KILLING SARAI(38)

And then she turns away again and says nothing to me for the rest of the night.





Sarai





I wake up the next morning tangled in the sheet in the center of Victor’s bed.

I wonder if he slept here last night.

“Let’s go,” he says from somewhere behind me. “We have two hours before our plane leaves and you need some new clothes.”

I roll over to see him standing in the room, fully dressed in his suit and bloody white shirt, waiting for me.

I glance at the shirt tucked into his slacks, seeing a bloodstain.

“I’m not the only one that needs new clothes.”

I walk over to him and reach out to lift his shirt, but he closes his suit jacket buttoning only one button, to conceal the obvious red against the white of the fabric.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, only a little hurt that he refused me the chance to inspect his wound.

“I’m fine.”

“But you need to at least change that gauze.”

“I know,” he says lightly. “And it will be taken care of when we get to Houston.”

We drive to a nearby department store where he parks near the front and gets out. I remain seated, not expecting him to make me go in without shoes and looking the way I do.

Before he shuts the door I say, “I should probably tell you what size I wear.”

He closes the door without letting me finish and walks around to my side, opening my door and waiting for me.

“You’re a size six,” he says, surprising me. “Now get out. You can’t stay out here by yourself.”

“I can’t go inside, either.” I point at my bare feet, which are now black on the bottom from walking around without shoes since yesterday. “I’m barefooted. No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

Appearing annoyed with me, Victor takes my hand and yanks me out of the car.

I hardly protest.

We’re only in the store for fifteen minutes tops before we make it back outside, me with a new pair of casual gray yoga pants, a plain white t-shirt and a pair of running shoes. He also let me snag a package of low-cut white socks and a six-pack of white cotton panties. The whole time I felt like I was forgetting something, but it’s not until we’re back inside the car that I remember: I should’ve bought a bra. It’s been so long since I owned one I really did forget their importance.

I had expected to show up at a regular airport and get to fly on a passenger plane, but instead we drive to a place back in Green Valley and board a private jet. It only makes sense I realize, since he can’t very well get past a security check in any public airport with a suitcase full of guns, a duffle bag with a mound of cash and another chock full of suspicious items.

While on the tiny plane Victor presents me with my very own fake driver’s license, which looks so real it could easily pass for something from the DMV. I wondered where he got it, but never asked, assuming that earlier in the morning just before we left he went down to the front desk in the lobby to pick up a ‘package’.

I’m twenty-year-old Izabel Seyfried of San Antonio, Texas, today.

And the photograph, I’m not even sure how he managed to take it, but it’s definitely of me and so recent that I’m wearing the same filthy tank top I had been wearing since I escaped the compound. The natural background of the photo has been removed and replaced with the dull blue DMV background, so I don’t have any idea where I was when he took the photo, either. I don’t know, but I have a driver’s license and that’s good enough for me.

“The place where we are going,” Victor says, “is safe, but the woman there should not know your real name. No one should from here on out. I will refer to you as Izabel and you need to answer to that name as casually as you would your own.”

“OK,” I agree. “Who is this woman?”

“She is a liaison…of sorts. Though more like a contact.”

Confused, I ask, “But if she’s one of you, why lie to her?”

He takes a sip of water and sets the glass down on the little table jutting out from the wall of the plane underneath the elliptical-shaped window.

“It’s just a precaution,” he says, leaning his head back against the headrest. “When one person is wanted by many wealthy others, just about anyone can be swayed.”

I raise my back from the seat. “Wait a second, what are you saying? Do you think everyone else knows I got away from Javier?”

“I’ve received no confirmation of that, but it’s best to prepare in advance.”

As if I wasn’t already on edge enough….





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN





Our flight lands in Houston just after twelve and there is an ordinary blue car—looks like something my mother used to drive—waiting out front for us. Victor grabs all three bags and conceals them inside the trunk. The woman driving I’m assuming is the contact. But she looks so ordinary, just like her car. I expected more sophistication, like Victor in his black suit and expensive shoes, but really she looks more like me.

“I haven’t seen you in years,” the woman says after Victor gets settled in the front seat. I sit in the back, just behind him.

“Yes, it has been a while,” Victor responds.