Girl Undercover 8 & 9: Traitor & The Smiley Killer (6 page)

“Thank you,” Nadja said and tried to lick her lips. “Please… I need juice. Sugar. I’m diabetic…”

“You’re what?” I asked her. “Diabetic?”

“Yes… my blood sugar’s low. I need sugar.”

When Ian had finished cutting all the ties, he grabbed the voluptuous woman under her knees and back and carried her out of the room like she weighed nothing.

“Let’s take her to the living room and get her some water,” Ian said as he moved toward the doorway.

“She’s diabetic,” I said. “Her blood sugar’s low.”

He looked at me, then at Nadja. “Well, that explains the clamminess. It must be really low.”

“We… we need to get… out of here,” Nadja managed to say. “They’ll… be back.”

“We will, but first we need to get some sugar in you,” Ian said as we strode down the hallway and back into the living room. “Does water mixed with something sugary work?” He asked Nadja.

“Yes…”

As Ian placed Nadja on the part of the couch that looked the least filthy, he told me to look for anything with sugar in it in the corner kitchen and to put it in water. I dashed over there and turned on the faucet while opening the cabinets above at the same time, searching for anything sugary. Far inside one of the cabinets, I spotted what looked like an old bag of Domino Sugar. Pulling it out, I saw that it was and that it was half full with dried-up sugar.

“Found sugar,” I said to Ian. “It’s all dry and clumped up, though.”

“Break it up and mix it with water,” Ian replied.

“Okay, how much sugar in a glass of water?” I asked.

I heard him ask Nadja, who said a few tablespoons in one glass of water would work.

I found a glass that I rinsed out a few times and filled up with cold water. Then I broke up a few chunks of sugar and stuck it into the water. It immediately began to dissolve.

I hurried back to where Nadja and Ian were, placing the glass against Nadja’s lips. She drank greedily, all the sugar water gone in only seconds.

“More, please,” she mumbled. “But just water.”

I walked back to the faucet that was still running, filled it up again and returned to her. She drank this glass more slowly.

“Who did this to you?” Ian asked as she kept taking swallows of the water.

“That Massachusetts governor…” she murmured.

“Damon Chatterly?” Ian asked.

Nadja nodded, already looking better. “Yes. He came into my office last evening and told me he was having a cocktail party and that lots of the guests were looking to sign up for a health club membership. I’d make thousands in commission.”

“So you went with him?” I urged her on. “Weren’t you supposed to meet up with Burt?”

“Yes, but the governor was so insistent that I come right away, so I didn’t have a chance to tell Burt. And then Richard came into the office, telling me I needed to do as Chatterly wanted.” She paused to catch her breath, then, “The club needs more membership sales.”

“Who’s Richard?” Ian asked.

“Our general manager,” I clarified.

“He’s definitely in on it too then,” Ian said to me. He looked at Nadja, who was looking significantly better, color having returned to her cheeks. “So you felt pressured and left without notifying Burt about the change in plans?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I thought I could text him in the cab over to Chatterly’s house. And I tried, but Chatterly kept asking me questions and I didn’t want to be rude, so I kept putting it off.”

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“We arrived at the governor’s house and went inside.” She looked around the living room, her face tense with worry. Her skin was streaked with mascara, and it struck me that it must be the result of her having cried. “We need to get going. They’re supposed to come back here any time now, and then it’s over.”

“They?” Ian said. “Please explain quickly and then we’ll leave. We need to know what to expect.”

“The governor and that senator from North Carolina and their man. Burt will be back too.” Sadness mixed with terror flashed across her face. “To finish what they want him to do.”

“Burt was here?” I asked. “What did he do?”

“Please, let’s leave,” she implored, grabbing both my and Ian’s hands. “I’ll tell you everything as soon as we’re out of here. I don’t want them to come back. I’ll be dead if they do.”

