33. Something Of Mine, Something Of Yours
33
SOMETHING OF MINE, SOMETHING OF YOURS
Alejandro
The Present
“ Y ou have something of mine and now, I have something of yours.”
My grip tightens on the phone.
“My instructions are clear. Dahlia dearest took a very valuable weapon. I want it back. You have until midnight.”
“ D ahlia would never hide a gun in her nightstand.”
Rian’s icy gaze sends daggers in my direction. “Clearly you don’t know her as well as I do because she’d hide it somewhere accessible to her, where a man wouldn’t be smart enough to look, and where anyone else with too much common sense wouldn’t bother looking.”
Damiano rushes into the room and says, “We have a half hour left. Has anyone checked the attic?”
My voice and Rian’s overlap.
“She’d be too lazy to go up there,” I say.
At the same time Rian insists, “She hates attics.”
Damiano’s lips purse as he rubs his jaw. “Shit…where else haven’t we looked?”
“What the Hell is going on here!” Lyss screams at us.
Footsteps rush down the hall and Lyss barges into the room, cheeks red from the cold and snowflakes melting in her auburn hair. The first thing she takes in is the disaster in Dahlia’s bedroom. After Li’s call I immediately informed Rian of what was happening and he called Damiano for help. The townhouse is massive and Li had only given us a few hours to search for a gun I’m almost certain Dahlia has stashed in an impossible hiding spot.
Rian and I have been able to avoid each other for the most part but after turning almost every other room in the house upside down there left only Dahlia’s bedroom. Except I don’t think she’d hide something as important as the weapon that can prove Li Huang murdered a prominent FBI agent in her bedroom of all places. But where else could it be? She wouldn’t hide it somewhere else and run the risk of it being found nor would she store it in a safety deposit box. Rian’s right; she would hide it in plain sight. In a place where the people who didn’t know her well enough wouldn’t think to look and where the people who do, know she wouldn’t. She’d pick a hiding spot that’s simple yet deceitful and where she’d have easy access to it no matter what.
But where ?
“We don’t have time to explain. Li took Dahlia and he wants his gun back. We have until midnight and we’ve searched every inch of the house looking for it.” Damiano says. “Have you seen it before? The pistol?”
Lyss’s face blanches. “Please don’t tell me it was a gold one.”
“Brass,” Rian corrects. His eyes narrow. “An old, vintage piece. Do you know where it is?”
She wrings her hands. “Well…I did. Before. But I don’t know where it is now.”
Rian lets out a huff of frustration and goes back to pilfering through Dahlia’s nightstand.
“Rian seems to think Dahlia keeps a pistol with all her night creams,” I remark.
He turns around and holds up a box which he gives a little shake. Across the top written in bold, purple script reads Moments of Pleasure. “That sound like a vibrator to you?”
“Actually—”
Rian opens the box but pulls out a small, silver revolver instead.
Lyss winces. “The pistol used t o be in there. She got the revolver last month. Christmas gift from Sasha.”
Damiano perks up as if he’s just had an idea. “Did we check any of the tampon or pad boxes?”
He and Rian exchange looks before they dart across the suite and head to the attached bathroom. Lyss decides to help with the search and goes through all the guest bedrooms and hallway closets. She even checks her own room in case Dahlia hid it there but I doubt it. She wouldn’t want anything that dangerous in Lyss’s private space.
We’re running out of time. Li was very clear in his instructions. At midnight I’m supposed to meet him in Central Park where I’ll return the pistol in exchange for Dahlia. He chose a public place like the park because he knew the threat of civilian presence would keep the exchange under control and at a late enough hour that would guarantee some semblance of secrecy.
I’d considered going to look for her myself. Dahlia was smart; she kept me on the line and gave instructions every step of the way, down to the park entrance Li used. However, there’s no guaranteeing she’s anywhere near the vicinity now and trying to look for her at night, in January, when several feet of snow still covers the ground after back-to-back storms, would be a fool’s errand. My best bet was to enlist the help of the two idiots going through pad and tampon boxes in the bathroom and to be honest, I’m starting to question my own judgement.
I head downstairs and retrace my steps. The townhouse has five floors, not including the cellar under Do?a Ana’s apartment. We searched the fourth and fifth floors where all the bedrooms are, the third floor where Dahlia has her private study and a living space, the parlor floor right below where the formal dining and reception rooms are. Then there’s just the first floor with the kitchen and breakfast room and the hallway leading to Do?a Ana’s space. She already searched the cellar and it’s mostly empty. Dahlia wouldn’t have hid the gun where it could be exposed to the elements so the backyard patio, balcony, and terrace are out of the question.
