Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Not that kind of conversation.”
“Then talk to me instead,” I urged. Damn it. I liked her, and I really wanted to believe she was for real, but I sure had a bad vibe going on. “What’s going on? Was this whole thing a setup so that you could infiltrate?”
She looked away, mouth tightening. “I guess that’s what it looks like.”
My heart sank. Had I really been duped so thoroughly? “That…that’s incredibly fucked up,” I said, voice shaking a little from the disappointment. “You used me?” I shook my head, still trying to make sense of it all. “Were those really Saberton men who were after you? Did you actually kill your own people?”
She gave a tight nod. “They were Saberton.”
I stared at her for several seconds before finding my voice. “Wow, that’s cold,” I managed. “All to get in with us? Did they know? Did they know you were trying to infiltrate?”
Something flashed through her eyes—pain or anger, I couldn’t be sure. But when she looked back to me, her expression was hard. “Those guys?” She shook her head. “No. They had orders to capture me. Only way to make it look real.” Her mouth twisted. “Problem was, they called in Eggerton, the zombie. He wasn’t supposed to be there, and I almost got killed.”
I stood, hands clenched. “Only way to make it look real,” I echoed. “And so you set me up to kill a guy and fuck up another.” I took a ragged breath, stomach churning. “I killed someone because of you, you heartless bitch!”
“Yeah, and it would’ve worked if I hadn’t gotten hurt,” she replied, voice flat and cold. Something flickered briefly in her eyes to disturb the icy façade, but she quickly controlled it before continuing. “I’d have met with Brian under different circumstances, and he’d never have known he was being played. He thought I was,” she made air quotes, “‘paparazzi’ after our first encounter, remember?”
Anger coiled tight in my chest, yet I couldn’t ignore the insistent doubts. Parts of her story didn’t make complete sense. “How did you know I’d come out and confront you at the diner?”
She twitched a shoulder up in a shrug. “You wanted to come after me before, in front of that dead girl’s house. I figured if I walked into the diner you’d take the bait.”
Frowning, I cast my memory back over that night. Heather had been wearing a hoodie, and she sure as hell hadn’t looked like someone who wanted to be seen or recognized. “Really?” I asked. “You were gonna stroll in and somehow make me believe you were on the run?” My frown deepened as more holes the size of Texas appeared in her version. “And how’d you know I had Brian’s number? And that I would even call him?”
Her cool composure cracked, and a bizarre flash of primal fear lit her eyes. She tugged a hand through her hair, wound a lock around one finger.
“That one guy shot you.” I was talking as much to help me figure it out as to confront her. “Why would he do that if he was just trying to bring you back?” More and more holes kept appearing in this whole “infiltration” story. I scowled, shook my head. “And godalmighty, if they had to pick someone to infiltrate, surely it would be someone with a better plan.”
She viciously wound the lock of hair around her finger, over and over. “My plans haven’t worked out so great lately,” she said. To my shock she seemed close to tears. It didn’t look right on her somehow.
I stared at the hair twisting as mental clues shifted and fell into something recognizable. I remembered the last time I saw someone twist hair like that. Nicole Saber at the Gourmet Gala. Now I saw the same tilt of the eyes, the blond hair, the profile. And she knew about the reclusive Richard Saber.
“Oh my god,” I breathed. “That’s it. You’re related to Nicole Saber somehow, aren’t you.”
Her posture shifted subtly, a feral look coming to her eyes. Before I could blink she vaulted from the bed, knocking me aside as she dove for the door.
Stumbling back, I cursed my not-very tanked state as I sprawled against the tray table, scattering origami animals. I expected her to tug vainly at the door handle, but to my shock she yanked it open.
What the hell? I scrambled up and out the door, made a wild snatch at the sleeve of her hospital gown, barely succeeding in getting enough of a hold to slow her as she tried to bolt down the hallway.
Behind me I heard a door burst open and running footsteps—Brian, no doubt. Heather spun and struck a hard punch at my forearm, loosening my grip enough for her to twist free.
“Would you chill?” I yelled, then jumped on her in a clumsy tackle before she could turn and run. She outweighed me by thirty pounds or so, and topped me by at least half a foot, but she went down under my clinging assault. Didn’t stop her from fighting, though. She clocked me in the side of the head with her good fist, and managed to knee me in the ribs hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
“Stop!” I wheezed. “You stubborn bitch!”
