Missing (4 page)

Her body was shaking with anger.
Her mind felt like a chunk of Swiss cheese; it was full of gaping holes.
Everyone had a different story. Everyone in her life was telling lies. Ella lied for a living. George lied for a living. Her father lied for a living. Oliver wouldn't even tell her what he did for a living, but he sure seemed to be good with a gun,
based on the night he'd saved her life. How was she possibly supposed to know whom to believe? The only thing she knew for sure was that Oliver was the only one out of all these people who'd been nothing but nice to her since she met him.

“Oliver saved my life,” she shouted harshly. “Is that evil? Saving someone's life? He was there for me when nobody else was. Where the hell were you?”

“I've been there—George and I have been there, working together, watching over you, protecting you . . . and you have seen me, I know you have. You've seen me in the shadows, on the street. You've heard me call to you....”

Gaia had to admit that was true. These past few months her father had always seemed to be somewhere near her. She'd felt him, even seen him in bits and pieces, like an apparition. Or . . . was that Oliver? She'd seen him in the shadows too. Who was who?
Who the hell knows?
It was all too much to process, too confusing.
Too much bullshit.
Why would either one of them want to torture her like this? What were they trying to do to her?

“He saved my life,” Gaia repeated quietly, talking to herself, trying to remind herself where she stood. Only she didn't really seem to know anymore.

“Gaia,” her father pleaded. “You have to listen to what I'm telling you. My whole purpose for living has been to save your life. When that neo-Nazi punk CJ
had you targeted in his sights, I had to act first. I was there. Watching over you. When that bastard Twain— the Gentleman—came after you . . . I was there, too. I even warned Sam about him.”

How does he know CJ?
Gaia asked herself, swamped in confusion.
How does he know about David Twain? And Sam?

But there was more.

“When that chimney fell from the Perry Street town house—that was Ella Niven's doing. She wanted you dead even then. The woman had lost her mind. I called to you as the chimney fell to keep you from harm's way. I know you heard me, Gaia.”

“It was you,” Gaia heard herself say. She hadn't even meant to say it out loud.

“Yes. You saw me; I knew it. And when Ella tried to shoot you, Gaia. When she put that gun to your head . . . I just thank God I was there to stop her. And I called to you. Did you hear me, Gaia? Did you hear me telling you I loved you? Tell me you saw me there. Tell me you heard me—”

“I did,” Gaia stated softly, looking up at the blank white ceiling of the bathroom. She felt weak. Her head was spinning. Her anger was waning. A whole other slew of emotions was leaking out of her heart, and she was doing everything in her power to plug them back up and stick to what she knew was the truth or . . . what she thought was the truth....

How could he have known all these things unless he was there? He was there every time, saving her life over and over again.
How could someone so evil have saved her so many times?
It didn't make any sense.

“You're lying,” she said with a weak lilt in her voice, not even sure if she believed herself anymore.

“I've never lied to you, Gaia,” her father stated, “and I never will. Don't you see? I had to get you on this plane to save your life. Oliver must have told you a whole pack of lies to get you to leave with him. All lies, Gaia. He's planning something. Something evil. And you are the key to that plan, the last piece of the puzzle; I know that much—”

“No more,” Gaia insisted, placing her hands over her eyes and trying to shake her head clear of all this information.

She wished she could be anyplace else. Anywhere but here. She wished she could be eleven years old again, driving with her mother to gymnastics, a normal kid with a normal life.
She wished she were sitting in Ed Fargo's kitchen, laughing at his lame jokes over a chocolate fix....

Mostly she wished she were in Sam Moon's arms, lying safely tucked away on his creaky dorm-room bed, nestling her head between his chin and his firm shoulder.

“Gaia,” her father said softly. “I know you have a million reasons not to. But right now . . . more than ever before ...I need you to trust me.”

 

Trust.

You know what I've learned about trust? Do you know what my
father
taught me about trust?

I'll never forget the day I was standing with my father in the backyard of our house in the Berkshires, practicing my roundhouse kicks. The sun was setting over the mountains, and everything was bathed in this bright golden haze.

My dad tried to teach me all the lessons he'd learned as an operative for the CIA. He taught me everything he knew about martial arts, weapons, languages—you name it.

But this one day, he just stopped in the middle of my karate lesson. He'd been on some mission, and he'd just gotten back home. I remember because I was so excited to see him, I was literally jumping up and down and squealing like a poodle . . . but I also knew something about the mission had thrown him. He seemed
upset the whole day—distant, preoccupied.

And out of the blue, he knelt down next to me—at dusk, on this perfect spring day—and he put his huge hands on my ten-year-old shoulders, and he said he was going to teach me the most important lesson of them all. The first priority for all the agents. He said that most of the guys in Langley and DC referred to it as “the Golden Rule.”

“The Golden Rule, Gaia,” he said.
“Trust no one.”

And he repeated it just to make sure I understood.

I remember, even back then, thinking this made no sense. Because obviously I was supposed to trust
him
that “trusting no one” was the right thing to do.

But looking back on it, I'd have to say it's turned out to be a pretty accurate piece of advice. Because every time I've trusted someone, they've either died on me or betrayed me.

The people I've trusted in chronological order:

My mother—dead.

My father—disappeared on me right after my mother died. Then turned out to be Loki, although . . .

Ed Fargo—now dating my archenemy, megabitch Heather Gannis.

Sam Moon—slept with Ella (although it was a mistake and I've forgiven him).

Mary Moss—dead.

Uncle Oliver—Well, he hasn't betrayed me yet, but . . .

Sam Moon, wherever you are right now, just know this: I trust you. Please don't let me down.
Please, please
don't let me down.

