Carson Lennex’s voice was rough and strained, like a man who had been screaming for too long. “You’ll kill me and cut off my hands.”
In a conversational tone, Mara said, “That’s true. But if you don’t tell me, I’ll cut off your hands and then kill you.”
Mara Philippi was the Librarian?
Then who—and where—was Nils Brooks?
Kellen descended another step to get a full view of the room.
38
Max glanced in the spa for signs of life, then checked the restrooms on the first floor. As he ran the stairs to the second floor, the electricity went out. Of course. The dim halls echoed with emptiness. In the second-floor ladies’ room, the cleaning crew had abandoned their carts. He checked every stall, and by the third ladies’ room, he was feeling ridiculous. Then he met Frances coming out, and while she backed away, he made a fool of himself trying to explain.
That awkwardness made him stop and think sensibly. He did not have time to check all the bathrooms and all the guest rooms. He was wasting time away from the security monitors, where he could survey the whole of the resort.
Besides, something was niggling at him. Something about the spa.
For a space that had been hastily abandoned by its staff, it was very tidy. Clean. Almost psychotically so.
He strode back to the spa and entered cautiously. Soothing music played. The aromatherapy diffusers gave off scents of lavender and sweet orange. He stood in the middle of the lounge, among the tan chairs, cotton rugs, bowls of healthy snacks and recently filled pitchers of cucumber-mint water—and he didn’t believe it. Something was off here. It seemed as if the staff had prepared for a normal day of pedicures and massages—and then vanished.
He walked through the whole spa again, up and down the corridors, through the steam room and sauna. He looked into each of the treatment rooms, prepped and ready, their doors ajar as if waiting for the next customer. Only one door remained closed; the sign on it was marked Linens.
He stood in front of it and shouted, “Hello!”
At once, someone began releasing muffled screams and slamming against the door.
He opened it and found a female he recognized, bound, gagged and wide-eyed with panic and appeal. Behind her lay a male masseuse, bound, gagged and unconscious.
Max pulled the young woman into the hall, gently peeled the adhesive off her lips and removed a wad of gauze from her mouth.
She tried to speak.
“Wet your lips,” he advised. “I’ve got to check this guy.”
“Xander,” she croaked. “He’s Xander.”
Max crawled into the closet and put his hand to Xander’s throat. Xander’s heart beat, but his breathing was shallow. Max removed his gag, too, and his breathing improved. But blood oozed from somewhere on his head. Possible spinal injury? Max didn’t dare move him. For the second time today, he called 911. Or rather—he tried to call 911. He had no cell service. He tried to text. Nothing. “Damn it.” When he was running around looking for Nils Brooks, someone had cut the resort’s ties to the outside world. Probably Nils Brooks.
In the hallway, he heard the female begin to cry. He crawled out of the closet, and as he untied her, he said, “He’s alive. What’s your name?”
“I’m Destiny Longacre. I work here.”
He remembered her photo from resort records. “As a masseuse, right? Can you tell me what happened?”
“I came in this morning. Came in the outer spa door. It was open a little. I thought, I didn’t do it. Someone’s going to get in trouble—I hope it’s not me. I got inside, into the hall for the treatment rooms, and I saw something splattered on the floor. Mara hates when the spa is dirty. She insists we clean everything before we leave. Gets really weird about it, so I thought we’d missed something and I’d clean up before she came in. I got the carpet cleaner and started on the splatter, and the towel came out red and I couldn’t figure out what…” She gasped, trying to get a breath between the tears. “Then I thought, It’s blood. I looked up, and she was standing in the door of one of the treatment rooms.”
“She?”
“Mara Philippi. Our boss. She was beat-up, bruises on her face, blood at the corner of her lip—I thought she’d been attacked. I thought whoever was attacking people had attacked her.”
Max knew then. He pulled out his phone and tried to text Kellen. Nothing. He tried to call. No connection.
