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Authors: Bianca Mori

Peyton Riley (9 page)

BOOK: Peyton Riley
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When she was out on the street, a sudden relief went through her, and her breath expanded so that she gulped great lungfuls of air.

Then she headed towards the bus station to make her way back to Brouwersgracht.

 

She found Carson by the kitchen table, sweaty and stripped down to sweatpants, eating an apple. The sight of his lazy post-workout form so incensed her that she ripped off hat and scarf and flung them to the bed along with her bag and coat.

"What the hell was that all about?" she demanded, her palms shaking against the cool wood of the kitchen table.

"What was what about?" He bit into the apple savagely.

"What you fucking did with Anders Van Der Luyden, what else?"

Chew chew chew.
"You got me a meeting. So we met."

One of her palms slammed on the table. "I did not mean for you to go to him and spill your plan like that!"

"Why not?" his voice grew lower as hers rose. "Why the hell shouldn’t I be direct? You never know."

"'You never know?
You never know?'
" Peyton's voice approached that decibel that only dolphins could hear. "I've gone too far to let a critical meet go with 'you never know.'" She ran her hands through her hair violently, feeling the strands catch between her fingers and part painfully from her scalp. It felt good, the tiny rips of pain, to release the strands of unease that had been nestled within her since Stedjelik.

Carson merely stared at her with cool eyes, mouth in that same strange thin line. He tossed the apple core over his shoulder, where it hit the enamel sink with a dull thunk. "I'll be damned. Peyton Riley—are you actually enjoying this job?"

She leaned across the table so that they were eye to eye. "A job is a job. I don't half-ass things. And if I'd known you'd tank this like fucking amateur hour–"

"I just thought my approach was good enough."

"You're the charm offensive, remember? I'm the brains of this operation—or was there another reason you forced me here against my will?"

"Well, maybe I don't agree with the calls 'brains' of this set-up is making!"

Suddenly she was angry. The craziness of the past few weeks, the rollercoaster of roles and emotions she was put through, it had pulled her taut like piano wire. All the fear and anger and confusion that she'd been pushing underneath the surface came bubbling up to the fore.

"You listen to me," she hissed. "You fucking charmed me and let me take you to bed and then you turned around and drugged and kidnapped me and had some fucking psychopath interrogate me, then you flew me all the fucking way here to do a job that required my fucking skillset. Now maybe you don't agree with what I say, but that's not the fucking point. I'm here 'cause your boss needed me, and thanks to you fucking assholes I have no choice but to see it through so I can finally get the fuck home. It's not your call to change the play like that!"

He stood up, edged behind the table and walked up to her, step by slow deliberate step, herding her like a sheepdog until she inched backwards and was pinned against the far wall. "Did you ever stop and think that we're destroying someone's life? That this is beyond a simple job? That it's not just about getting to game over?" He moved his face against hers as if to kiss her. "That if we succeed with your plan, Anja's boyfriend could get hurt?"

"What do you care what happens to Theo Karastis?" she snapped. "And did you grow a conscience right when a pale blonde started sucking her thumb in front of you?"

He placed two hands on either side of her ears, their gazes locked tight. "You realize that not only are we blowing this girl's livelihood, we're also throwing this guy to the wolves?"

"You want a takedown, this is how you do it," she shot at him.

He nodded, as though confirming a well-known fact. "And
that's
why someone's sister died." Peyton felt a cold water-splash of shock and gasped, but Carson was angry now, too. His eyes blazed and his lips were nearly bloodless when he said: "You're ruthless."

The sight of him angry with her, judging her, spurred a fire in her belly and she pushed his chest with all her might. "I don't care," she lashed out. "You want out, you go and tell your boss. Good luck if he's as scrupulous as you are."

He stepped back, his eyes clouded.

"It's my head on the chopping block," she jabbed at his chest. "And if that makes me ruthless, then so be it."

Carson turned to the sink. He let the water run, his head hung low, his body strung tight; then he splashed his face. "I can't do this," he said, nearly inaudible over the sound of the water. "I can't be around you right now."

He toweled off and dressed with speed. His curls stuck out in odd angles, his shirt tucked haphazardly. By the door he picked up the slim package, wrapped in brown paper, and slid it into a leather case.

"If the brains of this operation doesn't mind, I'm off to make a delivery. All according to plan."

"Maybe you should fuck her, too, you know, seeing as it’s your specialty." She helped herself to an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table and bit into it viciously. "Carson Varis: Offensively charming the panties off his marks."

She turned her back on him and only flinched slightly when the door slammed shut.

Chapter 10

 

Spring in Amsterdam is sometimes a nominal affair, and so it was that week. The weather turned sleety with rain; gray clouds converged over the canals so that the water reflected the dull gloom, making mirror images of fat gray clouds spitting and pissing water. But the cold along the Brouwersgracht was nothing compared with the arctic chill inside Peyton and Carson's flat.

