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Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Wednesday, 27 January, 1:18 a.m.
––––––––
Aidan reached for the door and turned to me. "How do you want to do this?"
On the other side of the door, Alejandro Sanchez waited. He didn't know he was in Dubai. I, on the other hand, knew what his future held – pain. "There's no indication that he speaks English. Interrogating him might lose a bit of punch if you have to translate for us. Certain things are universal and won't need any words. Fear and pain. Those two I can translate myself."
Aidan grabbed my hips and pressed me up against the wall. "Right now, I'm not your husband or the father of your child. Do whatever you need to get us answers. As soon as we step through the door, I'm Fortius' second in command, nothing else. Understood?"
"Yes sir." I kissed him hard. Aidan had dished out his own kind of justice when we first met.
He lowered me and pushed my hair behind my ears before covering my face. "Rowan and Liam will update us when they get back to the house. Let's do this, I have a surprise for you. I won't need to translate."
Aidan eased the door open; I kicked it. The door slammed against the wall. Sanchez lifted his head, his eyes wild. He mumbled against the duct tape covering his mouth. His emotions didn't need translating. I took a seat across from him while Aidan yanked the tape from Sanchez's mouth. I laughed when he whimpered; clumps of facial hair stuck to the tape. The stage set. My laughter created the perfect atmosphere. Without a doubt, Sanchez realised nothing good will happen to him in this darkened room. No windows. No mercy. The instruments for our chat I had selected earlier – well, the day before, as we were well past midnight. It stood against a wall and I turned to look at it. So did Sanchez.
I waited for his eyes to meet mine. "Hola, Alejandro." He didn't respond. "Don Peo. Isidora Diaz. Diego Gonzalez. Catalina Garcia."
Sanchez shook his head despite the recognition flashing in his eyes as I said the names, and an eerie sounding voice translated. I kept my eyes devoid of the shock I felt at the sound of the voice. The voice not one anyone wants to hear when you lay in bed at night or walk down a dark alley.
I leaned forward and removed the Ka-Bar from where I had hidden it underneath my chair. The blade gleamed in the overhead light. The tip cool as I tapped it against my lips. "I hope you don't make this easy for me. I've been waiting a long time to play with you, Alejandro. Please try your hardest to keep your secrets for as long as you can." I pointed to my right, to the instruments which would bring me joy and him pain. "I want to use all of those toys."
Sanchez rambled as another voice translated, this one not creepy at all. "I've never met them or even heard their names. Why am I here?"
I glanced up at Aidan, who stood behind our guest. He winked and nodded.
"Who is he?"
Sanchez shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Handy little thing this translator device. Aidan never ceases to amaze me. I pushed to my feet and plunged the blade into the side of Sanchez's left thigh. If I nicked an artery Aidan could take care of it. Aidan glanced at my handiwork and nodded. Is it strange to have felt proud of his approval?
Once Sanchez stopped screaming, I continued. "You received two payments; I can show you the proof. The first payment enough to get you out of Chile and allowed you to land on your feet in Spain. The second as recent as October last year, days before Catalina and Diego went missing. Tell me, Alejandro, how much is a person's life worth to you?"
"I won't tell you." Sanchez stared at the concrete floor between us. In the middle of the room's floor a steel grid; to make cleaning easier.
My handprint would be visible on his face for hours to come. I stared at my red palm and stretched my fingers to ease the burn. "No, you will tell me. Thank you for not making this easy." I lifted my eyes to Aidan's and leaned my head to the right. Aidan stepped away.
A single kick to his chair. Sanchez crashed to the floor. I fetched the towel. Aidan grabbed the hose.
As I lowered myself onto Sanchez's chest, I forced a sigh. "Oh, what big eyes you have, Alejandro. Oh, what secrets you keep. Perhaps this will help jog your memory." I covered his face with the towel and held it down. Aidan opened the valve. Sanchez thrashed as water filled his lungs.
He coughed and spat water onto my pants as Aidan lifted the chair until all four feet met concrete.
"Again?" I asked. We already washed his face and lungs five times, I doubted he wanted our help a sixth time.
"No!" I didn't need the translator device for this one.
"Tell me who he is!"
Sanchez coughed and spat out more water, this time on himself. "He never gave me a name. He contacted me after he paid the money into my bank account."
"Who deleted your email to Don Peo after his murder? The email which instructed him where to go, the very place the killer waited for him."
The look in Sanchez's eyes told me he didn't do it.
"You helped him to murder Don Peo and Isidora Diaz. Newspapers ran articles on their deaths for a week. You knew!" I slapped him again, harder than before. "You could've gone to the police, but you didn't. You kept the money and left Chile."
The baseball bat stood ready in the corner of the room. I grabbed it and swung through the air to warm up my arms. I'm not as young as I used to be, when I had last swung a bat around.
"I needed the money, for a better life."
I laughed so hard the baseball bat fell from my hands and rolled to a stop at Sanchez's feet. Barbwire kept his arms and legs in place.
Aidan's palm connected with the back of our guest's head. Pain spread across Sanchez's face as Aidan's fingers dug into the back of his neck. "You knew what he was going to do when he made contact again in Spain. There's no excuse for that."
My husband and I reached for the bat at the same time. "Ladies first," Aidan said and turned to Sanchez. His Spanish fluent, yet he spoke in English, perhaps for my benefit. "The Brigada de Homicidios questioned you. You lied to them and said Señor Peo had cancelled his classes with you a month before his death. We have video footage from the ATM across the street from where your studio used to be that proves you lied. Don never missed a single class."
There is an ATM, but no video footage. I enjoyed seeing this side of Aidan. I always wondered what it would be like to interrogate with him. It exceeded my expectations, and so did he, in the days that followed.
Alejandro Sanchez is an acclaimed choreographer, with a successful dance production company in Madrid. There are certain limbs one needs to pursue this passion.
I lifted the bat. Aidan held up a hand. "This might help." He walked to a cabinet and retrieved a syringe and a vial.
Aidan eased Sanchez's sleeve up. "My sincere apologies for what we've done to you, Alejandro. Please understand our frustration as the man who paid you, is using our money to do it. I don't like it when people steal from me, and even less when he has fun without me." Aidan jabbed the needle into Sanchez's shoulder and tossed the syringe aside.
I expected our guest to fall asleep from the prick of the needle, and from the liquid Aidan injected into him. Instead of closing, his eyes became more alert and I realised I loved Aidan Walker even more.
I counted to thirty, rolling my shoulders. The sound of bones crushing filled the silence, followed by a slew of Spanish swear words. The blasphemous words didn't need translation and fuelled my growing rage. My arms cramped, the bat fell to the floor.
Sanchez kept screaming. The adrenaline coursing through his veins was my friend and not his.
Aidan retrieved another syringe and vial and injected the liquid into our guest's neck. I waited for Sanchez to drift off to dreamland. Before his eyes closed, he sang like a canary.