Lisa Unger - Die For You

Kristof smiled. “Ivan, come on. She’s lying. She’s angry because I don’t want her any longer. You know how I am with women. Easily bored.”

“Then who?”

“How should I know? I’m sorry it happened. But I can help you now. There’s money, a lot of it. What’s mine is yours. You’re my brother.”

He patted the big man on the shoulder. Ivan didn’t turn to look at him. Kristof knew it was too late. Ivan was lost to the silent rage brewing within him.

“Where are we going, Ivan?”

“Some people want to talk to you.”

“What people?”

“Friends of mine.”

Kristof’s mind was racing. How was he going to get himself out of this? Ivan had locked the doors. He was unarmed, outweighed by Ivan. He had no choice but to play it out.

“I always took care of you. I always loved you,” said Ivan. He looked so sad.

“I know.”

Kristof looked out the window of the passing landscape of concrete buildings, the gunmetal sky. Ivan was fast, silent. Kristof never even heard him reach for the gun and deliver a sure blow to the side of his head. The world just grayed out. Then, the next thing he knew, he was facedown on a cold, hard floor, surrounded by Ivan and his gloved, black-clad friends. It wasn’t much of a party and it didn’t end well.

HE THOUGHT OF this as he trekked across the uneven gray cobblestones of the ancient Karluv Most, the Charles Bridge, in Prague. The hours of unpleasantness, his ultimate escape thanks to moves he had learned from, of all people, Sara. They knew the day might come when he’d have to extract himself from a bad outcome, had planned for it. The memory of Ivan, his time in the warehouse, the last moments on the dock caused him to look over his shoulder.

The bridge was mobbed with tourists, snapping pictures of the towering saints-St. Francis Borgia, St. John the Baptist, St. Ann, St. Joseph-leaning over the edge to gaze at the swans in the gray water of the Vltava River. The bridge had stood since 1357. Now people strolled across it sipping soda and listening to iPods. He didn’t resent them. In fact, he was always glad for a crowd. Easier to be invisible.

He passed the Old Town Bridge Tower, a magnificent Gothic structure reaching into the sky with a pinnacled wedge spire. Tourists sat at its base eating ice cream cones, in spite of the cold. Shops lining the street sold wooden toys and Czech glass, T-shirts and rolls of film and candy bars.

He made a left and passed a popular chain called Bohemia Bagel and was suddenly off the main drag, alone on a narrow street. To his right a courtyard behind a high, wrought-iron gate, a dark alley to his left where a woman’s shoe lay in a puddle of black water. The street was quiet, as if the crowded street just a hundred feet away didn’t exist at all. Prague was like that. Turn one corner and you move from the modern to the ancient, as though you’ve stepped through a portal to another time and place.

For now he was home. He was safe. All threats delayed or neutralized. The streets of Prague welcomed their native son, allowed him to blend into their gray mystery, took him into their sandstone arms, hid him no matter what he’d done elsewhere in the world. It didn’t matter here. Prague was the mother he’d never had.

He ducked into the dark side entrance of the building where Beethoven himself composed during his stay in Prague, when the building was known as the Inn of the Golden and White Unicorn. He liked the romance of that, even if he doubted its veracity. Now it housed sleek, trendy condos with all the modern amenities. Real-estate ventures had come to Prague. He’d bought the apartment pre-construction in 2003 and now it was worth a fortune. There were legitimate ways to make money. Of course, one had to have money first in order to do that.

He unlocked the heavy wooden door and pushed inside. He had a futon and a large flat-screen television equipped with satellite, pulling in hundreds of channels from around the world. In one of the bedrooms, there was a simple platform bed. Then just a desk and his laptop computer. The place smelled of fresh paint and new linens.

In the kitchen, he made himself an espresso and thought of the coffee he’d shared with Isabel on their last morning together. He searched for the pain and the sadness he’d felt as he’d driven off with Ivan. But it was gone. He wondered if he’d ever felt anything at all. Or was it all part of a charade he’d played too well? What did it really mean to love someone? Did it have to last forever to have existed at all?

He took his coffee and sat on the futon, flipped on the television, scanning the menu for CNN. He didn’t have to wait long for the story. After ten minutes of enduring news of the real-estate and mortgage crisis, the discovery of a Texas cult compound, the newest way to lose those extra ten pounds, before he saw Isabel’s face on the screen, then his own. He turned up the volume.

“Detectives working the case have tied the recent crimes to the unsolved 1999 disappearance of Marcus Raine, a man they now believe was murdered. They say they are exploring connections from the current crimes, including the recent murder of Camilla Novak, who was also the girlfriend of the man who went missing in 1999.” A picture of Camilla filled the screen.

Her image faded to an image of his face. This did not disturb him; his facial hair grew quickly and he’d more than doubled his caloric intake. Within a few days, he’d look different enough to pass anywhere unnoticed. Until then he’d stay out of sight.

“This man, whom officials say is Kristof Ragan, is a Czech immigrant who came to the U.S. on a student visa in 1990 and disappeared in violation of his visa after graduating from Hunter College in 1994 with a degree in computer science, and is the husband of bestselling author Isabel Connelly.”

That disturbed him. How had they learned a portion of his true history and his given name? Of course, he wasn’t using that name now, but still. Who knew the truth about him? Sara would not betray him; he knew that. The only other possibility was Ivan. He regretted his decision to spare his brother. Another weakness, another mistake made out of love-or something like it.

“Isabel Connelly is considered a person of interest. Her whereabouts are currently unknown.”

“We urge Ms. Connelly to turn herself in,” said a handsome detective. He was well-dressed, his shield on a chain around his neck. “Kristof Ragan is a dangerous man.”

The shellacked, plastic woman who passed as a newscaster looked deeply into the lens of the camera and said, “In a case that involves murder, identity theft, and the disappearance of over a million dollars, truth, it would seem, is stranger than fiction.”

In his stomach, he felt an uncomfortable mingling of anger and fear. Sara had warned him: “You let Camilla live, and look where it got you. It will be the same with this one. She’ll rest no easier, I promise you.”

“She will,” he’d said, not actually believing it himself. “She has too much to tie her to her life-her work, her family. A threat to them will keep her in line. She can’t afford to come after me.”

“Hmm,” Sara had said skeptically. “I saw her. I think nothing could keep her from coming after you.”

“If that happens, it will be my problem.”

Another error in judgment, another knot to be tied now.

Then the cell phone in his pocket rang. It was a disposable phone he’d picked up at the airport, and only one person had the number. He answered quickly, surprised.

“I didn’t think you’d call,” he said by way of greeting.

There was a pause, a light breathing on the line. He could almost smell the peppermint on her breath.

“I didn’t think I would, either,” she said finally. Her voice was sweet, with a lilting British accent that spoke volumes of her wealth and education. “What you said, about not having time to play games. I liked it. I… don’t want to play games, either.”