Seeds of Iniquity

  Silence fills the room. Again, we all look at each other momentarily, contemplatively.

  “What is the nature of the information that you seek?” Victor asks.

  Nora grins, her head tilting from one side to the other in a precise, swaying motion.

  “Each of you has a deep, dark secret,” she begins, “something you may be ashamed of, or regret, or may be haunted by because it was so awful this thing you did that your conscience can’t escape it. One of you”—she never looks at any one of us in particular while saying these things—“was betrayed by someone very close to you. One of you had something taken from you a long time ago. And one of you buried something that could be the end of you if it was ever found. You’re going to confess to me these secrets. Willingly. Truthfully.” She looks only at Victor now. “That is the nature of the information that I seek, Mr. Faust.”

  Silence fills the space again, but this time it’s rife with a collective, uncomfortable feeling that all of us share.

  “Are you claiming to already know these so-called ‘dark secrets’?” I ask, crossing my arms.

  Nora’s red lips lengthen as her eyes sweep over me.

  “I do,” she says. “I know more about you than the one in this room closest to you knows.”

  “And just how would you know?” I say, standing my ground because I don’t believe it and I doubt anyone else does either. “Deep, dark secrets are deep and dark for a reason. And what exactly do you get out of this? Something’s not adding up.”

  “I’ll tell you all how I know when I’m ready,” she says calmly, deliberately. “And I get a lot out of it, Sarai”—I flinch when my old name rolls off her tongue—“just be patient and eventually everything will make sense.”

  Victor turns his back to Nora and looks at all of us.

  “Is anyone here unwilling to go along with this?” he asks.

  “I’ll do it,” Woodard says nodding his head, his double-chin jiggling. “A-Anything—I-I mean, just about anything to keep my daughters safe.” He wrenches his hands over the top of his rounded belly.

  Dorian runs a hand over the top of his blond, spiky hair, the sleeve of his dark gray sweater slipping away from his wrist, revealing a Rolex worn over a black and gray tattoo of a blood-tipped leaf down the center of his wrist bone.

  He nods and licks the dryness from his lips, his hand falling away from the back of his neck.

  “I’ll do it,” he says and then he glares across the table at Nora.

  Victor looks to me next and I only hesitate for a moment.

  “Count me in,” I say and I look at Nora with a sneer. “I have nothing to hide.”

  She smiles because she knows I’m lying.

  Niklas pushes himself away from the wall by his boot and walks toward us, that smirk he’s famous for, displayed proudly on his face. He reaches up and scratches the scruff of his chin and cheeks. “You’re full of shit,” he says now crossing his arms and looking right at Nora. “You say everyone in this room has a secret. Well, I don’t—there’s nothing ‘deep and dark’ about me that anyone in this room doesn’t already know. I’m an open fucking book, and that’s how I know you’re just another manipulative bitch”—he glances at me briefly—“but sure, I’ll play your game. I don’t have anything better to do.”

  Niklas walks back toward the wall.

  All eyes are on Victor.

  Victor looks at me briefly—because I know he’s only entertaining this for me—then he gives Nora his attention and says casually, “When do we begin?”

  Nora smiles and presses her back against the chair.

  She purses her lips and says with the wave of a hand, “The sooner the better. Clock is ticking. I hope you’ll relay all of this to that Specialist of yours—too bad he can’t bring Seraphina…or was it Cassia?”—she grins wickedly—“he is coming, isn’t he? He’s part of the deal; remember that. If he doesn’t show, they die.”

  Dorian and I lock eyes this time, both of us with the same terrible thoughts and fears.

  “So, who’s going to volunteer to go first?” Nora questions with perfectly-groomed raised eyebrows.

  “I’ll go first,” Woodard says immediately.

  He drags a curled index finger behind the neck of his shirt, loosening the sweaty fabric from his skin.

  Victor moves toward the table and takes the back of the empty chair into his hand, pulling it to the center of the room, about five feet away from the table and the dangerous woman sitting on the other side of it.

  “Do not move this chair from this spot,” Victor demands. “She’s secure, arms and legs, but stay out of her reach.”

  Nora smiles wickedly at Woodard, revealing a straight white set of teeth. Then she looks at each of us individually one last time, proud of her performance, and the rest of us leave the room.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave Peter Griffin confined in a room with her,” Niklas says with an accent after the heavy door closes and locks automatically.

  “He has a gun,” Victor reveals. “As long as he stays out of her range, he’ll be fine. Besides, she’s not here to kill anyone. This ‘game’ she’s playing is very important to her. She has gone out of her way to get this far.”

  Victor does make a valid point.

  “Do you think she knows the room is bugged?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Victor answers, “but I have a feeling it doesn’t matter to her either way.”

  “Victor,” Dorian says, “if anything happens to Tessa—”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, Flynn,” Victor cuts in. “One thing at a time.”

