The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(75)

Who was standing just a few feet away from the president?

Who went with him—to Camp David, to the gala? Who works inside the West Wing because the president works inside the West Wing?

Who had I overlooked?

Who specialized in fading into the background?

I heard the footsteps coming behind me. I renewed my struggles, but it did no good. I wasn’t going anywhere—and the steps were getting closer.

I make it a point to learn names. Bodie’s voice was clear in my ears as my captor stepped into view.

Who went where the president went? Who had the training to kill?

The Secret Service agent knelt down next to me and examined my wounds. “Look what you’ve done.”





CHAPTER 56

Damien Kostas. I’d met him for the first time on Ivy’s front porch. He’d approached me at the state dinner. After Henry and I had talked to the reporter, we’d tried drawing out the killer. Kostas had approached me, and I hadn’t even noticed.

Just like it hadn’t occurred to me that the president of the United States never went anywhere alone.

Nimble fingers probed the side of my head. I winced. Kostas brushed my hair out of my face, then in one smooth motion, he righted my chair. “You should be more careful,” he told me.

Seriously?

My brain-to-mouth filter failed me entirely. “Seriously? You brought me here to kill me, and you think I should be more careful?”

He straightened, assuming his full height. “Whether or not I brought you here to kill you remains to be seen.”

I wanted to grasp at even the smallest possibility that I might get out of this alive, but I’d seen his face. I knew who he was. “I’m supposed to believe you might just let me go?” I said, my stomach roiling and my throat closing around the words as I choked them out.

My captor was silent. He had a naturally serious expression, uncompromising and weighty. I remembered how little luck I’d had getting him to respond to me that day on Ivy’s front porch.

“What do you want?” I asked, knowing the question was probably futile.

He made no move to reply, walking over to a bag at the side of the room. He removed a towel and unfolded it. Then his hand disappeared back into the bag, and he set a collection of needles on the towel, one by one.

Oh God. What were the needles for?

“What do you want?” I asked again. I pictured him picking up a needle. Was this how torture started? Was he going to force me to tell him what I knew? Would he torture me until I told him who else knew?

Vivvie. Henry. Ivy. No matter what he did to me, I couldn’t tell him.

The Secret Service agent picked up one of the needles and walked toward me. I thought I might throw up again, but there was nothing left to expel from my body. Kostas took my head firmly in one hand. I tried to jerk back, but he tightened his grip, then pressed the needle into my neck.

I gasped.

He emptied the syringe into my body, pulled the needle out, then let go of me. I waited.

Nothing. No blackness. No pain. No throbbing in my head.

“It counteracts the effects of the sedative I dosed you with.” Kostas didn’t look at me as he spoke. “I may have given you a bit too much for a girl your size. You’ve been out for over twelve hours.”

Twelve hours. I’d been missing for twelve hours. Ivy would be looking for me. Bodie would have discovered me gone within minutes of my disappearing, and my sister—my whatever-Ivy-was would be tearing Boston apart piece by piece, looking for me.

“What do you want?” I asked a third time. My voice was higher pitched, on the verge of hysterics.

Kostas stared at me for a moment. “I have a problem. It is my understanding that your sister specializes in problems.”

This isn’t about what I know. This is about what Ivy does. It took me a moment longer than that to fully realize the implications. I wasn’t a liability to be disposed of. I was a hostage.

“You want Ivy to make this go away. You want her to get you out of this, and if she doesn’t, you’ll . . .”

Kill me.

“No.” The response was simple and swift. “I’m not walking away from this. I don’t expect to.” He paused. “I don’t deserve to. But I have a problem, and your sister is going to fix it.”

He’d killed three men—and helped to kill Justice Marquette. That made him a monster. The fact that he didn’t sound like one wasn’t comforting.

Neither was the presence of the other needles on the towel.

He doesn’t expect to walk away from this. I tried desperately to concentrate on something else. He’s not wearing a mask, because he doesn’t expect to walk away from this. He doesn’t care if I know who he is.

That should have been a relief, but all I could think was that if Kostas had resigned himself to being caught, I was being held by a man with nothing to lose.

A phone rang. He walked back to his bag and removed a flip phone. A disposable? I wondered. He stared at it for a few seconds, then returned it to its place, ignoring the call.

“You said you have a problem,” I said quietly. “What is it? What do you need Ivy to fix?”

He didn’t answer. This was the man I’d met on Ivy’s front porch—quiet and still as a guard at Buckingham Palace.

“You killed Judge Pierce.” Maybe I should have stopped talking—maybe I should have just sat there and waited for him to decide whether I was going to live or die—but I couldn’t. “You killed the reporter.”