“How is she?” he asked.
“Better. She’s calmed down and breathing more deeply now. And she’s almost asleep, so shut up,” was Steele’s caustic reply.
Val sighed and flung his head back. His face itched from the glue, his scalp from the wig. The cotton batting stuffed inside his nose, lips, and cheeks irritated him beyond belief. He wished he could shower to get the cloying stench of marijuana and patchouli out of his nose, but getting naked under a deafening stream of hot water was unwise. If she slipped away now, he no longer had the RF tag on her jewelry case to follow. The first thing she’d done when she’d gotten to the hotel room was to pry the thing out of the case and flush it down the toilet.
He got up and headed to the bathroom, leaving its door wide open so he could see the path to the room door. How had the other team found her? He peeled off fake facial hair and soaped his face as he pondered it. As yet, Novak had no reason to think that he would not comply with the terms of their bargain. It had to be Hegel, PSS.
He pried and spat the cotton out of his mouth into the toilet, flushing it, not about to leave that much DNA where anyone could find it. He rinsed and spat again, thinking. No one but him had the codes and RF frequencies he had tagged Steele’s stroller and vehicle with. Hegel knew where she lived, but how could he have known about her trip to the airport in time to get a local team in place? The Taurus she drove had never been tagged. And she would have noticed if anyone was following her on a lonely highway at night.
The only explanation was that Hegel had marked him, not her. That the B team had located her by following him. But how? He’d taken care of the usual things before he left Budapest. New laptop, new phone, new organizer. He had changed every piece of luggage, footwear, clothing.
He’d used every trick he knew to shake followers, checking repeatedly to make sure he was clean. To the point of outright paranoia.
Val stared into the mirror, trying to form a matrix, but he was too exhausted. He looked haggard, his face carved out and shadowed with stubble. He hadn’t slept since before he went to Budapest. It showed.
It was hot in the room. Steele had turned up the heat to the maximum to get the baby warm. He popped a sweat under the coat.
Fuck the erection. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen one before.
He had to deal with the wound. The bullet had ripped through the fabric of his coat and torn a bloody furrow across the meat of his upper arm. It stung, but he’d taken far worse.
He shrugged off the coat and the bloody shirt, and hissed through clenched teeth as he washed the shoulder with soap and hot water. The sink was spotted with pink, but the wound barely oozed at this point.
He went out and retrieved the medical kit from his bag. Steele and the child were both asleep, at least apparently. They needed it.
He dressed his arm, and sank into the chair again, not bothering to put another shirt on with that heat blasting. He held his gun in his hand, resting on his leg, and watched them sleep.
Steele moved restlessly. Once, she muttered something in a language he could not place. From the tone, it sounded like a plea. He had no intention of dozing off, but the blackout blinds were down and the excessive heat could make him sleepy. His arm throbbed dully.
Tiny hands on his knees jolted him awake. The little girl, huge-eyed, was reaching out to grab the barrel of his Glock.
Cazzo! He jerked the thing up out of her reach. Just what he needed, another brutal shock to his nervous system. “God, no,” he whispered. “Don’t touch it, piccola. Dangerous.”
Rachel thought it was a game, of course, and leaped to grab it, gurgling with glee. The nap had evidently restored her. She looked fine.
The laughter woke Steele. She jolted upright and took in the situation in an instant, diving from the bed and grabbing the child around the waist. “Rachel, Jesus! Don’t you ever, ever touch one of those, baby. Not ever, hear me? God, Janos, what the hell were you thinking, leaving that thing lying around?”
“I did not leave it,” he said grimly. “It was in my hand.”
“Just keep it the hell out of her reach!” Steele hissed.
Startled and upset, Rachel began to cry. Tam hugged her tightly, looking resigned. “I guess this means she’s not in shock.”
A shrill and stressful half hour passed before the child was happy again, distracted by an array of tiny toys, random colorful objects and books that Steele produced from the black bag. Val put on a clean shirt and strapped on his shoulder holster in the meantime. He would keep the gun fastened tight and high on his body from now on.
The little girl soon decided that he was more interesting than her toys. She toddled over, holding two small dolls. She held one out.
He took it. And now? Should he animate it? Make admiring comments? He’d never been around children, just Giulietta’s baby, when he was young, and that had ended so horribly. He still had queasy dreams about it now and again.
Rachel resolved his dilemma by holding up her other doll and pressing it, chest to chest, against the one he held. She adjusted its stiff, hard little plastic arms until it embraced his.
“Hug,” she explained solemnly.
A hot sensation swelled in his chest, tight and uncomfortable. He breathed the strange feeling down and adjusted the arms of his doll until it returned the other’s embrace. As best it could, of course, hampered by unyielding plastic and stiff mechanical ball joints. “Hug,” he echoed obediently.
Rachel rewarded him with a smile that startled him with its beauty. She pressed the dolls face-to-face. “Kiss?” she inquired.
He laughed at her earnest request. “Let’s not rush things,” he said. “I am shy. And we barely know each other.”
Rachel frowned and knocked the dolls’ plastic faces together. “Kiss,” she insisted.
“Rachel, don’t bother Mr. Janos,” Steele said, in a warning tone.
“She is not a bother,” Val said, realizing with surprise that it was true. He held up the doll to face hers. “Kiss,” he said, resigned.
Rachel rewarded him with another radiant smile. Her doll kissed his with enough intensity for him to start feeling a little strange about it. And Steele was giving him a distinctly unfriendly look.
“What?” he demanded. “I did nothing except get my doll kissed. Passively. My doll did not even kiss back.”
Steele shook her head, looking uneasy. “It’s strange. How she goes for you. Usually she screams bloody murder around strange men.”
“Maybe her instincts are better than yours,” he offered.
Tam made a derisive sound. “No, she just has a lot to learn. Learning to watch out for men with handsome faces and big guns comes after basic language skills, how to use a fork, and potty training. Come on, baby, come play with your dolls with Mommy.”
Rachel ignored her and held up another small doll to be admired. “Sveti give dollies,” she informed Val with great gravity.
“Oh, sì?” he responded politely. “Who is Sveti?”
“We see Sveti wedding!” She jumped. “Red dress! For me! Pretty!”
“Wedding?” He glanced at Steele. “You’re going to a wedding?”
“Today wedding! Today wedding! See Sveti! Mommy promise,” Rachel said, glancing fiercely at Steele for corroboration. “Promise!”
A frown marred Steele’s pale brow. “Honey, don’t babble,” she said tightly.
“Want red dress! Want Sveti! Promise!”
Steele