She looks back at me.
“I killed him and his wife,” she says, “and made their sons orphans. I fulfilled my mission. I did what I was told.”
I can’t tell if it bothers her or not.
“But you can’t make Niklas and Dorian and Woodard and Fredrik look at you and see someone other than Victor’s woman,” she says. “I couldn’t make my family, my organization, see me any differently when they found out my emotions had been compromised. I was who I was. And I paid the price for it.”
She glances down briefly at her pinky finger, but doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t think she wanted me to notice.
“I see,” I say softly.
“Do you?” she asks. “Or could what you see be a lie?”
She’s trying to confuse me now, because she told me more than she intended.
“No, I believe that it’s the truth. A lot like Niklas, you wanted to tell me.”
She smiles vaguely.
“But how do you know for sure?” she asks. “What makes you think that everything I just told you wasn’t me just manipulating you?”
“Because I’m more intimate than most with that look,” I say evenly, “and because I’m a professional liar and know the difference.”
She nods respectfully.
“Perhaps, Izabel, you should stop worrying about what you don’t possess and focus all of your energy on what you do. No one can be good at everything.”
I don’t offer her a response and I get up.
“Dina Gregory is a nice woman,” Nora says. “I really do hope that Fredrik comes.” She pauses for a moment, pondering. “My meeting with him I don’t expect to go so well, and I’m not too proud to admit that he scares the fuck out of me, but he’ll play an important role in my being here.”
Intrigued by her admission, I study her for a moment.
“How so?” I ask.
“You’ll have to wait and see.” Her lips turn up at the corners.
I start to walk away, but Nora stops me.
“What I’m most curious about though,” she says with my back turned to her, “is what’s taking Victor Faust so long to talk with me. Of course we all have something to hide, even I have done things I’m not particularly proud of, but what do you think Victor’s secret could be? What is he afraid of?”
“Victor isn’t afraid of anything,” I say, turning to look back at her.
She nods reflectively.
“That may be true,” she says, “but it makes you wonder what his secret is, just the same, doesn’t it?”
She’s trying to get under my skin again. And it’s working.
I hear the door click unlocked.
“Do you still want to kill me when this is over?” she asks as I’m opening the door.
“I will kill you when this is over,” I say, and walk out with her undaunted smile etched in my thoughts.
14
Izabel
Victor and Woodard are in the surveillance room with Niklas when I walk in. They’re all looking at me—Niklas shaking his head as if to say I never should’ve done that; Woodard can’t meet my eyes and he looks embarrassed for me; Victor is expressionless as usual, but behind the nothing there is something that maybe only I can see.
“You did good,” Victor says. “We know a lot more about her than we did before.”
I look away from him and go toward the coffee pot, turning my back to all three of them.
“Yeah, thanks, but I don’t need anyone’s sympathetic pat on the back.”
I pour coffee into a small paper cup. I don’t really even like coffee all that much? but I need something to do to distract me.
The room grows quiet and then Victor says, “I need to speak with Izabel alone.”
Without a word, Niklas and Woodard take up their things and head for the exit.
The second they’re gone, Victor drops the professional mask and is the man I know on the inside. He steps up behind me and I feel his hands hook about my waist.
“Is that what you think, Izabel?” he says. “That no one here respects you, that you’re just here to share my bed?”
“None of that matters right now, Victor”—I drop two teaspoons of sugar into my cup and begin to stir it with a plastic spoon—“Dina is all that matters to me. I have to get her back. If Fredrik doesn’t show, I’ll never forgive him.”
Stir. Stir. Stir.
Victor places his hand on top of mine and forces me to stop. He pushes the cup to the side. I don’t argue about it, but I don’t look at him either.
“You are an asset to this organization,” he says, turning me around. He looks into my eyes, focused and determined. “I told you a long time ago that it will take you the rest of your life to learn all there is to know. And that many things you’ll never fully grasp. But you’re still an asset.”