"What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."
For all intents and purposes, he was a ghost. I had never expected to see him again. I figured he was on his way to Russia to break heads or on his way to a tropical island somewhere in the company of grass skirt–wearing women, who were thinner than I and with significantly bigger boobs. The thought made me well up. I had a knot in my throat. I couldn't have answered him if I tried.
In typical Brodie fashion, he didn't push me. He let the silence rest on us until the shock wore off. Then he closed the door behind me, locking it in place with a soft click.
"Do I comment on the dress now or later?"
I hiccupped, and a tear ran down my cheek. "Later is fine."
"Okay, later, but don't let me forget." Ever so gently, he took my hand and walked me into my living room and sat me down next to him on the couch. "We can sit for a while, not say anything. If that's possible for you, that is."
I elbowed him in the ribs. "What are you doing here?"
"Interesting question, Princess. I was going to ask you pretty much the same thing."
"I live here," I said. I sniffed, and Brodie handed me a Kleenex.
"Are you so sad to see me?" he asked.
"I can't believe you're here."
"I can't believe you’re here. What happened? You couldn't find your flight to New York? You missed your connection?"
"My job is here. My apartment is here. I came here. You’re not the boss of me, you know."
Brodie growled low and ran his hand over his face. "Like anybody can be your boss. I'm going to try and be clear, Princess. London is very dangerous for you. You cannot stay here."
"And why are you here?" I demanded, turning the tables on him. "Isn't London dangerous for you, too? Aren’t the police looking for you? Aren't the Russians out to get you?"
"That's not your concern right now."
"Brodie." That's all I said. I didn't beg. I didn't chastise him. I just demanded what I deserved.
"The police couldn't find me if I walked into the precinct with a sign over my head,” he said. “And the Russians don't want me. The Russians weren’t involved with the Taylor hit, as it turns out."
"They weren’t?" I asked. "Are you sure? So, who did it?"
"I don't know."
I snorted. I would bet my shoe collection that he knew and didn’t want to tell me.
"I swear, Princess,” he said. “I don't know, yet, but I'll find out."
We let the silence descend on us again. We sat close, our thighs touching. Heat bounced off him, and I leaned in closer, laying my cheek on his arm. He took my hand and caressed my palm, sending little warm ripples through me. He was a man with a strong presence, and I felt safe and comfortable with him.
"So, why are you here?" I asked, softly. His caress was intoxicating. He was the Abby Whisperer, I thought idly, able to tame me in my angriest and most stressed moments.
"Perhaps I had to make sure you'd keep your mouth shut. Did you ever think of that?"
"No, I didn’t think of that," I said. "You should know that's impossible."
"Perhaps I heard about the dress, and I came right over."
"Do you like the dress?" I captured his fingers and caressed his palm.
"This," he said, hooking his finger under the dress's shoulder strap. "Is the best dress I've ever seen.”
The air around us was thick and intoxicating. I felt Brodie’s passion come off him in waves, and it fed mine.
“It was my last mission,” he said, softly.
“What?”
“You,” he said, his voice filled with emotion and barely audible. “You were my ticket out. My last mission. My freedom.”
It was a confession, and I knew it was the truth.
“Freedom from what?” I asked.
“My life.”
“And then you saved me.”
“I told you, you’re dangerous.”
A twinge of reality bit me. “And you saved me, and now you’re not free.”
“I tried to make it look like you escaped. So, technically, I completed my mission.” Brodie gave my hand a light squeeze.
“But Gairloch doesn’t see it that way, does he?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter. I’m done.”
“You’re apologizing to me, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And you’re telling me something else, also. Something important, about why you saved me.”
“Yes.” He ran his fingers through my hair and pulled me closer to him. We were going someplace, and I was powerless to stop it, not that I wanted to.
“We’ve had a lot of almosts, Brodie,” I noted.
“Near misses.”
“Yes, near misses.” He traced my lips with his thumb. It was calloused and hot and made my blood boil and made me go nearly blind.
“No more near misses, Princess,” he said. His voice was thick and gravelly. “I’m right on target tonight, and nothing is going to make me lose focus.”
I believed him. He was a determined man, and once he put his mind toward something, he accomplished it. Besides, I noticed vaguely, he had already removed my top and was unhooking my bra with clever fingers. He seemed to be halfway there, and so, I realized, was I.
