KILLING SARAI(50)

I wait patiently for her to go on. She still doesn’t look at me; she stares out ahead of her seeing only the scene as she relives it.

“I’d be dead if it weren’t for that.”

I walk closer, still keeping my distance as though some part of me doesn’t want to disrupt her thoughts with my presence. I break apart the button on the left cuff and roll up my sleeves.

“I froze,” she says, remembering it. “I thought I was dead. I just stood there waiting to die.” She moves her head backward just enough to finally see me. “I don’t know how I reacted so fast, but when his gun jammed…that look on his face…next thing I know the gun in the back of my pants is in my hand and Javier is on the floor. I didn’t hesitate. It was like someone else was inside my head at that moment. She was the one who grabbed the gun. She was the one who pulled the trigger. Because I didn’t realize what had happened until it was over.” She looks away again. “I killed him,” she adds distantly.

“He deserved it,” I say calmly.

Her head snaps back to see me again, making me think that when she looked at me moments ago, she wasn’t really seeing me at all. It’s as if my voice just woke her.

She raises up from the couch.

I watch her curiously in a vague, sidelong glance. I glimpse her hands shaking and the corners of her mouth trembling. She curls her fingers towards her palms until her hands are balled into fists. And then she lunges at me.

“You left! You bastard! You left!” She cries out, beating her fists against my chest as hard as she can.

I let her. I stand motionless and let her until she can’t do it anymore and her body starts to fall exhaustively at my feet. But I catch her before she hits the floor, wrapping my arms around her small frame. She sobs into my chest, choking on her tears, grasping the seams of my suit vest with her trembling fingers. “You left…,” she repeats over and over again until the words fade into a whisper on her lips. “You left….”

I hold her tight. Awkwardly. Because I’ve never done this before. I’ve never experienced this type of sorrow and pain and have been the one to be expected to help mend it. My mother was the only one who had ever held me like this when I was a boy and I can’t remember the way it felt.

I feel like I want to press my lips against the top of her hair. But I don’t. I have the urge to squeeze her a little tighter and take her completely into me. But I can’t. I just can’t bring myself to do it.

“Sarai,” I say, gently pulling her away so that I can see her eyes. “I need you to tell me what happened. Tell me everything. Did Samantha make any phone calls? Did she receive any strange calls that she made mention of?”

Sarai’s expression distorts offensively.

“You think she had something to do with this?” She pushes herself away from me. “She died protecting me! How could you think she had anything to do with it?!”

I sigh deeply. “No, I can’t believe that she did. Samantha was trustworthy. But she and Niklas are the only two people besides you and me who knew where you were.” I step forward and place my hands on her upper-arms in an attempt to make her understand and when she doesn’t push me away I’m relieved. “It had to have been one of them and I’m only trying to get the facts.”

“Then it was Niklas,” she spats angrily at the thought of him. Her eyes are wild and narrowed. “He hates me, Victor. He hates it that you’ve been helping me. He all but said so when I was in the SUV with him. I know it was him!”

I step away from her, my hands falling away from her arms and I cross one arm over my stomach, propping the other on it. Rubbing my hand over the short scruff of my face, I contemplate the situation. Sarai is right. Niklas is the obvious answer and although often the obvious turns out not to be the answer after all, this time it must be. Because it’s the only thing that makes sense.

My brother betrayed me.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE





Sarai





“What are you doing?” I ask as Victor starts for his jacket on the chair.

He reaches inside the pocket and pulls out a cell phone I’ve never seen him use before and punches in a number.

“I’m going to bring Niklas here.”

Stunned, at first I just look at him. But then I start to panic inside.

I rush toward him, grabbing him by the elbow.

“No, you can’t let him know where we are,” I say breathily. “Why bring him here? What are you going to do?”

My mind is frantic with scenarios, none of which I can envision ending happily.

I zip my lips when he holds up his hand to hush me as Niklas answers on the other end of the phone.

“Javier Ruiz has been eliminated,” Victor says, as calmly and professionally as any other time I’ve heard him speak to Niklas.

“Yes,” he answers a question I can’t hear but I still dumbly push my head forward a little as if it’ll amplify the volume in some way. “Police arrived at the scene before I made it out of the neighborhood. It was not a clean kill.” He listens to Niklas for a moment and goes on, “I believe Samantha led them there. The girl was alive when I arrived just before I took Javier out. He had shot her, but she managed to tell me that she overheard Samantha on the phone with someone just after I left for Tucson. Yes. No, Samantha is dead. Inform Vonnegut that Safe House Twelve has been compromised. A Cleaner should be sent there immediately to confiscate her files. Yes. Yes.” He glances at me. “That will not be necessary. The girl died of her wound. I left her there.”