And my father . . .

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think. I don't know who to trust.

The Golden Rule, huh?

I hate rules. Always have.

. . . he could easily kill at least four of them right at that moment. But this was neither the time nor the place. Taking action would only lead to further nuisance.

 

TOM MOORE LET GO OF EVERY MUSCLE
in his body, collapsing slowly against the bathroom door, sliding his back down the door until he'd reached the floor. He could feel the weight of his daughter's back leaning against his own, barely separated by one piece of cardboard-thin plastic.

Close. As close as he could get to her.

Suddenly he could feel how exhausted he'd become in the last few hours . . . in the last five years. But he welcomed his exhaustion. It was a freedom of sorts. He was too tired to “keep his chin up,” to “take it like a man,” as his own father used to say to him. And that was good because he needed to let his heart be raw now. Unprotected.

Since the very moment he'd seen Katia shot, he'd felt compelled to
harden
his heart. He'd told himself it was for Gaia's sake, but he'd known in truth that it was just as much for his own. And not until this moment did he truly comprehend that his heart had been frozen for five years.

Such a waste. Gaia deserved better.

It was time to break the ice and expose his heart, regardless of whatever bruised condition it might be in. But Tom knew, once he let his heart out of its icy
shell, it would instantly lead him right back to where he'd left it. A place he'd sworn he'd never revisit.

“Gaia,” he said, almost in a whisper. “That night . . .”

Cold, stark images and sounds flashed through his head. A steady stream of dark blood pouring from Katia's mouth as her motionless body lay on the kitchen floor. The vacant, maniacal look in his brother's eyes as he fired the gun. His daughter leaning over her dead mother, sobbing.

The sound of a gunshot in his own house echoed through his head.

“The second I heard that little noise in the kitchen, I knew what it was,” Tom said.

“Don't—,” Gaia started.

“No,” he interrupted her. “Don't talk for a moment. Please, just listen.”

Gaia remained silent.

“I knew it was Oliver,” Tom went on. “I knew he'd gotten into the house. And I knew that if Oliver had come into my home again, it would only be for one reason. To kill me, Gaia. That's what he was there to do. He was in love with Katia. He was obsessed with her—with having her for himself. But Katia was in love with
me,
and he couldn't accept it. He'd already fallen so deep into his psychosis, I think his jealousy was eating away at his mind. He just wanted me dead.”

Tom felt woozy and overheated. A layer of cold sweat had begun to bathe his body. But he had to go on.

“But from the moment I heard him in the house,” he continued, “I couldn't have cared less what he did to me . . . I just prayed that neither one of you would get hurt. I just wanted you and your mother to be safe....”

Suddenly the wave of emotion was more than he could handle. His chest became so tight that he found it difficult to breathe. There was an aching pressure behind his eyes. He knew it was his natural impulse to hold back his tears no matter how hard he had to strain. He took a deep breath and then another. He wanted nothing more than to stop reliving that night. He wished he could scrape it from his memory permanently. But he knew Gaia needed to hear it. And he also knew he needed to say it.

“I tried to protect you, Gaia....”

And then he was crying. He despised crying. He'd always thought it was weak and useless, self-indulgent. He hadn't even let himself cry that night. Instead he'd gone numb, blank, shut down. Of course, that was exactly why he couldn't let it happen again. He let himself cry as he spoke.

“I held you down under the table,” he said, choking on his own words, “but I had to protect Katia, too. . . . It all happened so quickly, I couldn't even ...I stepped into the kitchen, and Oliver had me in his sights ...but Katia stepped between us—I think she thought she could reason with him, I think she thought she could
stop it all from happening, but he'd already pulled the trigger, Gaia ...he'd already pulled the trigger....”

Tom had always assumed that when the day finally came,
this
day, when he allowed himself to break down about that night—to sit on the floor and sob like a baby . . . that at least there would be someone to hold him, to help him through it. But there was no one. No friend, no counselor of any kind. And his daughter was still silent behind a locked door. The sadness weighed him down, crushing him. He forced himself to speak again.

“Gaia ...that night, Oliver did so much more than just kill your mother. He killed our happiness.
Yours and mine.
He killed the notion of happiness for us both for all these years. I only left that night because I thought it would make you safe. I thought as long as I was nowhere near you, then you couldn't possibly end up like Katia. Standing in the line of fire. But I was
wrong,
Gaia. I was wrong to leave you. I knew that from the moment . . .”

He stopped himself midsentence. Because he wanted to be as honest with himself as he was being with Gaia.

“I've always known it,” he said, finally, shaking his head with a deep punishing self-hatred. “Somewhere, in some corner of my mind, I've always known it was the wrong thing to do. And I'm praying that you can forgive me because . . . I am so sorry. Please. Please give me the chance to take care of you again. To be
with you again. To protect you. I won't let you down again, Gaia. Just give us a chance to be happy, to know what it is to be happy. Because I haven't been happy. Not without you. Not without you . . .”

Tom sat quietly and let the tears stream down his face. There was no sound on the other side of the door. Gaia had no response. So it truly was too late. His sins had been too much to forgive. He hadn't realized until that moment just how much he'd resigned himself in the last five years to never knowing true happiness again. He wondered how he'd be able to move successfully through another day in his life after this one. He was quite sure he could not.

And then she opened the door.

 

GAIA LOOKED DOWN AT HER FATHER.

For a moment he seemed almost frightened. He just sat there with his eyes wide open, waiting for her to speak.

But she didn't. And until the moment arrived, she didn't know what she would do.
Five long years had passed.
Five long years of
ducking that night, ducking every issue . . . ducking the man whom she thought—