Destiny continued, “I jumped up and said, Are you okay? and she pointed a gun at me and said, Clean it up. She’s said it before, lots of times, but never with a gun. I was like, Mara, it’s Destiny! She laughed, sort of creaky, and said, That’s for sure.”
Max freed her hands and feet. He gestured toward Xander, unconscious in the closet. “Did she shoot him?”
“No. But she hit him. Xander came in and she told him to clean, too, and he was, he really was. But he was all Xander-like, talking to her about Karma and nonviolence and the way of the Dalai Lama, and she just up and bonked him on the head with the butt of her gun. He fell down and I screamed and I thought she was going to shoot me, but I couldn’t stop screaming.” Destiny wiped her nose on the sleeve of her smock. “Then Mitch came in. He’s so cute—I like him a lot. I thought he was going to save us. But he went right up to Mara and told her Carson Lennex had the statues.”
“The statues?”
“That’s what he said. I don’t know what it means, but he said Carson Lennex had the statues, and as soon as she was in his suite to let Mitch know and Mitch would cut electricity and communications.”
Again Max tried to text and call. Mitch had done as he was told. Communications were down.
While he tried, Destiny babbled, “She…she… Mara told him Good job and to tie us up and stash us in the closet, and she left and he did. He told me if I tried to escape he would kill me.” She huddled on the floor and rubbed her wrists. “My fingers are tingling. I hope he didn’t ruin my hands—I have to work today. I need the money!”
She was in shock. Max threw a blanket around her shoulders. “The resort will reimburse you for lost time. The paramedics will make sure your hands are okay, and Xander, too.” Although how he was going to contact them, he didn’t know. He stood. “Can you let them in?”
Her teeth were chattering, but she nodded. “What’s wrong with Mara?” she asked urgently.
He hurried toward the door. “Mara Philippi is the Librarian.”
“A librarian? No, she’s illiterate.”
He swiveled on his heel. “What?”
Patiently, Destiny explained, “She can’t read.”
“She has to be able to read. She runs a very successful business.”
“She doesn’t tell anybody. I figured it out for myself. She uses the computer accessibility settings as a work-around. She’s got it all worked out.”
“Holy shit.” Somehow, knowing that made Mara, the Librarian, so much creepier. He moved out of the spa and into the stairwell. It was going to have to be a fast run up those eight stories to Carson Lennex’s suite, but he had to make it.
He’d been too late once before. He wouldn’t be too late now.
39
Kellen saw her, Mara Philippi, standing astride Carson Lennex’s bound body, dressed in her mottled black-and-brown fashion hoodie, her hair in a jaunty ponytail and her face… Her face was bruised, battered, swollen. Her blue eyes were angry—and satisfied. She held a cigarette between two fingers, a pistol in both hands, and smoke spiraled into the air.
The Librarian, in person.
On the floor beneath her, a handcuffed Carson Lennex writhed in agony.
Unsurprised, Mara looked up at Kellen. “I’m not surprised he couldn’t kill you.”
In a smooth motion, Kellen fired her gun.
Mara dived to the side, landed on the coffee table.
Kel
len followed the motion, fired again, saw Mara jerk sideways as the bullet smacked her shoulder.
Successful strike, but no blood. The hoodie she wore was body armor.
Mara rolled off the table and fired.
The slug hit Kellen right above the heart.
The Kevlar vest took the impact, but the sheer force drove Kellen backward against the stair railing. She felt the crack of her sternum. Blinding pain, can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe. She missed her footing, tumbled down the rest of the stairs. Her pistol broke free of her fingers, then disappeared over the edge. Kellen came to rest with her spine on the last three treads, one arm caught in the banister and one foot on the floor.
I can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. Mara is here. I am going to die.
But she didn’t die. When the swirling red motes of agony cleared from her vision, Mara stood with one foot on either side of Kellen’s legs. She looked like a high school cheerleader, smiled like a shark, and she held her own pistol pointed at Kellen’s head. “You wore Kevlar. You’re so goddamn smart. But you didn’t know I was the Librarian, did you? You thought it was him.” She pointed.