“Do you have a bed?”
I pointed in the direction of my bedroom. He pulled me up and kissed me deep and slow. My head was spinning. Brodie twirled me slowly toward the bedroom and deposited me on my bed without breaking our kiss. His hand cupped my breast, and my hands skimmed over his body, provoking a groan of desire from him.
I fumbled for his belt and unhooked it, but he knocked my hands aside.
“Brodie,” I moaned. I was desperate to touch him, but he kept my hands away, all the while slipping the rest of my dress off me.
"Remember what I said?" he asked. “I want to taste you.” He pulled down my panties and ran his hands along the inside of my thighs, separating my legs.
"Now, what do we have here," he said. He rubbed his rough palm against Svetlana’s waxing job, sending shock waves through my body.
He leaned down and replaced his hand with his mouth, his lips, his tongue. I fell back against my pillow. I raised my arms above my head, and my hips undulated against his mouth, as if they had a mind of their own. In mere moments, I was racked with waves of pleasure, and I came with a sudden force that I had never experienced before.
Afterward, I lay as relaxed as a rag doll. I was half dead and completely drugged with satisfaction. I felt Brodie’s gaze, and I opened my eyes to see him watching me with what could only be described as wonder.
"Do you know what you taste like?" he asked.
"Like peaches?" My voice came out two octaves lower than normal.
"How did you know? Have you tasted yourself before?"
"No," I said. "But you ate me like a peach. Like a peach on a hot summer's day when the sweat drips off of you, and you’re bone-dry thirsty and ravenous for anything sweet.”
Brodie grabbed my face and kissed me with an urgent intensity. His tongue possessed my mouth, and his hand slipped down until he found mine and guided it to his erection. Smooth and hard as nails at the same time, I circled my hand around it and stroked him at a snail's pace.
"I see London, I see France," I said, seductively, guiding him toward me. "I see Brodie's big, giant—"
He silenced me with another kiss and lifted his body onto mine, positioned himself, and entered me slowly. I was instantly addicted, instantly hooked to having him. More, more, more, I thought.
Our bodies fit together perfectly. He moved in a slow rhythm, and I wrapped my legs around him to draw him in farther. He picked up speed and thrust faster, harder, until I felt that familiar buildup once more and finally a splendid crashing into oblivion. Brodie crashed along with me.
Our hearts, ready to burst only a moment before, slowed to the unnaturally slow beat that exists after orgasm. He moved me so that we lay on our sides, face-to-face and still joined.
"Princess?”
"Yes," I said, barely alive.
"We’re going to do that again, and after we do that again, we’re going to do that again."
"You'll get no argument from me," I said and fell asleep.
***
Brodie and I made love twice again and ate a gallon of rocky road ice cream.
"I'm going to get you on a flight tonight," he said, his mouth full of ice cream.
"No, you're not," I said, grabbing his spoon, and ladling the ice cream into my mouth.
"Yes, I am." He swiped some ice cream out of the container with his finger and wiped it on my breast and licked it off. I moaned and kissed his shoulder.
"Are you coming with me?" I asked. Please say yes. Please say, yes. Please say, yes.
"I can't. Not yet. But I'll make plans to meet up with you later."
I lost my appetite. I dropped the spoon back in the carton and turned away from him. He put the carton on the nightstand and gathered me to him, spoon fashion. “I’m not used to making promises,” he said, softly. “This is new territory for me.”
“I’ll go to the police and tell them you were with me. You would be free, then.” Free to be with me. I didn’t even know if that was possible. Mercenary life didn’t sound too sedentary and didn’t lend itself to monogamy.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Brodie said. “Somebody has framed me. I need to find that somebody. All of this,” he said, gliding his fingers down my body. “Was selfish on my part. I should have gotten you away from me. I should have at least drugged the ice cream. You could be on a plane right now and away from all this mess.”
Brodie rested his hand on my breast, and his breathing slowed. He was asleep. “Thank you for being selfish,” I whispered and fell asleep, too.
I woke a couple of hours later with Brodie nuzzling my neck. “Turn over. I want to see you,” he said.
He leaned over me, and I ran my hand across the tattoo that covered the muscles of his chest. “The follies of youth,” Brodie explained. He had several tattoos, which I imagined went hand in hand with the military.
