Spotless (Spotless Series Book 1) Page 4

  His invitation was met by a deep silence in the surrounding woods, occasionally troubled by shrill bird calls, until faint steps echoed in the distance, crushing twigs and dry leaves. A tall silhouette appeared between two trees—broad shoulders, long gray coat, a scary sniper rifle, nothing like the old Remington my grandpa hunted squirrels with . . .

  I didn’t want to look at his face. I already knew.

  March covered the distance between us with a tranquil stride, his gentle smile belying the way his gloved index finger still rested on the weapon’s trigger. Creepy-hat seemed to be about to greet him, but before he could open his mouth, March glanced at the two men curled on the ground behind us and spoke in a cold voice. “Leave your weapons and drag yourselves to the car.”

  I think the driver and Greasy-jacket wanted to comply, but there are things you can’t do so well with a bullet in your leg, or in your wrist for that matter. Each movement tore groans of pain from them, and I couldn’t see this working. How would they get up to climb inside the SUV? Call me selfish: I chose to ignore such practicalities and scurried away from Creepy-hat to hide behind March, the handcuffs that locked my arms threatening my balance with every step.

  Creepy-hat caressed his scar absently, his right hand still inside his coat’s pocket. “March, what sort of game are you playing? Since when do you take investigative jobs?”

  “I’m taking care of the client myself. I don’t think your services will be needed any longer,” came his “partner’s” curt reply.

  Creepy-hat’s grin turned almost maniacal. “Says who? The Queen? Somehow, I doubt that!”

  “I’m merely seeing to my employer’s best interest. Don’t test me. You know better,” March retorted flatly.

  “You’re seeing to your own grave, my friend.”

  This particular remark made me wonder what sort of history these two had, because there was no trace of concern in Creepy-hat’s voice, but rather a barely contained joy. Glancing at his men resting near the SUV, neither of them able to get up due to the extent of their injuries, he let out an exasperated sigh. “Very well . . . have it your way. This silly dispute is only a minor setback. I’ll inform the Queen of the incident, and expect to recover my client soon.”

  I wanted to snicker at the way Creepy-hat made it sound like he was indulging March, when it was clear that he didn’t have the balls to face him alone and was, in fact, retreating. I didn’t, because when I heard March’s voice, any fleeting relief, any amusement I had felt died right away. “Island. Close your eyes.”

  I obeyed, inching closer to him, until I was almost brushing his back, smelling rain and cedar on his wool coat. I did register the noise, like two firecrackers bursting one after another, but I didn’t understand immediately. Until I opened my eyes again.

  Creepy-hat was still standing in front of us. The hand that had been resting in his pocket all this time was now visible, holding a small brown pistol equipped with a long black suppressor. There was a little smoke, a smell I identified as powder, and his men were no longer moving. The driver had collapsed face-first in the muddy ground, whereas Greasy-jacket lay on his back, a bloody wound visible on his left temple.

  For a few seconds, my mind couldn’t process that Creepy-hat had just killed his own men. All I could focus on was the sound of the gunshots, so different from the movies. He put the gun back inside his coat and knelt beside the driver’s body to retrieve the SUV’s keys from the guy’s jacket. I watched, paralyzed, as he unlocked the car and turned one last time, silently tipping his hat to bid us good-bye. I think I closed my eyes at that point because I don’t remember seeing him climb into the vehicle. The engine hummed to life, and when I peeked again, he was gone.

  I thought of horses with broken legs, and I cried.

  March turned to face me, his expression blank. Without saying a word, he produced a tissue from one of his pockets to wipe my nose and cheeks; I let him proceed without reacting, in a daze. Once he was done, he meticulously folded the dirty piece of paper until all that was left was a compact little square, which he wrapped several times into a second, clean tissue before tucking it back in the same pocket. My shoulders were still shaking, and he waited patiently until I was more or less in a state to form coherent sentences.

  “Now . . . I believe we have some unfinished business, Island.”

