Chapter 20
Eddy stumbled to her feet, heart stuttering against her ribs, fingers suddenly cold. “Where are you going?”
Durrand’s eyes were dark and hooded. “Lock the door behind me,” he ordered and adjusted the sheath that hung against the side of his right thigh.
“Wait a minute.” She wasn’t sure why her chest felt tight and her hands unsteady. She was a trained operative, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. But his face looked blank and terrifying. And the knife… She swallowed. There was no one who appreciated a well-oiled handgun more than she did, but there was something intrinsically evil about a knife. “You’re going to find Alejdro, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer. But he didn’t have to; his expression said it all.
“You can’t just…” She was breathing hard. “You can’t go around terrorizing private citizens,” she said but the set of his mouth suggested he could do just that. He turned away.
“Durrand!” She grabbed his arm. “You don’t want to get the police involved.”
His eyes were flat as glass. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t call the cops.”
Her stomach roiled at the unspoken implications.
“Listen.” Her hand was still on his arm. “Let’s just think about his for a moment.”
Their gazes met.
“Stay here,” he said and pulled from her grasp, but there was something in his face, some indefinable regret. Or was she just making that up? Was she just pretending so she could believe he wasn’t a monster?
“I’m coming along,” she said.
He twisted toward her with the smooth grace of a predator, that indefinable something long gone from his eyes. “You’ll do what I say.” The words were no more than a growl.
“You’re paying me,” she said and pressed past him, jaw squared and lifted as if her mind were set, but honest to God, she couldn’t look at the knife. Couldn’t see that blatant symbol of cruelty without hurling…again. “I’m just earning my keep.”
“You’ll earn your keep here,” he ordered but she was already at the door.
“You’ll never find his house in the dark. I’ve got the GPS,” she said and rushed outside.
He cursed and followed her, strides long and quick, but she was in the passenger seat before he reached the Jeep.
Yanking open the driver’s door, he glared across the console at her.
“I thought we were in a hurry,” she said.
His jaw bunched in irritation, but he slid inside. In a moment, they were backing out of the cobbled parking area.
Eddy’s stomach bounced as she programmed the guidance system. A thousand factions warred in her stomach.
Late at night, Bogotá’s streetwalkers were hard at work. Transvestites strutted their terrain, wildly flamboyant compared to their born-female counterparts. In these designated ‘tolerance zones’, prostitution was not only legal but booming.
The le Macarena district looked as bland as white rice by comparison, but Eddy’s nerves remained on red alert, making Alejdro Garza’s house seem disturbingly malevolent. Its dark door looked like a gaping maw against its white stucco exterior. Its windows were blank eyes, black and staring.
They drove past it once. The street was as dark as death. A scrawny hound trotted through the stream of their headlights, giving them a furtive glance from shifty eyes before disappearing into the blackness.
Durrand took two more rights, then slid the Jeep to a halt a half a block from his quarry’s silent adobe.
Eddy tightened her fists and wondered if throwing up again would make her appear less field-ready.
Durrand turned toward her. Half his face looked solemn and resolute. The other half was gone, swallowed by the darkness. She wondered dimly if the same could be said for his soul.
“Lock the doors and slide into the driver’s seat when I get out,” he ordered. His voice was low and level. “If someone approaches the vehicle, do not speak to them. If there’s trouble, honk the horn. Otherwise, wait for me. When you see me exit the residence, come pick me up.”
She stared at him.
“Can you do that?”
She nodded.
“I might be in a hurry,” he added.
She nodded again.
“Good,” he said and opened the driver’s door to step outside. His movements were almost entirely silent as he did so. There was something about that predatory stealth that disturbed her more than anything else.
Eddy watched him slip into the shadows.
By some malevolent trick of the light, the stainless steel tang of his knife was the last thing she saw.