They avoided each other's gaze. They left the flat to take long, useless walks, getting soaked to the bone. Carson took to disappearing for hours on end, while Peyton got good at cataloguing her minders parked in the van across the street. There was Newsboy, of course; a pudgy guy who looked like a down-and-out ex-cop (if that were a type) who'd obviously replaced the dreadlocked wanker who attacked her; and a middle-aged woman with the large, darkly liquid eyes and deep brown skin of the Middle East. They lounged outside the flat windows and lurked in doorways and unobtrusively read the same pages of newsprint in soaking park benches as Peyton walked the canals and wandered the city.

On the third day of the great Dutch Cold War, a text message came through on the safe phone: "Clear one." So Peyton reluctantly caught Carson's eye, and they sighed as they bundled up in their coats and made their way to the Agile Tech offices.

"What's the plan?" asked Carson, a slight sneer underlining his tone.

"I've made an appointment with his secretary."

She expected him to make a crack, roll his eyes, refer to their argument the few days before. But he simply shrugged and followed her down the road.

An hour later they were shown into a light-filled room with Scandinavian chairs and a raw wooden conference table. Anders Van Der Luyden sat across from them with his large, colorless eyes and curiously smooth face, the skin on his cheeks thick like untanned leather, and watched them with crocodile stillness.

"Well." He licked his papery lips. "This has been very curious, Mr. Varis. Our dealer, it seems, passed off a remarkable reproduction as an O'Malley original and scared off an old rich woman from her hobby." He sipped at a glass of water. "How interesting."

"Is it?" asked Carson.

A slight smile curled his lip. "Indeed. Interesting." His watery eyes darted to Peyton. "How very like a script, almost."

Carson merely held his gaze.

"Well then," said Anders, leaning against the table in a sudden swift move. "I see from Birgitte that you have refused my offer of compensation."

"We don't want your money."

"A favor then, somewhere down the road?" He laughed suddenly. "No chance of that, oh no. But I think my thanks are at least in order. So thank you, Mr. Varis, and your tasty accomplice, for preventing me from making an unscrupulous purchase."

"It was our pleasure." There was no mistaking the sneer on Carson's face now.

Anders stood. "Then this meeting is at an end."

They followed suit. "That it seems," said Carson, and without another look back, he left the room.

Peyton followed, feeling peculiar. She seemed dirtied somehow, and small. She glanced behind her just as she reached Agile Tech's lobby to find Anders Van Der Luyden's clear eyes following her from behind the conference room's cool glass walls.

Outside, at the street corner, Carson stood waiting.

"I leave tonight," she said, watching the street.

"No." She looked at him, startled by his hard tone. "One last clear from Gustave, and we're through."

"Why should I–"

He frowned. "I'm not arguing. Go if you like. Don't pretend you don't know who's following you. Just know Gustave won't be calling them off until we get the last clear." The frown turned into a grimace. Carson had lines around his eyes now that didn't seem to be there when they first met at the island, which seemed like a hundred years ago. "You're not the only one who's being watched, Peyton."

Chapter 11

 

Two days had passed and still the last clear hadn't come.

Chapter 12

 

Peyton walked Westerpark in a fug of low spirits. The 48 hours of silence that had passed after their meeting with Anders lay on her shoulders like a mantle, weighing her down and filling her thoughts with anxiety. The thought of what Roi would do now seemed so wildly incomprehensible in the terror that simmered under the surface that all she could do was muffle it, compartmentalize, and stop herself from dwelling on her fear whenever her mind wandered that way. Yet she was unable to completely ignore the rising panic that suffused her body as the minutes ticked past.

At least the sun was finally out.

It was past the copse of cherry trees, just starting to bloom now, that she noticed her middle-aged/Middle Eastern minder (Ms. Middle?) following a few yards behind her. Peyton slowed her walk, yet Ms. Middle plodded on, not caring if she were noticed or not. When the minder was a couple of feet away, Peyton whirled suddenly and made to grab the minder's arm…only to find a small pocket knife pointed at her. The tip of it glinted in the sun from underneath the woman's thumb.

"What do you want?" asked Peyton, heart leaping in her throat.

"I am to bring you to the flat," said Ms. Middle. "A message for you."

Ms. Middle marched her all the way up to the flat and very nearly shoved her into the room before locking the door behind her. Carson was already sitting on the bed, a tablet held in his hand, and he looked up as the door slammed shut. He scooted for her to take her seat beside him.

"Where'd you get that?"

He nodded at the door. "One of the tails found me."

"Safe phone not enough?"

"Apparently not."

The tablet screen showed a wood-paneled room. In a few seconds, Gustave filled the frame, clad in his impeccable gray suit, his longish hair shellacked into place.

He did not look very happy.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as his dark eyes swept over them, not saying anything for some minutes. And then:

"The Countess's money was supposed to have been reversed two days ago. It has not. Explain."

She looked at Carson. Tiny beads of perspiration broke over his upper lip.

