Robert Ferrigno - Prayers for the assassin

Her hand trembled as she opened the door, but she quickly stepped inside, leaving it ajar. Redbeard said that at the moment of greatest fear, the best solution was to go boldly and without hesitation. Sarah stood in the center of the bedroom, heart pounding, and knew it was good advice. If she had waited another moment with her hand on the knob, she would have turned around and raced down the stairs, her chador floating behind her.

She opened the curtains. The wind blew leaves against the glass, and she stepped back, frightened. Smiled at herself. God hates a scaredy-cat, that’s what she and Rakkim had told each other as children, egging the other on to mischief and disobedience. He was five years older than she was, an eternity at that age, but she had never felt the gap between them. If she did, she knew it would be breached soon enough.

Through the open bathroom door she could see the edge of the tub. Too many shadows. She walked into the bathroom, checked the tub. Nothing there. Just a bit of water in the drain, black water in the dim light. The towels were uneven on the racks. Small details that would have bothered Marian. Sarah walked over and straightened them. She didn’t have the courage to turn on the light. Back into the bedroom, her stomach doing flips. The dresser drawers were half pulled out, the tiny Chinese figurines on top knocked over. The police had been in a hurry…or someone else had. She shivered. Yes, it had been a bad idea to come up here.

She heard a tiny click as the front door closed downstairs. It might as well have been a thunderclap. She was frozen now, afraid any step might be heard downstairs. Listening, knowing she had heard something. The rain seemed to stop for a moment, and in that moment she heard footsteps across the hardwood floor of the entryway, a whisper of sound. She had parked on the street, but it wasn’t the security guard come to see what she was up to. There was no way he moved so lightly.

The rain was back, carried on gusts of wind. She slipped out of her chador, tossed aside her head scarf. Underneath the chador she wore the slacks and thin sweater of a modern. Just in case. Another of Redbeard’s lessons. Never let a description of you be accurate for too long. Reversible jackets. Hats and no hats. Sunglasses and no glasses. Umbrellas that shielded the face. When leaving her tiny apartment in Ballard, she had always left as a modern, then changed into a chador at the first opportunity. Changing back on the return. It had worked. Until the night the bounty hunters had come for her.

She moved in tandem with the steps from below, heart pounding. She crossed across a bar of moonlight, blinking now as she flattened herself beside the door.

Someone was coming upstairs.

Sarah looked around for something to use as a weapon. There. A heavy granite clock on the nightstand. She hefted it. Heavy enough to brain someone. She was barely breathing, all of her energy focused on listening, filtering away the outside sounds, the wind and rain, focusing on the sounds of the approaching steps. She could isolate the sound of a flute from a performance of the philharmonic, could pick out the individual violinists with her eyes closed. This was no different. That’s what she told herself.

Someone was outside the half-open door.

She pressed herself against the wall, tightened her grip on the clock. Better to attack him as he entered, or wait until he was inside, his back to her?

The door creaked open. “It’s me, Sarah.”

Rakkim! She threw herself into his arms, kissing him, sobbing, lost in the feel of him, the strength of him, the smell of his skin. She hung on to him, digging in, as though to reassure herself that he was really here, that it wasn’t a dream, some desperate trick her mind was playing on her. She felt him squeeze her back, lift her off her feet, and cover her face with kisses, and she knew…it was Rikki. She went with the sensation, eyes closed, the two of them swaying in each other’s arms…no idea how long they stayed there like that, alone in the big, dark house. It could have been seconds…minutes…hours, she didn’t know. She bit him, nipped at his neck, more playful than angry. “You scared me.”

Rakkim laughed. “You can take care of yourself.”

Sarah wasn’t laughing. “Did you…did you hear about the bounty hunter?”

Rakkim must have seen the look on her face, holding her now. “Killing a man like that is a good deed in my book.” He held her close. “Don’t second-guess yourself. Don’t. It will only slow you down the next time.”

“I don’t want there to be a next time.” She felt Rakkim stroke her hair and she wished they were someplace else, someplace quiet and safe and with a fireplace. The rain beat against the roof, louder now.

“We should go.”

“How did you find me?”

“I was at Jill’s ranch. She said you knew Marian had been murdered. I figured you had come back for the journals.”

Sarah looked up at him, dizzy. “You know about the journals?”

“I have them. They’re in boxes beside my bed-”

Sarah kissed him hard. “Let’s get out of here.”

Rakkim smiled. “Definitive as ever.”

“Did you expect me to go all gooey once I left Redbeard’s protection?”

They walked downstairs together, Rakkim slightly in front, head cocked. He stopped in front of the door, checked outside through the side windows. Sarah waited. He knew what he was doing, that was one thing she was sure of. He rested a hand on the back of her neck as he watched the street, his hand light. The familiarity of his touch, the intimacy…not possessive, not a bit of that, it was a connection that ran both ways.

“Does your car run all right?” asked Rakkim.

“It’s beat up, but it’s a smooth ride.”

“Beat up is good, it will fit in with half the other cars on the road. I’d rather take yours than mine. We leave your car, one way or the other, it’s going to be traced back to Jill.”

Sarah opened the door, they stepped outside, then she closed it behind him. Locked it. She stared at Marian’s key. Marian had given it to her the last time she had visited. The wind lifted her hair, the night air cool against her scalp-a relief after the confinement of the head scarf. She tucked away the house key, stopped. Rakkim had taken the journals, not the Old One’s killers. The Old One didn’t know their value…if the journals even had any value. Her theory about the Zionist Betrayal was still just a theory.

“Is there a problem?” asked Rakkim.

“No…no problem.”

They walked through the rain to the car, refusing to hurry, waiting for the other one to break and run. Neither of them did. Sarah handed him the car key, then got inside, while Rakkim did a last survey of the area. “That’s odd,” she said as Rakkim got in.

“What?”

Sarah reset her wristwatch. Same result.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not sure.” Sarah checked her watch again. Same result. “Redbeard gave me this watch after my book came out. It detects a full range of tracking devices. Microwave, ultrasonics…everything. He was worried that I would be targeted-”

“The car is bugged?”

“I don’t see how. It wasn’t bugged when I got here. Anyone who wanted to harm me would have to know I was in Marian’s house.”

“Maybe they don’t want to hurt you. Maybe they just want to know where you are.”

Sarah opened her door. “We should take your car.”

Rakkim switched off the interior light. “Close the door.”

“We have to-”

Rakkim started the car.

Sarah closed the door. “We have to find the bug, don’t we?”

“No.” Rakkim switched on the wipers, watched them flick back and forth across the cracked windshield. “This is perfect.”