speaking."
"I want out."
He sat back, releasing her knee. "Besides, Don Fernando Hererra is only a secondary target - at least, for now."
She had begun to shake, very slightly, and there was a tic under her left eye. She took up her espresso and drained the cup. There was a slight clatter when she set it down.
"Who are you after?"
Close, this time, he thought. Very close. "Someone special," he had said. "A man who calls himself Adam Stone. And this assignment is a bit different." His hands had spread wide apart. "Adam Stone is not his real name, of course."
"What is it?"
Arkadin's smile held real malice. He turned his head and ordered them two more espressos.
Dawn was spreading its wings over Puerto Penasco as Arkadin's brief flare of memory subsided into darkness. A freshening breeze off the water brought the scent of a new day. There had been women in his life - Yelena, Marlene, Devra, others, surely, though their names now escaped him - but no one like Tracy. Those three - Yelena, Marlene, and Devra - had meant something to him, though he'd be hard put to say precisely what. Each in her own way had changed the course of his life. Yet none had enriched it. Only Tracy, his Tracy. He clenched his fist. But she hadn't been his Tracy, had she? No, no, no. Good Christ, no.
Rain drummed against the roof of the cottage, fat drops sliding down the windows. A rumble of approaching thunder. The lace curtains stirred. In the dead of night Chrissie lay fully dressed on one of the twin beds, staring at the window, speckled as a robin's egg. Scarlett lay curled on the other bed, breathing evenly in her sleep. Chrissie knew she should be sleeping, that she needed her rest, but after the incident on the motorway her nerves would not stop singing. Several hours ago she had contemplated taking half a lorazepam to calm herself into sleep, but the thought of drifting off made her more anxious.
The singing of her nerves had only increased when she'd picked Scarlett up from her parents. Her father, always well attuned to her moods, had suspected something was up with her the moment he opened the door to her knock, and he was not convinced when she tried to reassure him that everything was fine. She could still see his thin, oblong face as he stood looking after her while she bundled Scarlett into the Range Rover. It was the same stricken look he'd had standing over Tracy's coffin as it was lowered into the ground. As she got in behind the wheel, Chrissie breathed a sigh of relief that she'd had the foresight to park the SUV so that he couldn't see the scrapes along one side. She waved cheerfully to him as she drove away. He was still standing in the doorway when she went around a curve and disappeared from his view.
Now, hours later and miles away, she lay on the bed in a house owned by a girlfriend who was away in Brussels on business. She'd been able to pick up the keys from the woman's brother. In the dark she lay listening to all the tiny creaking and moaning, whispers and hissing of a strange house. The wind clawed at the window sashes, trying to find a way in. She shivered and pulled a blanket tighter around her, but the blanket didn't warm her. Neither did the central heating. There was a chill in her bones, caused by her vibrating nerves, and the dread that stalked her thoughts.
"We were being followed, possibly all the way from Tracy's flat," Adam had said. "There's no point in taking a chance these people know about Scarlett - and where your parents live, for that matter."
The thought that these people who had wanted to shoot Adam might know about her daughter gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to feel safe here, wanted to believe that there was no danger now that she had separated herself from him, but the doubts continued to prey on her. Another roll of thunder, closer this time, and then another burst of rain rattled the windowpane. She sat up, gasping. Her heart was pounding, and she reached for the Glock that Adam had given her for protection. She had some experience with guns, though mostly rifles and shotguns. Against her mother's objections, her father had taken her hunting on winter Sundays,