Chapter 17 #3
She kept her back straight, turned to Bolt, then to the other man, this Barney, then back to Bolt. It had been nice being called a lady and addressed as ma’am, but though it made her feel dead inside, it had to be said.
“I’m not a lady, Mr. Bolt. If you know what the Meteor is, and you know that I work—worked—there, then you know what I am.”
“A beautiful woman,” Barney growled and she turned back to him, startled.
He’d had bad acne as a youngster. His sallow skin was pock-marked.
His rough ugly face was flushed. “That’s what you are.
Doing what my mom did, because she had three kids to feed and that was the only way to do it.
There’s no shame. There’s plenty of shame for the motherfu—”
“Barney!” Bolt barked.
The man’s jaws worked back and forth. “Sorry, boss,” he said finally.
Consuelo hung her head, letting her hair fall down around her face, hiding it. Hiding her. A tear dropped on her thigh, making a tiny wet spot on her jeans.
Barney’s rough bass voice became soft. “The shame is not yours. It’s all on men who would do that to a woman.”
Consuelo continued staring at her knees. She couldn’t lift her face, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t move, she could hardly breathe.
Bolt was talking softly into an intercom system. Nobody moved until the door opened. Consuelo didn’t turn around. It was probably someone else from the company.
Maybe to throw her out because she’d brought something completely useless.
It wasn’t a man, it was a woman. An extremely beautiful woman, tall, black-haired with intense blue eyes. For a moment, Consuelo thought she’d make them a fortune at the Meteor, then was ashamed of herself.
This was a woman who was loved. She was followed by a big man, hand held to her back because she was hugely pregnant. Hovering over her, watching her like a hawk.
Girls at the Meteor didn’t get pregnant.
Those that did were made unpregnant very fast. Consuelo hadn’t really ever experienced a couple that was expecting a child…
together. It was a novel thought. People had kids all the time, of course.
It’s just that she hadn’t seen it. Her world and children did not mix.
Harry and Barney stood as the woman moved slowly but gracefully notwithstanding that huge belly. Barney pulled a chair over next to the desk and the woman sat down in it with a huge sigh. Her man—lover? husband?—stood behind her, huge hands on her shoulders.
Harry frowned at her. “What are you doing in the office when you’re going to pop the kid any second?”
She sighed again. “Yes, but I’m just finishing up a huge job and I wanted to clear the decks so I can take a couple of weeks off after the birth.”
“Couple of months,” the man behind her growled.
It was protective, and endearing, even though he was scowling and looked quite frightening, almost as frightening as Barney, but the woman just laughed. “Weeks. I can do some work from home in the beginning, Sam.”
The man behind her—Sam?—huffed out a breath of exasperation through his nostrils, like a bull. The woman laughed again.
Sam looked at Bolt. “So, what do we have here? Why’d you call Nicole?”
Ah. The beautiful woman’s name was Nicole.
Bolt handed her the thumb drive. She looked at it curiously. “What’s on it?”
“I don’t know. It’s Russian, encrypted. And the files inside are probably Russian. You know Russian don’t you?”
“A little. Enough to get the gist of a text.”
“And you told me you have this Russian computer whiz on your list of collaborators. Does technical translations. Do you think—"
“Oh yes.” Nicole smiled and Consuelo blinked. How could any woman a hundred months pregnant be so very beautiful? “Yes, indeed. I think he’s just the man for the job. Is it urgent?”
“There might be information on the drive about the men who attacked Chloe.”
There was an electric silence.
Nicole held her hand out as if knowing that her husband’s hand would find it, and it did. He lifted her out of the chair.
“Then we’ll find out what’s on this drive just as fast as humanly possible,” Nicole declared, holding her hand out for the drive. Her face had turned serious. “Harry, I’m confiscating your other computer.”
He nodded as Nicole sat down before a sleek laptop. She opened it and with a beep, it started up, the glow of the screen reflected on Nicole’s face. In a second, she was gone.
Nicole was deep into whatever she was doing, staring intently at the monitor, typing quickly, stopping, then starting again.
“Okay,” she said, sitting back, rubbing her belly. “I sent it off to my crazy cracker Russian. He took a look and said it shouldn’t take long. He called it ‘Mafiya’ encryption, he’s used to it. Do you have a clue as to what’s in it?”