  We walk alongside and behind Victor down the hall and away from the room, making our way to the elevator and into the surveillance room. Three giant flat screen TV’s are lined perfectly across the wall, surrounded by video and audio equipment set underneath it atop two massive desks and two other tables to the right and left. The screens are already alive with the scene from the interrogation room. The television in the center displays one giant image, situated on Nora and Woodard, zoomed in enough to almost count the moles and freckles on Woodard’s neck. The two televisions on the left and right of this one have four different screens within them, all showing different angles of the room.

  Their voices stream from the speakers almost as audibly as if we were sitting in a small theatre, watching a movie.

  We sit down in rolling desk chairs and listen, catching the beginning of their conversation barely in time.

  “…oh, I know that your full name is James Carl Woodard,” Nora says smartly, folding her hands together on the table in front of her. “Born in Boston, Massachusetts on August 3, 1955 at 12:02 a.m. to Anthony and Beatty Woodard.”

  Woodard can barely sit still in his chair; his right foot dressed in a wide black loafer constantly bounces up and down against the floor rapidly. His breathing is unsteady and his shirt is drenched in sweat, as well as his forehead that he continuously wipes away onto his hand, transferring it to his pants legs afterwards.

  “Yes,” he says, “that’s correct. H-How do you know anything about me? Because, lady, I don’t know you. I-I mean, I can’t imagine who you could be at all really. B-But I-I, well, I’ll try to figure it out if you want. Just don’t hurt my daughters.”

  She smiles softly, pityingly even, and then shakes her head.

  “Your daughters,” Nora says as if bringing up a point. “What would you do for your daughters?”

  “A-Anything…I-I mean I can’t give you information on this Order…b-because I don’t know much of anything—.”

  With a smile, Nora looks at Woodard in a knowing, sidelong manner.

  “Oh, come on now, James,” she says, “I had hoped you weren’t really as stupid as you look. Don’t you think I’m far beyond knowing you are the information go-to guy in this Order; at least one of them, anyway; the one that sits at the table right along with the leader and his best men”—her eyes look right into a hidden camera—
“and woman,” she adds with a smirk.

  “OK, she definitely knows about the room being bugged,” I say, though it really didn’t need to be said at this point.

  “But we’re not here for that,” Nora goes on, looking at Woodard again. “You’re going to tell me about your family.”

  “W-What about them?” he stutters; he always stutters when he’s nervous. “Wada’ya want to know?”

  “I want to know about your children.”

  Woodard looks confused.

  She helps further him along.

  “Look at me James,” she says leaning on the table and looking back at him under hooded eyes. “I’m not going to spell anything out for you. It’s your job to tell me your secret on your own.”

  “But I don’t—”

  “Oh, yes you do know,” she says and leans back again. “A man like you who isn’t as stupid as he looks—I bet there’s a lot about you that we don’t know. Isn’t there?”

  He says nothing.

  “I’ve been watching you for a long time,” she goes on. “I know where you live with your wife and two daughters. I know about the houses you frequent, leaving them alone…unprotected—”

  “I leave to protect them,” Woodard cuts in defensively. “I love my family. I’d never deliberately put them in harm’s way.” The stuttering has subsided now that he’s getting angry.

  “Of course you do,” Nora taunts him, “that’s why your daughters are no telling where, right now, tied to chairs”—she brings her hands up, the chains jangling, and then looks down at herself—“a lot like this one, in fact. But let’s skip ahead a little. About those daughters of yours and that secret you’re keeping.”

  I’m not liking at all where this feels like it’s going.

  Victor and I exchange a look.

  “I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about.”

  She smiles.

  “I think you do.”

  My stomach is twisting in knots listening to this. If he says what I think he’s going to say—

  “OK, I’ll tell you,” Woodard says and lowers his eyes.

  By now, me, Victor, Dorian and Niklas are all hanging on his confession, probably all thinking the same thing.

  “I-I have six other daughters,” he says, “with four other women. I-I’ve been cheating on my wife for fifteen years. I-Is t-that what you wanted to know?”

  Nora smiles with satisfaction.

  The four of us just sit here in a sort of shock, but I think equally relieved he wasn’t about to confess something more unforgivable. James Woodard may be a bumbling heart attack on two legs, but we’ve all grown quite fond of him.

  “Shit, did he just say he has eight daughters with five different women?” Dorian says, astonished.

  “I think he did,” Niklas answers with humor in his voice. “Who woulda thought he gets more pussy than you, Flynn?”

  Dorian sneers and shakes his head, looking back at the screen.

  Nora makes eye contact with the hidden camera again.

  “See how easy that was?” she says. “Actually, that was a lot easier than I thought it’d be.” She interlaces her fingers on the table. “Now, Mr. Woodard, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Doesn’t the truth feel liberating?” She nibbles on her bottom lip and cocks her head to one side with a shrug. “Of course, it would be much more liberating if you told your wife, but you’re too much of a coward for that, aren’t you?”

  He nods nervously looking downward, coiling his pudgy fingers within his lap, his foot steadily tapping against the floor.

  “A-Are my daughters OK?”

  “I don’t know,” she says without flinching. “The now isn’t important really. How they’re going to be by the time this is all over is what you should be worried about.”

