels, and an emergency tracking device. She moved into the bedroom and switched on the overhead light.

And froze for the briefest of moments. It still smelled of sex. The mattress had slid halfway off the bed, the sheets were a tangled mess, the pillows gone. She could see her purse under one corner of the bed, and made herself kneel down on the floor to get it. When she felt the presence of someone in the doorway, watching her, she froze.

It was only Peter. Peter, who took in the room with his cold blue eyes and didn’t miss a thing. “Are you okay?” he asked.

She started to put her hand on the bed to push herself up again, but didn’t want to touch it. With anyone else she could have held up, but this was Peter, the only family she had, so she smiled crookedly. “I screwed up. I guess everyone gets fucked by a monster at least once in their lives.”

“There’s something I should tell you….”

“What’s Killian doing?” She sat back on her heels. “How did you know his name is Killian, by the way? Is that even his name?”

“It’s his name. Bastien told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

There was a faint, creaking noise deep within the walls, inexplicable. “What’s that?”

“Rats?”

“I don’t think so. There’s no way out of here, is there? He can’t open the windows?”

“You know as well as I do how secure it is. They’re nailed shut.” The squeaking noise got fainter, and a look of horror crossed Isobel’s face. She surged off the floor, running past Peter into the empty living room. The deserted kitchen. There was no sign of Killian anywhere.

“How the hell did he get out?” Peter demanded, coming up behind her.

“The dumbwaiter,” she said. She yanked open the aging kitchen cabinet to expose the empty shaft. “How did he even know it was there? We left it in place in case someone needed it for an emergency escape, remember?”

“I guess it came in useful, after all,” Peter said.

Isobel whirled around. “Don’t you care? He’s going to screw everything up. And I know damn well he’s going to disappear, getting away with appalling crimes against humanity, and we’ll get nothing in return, though I always thought the deal was revolting—”

“Calm down, Isobel. Forget Killian. We need to concentrate on bringing Thomason down, and Reno’s in a pretty violent mood. He said he killed at least one of their people before they took him down, and I believe it. It wasn’t just his blood all over the floor upstairs.”

“Killian hasn’t simply taken off, Peter,” she said. “He’s gone for Mahmoud.”

“Shit.” Peter limped into the living room. “He took the GPS.”

“Of course he did. He’s going after him.”

“Bastien will stop him.”