“It’s got something important in it, that’s for sure,” Bolt replied. He nodded to Consuelo. “She took it off the guy who ordered the attack on Chloe. The guy who waterboarded her.”
“Waterboarded?” Nicole straightened, wincing. She held out her hand and her husband took it, gently helped her out of the chair.
Nicole walked over to her and put her hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going back to those horrible men.”
“That’s for damned sure,” her husband said. Bolt and Barney nodded.
Consuelo’s throat was tight, raw. She couldn’t speak, shook her head. “No.” Her voice came out like the sound a wounded animal would make. “Never.”
This was her opportunity. This is what she came for. But she couldn’t get the words out. All four of them watched her, three men, one woman, waiting with blank expressions for her to speak.
Consuelo had been trained in a hard school to repress her feelings, otherwise she couldn’t function in the Meteor. Some nights she repressed them so far down she thought they’d disappeared.
They hadn’t.
They’d compressed into a hard, black ball that was choking her.
The four continued watching her, waiting.
She had to do this. She had to, because there was no going back. She’d rather die.
“I—I hope there is something useful in that flash drive,” she said finally, voice thick and strained.
“I hope there is something that will hurt the Russian, put him away. Because he is the one after Chloe. I brought it as—as payment. I didn’t know Mr. Bolt was Chloe’s brother.
I just thought that maybe there might be something of value to—to pay for your services.
Because they say—they say you can help women go away.
Disappear. And never be found.” Please God, she prayed to the God she no longer believed in.
“And I have money, too.” She hid the shaking in her hands as she pulled out a fat manila envelope.
She watched Bolt’s eyes as she slid it across his desk.
He was watching her, not the money. “Twenty thousand dollars,” she whispered. “To take me away.”
Was it enough? She had no idea. All she knew was that she might as well have pushed her beating heart across the table.
Harry Bolt placed one big hand on the envelope and paused. Did he want more? Could she get more? Not by working at the Meteor, of course. Maybe she could waitress, but where? Anywhere in San Diego and Nikitin and Sands and their men would find her.
Her heart nearly stopped when Bolt moved his hand with the envelope underneath it back across to the desk to her. “We can’t take your money, Consuelo.”
But of course, how could he accept the money of a puta?
He was a respectable man in a respectable business.
Rich and powerful, even. What had she been thinking?
She’d been around rich men long enough. Her life savings was probably what he spent for Christmas presents for his wife, if he had one.
Of course he had no use for her tainted money.
He’d just condemned her to death.
She should get up and walk out and go…where? Her legs wouldn’t hold her, she knew that. What could she do, where would she go? She couldn’t even think beyond the panic in her mind, flashing nightmare scenes of drowning.
Consuelo wheezed in a breath.
Bolt was saying something but she couldn’t hear over the noise in her head. “What?”
He repeated patiently. “We don’t take money from the women and children we help.
Disappearing takes some time and preparation.
For the next few days we’ll put you in a very safe place while we prepare some documents for you, for your new life.
You’ll be safe, I promise. Barney will look out for you. Nobody will hurt you.”
Her eyes shot to Barney. He held her gaze and nodded his head, as if to confirm what Bolt had said.
No one will hurt you.
“Where would you like to go?”
A blank. A complete blank. She hadn’t even considered choosing a place. She just thought she’d run, like a piece of tumbleweed rolling in the wind, and stop when the wind stopped.
She could choose?
“Miami.” The word came from nowhere but the instant it left her mouth, it felt good. Right. “I’d like to go to Miami.”
“Good choice. Lots of Hispanic Americans. Big cities are good to hide in. We’ll prepare new documents for you and a background story. Keep a low profile and after a year or two you’ll start to feel like this new person.”
Please.
“We’ll open a bank account for you in Miami under your new name and put another ten thousand in it for you. With what you have, it should be enough for a while. Wait a few months and then you can look for a job. Waitressing, or shop assistant. Nothing too fancy.”
Consuelo was almost beyond words. She shook her head numbly. No, nothing too fancy.
The Meteor was fancy. She wanted to be as far away from fancy as possible.
Far away from the false luxury and sharp smells of expensive perfumes and liquors.
She wanted a small, spare apartment that was just for her, normal clothes, she wanted to take long walks in the park and watch TV and sleep alone at night.
She wanted that so much she shook with it.
And the people in this room were going to give it to her.
“Thank you,” she said. She blinked, and the tears began. “Thank you so much. You’ve given me my life back.”