My eloquent plea had no effect, but Brian’s arrival did. In about five seconds he had her face down, a knee between her shoulder blades, and was efficiently zip-tying her wrists behind her back.
Breathing hard, Heather continued to fight, though there was no budging Brian. Blood seeped through the bandage over the gunshot wound in her bicep, likely reopened by her struggles.
Brian finished securing the zip-ties. “Jacques!” he called, then looked up at me. “Let’s get her back on the bed.”
I helped him get Heather up to her feet. I expected her to go limp, but she continued to try and twist away, even though she had to know there was no possible way she was breaking free from two zombies, one of whom was no doubt tanked to the gills considering how quickly he made it down the length of the hall.
“Jesus Christ,” I said to Heather, breathing a bit hard myself. “It’s true, isn’t it? What are you, her daughter or something?”
I might as well have been asking the wall. She kept her jaw clenched tight as we got her back into the room and onto the bed. Jacques arrived at a run, and Brian jerked his gaze to him. “Restraints.”
I stepped back as the two men efficiently removed the zip-ties and secured her wrists and ankles to the bed with medical restraints. Heather pulled futilely at them, a look of wide-eyed panic on her face. “No. Please.”
“What will you do now?” I asked Brian, worry rising.
“Make a phone call,” he replied in a tight voice.
Jacques looked from the still-struggling Heather to Brian. “Sedative?”
“Wait! No, wait!” I said. “Don’t sedate her yet and don’t call yet.” In reply, Brian stood back and folded his arms, face impassive as he regarded me.
Taking that as a temporary victory, I swung my attention to Heather. “It’s out now. For fuck’s sake, defend yourself! Are you related to Nicole Saber? Is that what this is all about?”
She gave one more useless tug on the restraints, then dropped her head back to the pillow. “Yes,” she replied, voice breaking. “I was born Julia Saber. Nicole Saber is my mother.”
I attempted to put it all together as Jacques unobtrusively replaced the bandage on the sluggishly bleeding wound on her arm, spread a blanket over her, and then quietly slipped from the room.
“You really were leaving town, weren’t you?” I finally asked her. “Leaving Saberton.”
A shiver went through her as she nodded, not meeting anyone’s eyes.
“Oh, man,” I breathed. “And so you figured if Pietro and Brian knew, they’d pretty much get everything you knew out of you, any way they could.” Then I frowned. “But they were planning to do that anyway since you were holding back, and you had to know that. What gives?”
“Better than risking getting ransomed back,” Heather said, voice breaking. She swung her gaze to Brian. “Please. Don’t. Don’t let them have me back.”
An odd scent filled the air, thick and cloying, and it took me a few seconds to realize what it was. Her fear. I can smell her fear. Oh my god. My gaze fell on the pile of drawings. She hadn’t wanted me to look too closely at them.
Narrowing my eyes, I scooped the pile up, pulled the bottom drawing out and peered at it. At first all I saw were the mesmerizing spirals. Then I took a closer look at the unfinished corner, fought to make sense of it. Tiny letters. I rotated the drawing and with much squinting made out “sc new orleans waterfront” followed by the word “key” and a series of numbers. The key code for a Saberton Corporation building? In the finished sections of the drawing, more hidden lettering, cleverly disguised as part of the picture.
“I don’t understand,” I said, dragging my eyes back to hers.
Sighing, she gave a half-hearted pull at the restraints. “That was for after I was dead…or escaped. It’s all there. On the drawings.” Her breath shuddered. “I wanted to help, no matter what happened to me.”
My amazement increased as I flipped through the pages. In each of the dozen or so finished drawings, I picked out tiny lettering worked into the intricate and beautiful abstract designs, or curving around the edges of the figures. Without a magnifying glass, I couldn’t get much from them other than the realization that she’d meticulously offered a shitload of information. More details. More confidential and proprietary information that I had no doubt would be damn useful to Pietro and his organization.
I looked over at Brian, passed the drawings to him. Expression grim, he took them while I returned my attention to Heather. “What would happen if you got ransomed back?”
“Best case scenario is they’d kill me,” she said. The cloying scent of fear thickened. “Worst is they’d use me.”
Brian tucked the drawings under his arm and exited the room, expression not shifting at all from grim.
I had a feeling I knew, but I had to ask it anyway. “Use you? How?”