  I took a few steps backward, my eyes traveling back and forth between his indecipherable expression and the rifle, and I blurted out the question I needed answered the most. “Who were they? Are they looking for that diamond too?”

  “Yes.”

  “He called you his partner. Why would your boss hire competing forces?”

  He appeared to hesitate, and what came out was a masterpiece of vague non-explanation. “My employers had second thoughts about their primary choice of professionals.”

  “Why? Aren’t you both the same, with the guns and—” My eyes darted to the two bodies on the ground, but the words wouldn’t come out.

  Something a little dark flashed in March’s eyes. “That man doesn’t work like me. He has his . . . kinks.”

  I swallowed hard. March had rescued me from whatever Creepy-hat had been planning to do with me, but at what cost? From the looks of it, I had merely traded one soulless asshole for another. I suddenly felt terribly alone, half-incapacitated and trapped in front of him in the middle of nowhere. I figured it would be preferable if I kept asking the questions, given his track record with interrogation, so I shot first before he could threaten to break my arms again.

  “I don’t get it. You had me! Why did you let them take me?”

  A little frown creased his brow. “You were very unresponsive after you threw up in your bathroom, so I decided to let him make his move and tenderize you for me. Also, your apartment was messy. I thought you deserved a little chastening.”

  “T-tenderize me?”

  “Yes, I planned on rescuing you after you were on the table.”

  “The table?”

  He dismissed my concerns with a quick flick of his left wrist. “No need to elaborate on that.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “You’re a bit scrawny. I realized that if he wasn’t careful enough, you might die before either of us had a chance to learn anything.” As he said this, a little disappointed sigh escaped him, which I found somewhat euphemistic considering the implications of his words.

  I tried to breathe my rising panic out. “What makes you think I know anything about that diamond?”

  He shook his head in disbelief and placed a menacing index finger on the rifle’s trigger. “This is getting ridiculous. I could shoot you in the knees, and you’d tell me everything you know.”

  Said knees buckled at the prospect.

  “Wouldn’t that cause permanent injuries?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  I laid anxious eyes on the long suppressor extending the rifle’s barrel. “March . . . I don’t understand any of this. Please . . . at least explain—”

  An expression of doubt appeared on his features, like he wasn’t sure what to do with me. “I assume you know what the Cullinan is?”

  “The big diamond? The one they made the crown jewels from? You’re aware that those are in London and not in my bedroom, right?”

  “Don’t play with me. I’m talking about the Ghost Cullinan, the one your mother stole from my employer.”

  His words hit me like a slap in the face, dissipating my fear in favor of white-hot anger. “What? How dare you? My mom never stole anything from anyone!”

  “I can assure you, she did. My employer has spent the past decade looking for it, until they learned from one of your mother’s former associates that she had entrusted it to you.”

  “What are you rambling about? She was a diplomat! How would she have ended up involved in a diamond heist? March, I really think that you and those guys have the wrong person—”

  March’s eyes hardened. “Are you Island Chaptal?”

>   “Yes, but—”

  “Born on September 20, 1989? Daughter of Léa Chaptal and Simon Halder?”

  “You’re not listening—”

  He placed his index finger on my forehead and pressed gently, as if to force his words directly inside my brain. “You listen. Island, your mother was never a diplomat. Her position as a consular officer was one of many covers. Your mother worked for a criminal organization called the Board; she was a spy and a remarkably gifted thief . . . And believe me when I say that the CIA could fill an entire room with the classified files her name appears in.”

  CIA? Spy? My knees were shaking again, and I was tempted to hold on to something. I think March saw it: he took a step forward, and his left hand moved as if to catch me. I staggered back, holding my handcuffed hands in front of me in attempt to keep him at a safe distance; I’d sooner drink the milk from a thousand cereal bowls than collapse in his arms.

  “You people are all insane!” I shouted. “You . . . you broke into my house, and then you kidnapped me, and I keep telling you that I have nothing to do with this, and . . . and—” I had to stop. My eyes were watering, and I could feel my voice crack.

