Exposed Target, page 6
Ciara stiffened and didn’t say anything for a long moment. When she finally did speak, she echoed his idiotic thoughts. “Because I grew up in a bad neighborhood in L.A., you assumed I’m a gold digger, have no integrity, and that I’d decided to become part of the Russian mob. Thanks for that, Deputy Marshal Richardson.”
He blew out his breath. “I’m sorry, Ciara. Sometimes this job gets to me. For the most part I love what I do, but it’s made me skeptical.”
She remained rigid for several seconds then the tension seemed to drain from her body. “I think I can understand. I might feel the same way if our roles were reversed.”
He touched the side of her face and looked her over. “Does your lip hurt?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“What about the cut on your cheek and your black eye?”
“They’re a little tender, but I’m okay.” She shifted and met his gaze. “I’m sorer from the insanity of today than anything.”
Beck raked his gaze over what he could see of Ciara’s skin and his own. “We’re fortunate to end up today with only scratches and bruises.”
“We made it.” She frowned and sipped from her glass. “Do you think they’ll find us again?”
“I don’t know how.” Beck shook his head. “No one knows we’re here. Even my supervisor let me get away without telling her exactly where we are. I think she’s started to question everything, like I am, and she’s doing all she can to find out the truth.”
Ciara furrowed her brows. “Do you think there’s some kind of leak or mole in the marshals office?”
He sighed. “I can’t get myself to believe it. These are good men and women, and I’d trust every one of them with my life.”
The subject weighed too heavily for now, and he wanted to talk more about her.
He rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “You grew up in L.A?”
She wrapped her fingers around her glass. “I was born there and lived in the same house until I left home. If Papa hadn’t died so young, we might have moved to a nicer neighborhood. After he was killed on the job at a construction site, Mamá wanted to stay put to be close to his memory.” Ciara looked thoughtful. “They truly loved each other. At least that’s what I like to believe. I was only six when he died.”
“I seem to remember your mom worked in a hotel.” Beck picked up his glass and took another drink of the sweet tea.
“Same hotel for nearly twenty years.” Ciara tugged at strands of her damp hair. “I’m sure it would have been longer if she hadn’t developed dementia.”
Beck moved his hand from her elbow to her shoulder, in a soothing motion. “Going through that must have been incredibly rough on you both.”
“I’d give anything to have her back to the way she was before.” Ciara twirled her hair around her finger. “She is a wonderful person and did everything she could to build a good life for us. When I look back, I realize now that Mamá and I had next to nothing. It really wasn’t about the nothing, but how hard she worked for that nothing.”
Ciara went on. “I could have been the happiest girl in the world, but it hurt to see her come home with her knuckles scraped raw, blisters on her feet, exhaustion in every turn she took.”
Beck had been through a lot in his life, but even back then, he’d thought Ciara and her mother had lived through much rougher times than he had.
“While Mamá worked, my puppy, Trousers, was often my only friend.” Ciara tilted her head to the side. “Sometimes I would take off, just me and Trousers, even though Mamá told me to stay home.”
She rubbed her palm on one knee. “When my mutt and I went off together, I loved tossing pennies in the fountain on Sowell Street. Once I wished for a new pair of shoes. I wanted shiny red ones. Patent leather. I used to imagine myself wearing those shoes.”
Ciara shook her head. “I had an active imagination, which made everything much more fun than reality, something I recognized at a young age. I decided it was better to pretend I had those shoes, because if I really had them, I might step on gum, scratch them on rocks, or spill Coke on them.” Ciara seemed to go within herself. “Even worse, someone might steal them.
“Back then I decided fiction was better than reality.” She sighed. “I thought maybe I was wrong once I met Niko. Now I know I am right.”
“Ciara.” Beck paused before continuing. “You had a rough upbringing, and you are an amazing person. You ended up in a horrible situation with the Sokolovs, to put it mildly. But things will turn around. Trust me.”
She shrugged. “Tell me that after I’ve been in the program long enough to make friends and build a life.”
“I will.” He squeezed her shoulders. “That’s a promise.”
“All right.” She smiled at him, a little sad, a little wistful, and a little hopeful. “I’ll take you up on that promise.”
“I want to know something vitally important.” He made his voice sound as serious as possible.
She cocked her head. “What?”
Beck studied her, eyes narrowed. “Forgive me if I’m out of line.”
“Uh-oh.” She raised a brow at him.
He cleared his throat. “How did you end up naming your dog Trousers?”
Ciara laughed. He loved the sound of her laugh.
