He nods slowly, and the humor leaves his face. “That, and you found out something in those files that made you realize you couldn’t kill me.” There’s a small part of me that fears he took me as his trophy when he found out who I was. It’s a logical fear in a situation like this one. I don’t think I will ever know if he forced me into sacrificing my memories and past so he could keep me his prisoner. I have to assume he’s on my side.
“What happened at my father’s house? Why did you light the fire?”
He shakes his head. “I never. I drove like a madman to the house, arriving as he had set the fire. Randall was there. They had the VHS. Rory wanted to bring you in, but Randall said you had betrayed them and were nothing more than a loose end. They had released you to find the VHS. It was all they needed. They left you there to die.”
“How did you know about the notch hole?”
He swallows hard. “There was a notch hole at my house too.” He has never spoken of his life before. “We discussed our worst sins once.” He leaves it there. I can see he’s not going to talk about it more. “I think you should go to Italy and get this over with.”
“No.”
He shrugs. “Then what’s the plan?”
“No, we kill Rory, Randall, and that Don guy. Then we go back to the West Coast and we start over. I’m never going to Italy, and I’m never opening that box. It’s my insurance.”
His eyes widen. “You want to start over again? It’s the third time.”
“I know, but maybe it’ll be the lucky time.” There are a thousand things hovering in my mind that I need to know or argue over, but this isn’t the time for it.
“What about the evidence? Leaving it there is a mistake.” He gives me a look.
“We leave it there until I think we are safe to go and see what it is.” Part of me is scared to even look.
He nods. “Sounds like a plan.” He looks down at his dinner and groans. “What a waste.”
“You won’t finish it?”
His eyes dart to my meal. “Not if you won’t finish yours.” It makes me smile. He’s distant and cold and a killer in several different ways, but he’s still sweet.
I really must have lost my mind.
14. SEE JANE KILL
The dark shadow we hide in makes me nervous. He places a hand on the small of my back, leaning in to whisper in my ear, “Jane, the dark is your friend. Only in the dark can you hide and sneak and watch. The dark is on our side.”
It’s chilling, but I know he’s right. We creep along the side of the large house. It was a fourteen-hour drive here, but it will be one tick off the list of people who can make us disappear. I have come to an us-against-them mindset.
He reaches around me, opening the door with a turn of the knob. He lifts a gloved finger to his lips. I nod.
We creep inside. I can’t believe a man from the CIA would sleep with his house unlocked. The sensors detecting movement in the kitchen and hallways might be the reason. I freeze when I see one, but Derek steps up to a panel and punches in a four-digit number. The light on the panel turns to green. He gives me a grin.
We sneak along the dark hallway, tiptoeing up the stairs where he tiptoes directly to a specific room, again turning the knob silently. He creeps into the room, where a man snores and a woman breathes deeply.
He drops to his knees at the bedside of the sleeping man, pulling back the covers slightly. He slips a needle from his jacket, shaking a tiny vial. He fills the syringe with the liquid from the vial. Then he takes a piece of wood and a small packet from his pocket. He wipes the arm with the cloth from the packet, numbing the skin. He drags the piece of sharp wood along the spot he’s numbed and injects the needle into him, covering the needle hole with a second drag of the wood. He pulls a plastic bag from his pocket, placing all the items into the plastic bag so silently I’m actually baffled. Baffled and disgusted. The fact that a man is about to be killed makes me feel varying emotions, at least one of which is sadness. He’s lying in his bed, asleep and snoring next to his wife. He’s at peace. He has kids and a dog. He’s a man, a regular man, and we are here to end that.
I don’t like it.
But it’s us against them, and he’s on their side. My freedom depends on his death, whether I like it or not.
Derek gets up, leaving the room, but I stand there, wishing I could tell the dying man to kiss his wife good-bye. I feel sick for them both. Derek comes back, taking my gloved hand in his and pulling me from the room. We slip down the stairs, an argument brewing in my head as we exit the house after setting the sensor alarm again.