Jorja's insides did a summersault before it morphed into a heavy ball of knots in the very pit of her stomach. Fear rippled through her body as the weight of Ben's words warned her to brace herself.
"What are you saying, Ben?" Her voice was burdened with angst.
His hands cupped her shoulders and he pinned his eyes to hers.
"It's going to be okay, Georgina, trust me. Isn't this why you called me? Take a deep breath and come have a look at this."
He was right. She’d known Ben would get to who was behind Myles' murder long before law enforcement could. So, she let him steer her toward a chair next to his at the computer station then watched as he frantically started moving his computer mouse all over the screen, duplicating the same vigor with his fingers on the keyboard.
"What am I looking at?" she asked lacking patience.
"Almost got it, wait for it... there."
Several black and white photos popped up in layers on one of the other monitors. When the sequence ran its course, Ben's voice suddenly filled with excitement, as if he had already figured it out.
The first image was a shot taken by a surveillance camera pointed at her gallery's doors.
"That's my shop, how did you—?”
"Ask no questions, hear no lies, Georgie Porgie," he smiled with affection.
The name was what he used to tease her with and the fond reminder instantly released some of the tension in her shoulders. His computer mouse dragged the picture to one side, revealing another image taken with the same surveillance camera.
"That's the guy who stood watching you the day of Myles Brentwood's unfortunate demise, correct?" He zoomed in on the picture to display the man up close.
"It is, yes."
"And this guy here," he clicked then pointed to another photo, "is the guy who attacked you and your friend in your gallery the other night."
Again, he zoomed in.
"It's not the same guy," Jorja remarked.
"Exactly! Now, look at these photos over here. These are the people who attacked us at the train station today. Look closely. Can you see the scar over this guy's face over here, above his left eye?"
She nodded as he pointed at one of the shooters then clicked and dragged another photo next to it on the screen.
"The guy who attacked you in your gallery is the same guy who shot at us today. See the scar? It's the same. But the man who stood watching you from outside your gallery doesn't have any scars, also, that guy is nowhere to be found on any of the train station or National Gallery's surveillance footage."
Jorja had leaned forward in her seat, quietly taking in all Ben had to show her.
"But wait, there's more!" he teased. "Look at the man outside your shop; you have a silk shirt, cashmere coat, powerful shoulders. Now compare it to the amateurs from the train station, even the man with the scar. Totally opposite, right? This guy outside your shop, he reeks of money, all the way from his shiny bald head down to his matte snakeskin shoes. While in direct contrast, the bunch from today looked more like a group of cheap bounty hunters. You have denim jackets, ripped jeans, and scruffy, cheap shoes that look like they just stepped off a building site. Trust me, I know a bounty hunter when I see one, and these, my dear, were probably picked up in a backstreet pub somewhere. I can smell them from a mile away."
He played one of the surveillance videos, then added.
"Notice how disjointed their shooting is. There's no plan, no thought for execution. Like they had each received a random text message with your photo and the instruction to hunt you down, no plan, no sequencing, nothing."
He waited for the penny to drop.
"They're not connected."
Jorja's voice was low and without cadence, her face suddenly pale.
"We're dealing with two unrelated enemies here, Georgina, and I think we both know exactly who they are."
She slumped back in the chair, staring at the images on display in front of her. In that moment, her worst fears had suddenly come true. Fear had gripped her by her throat and sent uncontrollable tremors to her hands. Barely able to breathe she stared at the screen. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
"I am as good as dead, Ben."
"Stop! Don't even think that," he said in a stern voice, jerking her from her woeful state.
She jumped to her feet and started pacing the floor, suddenly flooded with panic.
"How can you be so naive, Ben? It was bad enough knowing that I am up against Artem Sokolov and his entire Russian mob, but facing Gustav Züber simultaneously, I am completely outnumbered. I might as well write my obituary."
"Oh, there's the spirit. Give up without a fight. Boy, you were not kidding, were you? St. Ives has changed you all right. Where's the Georgina I knew, huh? The one who stood her ground and never backed down, for anything or anyone? The one who faced fear head on? Have you gone all soft on me in that salty Cornish air?"
He got up and went to fetch another soda from the fridge.
"I don't know what you're expecting of me, Ben. We aren't careless twenty-somethings anymore. I am almost fifty for crying out loud. Twice now I have been surprised by attackers, I never saw either of them coming and am clearly off my game—twenty years off my game."
Once more, she reached for her bag.
"I've got to go. Like I said, the further you stay away from me, the better. Thanks for your help."
She walked toward the exit.
"So you're going to do it again, are you, Georgina? You're going to walk out on me just like that, excluding me and making decisions for me instead of with me."
"I'm not making any decisions for you, Ben, I'm simply making sure you stay alive."
"Just like you did that day twenty years ago, right? And look how that's turned out."
"I don't know what you want from me, Ben. What would you have me do, huh? I never intended for that deal to go bad, but it did, and now I’m the one who's going to pay the price for it. Gustav Züber was the one who got greedy, not me. I was the one caught in the middle remember? He was careless, got caught, and almost dragged me down with him. If I hadn't blown the whistle on Züber's operation and disappeared, I would have gone down with him. I couldn't tell you what was going on even though I desperately wanted to. I protected you, Ben. Neither of them ever knew about you, and I would like to keep it that way. That's what allowed you to live a normal life for the past twenty years."
She turned to walk away then looked back at Ben. Tears had filled her eyes anew and seeing the sadness in his eyes broke her heart into a million pieces, just like it had all those years ago.
"Goodbye Ben."
"Don't do this, Georgina, please!"
But she had made her decision and ran out of the building as fast as her legs would carry her, knowing that if she looked back, she might not be brave enough to walk away a second time from the only man she’d ever truly loved. So she kept running, zigzagging through the streets until she found the underground entrance to the tube. When she finally got onto the first train heading toward Heathrow Airport, she could no longer control her tears and they flowed freely down her flushed cheeks.
Squeezed into a corner seat in the back of the train, her reflection stared back at her from the tiny window next to her. The woman in the glass didn't look like her at all. Every cell in her body felt weak, drained of life, and without hope. She thought of Ewan fighting for his life in hospital and the words spoken by the unknown patient in the chapel. She thought of Ben, of how things once were and how she would have done anything to have that again.
But then, as easily as her heart had filled with pain and despair, she was suddenly overwhelmed with anger. She had seen Gustav Züber's face flash before her, remembered what he’d done all those years ago and how he was to blame for all of this. The more she pondered on it, the deeper her anger festered.
By the time she found her way back to her car in the roadside hotel's parking lot, her anger had already turned to hatred. When she slipped in behind the wheel of her car, the woman who stared back at her in the mirror was no longer saddened or defeated. Instead, her eyes were darker, determined, and unaffected by any emotion.
She swiped away the smudged, black make-up that had settled beneath her eyes with the back of her hand, then smoothed her hair back in place. Her eyes fixed on the satchel that lay on the passenger seat next to her.
She had everything she needed right there with her. It was time she took matters into her own hands.