Lisa Unger - Die For You

“I know. I know. You’re a smart kid. Listen, Trevor? Tell your mom how much I love her, okay? Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Tell her yourself.” He says it with a smile.

But no, I’m alone in the courtyard still. I see that it’s filled with junk. A stack of old tires, a splintering wooden table, a box of sodden books. There’s a chair on three legs, some broken planters. A black cat leaps from nowhere onto a metal drum that sags with rust and age. The cat sits, watching me. There are voices now, I think. And the wail of sirens. I think I hear my name. But maybe it’s just the wind.

Isabel… Isabel .

How did I get here? I wonder. Memory comes back in pieces.

WHEN I CAME to again, I was lying on a cold concrete floor. Ales and Petra were gone. But my ankles were bound, as were my wrists. I went from unconscious to hyperconscious, started immediately working at the bindings. There was very little light, just a milky gray coming in from a small sliver of a window up high on the wall. A basement. I could tell by the chill, by the mold, by the dark. I was in a kind of cage. All around me, nearly empty cages. One held a bicycle and a bookshelf. Another held a stack of suitcases and a box of books, an old treadmill. It was a storage basement, I realized. Little used from the look of things.

I had seen how gigantic doors glide open by remote in Prague buildings, and cars disappear into spaces you wouldn’t have believed were there. I have seen this at embassies and luxury condos.

Trying to figure out how I got there, I imagined that my captors had driven my rented Mercedes into such a door, that I have disappeared inside the walls of this old city. Jack would not be able to find me. Panic and anger started their dance in my chest. I worked against my bindings vigorously for a few more minutes before I realized that I was not alone.

He sat in the corner of the room outside the cage, shrouded in the dark. I didn’t have to see his face to know his form.

I really didn’t want it to come to this, you know. I warned you to let me go . He issued a cough. The damp has always bothered him.

How could you think I would? Don’t you know me at all?

I hoped, Isabel. I hoped you would .

Why did you do this to me? A mutinous sob I couldn’t stop. I loved you. Did you ever love me?

Of course I loved you. I’d have stayed if I could .

Was anything you told me about yourself the truth?

No. Nothing .

Tell me now .

Why?

You owe me that much, don’t you? I don’t even know what to call you now .

Just call me Marcus. In the world we shared, that was my name. That’s all that matters .

Tell me .

There’s nothing to tell . His usual cool and disinterested tone. My father died, my mother couldn’t keep my brother and me; she couldn’t afford us or didn’t want us. What does it matter? We were taken to the orphanage you visited. We were old enough to know we’d been left. It was a painful, stark, and lonely way to grow up .

He shifted in his seat, the only sign that his memories made him uncomfortable, that they might cause him pain.

But we managed. We survived, and communism did not. Ivan and I left for the U.S. I applied to colleges, received a scholarship, came on a student visa. Ivan came on a work visa, but the company that sponsored him was not legitimate. Ivan is a small-time criminal, always has been. Even as children, he bullied and stole-

I’m not interested in Ivan .

What do you want to know?

Start with Marcus Raine .

He paused, took a deep breath as if summoning his patience.

I wanted what he had. His money, his girlfriend. I took it .

How?

I seduced Camilla. She loved Marcus Raine-or maybe just his money, I don’t know. But his plan was to return to Czech. He wanted to take the money he earned in the U.S. and start a business in Prague. He went to America, like me, to work, to get rich. But he wanted to go home and enrich the country. He didn’t believe all the intelligent, young Czech people should leave for good. Go, find opportunities, make money abroad, and then return to help the Czech Republic. The last place Camilla wanted to go was back to Czech .

I knew what she wanted. I promised it to her. She got me a key to Marcus Raine’s apartment, helped me get past his doorman. And I killed him-well, Ivan did. His associates helped us to dispose of him, a mortuary in Queens cremated the body. It was seamless. I took his life… his identification, his money. It was really that easy .

I told Camilla that we had to be apart for a while, that it would be suspicious if we moved too fast. Then I met you .

You sought me out .

Yes .

Why?

Because you understood Prague .

So you thought I’d understand you?

Maybe .

Camilla got tired of waiting?

Yes, seven years is a long time to ask someone to wait. For a while, I could convince her that the payoff would be worth it. I gave her money every month. Continued seeing her. Then she realized .

What?

That I had what I wanted. That I loved you. That I wouldn’t leave you unless I had to .

So she got angry, started making scenes, sending me e-mail. Why didn’t you kill her then?

I couldn’t. I didn’t know who she’d told. I suspected she’d gone to the authorities. I couldn’t risk killing her yet .

Not until you had already disappeared, destroyed evidence, transferred the money from our accounts. Then you went back to tie up that loose end. You slit her throat .

Still risky but necessary, I thought .

My mind was racing through all the million questions I had. But I was starting to feel fuzzy, confused, fear and multiple blows to the head addling my thoughts.

That morning when you left, did you know you’d never see me again?

No. I would have been gone soon, maybe even in the next day or two. But not that morning .

What happened?

Ivan came to see me. I betrayed him after the murder of Marcus Raine, called the police and reported guns in the apartment. He went to prison. Camilla went to see him in her anger, told him what I’d done. He came to see me. Not just for money. For revenge .

You killed all those men. But you left Ivan alive. You could have killed him, too. Why didn’t you?

Isabel, so many questions .

Tell me why .

The same reason I didn’t kill him years earlier. Because he’s my brother. I wanted him to think about what he’d done. I didn’t necessarily want him to die. Why does this matter now? It’s over .

It matters, how the pieces fit together. I need to know .

And that’s why you risked your life to follow me .

I can’t be other than who I am .

That’s why I loved you, Isabel. You have always been so sure of who you are .

If you loved me, then tell me everything .

Another long sigh. Another cough. All the while, I was working the bindings. Before he started talking again, I felt my wrist come free. It was dark. He didn’t see.

What else do you want to know?

Who is S?

I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. Sara. A woman I loved a lifetime ago. My first love, I suppose. I left her in the Czech Republic. I went to college; she joined the military. Eventually, she was discharged, served some time for injuring a man who tried to rape her-as justice in Czech would have it. She sought me out in the U.S., had started her own business .