“And this?” I traced my finger over a bad burn scar on his arm.
“Oh, that. Another tattoo, but it was burned off with a blowtorch.” He shrugged.
“You burned your tattoo off with a blowtorch? Didn’t that hurt?”
“I almost chewed off my own tongue, it hurt so much,” he said, smiling. “But I didn’t do it. It was early days in the SAS, and I went out and got a tattoo, which advertised too much about my secret unit. That didn’t go down so well, as you can imagine. I arrived back at barracks, sporting it with no shortage of pride, and my fellow soldiers obligingly held me down and burned off my tattoo for me. Happily, it was a small tattoo.”
“Wow,” I said, impressed despite myself. “I hate to ask about this scar.” I traced the long line down his face.
“Oh, well that, Princess, was a folly of an entirely different kind,” he said, visibly enjoying himself.
“What did you do?”
“I? No, that wasn’t my folly. It was definitely the other fellow’s folly. God bless his soul.”
***
Brodie put on his jeans, a shirt, and boots. "Going somewhere?" I asked. "Good. I'm out of milk. Although, it's two in the morning. The stores are closed, Brodie."
He ignored me and rifled through my drawers, throwing my clothes into a suitcase.
"This is a first," I said. “Normally, after I sleep with a guy, he packs his own bags, not mine."
"I'm just making sure you get back to New York, that's all," he said.
"This, again? Gurzhikhanov wouldn't dare get me in London."
Brodie closed one suitcase and began filling another. "He's had people poisoned in London before, Princess."
"Then, he could easily have me poisoned in New York," I said, trying to interject a little logic into the discussion. "You know, I'm really getting sick and tired of people making decisions for me."
"Gurzhikhanov isn't the only scary thing in London."
"You're pretty scary."
"Scarier than me."
"Ha! I doubt that." I got out of bed and headed for the shower.
"Good," he said, watching me go. "As soon as you're done, we'll head to the airport."
I closed the door and turned on the water. I had no intention of going to the airport. I had a life to live in London. It was time for me to put my foot down and keep it down. I stepped into the shower and let the hot water beat down on my body. I was sore from the evening's activities, and the water eased my muscles. Brodie called out to me from the other room.
"I can't hear you through the shower!" I hollered. It didn't matter to him that I couldn’t hear anything. All of a sudden, Brodie was very talkative, and he wouldn't shut up, even though I couldn't make out what he was saying. The sound of the water and the closed door muffled the sound.
"I can't hear you!" I yelled out again. I soaped up my loofah and scrubbed my body. "Listen, Brodie. The only dangerous thing in London is commitment, and you're the one who's scared of it. I'm perfectly happy to stay here and deal with it."
Brodie didn't respond, but obviously, I got his attention because he stopped talking. I rinsed off.
"Whatever we have together, you need to deal with it, and you can't deal with it by shipping me off halfway across the world. I won't pressure you into anything you don't want to do, but I will require you to make a decision."
Still no response from him. Why was it that the big, burly men were the big cowards when it came to commitment? I got out of the shower.
I slipped on my pajamas and opened the door. "You're awfully quiet," I said.
But I was talking to myself. No one was there, no sign of Brodie. My apartment was a wreck, the kitchen table was demolished, my belongings were strewn around, and the door had been busted open. Worst of all, there was a considerable amount of blood on my kitchen counter, which dripped onto the floor.
I'm the first to admit when I am wrong, and obviously, I had been wrong. London was a dangerous place. One look at the wreckage of my apartment was proof of that.
"Brodie?" I tiptoed around, almost expecting him to pop out at any moment. Surely, nobody could have bested Brodie. He was Superman. I looked in my closet, under the bed. I screwed up my courage and tiptoed out into the hallway and called for him. There was no sign of him, if I didn't count the blood in the kitchen. I shivered.
"Abby Williams, you will get ahold of yourself," I said, out loud. "Think, think, think."
I thought of Logan, of course. He would know what to do, but I had no contact information for Logan, and I had no idea how to get in touch with him.
I did know one person who would know where to find Logan. Gairloch. Perhaps it was a long shot. Brodie was very possibly already dead, but I couldn't deal with that possibility just yet. I needed to get help, and that meant a trip out to the country again. I slipped on my jeans, sneakers, and t-shirt and went out to hail a cab.