Kellen lifted her head, and through the fog of pain, she saw Nils Brooks sprawled facedown in the entry, unconscious and bleeding. Dead? Not yet, but unless something changed, none of them were long for this world.
She saw something else. She saw her beloved Glock 21 SF lying on the floor on the side of the stairs.
Oh yeah. Things were about to get interesting.
Mara kicked at Kellen’s thigh.
Kellen groaned, struggled feebly, grasping at her chest, her ribs…grasping her one accessible weapon and holding it concealed in her palm.
“We are so much alike. But I’m perky and you’re grim, and you thought that made you tougher. You thought your war experience made you smarter. But I was always one step ahead of you. I knew you’d finally figure it out. I knew you’d show up, and I knew I’d get to kill you.” Arms straight, Mara lifted her pistol.
Kellen rammed the tactical flashlight, jagged side first, into the thin material over Mara’s knee.
Mara stumbled, tripped on Kellen’s leg, fell sideways.
Kellen yanked her arm free, rolled down the steps, jagged ice crystals of pain tearing into her chest, and reached for her pistol.
Mara rolled, too, with a gymnast’s speed and grace.
Kellen’s fingertips touched the pistol’s grip.
Mara stomped on Kellen’s hand.
Kellen screamed. Lifted her hand and looked. Her little finger stuck out sideways.
Mara kicked her in the head, slamming her flat onto the floor.
Kellen couldn’t hear. Couldn’t see. This was it; the oblivion she feared. She would be bound to that hospital bed until they mercifully let her die…
With a gasp, she was conscious again. She opened her eyes. She could see nothing but Mara’s face leaning close, Mara’s eyes gleaming with vindictiveness, the barrel of Mara’s pistol pointed right between her eyes.
In that moment, something happened in Kellen’s brain.
Everything shifted.
A light came on.
An old film played in skips and jumps.
Behind Mara, around Mara, she saw a park, trees bare of leaves, openmouthed pedestrians running. Mara…was no longer Mara. She was a man with a thin, familiar face who spoke with an Italian accent. He held a Beretta Pico and he—
Mara said, “I don’t have time to cut your hands off, but breaking your fingers with my heel was almost better.”
Kellen blinked. “One finger,” she said. Or did she? She didn’t have breath. Maybe only her lips moved…
Kellen was here in Carson Lennex’s suite. With Mara. Mara was pointing her pistol at Kellen’s forehead and—
The man’s name was Ettore Fontana and he said, “You’ll never interfere with me again.”
Mara’s voice intruded on the past. “I’m going to finish what someone else started.” Taking her time, drawing out Kellen’s anguish, she cocked the pistol. Deliberately, she pressed the cold metal to Kellen’s forehead.
Out of the corners of her eyes, Kellen saw a man running toward them, roaring in fury and anguish. She knew him.
Max. It was her Max. He had to make it. He had to. She loved him so much! Then—
The present day rushed back in, but everything was blurred, overlapped.
She was in the bustling city park.
She was in the penthouse suite.
Max was moving in slow motion. He wasn’t going to make it—
Max was moving in slow motion. He wasn’t going to make it—
40
Max tackled Mara, low and hard, knocking her off her feet. The pistol roared, the shot blasting over Kellen’s head. Plaster showered from the ceiling. Max and Mara rolled across the room. Max slammed Mara against the floor.
Mara pulled a small, sharp, deadly knife.
He lifted his big fist and punched her in the face.
Her head snapped back, and she went limp.
“Kellen!” he shouted.
“I’m here,” she whispered.
Gasping, he looked around at her.
He was the man who had tried to save her.
He was the man who had failed to save her.
He was the man in the hotel.
He was the man who had saved her.
His face was harsh, primitive with fury, with bloodlust, with…passion for her.
She had forgotten him, but now she remembered.
My God, how she’d loved him.
They looked at each other, just looked, a moment of gratitude…and recognition.
