Peyton Riley (4 page)

"Yes, yes," Anja was saying. "How long is he staying? A month? You are sure?"

A pause as Anja leaned forward and studied her reflection.

"Very good." She switched to Dutch and Peyton concentrated hard to understand. "And when is he? (So long)? Mmm… (something unintelligible) I can show it to him…yes, I have it with me…all the (security?), of course…"

Anja straightened to flip her hair. "Thank you," she switched back to English. "Yes. I'll be glad to help Mr. Van Der Luyden."

She ended the call and stared at her reflection. On the other side of the stall, Peyton watched, holding her breath. After a moment, Anja breathed a soft sigh and left.

"I have to tell you—"

"You'll never believe what—"

"No, you go first."

"No, you—"

"Fine."

Peyton's skin was still flushed from her brisk walk from the hotel to the flat—so elated she was from the breakthrough from their surveillance that Newsboy left her mind completely. She sat on the bed and smiled at Carson. "Anders Van Der Luyden is going to be in town. The sale is going down." Carson collapsed next to her and watched her face as she recounted the conversation she'd overheard.

"That's great, Peyton!"

"Your turn," she said. "What did you find out about Loverboy?"

Carson propped his head on his elbow. "For one, his name is Theo Karastis. For another, he's in some sort of money trouble."

"What?"

Carson stretched out on the bed, smiling like he'd caught the cream. "It is a tale that is worth telling in full."

"Get on with it, Scheherazade."

Carson had followed the dark-haired man, through side streets and various neighborhoods, until they approached its outskirts. There were the typical rows of old buildings flanking the water, but they seemed to have emerged at a row that was abandoned. Perhaps it was due to be torn down or refurbished; it seemed an outlier in the city that had redeveloped what had once been its most derelict assets.

The young man picked his way between the strangely forlorn buildings and paused by the water. There were half a dozen houseboats here, but unlike the spruced up and pretty examples in Carson's Brouwersgracht neighborhood, the ones here peeled and rusted under the weak spring sun. Carson settled behind the narrow gap between the buildings from which he'd followed the young man. The small space afforded him a view of the faded red houseboat that his quarry now approached.

The young man hesitated, standing on the docks, until a dark, bearded head appeared above the hull. The rest of this bearded stranger emerged as he climbed from the boat. A bomber jacket clad his slim frame and aviators protected his face.

"If it isn't the devil himself, Theo Karastis!
Merhaba!
" greeted the man with the aviators, stepping off the boat to the docks. He didn't seem much older than Theo and had a thick accent. Though he smiled, the coldness in his tone and the jittery movements of the boy called Theo told Carson how friendly they really were.   

"I hope you have some good news for us?" he smiled, white teeth flashing in the sun.

"Same news as last time," he said. "I'll get the money, just not at–"

"Are you such an idiot?" hissed Aviators, pulling Theo roughly. "Inside."

"Then what happened?"

"He came out maybe thirty minutes later. No visible damage, but he was limping."

Peyton's eyes went round. "Do you think–"

"Yeah. Light application of baseball bat to knee, maybe—not enough to break, but enough to hurt," said Carson.

She chewed her lip, running over the intel. "Mob, you think?"

Carson shrugged. "Could be. All I know is, he has to cough up tonight."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, you've been holding out on me, Carson."

He smiled. "Before he left the boat. Last words Aviators told him: 'We're expecting an installment tonight.' Then Theo asked if it was at the same place, but Aviators said: '
He
doesn't want your kind there anymore. You're only fit for The Bruges.'"

She glanced at her watch. "How far's that from here?"

He sat up and looked intently at her. "No, Peyton. I looked for it before coming here. It's a rough place."

"Oh please," she scoffed. "If
you
can find it, I don't think it's too bad."

"I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted by what you're implying," he said mildly. "But I'm serious, Peyton. I didn't find it by Googling and the person who pointed me in the right direction isn't exactly the type I'd like hanging around a good-looking woman. And you're not exactly inconspicuous, Red." He caught a strand of her hair and made to play with it, but dropped it after a second. "Better let me do it. I'll download when I get back."

There was a small TV hidden in one of the flat's closets. She pulled it out, plugged it in by the kitchen counter and puttered around, fuming dejectedly.
Not a place for good-looking women,
indeed. Where'd Carson get off, pulling the protective caveman act? He had no idea the scrapes she'd been in. She could take care of herself.

She settled on a random English news channel and left it as background noise as she walked around the flat, trying to shake off her nerves and boredom and irritation at Carson.

"Tonight, we speak with Anders Van Der Luyden, CEO of the start-up Agile Tech…"

She glanced at the screen to see a curly haired TV journalist face off against their painting's potential buyer. The spotlights fell straight upon her in her red chair and bounced off Van Der Luyden's high forehead, giving the illusion that his clear eyes glowed. He didn't seem to blink very much.

"Mr. Van Der Luyden," said the journalist. "Talk is that investors are jittery—you seem to be committed to so many developments at the same time."

"I am a man of many different passions and the capacity to see them all to fruition. Why should I limit myself to the narrow imagination of others?"

Peyton walked across the room and leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window, feeling out of sorts. She had to admit to that familiar thrill of putting a takedown together. Despite everything, it was there: her senses were awake and a niggling mental itch started, that old compulsion to finish a job, no matter how cocked-up Gustave was. But underneath the excitement was the dread of actually finishing and going back to Roi. At the end of the day, she had been drugged and taken against her will to do this. It was now nearly a month since she was due to return from Cosa Imbah'i, and she didn't want to imagine what her boss was thinking.