Chapter 5

Nadja didn’t have to stress another time how important it was for us to leave the apartment right away. We helped her to her feet, each of us sticking an arm under her armpits and flanking her from either side. Her royal blue silk blouse was sweaty and had what looked like blood splatter on it in some places, and her black dress pants were wrinkled. Her legs were shaky and unstable, which, in addition to her low blood sugar, suggested that she must have been confined in the wheelchair for many hours, so it was difficult for her to walk at first. It got better as we kept walking, though. Soon, the three of us had left the old brownstone and were hurrying down the street, me holding Nadja’s purse that had been in the room with her, containing insulin injections. Right before we left, she told me to go pick it up.

“Where are we?” Nadja asked us, just barely avoiding stepping into a pothole in the sidewalk with her high-heeled black pumps.

“Northern Spanish Harlem,” I replied. “We need to find a cab to take us out of this area.”

Even with our guns on us, it wasn’t safe for us to be in this neighborhood, especially not at this late hour. There were too many shady characters hanging on the street corners, eyeballing us suspiciously, and we had enough problems on our hands; the last thing we needed was stumbling into gang territory. Unfortunately, the cab drivers of New York must feel the same way because there were no cabs in sight, we discovered after some time. No wonder the one that had gotten us here in the first place had seemed so uneasy about driving here, and then sped away.

“There should be a subway stop on the next block,” Ian said after having consulted his mini-tablet. “Let’s just take that.”

Ian leading the way, we headed in that direction and soon spotted a station for the green line. We descended the stairs and waited for a train to arrive at the platform. The other people already there seemed caught up in their own worlds, completely ignoring us.

It didn’t take long for a train to roar up beside us and we got into one of the last cars that contained few riders. The end of it was empty barring a homeless man who slept there, his body stretched out over three seats. As we got closer and the rancid smell of him intensified, it became abundantly clear why no one was in that part of the car. In addition to stinking like an overflowing garbage can, he snored like a bear. We still took a seat at the other side of him to be as far away from the other subway riders as possible.

“Okay, tell us what happened now,” Ian said to Nadja. “Everything after you got to the governor’s place.”

She took a deep breath, then, “I didn’t really get in there. As soon as the governor and I entered the hallway, someone grabbed me from behind and placed something wet and cold against my nose and mouth. That was the last I remember before everything went black.”

“So they drugged you then,” Ian said, summarizing.

“Yes. And when I woke up, I was sitting tied up in that chair in that room where you found me. At first, my vision was foggy, but I saw there were people in the room. That bitchy senator from North Carolina, Janine something, was there.” Nadja turned to me. “Do you know who I mean? I saw you train her once. Before that she trained with Ariel.”

I nodded. “Yep. I know exactly who you mean. Who else was there?”

“The governor and a couple of other men, both black. As my vision improved, I saw that one of the black guys was Burt! I thought I was mistaken, but I wasn’t. I was so confused and scared. Terrified. Why was I sitting there all tied up and why was
Burt
of all people there? He and I are dating—well, we just started a couple of months ago and it only recently got more serious, but still. Why would he want to hurt me in any way?” Her hazel eyes widened like she truly couldn’t understand this. “I was obviously there in that capacity because why else had I been drugged and brought to this room, tied up in a chair? I tried to open my mouth to ask him, but I couldn’t because something was taped over my lips, so I couldn’t move them. I was able to take tiny breaths through the tape, though. There must have been a bunch of holes in it.”

“Do you have any idea what time that was?” I asked. “When you woke up, I mean.”

Nadja pressed her lips together until they became a thin line, looking pensive, then shook her head. “No, I don’t. It could have been an hour after I was drugged, it could have been ten. I couldn’t see outside because of the boarded up windows in that room.”

“Hmm,” I said, thinking. “Well, if they brought you directly to that room, you can’t have been in there for that long. Max twenty hours. Less, probably.”

“I’m thinking it must have been pretty early in the day,” Nadja said. “It feels like an entire day passed after they left. But I can’t tell for sure. Maybe it was later. I was so freaked out I just cried and cried and began to lose track of time.” She brought her fist to her lips and bit it, staring at her feet. “I don’t know what was worse—the sudden gunfire or what they wanted Burt to do to me.”

“The sudden gunfire?” I asked. “Who was shooting? Did someone get hurt?” I pictured all the blood in the living room and in the room then, and saw it on Nadja’s own blouse as I lowered my gaze.