“Papa found a puppy at a construction site.” Ciara shook her head. “Someone had left it tied to a nearby tree for the entire day, and Papa knew it had been abandoned. He brought it home to me.”
She smiled and brought her glass to her lips and sipped before continuing. “The puppy loved Papa’s pants. Every opportunity he could find, the puppy grabbed them. He tugged on and dragged the pants, and even tunneled into the pant legs. Papa started calling him El Pantalones, which means pants or trousers in Spanish. It stuck.”
“Why didn’t you keep calling him El Pantalones instead of using the English word?” Beck asked.
Ciara shrugged. “We were encouraged to speak only English in kindergarten, so I started calling him Trousers. I thought that sounded better than Pants.”
Beck grinned. “Good choice.” He finished off his drink before he said, “Out of everything that happened while we lived in L.A., your mom’s homemade apple pies top the list.”
He smiled at the memory and went on. “My dad made my sister, Sally, take me to your house, and your mom would serve us each a slice with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. Your mom made the best damned pies. Even now, nothing compares.”
Warmth blossomed in Ciara’s chest as she thought of the days her mom made those pies. “Even now I can smell the cinnamon Mamá used.” She sipped her tea before setting her glass on the coffee table. “I picture her standing in front of the kitchen window as she made each one. The sun surrounded her like a halo, and she looked so beautiful.
“Mamá let me help her peel the apples.” Ciara drifted back in time. “She would slice them and give me cinnamon and sugar to dip pieces in. I would munch on those while she pressed dough into the pie tins. I loved the way she put strips of dough across the top before she slid the pies into the oven. It looked like the lattice trellis my grandmother used to train her roses on.”
Beck gripped his glass. “Good memories.”
Ciara nodded. “It’s nice to have them when times are hard.” She sighed. “You’re right that early-onset dementia is one of the hardest things a son or daughter can ever go through in their lives.”
Her eyes ached as she continued. “I think about the stories she used to read me, all the times she helped me with homework, and her art. I loved her jewelry creations that she could make out of anything. Scraps of cloth, metal—just odds and ends things. She didn’t have a lot of time to relax, but when she could, she made jewelry.”
Ciara thought about the one piece she’d been allowed to keep in WITSEC. She had put the pendant Mamá had created into a safe deposit box here in Colorado Springs. While the broach she had stolen from the Sokolovs that was worth millions, the colorful cloth and metal pendant from her mother was far more valuable to Ciara.
She would retrieve the pendant her mother made when she finally had a permanent home, after the trial. “I’d do anything just to have her back again.”
Ciara looked at Beck. “I miss her so much. Mamá barely knows who I am when I visit.” She bit her lower lip then continued. “I should say when I visited.” Ciara swallowed. “I need to see her again, Beck. I need to see my mother.”
He slid his hand into her hair and gently rubbed her scalp. “I hope one day we can make that happen. But for now, keeping you two apart is the only way to make sure she’s safe.”
“I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her.” Ciara’s lashes dampened with tears that came close to rolling down her cheeks. “I would have to know for an absolute certainty that I wasn’t putting her in danger.”
He gave a slow nod. “I will make sure you never have to worry about that.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
For a while they sat, the silence comfortable between them. She finally said, “Where did you live before you moved into our neighborhood?”
“A lot of places.” Images floated through Beck’s mind. “My earliest memory was looking at glowing neon lights outside my bedroom window. Orange. Green. Blue. Red. My bed sat against the wall between our apartment and the local bar. I fell asleep to the sounds of blaring rock music and people making a hell of a lot of noise on the other side of that wall.”
Ciara remained quiet and he settled back against the couch as he pictured the lights and heard the sounds in his head. “I thought all kids grew up that way. Brawls in the street, drunken arguments, and the smells of beer, fried foods, and vomit coming in through the window when I left it open.”
He smiled a little. “Awful smells and loud noises aside, my room was the place I would go hide when my parents fought. You could call it my safe place, where I would build forts with blankets off my bed and chairs I took from the living room.”
“I can picture it,” Ciara said. “A little Beck in a little blanket fort.”
“Yep.” Beck still felt the kid in him wanting to escape from adult things. “I only took the chairs into my room when my dad wasn’t around. And there was always a chance my dad wouldn’t be home.” He gave a little shake of his head. “Unless the bar on the other side of the wall could be called home.
“I had my blanket forts to escape,” he said. “What did you like to do for make-believe as a kid?”
“Pretended I had a secret garden.” Ciara smiled. “I wished for my own corner, hidden away from everything in the outside world. Peaceful. A real garden.