From the TV behind Peyton, the journalist's voice rose over Van Der Luyden's hectoring tone. "There are rumors of buyers keen to look into—"

"New technology attracts many investors," he snapped.

"I'm not talking about investors, Mr. Van Der Luyden. You are selling your company, piece by piece, asset by asset, technology by technology. It was what you did with AVL Digital, didn't you, before you established Agile Tech?"

There was no answer for several seconds, so Peyton looked if the program was cut. Anders Van Der Luyden was smiling like a shark onscreen.

The journalist shuffled her papers. "All right, don't answer that, Mr. Van Der Luyden, although I am sure your investors would've been interested in your answer. Isn't it true that the long-held criticism against you is that your innovations hardly keep your attention for long, and that you are always moving from one company to another? Isn't that why there are so many fears for Agile Tech's future?"

Peyton zoned out and focused on the window again. It took a while before she registered what she
hadn't
been seeing:

The big white van across the street from their apartment wasn't there.

Each night, whenever she had a moment alone, she had glanced out the window to find the van sitting across the street from their flat, no doubt populated by the eyes Carson had warned her about. But tonight, the stretch of cobbled street by the water was empty.

"Mr. Van Der Luyden, is it true that the tracking system your company has developed is on the market, despite warnings from security agencies of the possible threat it poses in the wrong hands?"

Heart thudding, Peyton pulled on her boots and a coat, in such a hurry that she left the TV on as she fled the flat.

Down the stairs she tiptoed, her heart in her mouth, her passport in her pocket. Carson kept the cash but that was a small thing; before Roi had found her, she had her means of making a living. Her mouth pursed in distaste as she pushed the thought away.

At the door she took a steadying breath and stepped outside.

The night was not as cold as she expected; there was a muggy stillness in the air that nearly approached warmth. A glance at the street confirmed it was still empty. There was a small sandwich shop, shuttered for the night. Even the bike stands were empty. She pushed her head down and, determined, walked down the street.

She walked fast, but did not run, affecting the hurrying tread of a typical city dweller eager to get home. She turned a corner and sped on, glad for the full dark, eager to get ahead.

At the bridge towards Haarlemmerstraat she stopped to get her bearings. Where should she head next?

The train! Central train station. Tickets to Brussels, and from there, London.

Did trains leave at this time of night? If not, where could she spend the night—and was it enough time for her to leave without getting caught?

She looked up, found the direction she ought to go, and pushed off towards Central Station, when a rough and callused hand suddenly clamped over her face. A scream tore from her throat but lodged against the suffocating hand against her mouth and nose; she struggled, not only to get away from the arms hugging her, but to breathe too. She tried to kick and flail but the attacker held on. Her attacker pushed against her, then turned and pinned her against the wall.

"Stop struggling, or I'll stick you," said a thin and reedy male voice. "Same stuff from Singapore. And you wouldn't want to fall unconscious here, would you?" Despite her terror, she mastered her impulse to fight and let her body go limp. "There's a girl."

"Mmm," he sniffed her hair, pressing heavily from behind. "Gustave
did
say to keep you in line, if you try'n 'scape." He transferred something from the hand embracing her to the one clamped against her mouth. After a second, there was a sharp prick on her neck. His arm pinned hers against her body while the free hand roamed over her breasts. "Yeah, that's right luv; that's a knife." The roaming hand turned insistent. "Don't scream now, pet—this'll be quick—"

Peyton gritted her teeth. She couldn't move her head too far forward without sticking her throat against the knife, but from this angle, a crash to the nose would still hurt enough to surprise him. She shut her eyes and braced herself for the pain when there was a sudden cry of "Yopp!" from behind. The arm pinning her sprang away from her body so forcefully she pushed off the wall.

She twisted under and away from the man's knife-wielding hand and caught her breath. Carson was twisting the man's—a tall white man with long blonde dreads—arm against his back. There was a split second where she registered the frightening expression on Carson's face, when the man ducked and slash of silver arced through the evening air.

"Knife!" she yelled, and lunged to catch the man's elbow. He pulled and jerked against her—he was surprisingly strong, despite one arm twisted behind him and a 120-pound redhead hanging on the other—but Carson tackled his side and then sunk his fist into his stomach. The dreadlocked man immediately crumpled to the floor, gagging for breath. Peyton kicked the knife far from his reach.

Carson looked at her with murder in his eyes.

"H-he's one of Gustave's thugs—kept an eye on the flat—" she stammered, taking an involuntary step backward at the look on his face.

"Didn't I tell you to stay inside?" he said evenly.

"Bloody hell," wheezed the dreadlocked man on all fours between them. "Bloody hell. Y'didn't have'ta do that, mate. Just doin' me job!"

"You get the fuck out of here," Carson said. "Don't ever touch her again."

The man crawled away from them till he reached the street corner. Then he got up, eyed them balefully, and then slunk around the street before disappearing into the night.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Peyton?" he demanded.

"I got it!" she said, feeling oddly embarrassed somehow. "I was going to head-butt him, you didn't need to—"

"I didn't?" Carson grabbed her arm and pulled it into the light. "Did you even know you were wounded?"

"Oh," said Peyton, knees going weak at the sight of the slash against the forearm of her coat and the blood seeping through the wool.

Some of the harshness left Carson's face at that. "Come on. Let's go back to the flat and get you cleaned up."

He was quiet as they walked back to the building and up to their room, his hand light on her back in case she needed help. She considered protesting but felt reassured by it. She pressed her forearm tight to stop the bleeding.