During the long hours of her train ride, Alex slept a little, stared out the window, and nursed a severe case of melancholy. Each mile down the track separated her farther from Henry. Her heart broke in two, severed by distance and unbearable circumstances, but protecting him was paramount.
Arriving in Washington, DC, Alex had a five-and-a-half-hour wait for the next train to Providence. She wandered into the sunny afternoon, enjoying the freedom of walking around for a few hours without the fear of discovery.
At the local McDonald’s, she attached the knife case to the inside of her waistband. If she angled the long knife toward her hip and under Henry’s leather jacket, no one would notice it, but she could reach it with ease. It wasn’t a gun, but it should work if Luc came close enough.
She purchased a bacon cheeseburger and a bottle of water. Nothing tasted quite right. Perhaps her taste buds had soured permanently. Besides eating junk food, Alex had nothing to do but regret her cowardice in running away from Luc. She should have killed him at the gallery with a broken champagne flute, a small marble statue, or a shove through the window. Forty-five stories straight down in a free fall would have killed him, but the moment had passed, and he was alive, and she was running.
She headed toward the train station, but the allure of the tattoo parlor across the street provided her a perfect time killer for the final half hour before the train left. The careful placement of three small and, hopefully, inexpensive lines would eliminate Luc’s mark forever.
The train to Providence took six hours. The travel exhausted Alex, but she continued onward. She couldn’t take the chance of someone getting hurt because she’d dallied. The bus out to Woods Hole in southern Cape Cod didn’t cost as much as she’d expected, providing her with a few additional funds after buying a ferry ticket to Martha’s Vineyard.
When she stepped foot on the ferry, she started to relax. On a clear day, the island could be seen from the mainland. If the boat went down, Alex could swim the final half mile to her parents’ house. Nothing would stop her now.
Would her family be mad at her?
And her sisters. God, how she’d missed them. Despite being labeled as the odd sister, she’d always craved their approval, love, and respect. They tried to understand her, but they just didn’t get her method of learning through immersion. Speaking only Spanish to the housekeeper, only French to the au pair, and only Korean to the woman at the library, she became fluent within months of beginning a new language. She only needed to learn a word once, and it would stick in her brain. The way her mind processed and decoded information didn’t interest others; it scared the hell out of them, as though some demon had possessed her.
When she realized other people couldn’t learn languages as quickly or distinguish the material composition of things in quite the same way she could, she tried to hide her talents. But it was impossible. She not only saw the world differently, she reacted to it differently. For years, she’d believed she’d been poisoned by a radioactive isotope and had received special powers. The powers, however, had never proven to be of the superhero variety.
She lost her father’s respect, because, in her father’s words, she didn’t use her God-given talents to make something of herself. If she’d achieved high grades and graduated from college, perhaps he would have loved her more.
She went to the bathroom to brush her hair, rinse her face, and remove her “Danielle” contacts. Back to brown hair, brown eyes, old jeans, and an old T-shirt. She almost resembled the frightened young woman who had left home eight years ago with a small duffel bag and five thousand dollars cash to book a plane overseas and begin a new life. Alex Northrop, daughter of Peter and Gabrielle, sister of Anna and Julia, had disappeared that day. Today, she was going home.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Simon drove an hour north of Paris to Betz. On the outskirts of the village, he turned onto a long driveway toward a fifteenth-century stone farmhouse surrounded by fields recently prepared for new crops.
He remained in his rented Mercedes until Teodor arrived in a chestnut Maybach.
They both exited their vehicles, meeting in the middle of the gravel drive. The familiar adrenaline rush heightened Simon’s senses. Teodor would love to kill him and take over his business. Literally, cutting out the middleman. Chances were, however, he wouldn’t. Simon arranged the best arms deals and had the lowest failure rate, and the majority of his arrangements worked to perfection for all sides. Besides, if he made an attempt on Simon’s life, Teodor would be dead within seconds by a bullet to the brain delivered by the sniper located in the attic of the farmhouse.
“Nothing says trust like an armored vehicle.” Simon tapped Teodor’s arm as they shook hands.
“Too true.” Teodor knocked on the Kevlar vest Simon wore under his jacket. “Where’s Luc?”
“He has something brewing in the States. I have possession of all of the artifacts, so there should be no problems.” A situation Simon hated. “Do you have your appraiser with you?”
“Yeah. He’s good, but I’d prefer the appraiser Luc used a few months ago. Alex.”
Alex? “Never met him.”
Teodor threw his head back and laughed. “Not a him, a hot young thing with a keen eye for detecting forgeries.” He raised his eyebrows to indicate just how lush.
Son of a bitch. All this time he’d been focused on some bloke, and Alex was in his arms, literally. “Short and elfin?”
“Yeah, Alex Lemoine, a sweet French confection. Imagine a woman who can determine authenticity on sight during the day and snuggle into bed with you at night. The perfect companion. Smart as hell, too. She greeted me in Ukrainian and spoke to some of the American dealers in fluent English. Every deal she handled for Luc went off perfectly, according to my contacts.”
“What happened to her?”