KILLING SARAI(88)

I sigh quietly. “I will,” I say and hang up the phone.

After paying for another full day for use of the room since it appears we’ll be here for longer than another hour, I take the elevator back up to let Sarai know of our minor change of plans. Afterwards I head out, leaving her in the room so that I can meet with the client privately. I drive toward the location, arriving with several minutes to spare and park in a side lot just feet from where I am to meet her.

I stay inside the car and wait.

And all I can really think about is Sarai.





Sarai





I’ve never been to San Diego before. Technically, this is my first time in California. I wonder what this lady will be like, what she knows, how she and Victor are friends. I have a lot of questions, as usual, that I won’t let Victor get away without answering while on the way there.

I swipe my hand over the mirror in the bathroom, clearing a path through the humidity fogging up the glass. And I smile in at my reflection. For the first time since I met Victor, I’m starting to feel content, relieved by the outlook of my future. Because before, all I could see of it was blackness, a void that had no beginning or end, everything hanging there in uncertainty. But now I have something to look forward to. I have a purpose. And I’m not going to waste a second of it.

I squeeze the water from my hair with a towel and then pin it up sloppily at the back of my head. After drying off and getting dressed, I head into the main room and start to turn the television on when there is a knock at the room door. I glance at the clock beside the bed.

It hasn’t been an hour already.

Setting the remote control back on the bed, I walk toward the door to answer it, but just as I set my hand on the lever, the voice on the other side freezes me in place.

“It’s Niklas. Victor sent me to get you.”

My fingers fall away from the lever very slowly. I take one step away from the door.

He knocks lightly again.

“Are you in there? Sarai? Come on and let me in. I know you despise me, and quite honestly I’d rather be having a beer in a quaint little bar somewhere, but Victor needed my help.”

He’s lying. Victor would’ve told me if he had sent Niklas here. He would’ve told me before he left, or he would’ve called.

I glance at the phone by the bed. Maybe he did call while I was in the shower.

I take another step away from the door, my instincts pulling me backward like a dozen reaching hands. There’s one more series of knocks and then it’s silent. I stand in the center of the room, perfectly still, perfectly quiet. The only sound I hear is a faint, buzzing coming from a light bulb. Moving quickly across the room I press my face near the door and try to peer out through the peephole. What I can see of the hallway is empty. He’s gone. But then if he’s really gone, why am I still so afraid that he’s right outside the door somewhere, waiting for me to stick my head out and look? I press my eye at an angle against the peephole, trying to get a better visual to the left and the right. Then I hear voices and see a shadow moving along the wall. My heartbeat speeds up and I hold my breath until two men walk past. I let the breath out long and heavily.

But the relief is short-lived when I see Niklas again.

I jump back and away from the door fast and rush over to Victor’s duffle bag, rummaging through it to find Arthur Hamburg’s gun. Victor left it for me. Just in case. But I get the feeling he left it in case of Arthur Hamburg. Not his brother.

There’s nowhere to hide in this place. Absolutely nowhere that Niklas couldn’t easily find me in under a minute.

I inhale a quick, sharp breath when I hear the tiny clicking sound of a card key being slid through the door and unlocking it. He must’ve taken the housekeeper’s master key. In half a second, and too late for me to realize and remedy my mistake, I see the chain on the door is still unlocked. I make a run for it, knowing in my heart that I won’t make it to the door in time to slide the chain lock in place before Niklas is inside the room. And just as the door opens, I’m falling against the wall behind it, gripping the gun in both hands up against my chest, my heart pumping blood so fast through my veins that my eyes twitch near the corners and I feel my jugular throbbing.

The door shuts and locks automatically and Niklas and I stand face to face, each with a gun pointed at the other.

“Ah, there you are,” he says with that glaring look in his eyes that shows just how much he hates me.

I keep my finger pressed against the trigger and although I’m shaking, I manage to hold the gun steady and pointed right at his head.

“I will kill you,” I warn.

“Yes, I know,” he says, exuding more confidence than me by far. “You were the one who shot Javier Ruiz, after all.” He sighs dramatically and shakes his head. “Sarai, I want you to know that I don’t get off on this, on killing innocent women. I never wanted to kill you or hurt you for that matter, but what you’ve done to my brother…well, I can’t have that.”

Keeping the gun trained on him and my finger firmly on the trigger, I start to back away from the door. He moves with my movements.

“Why do you care what Victor does with his personal life?”

He cocks his head to one side. “Victor doesn’t have a personal life. None of us can have that. It’s like oil and water. Surely you know that by now.”