After scouring all the closets a second time, I go back upstairs in case I missed a room. Even with five people searching it feels almost impossible. Where the fuck did she put that gun?
I notice the door to the study is open and realize I haven’t been in there yet. One of the others might’ve but something tells me Rian wouldn’t know what to look for in a room like that.
“She wouldn’t have hidden anything in there,” Lyss says from the staircase. She’s taking the steps two at a time. “The room is a mess because she just got new shelves installed. Check the laundry room though, I just realized no one’s been in there!”
She’s gone before I can say anything else but her comment doesn’t deter me. Instinct propels me over the threshold and into Dahlia’s study where the lights are off and moonlight casts silver shadows across the piles of books and scattered boxes across the room. Lyss was right—it’s a disaster in here but only the kind Dahlia would understand.
Whenever she’d take on a new project, she’d have to first create a mess in order to figure out what she wanted the space to look like. Furniture is pushed into different corners of the room, organized in a way I know she’d understand. There’s a pile of red throw pillows near the bay window, a corner flooded with chairs but none of them match, and a tufted sofa pushed up against the fireplace surrounded by ottomans, a love seat, and a rolled-up rug.
It looks like she hasn’t finished shelving all her books yet because the new units are half empty. Books cover the desk, side tables, and every surface insight. I trip over a few boxes in search of a light switch and find it near a hung painting.
Unsurprisingly, the desk drawers are empty as are the cabinets and credenza. I’m about to give up on searching the room when one of the shelves catches my attention. Or rather, the book on it.
Only some of the shelves have been filled with books and most of them are texts on architecture and engineering. All except one: the book about cathedrals.
Anyone else wouldn’t have cast a second glance in its direction but I’m the only one who knows Dahlia’s father gave her that book when she was in the fifth grade for show and tell. And how it’s absolutely impossible for this book to be here in New York when the original is nestled onto one of the shelves in my office back home for safe keeping. Dahlia put it there herself and when she left a year ago, it was one of many personal affects that got left behind.
Which means the one right here is a copy.
Hidden in plain sight…
I reach for it and already feel the difference in weight. And when the spine cracks and the pages fall open, I find the pistol resting in a small cut out, barely big enough to fit the weapon.
Why would Dahlia go through all this trouble to hide a gun she doesn’t need? She went so far as to give Li a duplicate knowing there was a chance he’d find out and come after her. What does she need it for and why was she willing to risk Li’s wrath to keep it safe?
Something’s not adding up here and before I hand over a weapon as powerful as this one, I need to know the truth first.
“Alejandro!” Lyss barrels inside and trips over a nearby box. “Li just called Rian, he?—”
I turn around and her breath catches. “You found it…but how?—”
“Change of plans. I need you to go get the revolver in Dahlia’s nightstand.”
She frowns. “I don’t understand. Li told us where to meet, we have to leave now. There isn’t any time.”
I shut the book and return it to its place on the shelf. “Trust me. We’re going to get Dahlia back. We’re just not going to play by Li’s rules.”
Dahlia
I can’t feel my frostbitten toes or fingers I’ve been sitting in the snow for so long. My wrists and ankles are zip tied and about a half hour ago, henchman number two duck taped my mouth shut. At the very least, the cold has helped to numb my face which has taken more than one hit from Li and his loose hands this evening. I can’t wait until Alejandro finds me. Watching him pummel the shit out of Li Huang’s smug face is going to be the highlight of my year.
I’m unsure of what’s transpired in the hours since Li took me. The sedative he gave me was strong and by the time I finally came to, we were driving again. Somewhere on the west side and in a much bigger car with two additional henchman in the back seat. A little over a half hour has passed since I was brought to the park and as far as I can tell, there isn’t anyone around. Didn’t stop me from calling out for help though. Li tried to get me to keep quiet and I bit his earring off. I have dried blood on my lips and a developing black eye as a result but it was worth it.
He's been clutching his bleeding earlobe ever since. That’s when henchman number two shut me up.
I don’t recognize where we are. It’s dark and the snow conceals any familiar landmarks that could help me navigate. All I can make out is a bridge not far-off and a body of water. Judging by its size and the look of the bridge in the moonlight, we must be by one of the ponds. Snow has begun to fall again which diminishes what little visibility I have.
Li paces back and forth across the snow-covered boulder at his feet and I hold my breath, waiting for him to slip and fall and break his neck on the way down. Unfortunately, his phone rings and he hops down from his vantage point to answer.
“Is he here?” his eyes flicker with surprise as he turns to face me. “Rian came instead?”