***
Gairloch's mansion was still standing, which was surprising, since the last time I had seen it, a fire alarm was sounding, and people were screaming and running for their lives.
Even without flames shooting out the windows, it was a foreboding structure and eerily different since I had left the party. The party atmosphere was just a memory. Gone were the lights illuminating the long drive to the house. The mansion stood at the end of the drive, once romantic and exciting, now imposing and threatening.
Only a few lights shined through the large French windows, which was normal at three in the morning, but they threw shadows onto the driveway and the front porch, giving everything a Frankenstein movie quality.
I stood on the front porch and debated whether to knock on the door, debated whether to let the taxi leave, and debated if saving Brodie was really all that necessary. He had guns, grenades, and a lot of muscles. What did I have? None of those things. I had bed head, keys, some cash stuffed in my jeans pocket, and an afterglow.
I reluctantly let the taxi leave, and I stood there, staring at the door. It was quiet. If I held my breath, I heard nothing. Even the wind was quiet.
“Gairloch is a good guy. He’s friends with Brodie,” I said to myself, breaking the silence. “But what was all that crap about new world order and asking about Brodie? Logan was nervous about him, too. Why am I talking to myself?”
I decided to cease my little schizophrenic episode and knock. After all, what was the worst that could happen? He could tell me to mind my own business and go away.
I knocked. After a few minutes, the door creaked open to reveal a giant moose of a man, armed and dressed in fatigues. He was reminiscent of Montou's band of Les Terribles mercenaries, Brodie and Logan’s old gang. There was a good chance that he was one of Brodie’s colleagues. I thought to ask him for help, but I tried to remain patient and do what Logan and Brodie would have done. The trail of secrecy, Logan had said. I had to be smart and play it safe.
"I'd like to see Lord Gairloch," I said.
"So?" He cracked his knuckles, and I stepped back.
"Tell him that Abigail Williams is here to see him," I managed.
The door closed, and I waited outside. After a few minutes, when I was just about to knock again, the door opened once more. It was Emmett Gairloch.
"The lovely, lovely Miss Williams," he said. "This is a wonderful surprise. Do come in, please."
I followed him inside. I was surprised to see that there was no lasting damage from the evening's fire.
"I hope you had a good time at the party."
"I had a great time," I lied. I gave Gairloch the once-over. He was still debonair, but gone were the designer tuxedo and shiny shoes, and in their place were baggy purple pants, an "I Love Trees" t-shirt, Chinese slippers, and a Peruvian wool bonnet on his head. I tried not to pass judgment. Who was I to criticize someone's fashion taste? I was known to go to work in pajama pants, and I had a disdain for makeup, in general.
Gairloch led me back to his library. This time, the button machine was on, making a whirring noise in the corner. Gairloch made a beeline to it and got back to making buttons.
"More peace buttons?" I asked.
"Ecology buttons this time," he said. "Have you seen the footage of that giant floating island of plastic in the Pacific? It's just terrible what we're doing to this planet."
I nodded in agreement.
"I hope you recycle, Miss Williams. It's the least we can do after all the damage we've caused to our Mother Earth."
I was known to recycle cans and bottles, but Leonardo DiCaprio wouldn’t be sending me flowers anytime soon.
"Lord Gairloch," I began. "You’re probably wondering why I'm here at this hour."
Gairloch waved his hand and shook his head. "Not to worry. I notoriously get only four hours of sleep a night. And tonight, after all our excitement, I don't think I will sleep at all. So, it's nice for me to have the diversion of your company. What can I do for you?"
"I need your help."
Gairloch turned off his button machine and motioned for me to sit on one of the chairs.
"I knew you would make it back here," he said. "I saw you with him, and I knew you would come to me to get him back. Absolutely natural. I may be old, but I still remember the feelings, you know. You don't get so old so as to forget that, my dear."
"So, you know where he is?" Relief washed over me, and I exhaled. I must have been holding my breath. I hadn’t realized how worried I was until that moment. I didn’t want to lose Brodie, but more than that, I didn’t want him to be hurt.
"Yes, I know where he is. In fact, I have him. I acquired him." He smiled and smoothed out his purple pants.
"What does that mean? What do you mean, you acquired him?"