  “You’re a smart girl, Island. I doubt she fooled you entirely,” March said, his tone softer.

  She had.

  Maybe.

  I wasn’t sure anymore. I needed air. Yet the air wasn’t coming. My lungs were contracting rapidly, struggling to find oxygen for my brain. I thought of my mother, of the little I knew about her career as a diplomat, of the car accident in Tokyo.

  Had I unconsciously refused to see certain things?

  I racked my brain for memories that might have served to back March’s claims, but I couldn’t find anything conclusive. True, during my first fifteen years spent with her, we had more or less lived from a suitcase, always gliding from one place to another too quickly to form any ties to the people around us. As a result, I had been homeschooled—make that self-schooled—which might have been the reason why I had blossomed into a socially inept adult. She had probably been aware that ten hours of Internet a day were detrimental to my development, but she’d always say that since we relocated so often, it would have been frustrating for me to change schools all the time; better not go at all.

  So, yes, my mom had been weird, maybe even a tiny bit irresponsible at times. Yet, being a free spirit doesn’t make you a criminal. She had raised me as best she could, and with her I had visited many countries and become fluent in several languages. How many kids can say that?

  My hands bunched into fists. I couldn’t accept this. Couldn’t stand the way March’s words were already worming their way inside my head. “This doesn’t make any sense! And I swear to you she didn’t leave me a diamond or anything like that. All I ever received was some cash that had been sleeping in a bank account. I got six thousand dollars and nothing else. They didn’t—” My voice faltered as I recalled this episode. “They didn’t even give me her things. My dad disposed of them while I was still in the hospital, and I had nothing left from her.”

  An emotion that looked closely like fake sorrow shadowed March’s features. “Didn’t you ever wonder why he would do that? Erase her like that?”

  A cold, prickling sensation radiated from my spine throughout my body. Of course I had. My father and I weren’t big on drama or personal discussions, though. Months after my relocation to New York, I had timidly brought up the issue and expressed regrets that I had no actual souvenir left from my mother, only memories. Knowing myself though, it probably sounded like I had dropped my toast on the peanut-buttered side or missed an episode of MythBusters. I could still remember that lunch at the Russian Tea Room, during which I had stared down at my blinis while my father vaguely apologized, claiming he had no idea I wanted to keep her things, and that no one even knew if I’d ever wake up, back then.

  One thing hadn’t changed after all these years: I was still a champion at looking down and shunning people when I didn’t want to listen to what they had to say. My gaze focused on the tips of my ballet flats, covered in mud and glistening grass blades; I blocked March’s voice, his very existence. What did my father know? Really know?

  “Island? Island?”

  I felt March’s hand on my shoulder, bursting through my bubble, and looked up to see a line of worry on his brow. “Are you still with me?”

  “I . . . Yes . . . I am. Go on.”

  He nodded. “As I was saying, in 2004, the Board sent her to Pretoria to steal the Ghost Cullinan, but she betrayed them and disappeared with the stone. She fled to Japan, where—”

  He stopped there, perhaps out of some shred of decency. I didn’t need to hear again that my mom had burned inside her car, and that the only reason I was still alive was that a passerby had extracted me from the wreckage that day.

  “Even if any of this was true, I know nothing about that damn stone,” I mumbled.

  “Didn’t she leave any sort of hint? Try to remember.”

  “How would I know? That notary was a good-for-nothing anyway. We never received any paperwork, nothing!”

  A spark lit in March’s eyes. “Notary?”

  “Yes, I know he contacted my dad once, months after her death. But we never heard from him again. My dad said he had no way to reach the guy.” I shrugged. “Maybe it was better this way: the estate was negative anyway.”

  “Did your father say that? That your mother’s net worth was negative?”