Then his head snapped back to look at Mara, the collar of her hoodie clutched in his fist.
Kellen wanted to believe Mara was unconscious. But she didn’t dare trust that even Max’s full-fisted punch could take out the Librarian, so in an overly loud, unsteady voice, she said, “Restrain her.”
He did. He took Mara’s pistol and secured the safety and slid it into his jacket’s inside pocket. With a key he found on the coffee table, he went into the living room and came back with handcuffs—those used to bind Carson, she guessed—and dragged Mara to the cast-iron screen set before the unlit gas fireplace and used the cuffs to secure her hands behind her back.
Carson Lennex appeared. On his cheek, a round red burn marred his classic features. His button-up shirt stood open, and three burns dotted his chest, leading in a line to his nipple. He limped into the room. Everything about him was angry. To Max, he said, “Please. Allow me.” Kneeling beside Mara’s feet, he used the curtain cord to tie her ankles and her knees. To Kellen, he said, “She came up here with a message that you had sent her. I said, For the hieroglyphic tablet? She said yes. I invited her in.” He sounded outraged when he said, “I fed her her lines!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lennex.” Kellen spoke through broken gasps. “When I realized what could happen, I did everything I could to save you.”
“I’m ashamed to know I’m such a fool,” Carson said.
“You didn’t tell her where the tablet was.”
“No. Damned if I’m going to help an archaeological looter and thief.” He had been tortured for his passion, for archaeology, and he had come out the victor.
“When it comes to Mara, you’re not the only fool. She played me.” Kellen’s temper rose, and that seemed to ease her breathing. “I never even suspected…” She turned to Max. “If she wakes up, promise you’ll hit her again.”
“If she wakes up, this time I get to hit her,” Carson said.
Kellen indicated at the body sprawled in the entry. Nils. “Is he alive?”
Max checked for a pulse, lifted his eyelid, slid his fingers along his neck. “He’s alive.”
She was more
than a little angry with Nils, and more than a little worried at his continued unconsciousness. She told Max, “He’s not one of the bad guys.”
“I know. But he made me think that you and—” Max caught himself in midsentence. Going to the couch, he grabbed a throw and tossed it on Nils. “She hit him a good one. He’s out cold. Concussion. When we get the power back, we’ll get him to the hospital. They’ll check him out. He’s going to have a headache tomorrow.”
“You sure know a lot about head wounds.”
“I learned everything I could about them when you…” He choked.
She saw a tear.
No, don’t do that. She eased herself into a more comfortable position against the wall.
Max hurried over and knelt at her side. “Can you move?”
She wiggled her left hand, moved the uninjured fingers of her right hand. The little finger was swelling, throbbing and crooked, and she used her other hand to crunch it back in place. It was still broken, but as the joint slid back into place, the relief was immediate.
“Your legs?” Max insisted.
That took more concentration, but at last she shifted her feet, pulling them toward her, then using them to leverage herself into a sitting position.
He watched, offering no assistance, and if ever a man showed terror, it was him. She knew why. He feared she had survived, only to live a life without dance, without speed, without motion. Unlike hers, his memory of her time spent unconscious and recovering in the hospital would be whole and unbearable. He feared history was repeating itself.
“I’m not paralyzed.” She put her bruised and broken hand to her shattered chest. “I am in a lot of pain. Do you have an aspirin on you?”
He sighed in relief. “Stay still. Stay quiet. We’ll get a helicopter here to lift you out.” He pulled out his phone, tried to dial and swore virulently. “Someone put some kind of damper on the system.”
“Mitch did it.” She took a breath. “Birdie killed Mitch. And I did.”
Carson said, “I don’t know much about electronics, but I know where the server center is and I can try to figure out how Mitch sabotaged it.” He moved like a man who’d been bound and tortured, like a man in pain. But his eyes sparked, his forehead scowled, his mouth sneered and, at the same time, gave the tiniest twist of pain. Kellen could see why the man had won his Academy Awards. He knew how to express emotion, and he knew the right emotion to express.