She turned her back and walked away. She stopped at the door and looked down at Ana. Leaned over, felt the other woman’s pulse.
Strong and steady. She’d wake up in a few minutes and be fine.
Tam walked out of the room and down the corridor. Her feet started going faster, ’til she was running. Then practically sprinting.
She forced herself to slow down. Self-control, please. Get a grip.
It was hard to keep her pace steady. She wanted to run headlong toward her new life. The chance she would give herself, if it wasn’t too late. She wanted to run toward this new self with her arms outstretched. This woman who was not so toxic, so desperate.
This new Tam might even make a wild stab at happiness. Maybe even love, if pigs flew, if the sky fell, if she was insanely lucky.
Or at the very least, peace. If nothing else.
Peace. Something she’d never dared to hope for. Never thought she deserved. She asked the ghosts in her heart to forgive her for not avenging them. Her soul lightened as they granted it.
Children sang in her head. She was euphoric. She’d gone nuts.
Get a grip, Steele, she reminded herself. Look sharp. You’re not in the clear yet. Don’t float off into la-la land. You’re being irresponsible.
No one challenged her at the exit. She walked out into the brilliant clarity of the winter evening. The setting sun made the sea glow, the wind blew through the pines, whipping and bending them.
She was astonished by how beautiful it was. Tears blurred her eyes. Her mind was blown by its grandeur. It hurt. She liked the pain.
Bring it on. She was bigger now. She could take it in.
First order of business: take those damned tongue studs out of her mouth. She didn’t need them now. Then she would run to the nearest place that sold prepaid cell phones, buy one, call to check on Rachel, and then call Val. Tell him that he’d been right, she’d been wrong, and she was sorry. That she loved him. That she’d pursue him until he gave in out of sheer exhaustion. His anger was huge, but so was her love.
And she was tough. Let him yell and scream and be pissed at her. She’d wait him out. Let Stengl rot. Let Novak and Georg kill each other.
Fuck them all. In the face of all the bastards who wished her ill, she was going to live. With her kid—and her man. She really was. Oh, God.
The urgency she felt to get away from there was building up to a frantic level. She yanked open the door of the Opel—and heard the muted pop of another car door opening behind her. No.
She spun, flinging up her arm to block the blow that she instinctively knew was aimed at the back of her head. It connected with her forearm. White hot, fiery pain shot up her arm.
Broken. Shit, a useless right arm.
She scrambled back, hit the car, bounced. Dragged in air, tried to block the sickening pain. She’d deserved that one, floating around in a fucking cloud, drunk on beauty and hopes of love.
She would pay for it now. András loomed, his face wild and grinning. Wet-lipped and sharp-toothed, like an evil hobgoblin from one of her grandmother’s scarier stories.
Her knee jerked up toward his groin, and hit hard. Yes. Air escaped from him in a grunting whoosh. She scooted away, but he scooped her right off her feet with a swipe of his leg at knee level. She lost her center, teetering on those fucking spike-heeled Manolos, goddamnit, betrayed by vanity and fashion—She fell against the Opel again, jarring the broken arm, and almost screamed. It cost her the split second she needed to wind up for another blow or block. The entire weight of András’s body slammed into her, squashing her against the car, dragging her down, down, first to her knees, and then thudding heavily, flat onto her face.
He sat on her back, squashing out air, light, everything. Her face was ground against the asphalt. Pebbles scratched her cheek.
“Bitch,” he panted. “You’ll pay for that. Screaming.” His hoarse, grating voice rasped in her ears. “You can start paying right now.” He stuck his wet, meaty tongue into her ear, wiggled it. “Guess what pretty little toddler is on her way to visit benevolent old Daddy Novak right now, as we speak?”
“No!” Horror exploded inside her. She convulsed in instinctive denial, but his weight made the movement barely a wiggle.
András laughed nastily. “Ah, yes. We’ll get there about the same time she does. A touching family reunion. I can hardly wait.” His hand clamped around her mouth and nose, pressing over both with a damp gauze pad that had a sharp, acrid smell. “Little ones never last long….”
Her blood pressure plummeted, pulling her into a sucking hole of despair. An express elevator to hell and the lightless oblivion beyond it.
Chapter
26
The Opel’s driver’s side door hung open as Val pulled the Fiat up next to it. The car subsided into ominous silence after a rattling death cough.
Val’s heart stuck in his throat as he shoved the stiff, creaking door of the Fiat open and stared at the scene. The ignition key peeked out from behind the left wheel tire. A single shoe lay on the asphalt between the two cars. A black, spike-heeled pump. One of the Manolos.
He got out, crouched to pick up the shoe. He hated to think of her barefoot. So vulnerable.
He thudded down onto his knees. Trying to breathe, trying to think. What next. What now. Ah, God.
Get up, Janos. You’ve got a job to do. Don’t just crash like a melodramatic asshole. It sounded like Tam’s crisp, merciless voice in his head.
It comforted him. Gave him the impetus he needed to fish up the keys from behind the tire, drag his leaden body off the ground, and slide into the Opel. The laptop and Hegel’s cell phone still lay on the passenger side floor, forgotten since that morning.
He reached for the cell phone. It still had some life in the battery. He stared at it for a long, hostile moment, and shook himself to break the paralysis. He pulled up the stored text messages.
348. The room number. Georg’s last message to Hegel.
Three steps back. His usual mantra struck him as ludicrous, almost cruel. He could not take three steps anywhere. He was too muddled, too exhausted. He was terrified.
You will have to do somewhat better than your best to get out of this. Imre’s dry voice echoed through his head.
Val’s chest twisted, to think of Imre. Better than his best might not be enough. It had not been so far, or this would not have happened. Imre, dead. Tamar and Rachel, taken.
Even Georg might do better now. Any variable that could give her another fighting chance, Val had to throw into the mix right now while he still could. While she was alive. He punched “call.”
It rang eight times. Someone picked up, and there was a waiting silence on the other end, though he could tell the line was open.
Val tried to speak, but doubt had seized his voice.
Georg got tired of the waiting game. “My curiosity cannot resist a telephone call from a dead man,” he said in English. “Do I speak with the spirits from beyond?”
Val cleared his throat with a cough. “No,” he said. “Janos here.”
“Oh. You.” Georg switched to Hungarian. “I am going to kill you when I see you. You know that, eh?”
“Fine. Whenever you like,” Val said dully. “I just want to give you some information first. About Tamara Steele.”
“Ah. Yes?”
One last moment of frantic wondering, if he was giving her another chance or condemning her to a living death.
No. His Tamar