Seeds of Iniquity (In the Company of Killers, #4)(39)

And then I storm out and head downstairs to prove to him and to myself—maybe more to myself—that I’m just as valuable to this organization as any of them are.





13


Izabel





Walking straight over to Nora at the table, I crack the seal on the water bottle and twist off the cap.

“Are you thirsty?” I ask with no emotion on my face.

Nora smiles slimly and just looks up at me from her ropes and chains and cuffs.

“Are you playing the good cop?” she asks with mock humor. “Is this one of your last resort cards, coming in here with a kind gesture to get me to trust you so I’ll take pity on your loved ones and tell you where they are?”

“No,” I say straightaway, unflinching, “I’m facing reality. Dina and Tessa and Woodard’s daughters are as good as dead as far as I’m concerned because my gut tells me that Fredrik’s not going to get here in time. Or at all.”

“The pleading card then?” Nora presumes.

I shake my head.

“I’m not here for them at all,” I say straight-faced and then gently wave the water bottle side to side in my hand. “Do you want it or not?”

Nora looks to and from me and the bottle suspiciously, but then she gives in.

“Yeah, a drink would be nice.”

I place the opening to her lips and tilt it up carefully so too much doesn’t pour out all at once. When she’s had her fill, I set the bottle on the table and then take the seat across from her.

“What makes you think he won’t come?” she asks.

“Because Fredrik is a different man,” I say, “a very different kind of beast than he used to be. And he doesn’t play games anymore. Trust me; Seraphina Bragado was much better at them than you are.”

Nora smiles close-lipped.

“I guess she was,” she admits. “But she was also out of her mind—quite literally, in fact—so she certainly had an advantage.” She pauses, sighing in a lamenting manner. “It is a real shame what happened to her, to Fredrik. Even I was a little brokenhearted when I found out, and it’s not an easy thing to do, to break my heart.”

My brows crease with confusion.

“How did you know about Seraphina and Fredrik, anyway?”

Nora’s lips turn up at the corners, and a look of conjecture appears in her enigmatic brown eyes.

“So it’s information that you want,” she accuses.

I sigh and shake my head, looking downward at my lap briefly before raising my eyes again.

“Look, Victor doesn’t even know I’m in here,” I say, “Niklas knows because I told him I was coming. He was against it, but I didn’t give a shit. I’m here for reasons of my own. They have nothing to do with Dina or with this whole situation, all right? Believe me or don’t, I don’t care either way.”

She looks at me in a subtle sidelong glance, observing me; my expression, my body language and my mood, searching for the smallest shred of deceit which she won’t find because, in a sense, everything I’m saying is true.

In a sense…

There’s a long moment of silence and then she says, “How I know things really has no bearing on any of this, so I’ll tell you how I knew about Fredrik and Seraphina—just for the conversation.” She smiles. “I followed you just like I did Dorian Flynn—following someone really isn’t all that difficult, unless it’s Victor Faust; I found that out the hard way. But you were easy, especially whenever you’d go off on your own.” She pauses and looks up in thought. Then her eyes fall on mine again. “Think back to the meeting you had with Fredrik in Baltimore. The conservatory, particularly the Desert House where you sat with him and talked about Seraphina and Cassia.”

Holy shit…I know what she’s going to say. Suddenly her face does pop into my mind, a flash of her from the past that I tried desperately to find before, but couldn’t.

I remember her now…

“You were the woman with the man and child who walked up when I was talking with Fredrik outside.”

She smiles faintly, more proud of me than herself, it seems, which is odd.

“And when we went inside to get out of the cold, you showed up in the Desert House with us, looking like a normal family.”

“Very good,” she says. “I was in many places following you around that time: the coffee shop where you later met with Fredrik to give him the documents James Woodard found on Cassia Carrington—I actually read the documents before Fredrik did.”

My eyes crease with confusion.

“You left them on the front seat of your car,” she reveals. “I popped the lock on the driver’s side the night before you met with Fredrik while you were snug in your bed with Victor Faust. You didn’t even turn the car alarm on.”

I try to swallow down the humiliation of my mistakes, but the lump is too large in my throat.

Nora looks at me with a strange expression of empathy.

“I would tell you what I told Dorian Flynn, not to be so hard on yourself, but the truth is—and I only say this because the truth is what you need to hear—but you should be embarrassed. I didn’t tell you that you were in over your head because I was only trying to get under your skin, Izabel. You really are in over your head. And sooner or later, you’re going to get yourself killed. Or someone else.”