"The painting was delivered on time—Van Der Luyden confirmed the block—I–" He licked his lower lip. "Perhaps a wire issue?"

Gustave looked like thunder. "Swiss banks, accustomed to handling billions for an aristocratic family going back five generations, do not have 'a wire issue.'"

Carson had the grace to look abashed.

"Get to the bottom of this, or I will be most displeased." The screen blacked out before either of them could speak. Peyton watched as his temples broke out in sweat.

"What's wrong?" she asked carefully.

"Nothing." He stood and ran his hands through his hair. "I just—I just need to get to Anja's—I got to check--"

"I'm coming with you."

"No, just—"

She grabbed his arm. "I'm fucking done with waiting. I'm coming with you." He refused to meet her eye so she took his chin firmly between thumb and forefinger. "But you need to tell me what the fuck is going on."

His eyes found hers for one briefly charged moment. "I'll tell you on the way."

 

Five days ago, after the disastrous argument with Peyton, Carson Varis wandered the streets of Amsterdam. The light was nearly gone, the canals murky in the gray twilight. The fake painting was tucked under his armpit, and as he walked his mind was a jumble of thoughts, a snarl of odd, disjointed statements that could not be resolved into a concrete decision.

He made a fist and slammed it against his thigh. This wasn't like him. This whole mission, from the start, had been a cock-up from the moment he laid eyes on Peyton, in that ridiculous lemon yellow bikini, on that boat to Cosa Imbah'i. His mind flashed back to the stillness of her, alternately milk white and ruddy under the sun, and he groaned as he wondered whether what bothered him about working with her were her actual methods, or how the picture in his mind suffered in comparison.

It was as though his feet led him on even before his mind was aware of the destination. The sky was fully dark by the time he stood in front of the blank, locked backdoor along a nondescript residential street in an ethnic neighborhood. He gave the rhythmic knock that revealed the small window set in the steel, and then the password.

As he entered and spotted Theo Karastis by the basement bar, the half-tangled statements in his head gave way to a clear decision, and he knew what to do.

The pretty young boy sat at the elbow of a brutish faced thug, wheedling in his halting Turkish. The thug stared into his whiskey tumbler with the coiled, tense stillness of a pissed-off gangster about to fuck up some boy band kid's face.

Carson sidled up to them. "Theo!" he cried, clapping a hand to the young man's back. "I've been looking all over for you!" He turned to the thug. "I'm very sorry for interrupting; may I pay for your drink?" Without waiting for an answer he peeled off a bill and laid it on the bar for the bartender to take. "Please, sir, another for my friend here as apologies for my interruption." The gangster eyed him balefully; drained his drink, took the new glass from the bartender, and walked away.

"Hey!" said Theo. "I was talking to him!"

"Listen, you dolt," Carson grabbed his forearm. "I have a proposition for you."

 

"No. Fucking. Way." Peyton stopped on the street and squeezed Carson's arm so painfully he winced. The rain started up again. "You seriously…?"

"Well, it was a fit! I told him that…that if his girlfriend helped me with this sale, I'd get him a job with the aristocracy–
of course
I didn't name the countess! All he needed to do was make sure the girl pushed through."

She looked at him like he had two heads. "Why on earth would you make a promise like that?"

"I felt sorry for him, all right? Or at least the girlfriend busting her ass paying off that idiot's debts."

"Carson—!"

"Not now. We need to go."

They were on Anja's street, right across the café where they had watched her for so many weeks. Carson glanced up the garret and a cloud passed over his face. Peyton followed his gaze. Anja's windows were thrown open, letting the sleety spring rains enter. There was a quick glance between them, and then they hurried into the building just as an elderly gentleman left. Past the first landing, they broke into a run.

Carson aimed a kick at Anja's door, but it was already unlocked. It swung from the blow and banged against the wall. They entered, heart hammering at the scene. The flat was turned over, ransacked. The bed had been flipped, the covers thrown off and dumped on the floor. The closets were all ajar and on the floor some items of clothing were strewn about like jetsam in a pier.

"Do you think the mob found out?" Carson shook his head, the toe of his Oxfords nudging the debris on the floor. "That Theo told them and they got to Anja?"

Something was wrong; Peyton felt it in the center of her belly like a blue flame. She walked further in the room, towards the bed.

Something caught her eye: something red and yellow wedged behind the headboard. Gingerly, with nerveless fingers and a heart that seemed to be making a play to escape her chest, she pried it out. It lay in her hands like a dead animal.

"There's a note." Carson had been standing beside her for God knew how long; she jumped when he spoke. He pulled the piece of paper from the painting's frame. He unfolded it, frowned and then handed it to her. "Does this mean anything to you?"

She took it from him with ice-cold fingers and read it aloud.

"Burn, Smiley, Burn."

She dropped to her knees; in her shock she hadn't realized Carson was keeping her up by grasping her shoulders.

It took a few moments for her to find her voice. "We need to find Theo."

BOOK: Peyton Riley
5.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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