Oh fuck. That can’t be good.
The last thing I remember before blacking out was Li demanding Alejandro return the gun he used to kill Amy Walsh. There’s no way in Hell they found it; not where I hid it and not in the few short hours since Li kidnapped me. A hundred people could tear that townhouse apart brick by brick and still not know where to look; inside an old architecture book about cathedrals.
“I’ll be right there.” Li shoves the phone in his pocket and addresses his henchmen, numbers two and four. One and three left earlier and are presumably circling the area. “Watch her. If she runs, kill her, but only after I have what I need.”
He disappears between the barren bushes and snowy trees down a narrow footpath that returns him to the paved road.
Alejandro
“ L i is probably going to have the place surrounded. Where are your men posted?” I ask.
Rian reads a message on his phone before shoving it in his pocket. “Corey and Owen are surveying the area south of Bow Bridge and the rest should be here any minute now. Damiano has about three men scoping out the areas east and west of there.”
“They were the only ones close by. I don’t keep a personal security detail and everyone else is downtown, about twenty minutes out,” Damiano explains. “But they’re good at what they do. Trust me.”
I nod my approval. “Good, that’s good. Thank you, by the way, for the two men you sent to the townhouse. Do?a Ana is still there and I didn’t want to leave her or the house unguarded.”
“That’s where you should be.” A muscle in Rian’s tightly wound jaw jumps as he shakes his head. “I can’t believe you let her come.”
Lyss’s cheeks heat as she fires back. “Hey! I do believe I’m the one with the tracking app.”
“Which is absurd,” Rian snaps back. “To think a cheap twenty-dollar necklace is going to help us find her.”
“This cheap twenty-dollar necklace,” Lyss tugs on the chain around her neck, “was actually forty. And Dahlia and I use the app all the time. It’s very useful when we go clubbing because if the other person can’t hear their phone ring, you can use the app to make the pendant on their chain vibrate or light up. In fact, it even sings Cher songs!”
“How do you even know she’s wearing it?”
“Because she was wearing it when I saw her a few hours ago and the app is telling me she’s in Central Park, look,” she shoves the phone in his face. “See?”
Rian turns to me. “We could’ve just taken the phone from her.”
“And risk her following us here anyway? No thank you. Better she stays with us.” Most of the pavement hasn’t been cleared of snow yet so it’s difficult to make out the footpaths, especially as another light flurry begins to fall. We reach a fork in the road and I pull Damiano and Lyss aside, guiding them under the protection of heavy, snow-covered branches. “Don’t move from here.”
“No, I want to help!” Lyss whines as Damiano lets out an incredulous, “I’m not a babysitter!”
“She has the tracker on the phone which means someone has to stay with her while Narvaez and I take turns beating the shit out of Li.” Rian makes sure the magazine in his gun is full before snapping it back into place. “Any questions?”
“I still don’t understand why we aren’t just giving Li what he wants,” Lyss says. “We found the gun. This feels dangerous.”
“Narvaez made the right call. If Dahlia went through all the trouble to hide the real one then it must’ve been for a reason. We could be making a mistake in handing it over to Li and since we can’t ask her ourselves, it’s better not to,” Rian replies. “Besides, I have the sneaking suspicion that Li knows about what happened at the investor’s meeting. There were a million other ways he could’ve forced Dahlia into giving him what he wanted but he chose to take her instead and involve the rest of us.”
“And who’s to say he won’t kill her the second Narvaez hands over the gun?” Damiano turns to Lyss. “Trust us, it’s better this way.”
She doesn’t seem convinced but she doesn’t argue either. Lyss keeps the phone close to her chest and examines our surroundings. Not much can be seen in the darkness but at the very least, the snow has started to let up in the last few minutes, which makes the streetlights easier to see.
Rian calls Li to let him know we’re here. Noticing a gap in the short wire gate separating the footpath from the trees, I step over it and walk to the top of the hill. From here I can see Bow Bridge but not much else. It’s a gray and white smudge over a nearly frozen pond surrounded by trees and ice.
A branch snaps behind me and I turn around. Lyss startles and grabs onto a nearby branch for balance. “Sorry. Li said he’s ready when you are.”
“All right.”
The color of her eyes are almost indiscernible in the winter light but there’s no mistaking the sliver of fear behind them. She keeps fidgeting with the pendant around her throat as if willing it to blink to life.
“You…” She swallows. “You seem so calm.”
“I’m always calm. I have to be.”
“Is this what Dahlia meant? When she said that sometimes you have to shut down in order to function.”
“I don’t know. Ask her next time you see her.”