  “Yes. Look, I was fifteen . . . I don’t really know . . . I dropped the issue, okay? It was just a bunch of bad memories.” I looked away, fighting a mixture of anger and shame. I had given up on my mother’s will so I could forget, be strong like my father and act like she had never existed. Only now that I was confessing it out loud did I realize how ugly, how cowardly that decision had been.

  Of course, Mr. Clean didn’t care about my feelings; he cared about the facts. “What was the notary’s name?”

  “Mr. Étienne. He was calling from Paris. Don’t waste your time with the yellow pages. I checked once, years ago. My dad was right: found no trace of him.”

  March appraised me for a few seconds, his face blank, and it dawned on me that now that he was done squeezing out what little intel I could provide, he was probably going to kill me. When he finally opened his mouth to talk, I was busy addressing a silent prayer to Raptor Jesus for the sake of my poor wretched soul.

  “Well, that’s settled then. First we’re going to question this Mr. Étienne.”

  “We? You mean . . . in Paris?”

  He gave me a candid look—the first since I had met him. “Where else? Your mother was no rookie. I doubt she left the Ghost Cullinan in the hands of her notary, but if she did leave a will, it might contain indications as to where the diamond is. I’m sorry, but we’re not done. I still need you.”

  I gauged him suspiciously. One could hardly trust a professional killer, but then again, he was the one carrying the rifle, so my options were limited—and by limited I mean: “March or Creepy-hat, pick your favorite Saturday night date.” That being said, the guy seemed in no hurry to get rid of me, despite his claim that it was his specialty. There’d been several occasions for him to maim or kill me in the past twenty-four hours, and he hadn’t acted on any of them. No, March was a consummate sociopath, but I had a feeling he wasn’t actual psycho-killer material.

  And at the moment, he was the only door to my mother’s past. A past that was quickly catching up with me and might swallow me whole if I didn’t find a way to either escape, or help March find the Ghost Cullinan and give it back to its (il)legitimate owner.

  I gave him a decided nod. “I get it. I’ll go with you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “I don’t want to go back with that guy,” I muttered, in guise of an explanation.

  Lowering his weapon, he stepped forward, closing the distance between us, and raised my chin with a gloved index finger. His eyes plunged into mine in a way that made me pray I had
been right about him not being psycho-killer material. His low, dangerous voice sent an unpleasant chill all the way down to my knees. “Let’s be clear. I’m a little old-fashioned. I usually try not to hurt women too much. But if you hide anything from me, Island, I’ll make an exception . . . and all the crying in the world won’t help.”

  I nodded hastily, and when he let go of me, breathed a shivering sigh of relief. Placing a firm hand on my back, March steered me toward the woods and away from that sinister glade. As he did so, I turned my head to look at the two bodies still resting on the humid ground. When my nose caught the scent of fresh blood mingling with wet leaves, I fought a wave of nausea. “March, what about—”

  He checked a black chronograph on his wrist without looking back. “Rislow doesn’t leave loose ends. A cleaning team should be here for them soon . . . which is why we need to leave now.”

  So that was Creepy-hat’s name: Rislow. I thought of asking March if he might be waiting for us already with a rifle of his own, somewhere in the vicinity, but I figured it was unlikely, since March didn’t look particularly worried. He led us through the desolate woods, and I tried my best to keep up with his pace without falling face-first on the ground, steadied by his hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you scared of the cleaning team?” I murmured as we reached his own car, a black Lexus that lay hidden a quarter mile down the small road I had arrived on.

  “No.”

  “Oh. Have you ever . . . cleaned a cleaning team before?” I insisted.

  “Yes,” he sighed as he helped me into the passenger seat.

  I didn’t ask him for the specifics, but I do recall wondering if I would get lasting PTSD over all this.

  FIVE

  The Road Rules

  “Let’s be real. If you purchased this book and are currently riding alone with a man, he’s, in all likelihood, one of the following: a relative / a taxi driver / a kidnapper.

  —Aurelia Nichols & Jillie Bean, 101 Tips to Lose Your Virginity after 25