“Someone from outside,” Nadja explained. “Someone fired what sounded like a machine gun through the wall. Burt and the governor got hurt, and that’s why they had to leave before finishing. But they said they were coming back.”

I froze. “Is Burt seriously hurt? He’s not… dead, is he?”

“No, he was only hit in the arm,” Nadja said. “The governor was worse off. The senator and that other black man had to help him out of the room. They were taking them to get patched up before returning.”

“What exactly was it they were supposed to finish, Nadja?” I asked. She gazed off into the distance, looking like she was in pain. I suddenly dreaded her answer.

“They wanted Burt to shoot me dead with a gun,” she said, her voice small.

Ian and I both stared at her. “What? Why?” I blurted, cutting Ian short; he’d opened his mouth to say something.

“To prove his loyalty to them and the cause,” she explained, looking at us again. “Those were the words they used when they initially ordered him to kill me.”

Ian’s and my gaze locked momentarily over Nadja’s head. The picture was becoming clearer now.

“Please tell us what happened in there word for word,” Ian said. “What did they say to each other when you were coming to? Were they talking?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure what they were discussing,” Nadja said. “Something about meeting up with others later. They noticed that I was awake pretty quickly. Governor Chatterly did.”

“Okay,” Ian said. “What happened then?”

“He notified the others that I was awake and said that they should do what they’d come for, so they could get out of there. The other man handed Burt a gun. ‘Go ahead and shoot her,’ the senator said. ‘When she’s dead, we can be sure that you’re loyal to us and the cause.’”

Nadja buried her face in her palms then, inhaling and exhaling deeply. Instinctively, I put a hand on her shoulder, stroking it. It could not have been easy having to listen to those words. She soon lowered her hands, though, and straightened.

“How did Burt seem?” I asked. As hard it must have been to hear someone ordering your death, I couldn’t imagine Burt being happy about having to complete such a task, either. Not the Burt I knew at least. Then again, I never did speak to him much as I went back UC the second time. Maybe he had changed.

She stared with empty eyes at the bum splayed on the seats before her. His loud snoring had calmed down significantly.

“Tense,” she said after some time. “That’s the only word I can think of to describe how he looked. I can’t tell what he was thinking because he wasn’t meeting my eyes. I kept trying to make him look me in the eyes to see what he must be thinking. Maybe to understand what was happening, how I’d ended up in this situation. Why they wanted him to kill me so badly. But he refused to look me in the eye as he took the gun from that other black man.”

She took a deep breath, her chest expanding and shrinking back again. “It was only as he raised his hand and pointed that gun to my face that he finally met my gaze. It was as though he was trying to tell me something with the way he was looking at me. Something like, ‘don’t be scared, Nadja. Everything will be okay.’”

The way Burt had looked at me in the apartment he shared with Jonah flashed through my mind. He had been trying to tell me something with his eyes, too.

“But he didn’t end up shooting you,” Ian stated matter-of-factly.

“No, because that’s when someone fired a burst of bullets into the room. Burt was hit and the governor so badly he collapsed on the floor. For a few seconds, I was sure that I, too, had been shot, but then I understood that I hadn’t. That sudden burst of gunfire was what saved me instead.”

“Was it a drive-by shooting of some kind?” I asked. My mind’s eye pictured the neighborhood we had just left. The shady characters hanging at the street corners. I wasn’t as familiar with New York as I was with Los Angeles, but it had sure looked like it could be a place where gangs fought it out.

“Yes, I think so,” Nadja said. “After the gunfire ended, everyone in the room was confused. Running around, checking who’d been hit and who hadn’t. Apparently, both the governor and Burt were hurt enough for them to decide that they needed to take them to be patched up by their doctors—‘their doctors’ was how that bitch senator put it, like they had their own doctors or something.”

Again, Ian’s and my gaze met. Nadja was too caught up in telling her story to notice.

“Janine rolled me into a corner,” she continued, “saying that I wasn’t going anywhere. They could return after Burt and the governor had gotten medical attention so he could finish the job. Then she and the other man helped the governor to his feet. After that they all just left.”