  “Is that what you want?” he says. “For me to confess to my wife? To tell my daughters they have sisters? I-I don’t understand what this has to do with anything. I-I don’t see why you’d kidnap them—.”

  Nora puts up a finger.

  “You’ll figure it out,” she says with a small shrug. “You have plenty of time to think about it.”

  Woodard’s bushy brows bunch in his forehead.

  “That’s it?” he asks, as confused as any of us are. “That’s all you wanted to know? I thought you were going to try forcing information about the rest of us—”

  “I don’t need you to do that,” she says with confidence. “The others will tell me what I want to know, all on their own.”

  Confidence just may be the kink in Nora’s armor because somehow I doubt she’ll get anything out of most of us. Dorian, maybe, because Tessa’s life is on the line and clearly he still loves his ex-wife. Me—it’s a very real possibility that she’ll get me to talk because of Dina, and because if it’s just personal secrets that she wants and not information on our Order, then I’m willing to give up my secrets to save Dina’s life.

  Have I ever slept with a girl? Sure I have—I lived with dozens of them for nine years when I was a prisoner in Mexico. Nothing to be ashamed of, sleeping with a woman, although it is a little embarrassing. And I wouldn’t want to give Niklas and Dorian that kind of ammunition to get under my skin—they’d love that.

  Have I ever stolen anything? Well, theft is sort of something I’m quite good at and I use it to my advantage in the field often. But Victor already knows this. Niklas and Dorian and Fredrik and anyone else in our Order, not so much, because I’ve stolen from all of them to keep tabs on their personal lives for Victor. OK, now that might be damaging.

  Maybe I’m not giving Nora enough credit.

  Now I’m nervous.

  But Victor?

  No. She’ll never get anything out of him. It scares me because I want Dina to live and if she dies, the last person in the world I can handle being the cause of it, is Victor. If she dies because of him, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him.

  Niklas?

  I shake my head thinking about it to myself. Niklas, I feel is exactly how he told her he is before he walked out of that room—an open fucking book. So, I don’t know what she expects to get out of him, if there’s anything to get at all.

  Fredrik?

  Oh, how sad it’s going to be for this woman who has truly—pardon the cliché—bitten off way more than she can chew. Pulling information from the lips like blood from a vein is Fredrik’s domain, one I doubt she wants to tread upon.

  “That was too easy,” Dorian speaks up.

  Niklas laughs lightly under his breath. “Yeah well look who’s on the stand as the first witness. Victor, are you sure you fully tested this guy before giving him access to everything?”

  Victor nods.

  “James Woodard is trustworthy,” he says. “He may be skittish, but don’t let that fool you.”

  Nora smiles into the camera.

  “Who’s coming to confession next?” she says.

  I don’t want to go. This bitch makes me uncomfortable.

  “I’ll go next,” I speak out against my inner thoughts.

  “Are you sure?” Victor says.

  I nod.

  “Yeah, I want to get this over with.” At least that part is true.

  I get up from the rolling chair, tugging the ends of my black dress back over my thighs.

  “The sooner we get this over with,” I say, “the sooner we get them back.”

  Dorian nods.

  Niklas just looks at me with no emotion in his face.

  I look at Victor, a sort of quiet contemplation in my eyes. I don’t want them to listen to me confess anything to this woman, but I know that they will need to keep the audio open in case Nora says something important. So, I don’t bother telling them how much I don’t like this, and I leave the room and head for the elevator, passing a rattled James Woodard up in the long stretch of hallway on my way down.

  How much could this woman really know, anyway? So what if she knew Woodard’s full name, birthdate, birth time, and parents’ names—
all of that information can be found on a handy little document called a birth certificate. She didn’t really say much about anything else, so maybe she was just bluffing. Yeah, that’s a possibility. She’s bluffing, and Woodard was the perfect person to use in order to show off to the rest of us.

  I doubt she really knows anything about me, much less all of us.

  5

  Izabel

  After punching the access code on the door panel, I enter the room armed with only my pearl-handled knife hidden within my right boot. I take my time making my way across the room and to the chair, but I don’t sit down once I get there. Nora sits comfortably with her back against the chair, her arms resting along the thin metal arms, her red-painted fingernails draped elegantly over the edges. All except for her left pinky finger.

  I smile thinking about it to myself, stopping just behind the empty chair.

  “Is something funny?” Nora inquires.

  “Actually yeah,” I say with a grin.

  I glance at her marred finger just long enough for her to glimpse what I’m referring to, and then back up at her bright brown eyes framed by dark eyelashes and bruises.

  “Did someone get tired of hearing your shit and cut it off?”

  She smirks.

  Then she raises her left hand and moves her long fingers about in a delicate fashion.

  “I do miss it,” she says nonchalantly and then sets the hand back down on the chair arm. “But I’m not the one answering questions here.” She motions toward my chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I think I’ll stand.”

  “No, I think you’ll have a seat,” she says calmly, but with an air of authority.

  She smiles.

  I don’t. And I don’t sit down, either.

  “I really expected you to go last,” she says. “I mean, seeing as how your secret is one of the darkest.”