"Remember what I told you this evening, Miss Williams. I will not let anything get in my way. And he was a disobedient child. You are not a mother, but I'm sure you have a rudimentary grasp on parenting techniques. One must punish a disobedient child, nip the behavior in the bud, as it were."
I felt sick, and sick was the word for the evening. There were a lot of sickos around me lately, and Gairloch was turning out to be on that list.
"So, you're punishing him?"
"I'm sorry. I'm not being completely clear. He is in possession of a certain piece of information that I require, and he would not volunteer it. Unfortunately, no amount of convincing or coercion could make him divulge that piece of information. And I used considerable means of coercion, as you can imagine."
Yes, I could imagine. In fact, my imagination was becoming more and more vivid with each minute of our conversation.
"In any case,” he continued. “I'm under the impression that you also have the information that I'm looking for. So, I'll simply get if from you. I'm sure it will take significantly less effort to retrieve what I'm looking for from your brain."
I wasn’t looking forward to anybody retrieving anything from my brain. I liked my brain just as it was. In fact, at that very moment my brain was in overdrive, trying to get me out of there safe and sound without any coercion or punishment by Papa Bear Gairloch.
"Lord Gairloch, I'm sorry, but you’re working under some misguided notions. I have no information about anything."
"Now, now, Miss Williams, please don't be like that."
"I can assure you, I don't have any information at all about anything at all. I'm known for not knowing anything.”
Gairloch arched an eyebrow. I was losing him. “Just ask anybody,” I announced. “And they'll tell you: 'Oh, that Abby has no information, and when we give her any information, it evaporates from her brain before it has time to stick.' Lord Gairloch, information does not stick to my brain. I have a very unsticky brain."
I knocked on my head. "See that? Nobody home. I got nothing. I wish I had. I really, really wish I had, but I've got nothing."
I clutched at something reasonable to say, but I suck at stressful situations. Talk about unsticky brains. My brain was giving me nothing when I most needed it.
"You are tiring, Miss Williams. Very, very tiring, even for me who doesn't need any sleep. I say you do have the information I seek, and you will divulge it to me, and pretty quickly, I'm assuming. Unsticky brain or no."
I stood up on wobbly legs and pointed my shaky finger at him. "Listen, Lord Gairloch. As you know, I've been through hell and back. I've seen much worse than you, and I've been threatened by the best of them. I'm not afraid of you. Do you hear me? I'm not afraid of you!"
Gairloch chuckled. "No, of course not, my dear. Why on earth would you be afraid of me? That's why I hire talented individuals, who are far scarier than I could ever hope to be.”
As if on cue, in walked a monster of a man, bigger and taller than Brodie with even more muscles, and a hideous scar that took up one entire side of his face, disfiguring him.
"You can take her now, Kevin," Gairloch told him. "She shouldn't give you too much trouble."
The monster dragged me away from the library. I dug in my heels, and the screech of the bottoms of my sneakers against the waxed floors rang out in the empty halls. I tried to shrug out of his grasp, but I had no effect on him. He took little or no notice of my resistance. He pulled me along without breaking a sweat. I, on the other hand, was sweating bullets.
"What are you going to do to me?" I was on the verge of hysteria but was trying to keep it together. I had been through worse, I reminded myself. Remember the bus, remember the booms. I had lived through that.
The monster named Kevin ignored me and dragged me along like I weighed nothing at all. Down the long hallway and up the stairs, he pulled, and I pulled back, stumbling and falling against him. He pushed me upright and continued on until we got to a large wood door. He took a key from his pocket.
"No!” I screamed, trying to unclench his grip on me. “Let me go!”
Hysteria didn’t work. I changed tactics and tried to reason with him. “Excuse me, I will not accept this. You don’t scare me. Listen. Listen! I was drugged, kidnapped, and schlepped halfway across the world to war-torn Chechnya where I was sold into 'marriage' to a psychotic Chechen warlord who liked to eat human flesh. Okay, so I made up that last bit, but he was really nuts. Point is, I don't think there's anything you could do to scare me."
Kevin unlocked the door and let it swing open. He stood me in front of him and took my head in his hands to direct my gaze inside.
The room was small and furnished with only two metal chairs. On one of the chairs sat Jake Logan. He was strapped to the chair, half naked and beaten to a pulp.