“I’m sure you remember.” She cocked her head. “We had the smell of smog, the sounds of cars racing, sirens blaring. The rush and hurry. The constant noise and over-stimuli. A city garden of broken concrete and rusted rebar, shattered glass, and garbage.”
He nodded. “I remember.”
“I read so much that I thought one day it would come true. My favorite book was The Secret Garden.” She looked up at the ceiling, as if seeing images there. “I wanted the garden of my dreams and imagination. I wanted fresh air on my face and in my nose, and brilliant sunshine on my cheeks. I wanted to hear birds in apricot and peach trees. I wanted June bugs and ladybugs. I wanted roses and irises at full bloom. I wanted to hear a waterfall tinkling over rocks.
“As I alluded to earlier, I gave up on reality for fiction.” She gave him a little smile. “Since I didn’t have my own hideaway, I decided to read and read and read, and live in the secret garden of my mind. An escape, a dream I could hold close to my heart and in my hands.”
“One day you can have your own garden and make it any way you want to.” Beck wanted her to believe in good things to come.
“Do you truly think so?” She appeared to be thinking it through. “I want to believe it, Beck. I really do. But whenever I think something wonderful is happening, I get blindsided.”
“Keep hoping for the good things,” Beck said. “Never give up.”
Ciara said nothing and sipped from her tea again.
“When did you leave home?” he asked.
“I went to business school and got a job after I graduated then I moved into a small condo in a little nicer area with Mamá. I couldn’t afford to buy in L.A., so I rented in a neighborhood farther from the city.”
Her throat worked. “I met Niko in the L.A. boutique I managed. He started to stop by regularly to see me. He appealed to everything I’d ever thought I wanted in a man. Sweet, funny, generous, loving. I fell hard for him during the two months he lived there. I knew he had come from New York for business, but I think he stayed longer because he’d fallen for me, too.
“He completely swept me off my feet. He made me feel like a real princess, and the little girl in me thought she’d found real happiness.” She shook her head. “When he asked me to marry him, and move to New York, I didn’t think twice. I was truly, madly in love.”
Ciara looked both wistful and sad. “Mamá had already gone into a full-time care center for patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s. I had to make sure she had around the clock care, which I couldn’t provide. Fortunately, there were options available for low-income families.”
She let out her breath. “Niko said he’d find the right place for her in New York, and he’d pay for her to stay at only the best facility with the best care. At first, I struggled with having him pay my way because I’d always done everything myself. He convinced me, mainly because I was so in love, and it was the only way to bring her with me. I wouldn’t leave Mamá behind.
“So, there went both our lives.” Ciara raised her hand in a gesture that indicated she was resigned to her past, now believing it to be a bad choice. “Like they say, it is what it is.”
She looked at Beck. “What about you? That little boy who built blanket forts in a neon world.”
Beck recognized her need to change the subject. “It wasn’t until I was older that I realized I could live anywhere when I grew up. I made up my mind pretty young to leave home when I turned eighteen. I did exactly that.”
“Where did you live when you moved away from L.A.?”
“Wyoming of all places.” The corner of Beck’s mouth quirked. “My dad moved us to a small town when I was thirteen. I thought the world had ended, being relegated to a high school with a fraction of the number of students I used to go to school with. I did what I had always planned and left five years later when I turned eighteen.”
“I don’t remember your parents,” Ciara said. “Sally never wanted to have anyone come to your house.”
“I felt the same way.” Beck shifted on the couch. “I truly believe every family is dysfunctional in its own way. My parents—they define the word Dysfunctional with a capital D.”
“I agree with you.” Ciara nodded. “I think it’s a buzzword for people who want to believe they’re normal. What’s normal, anyway?”
“You got me.”
“What about your parents?” Ciara leaned forward and set her glass on the coffee table before settling back. “Where are they now?”
“Dad actually stayed put for once, and he and Mom still live there.” Beck gave a wry smile. “Although Dad has continued to be the local bar’s best patron.”
He went on, “Funny thing. I returned to that small Wyoming town years later. I even bought a great place that I go to when I can get away from work. As an adult, I appreciate it in a whole new way.”
Ciara tilted her face to look at him. “What about your sister?”
“Sally took off to Green Bay and a faster pace of life. That’s where she met her husband, five years ago.” Beck pushed his fingers through his hair. “Hard to believe she’s going to have a baby soon.”
“Congrats, Uncle Beck,” Ciara said with a smile. “Girl or boy?”
“Boy.”
“I always thought I’d have a child by now.” She sounded wistful. “I keep wondering if I’ll ever have a relationship that goes as far as marriage and children. My whole life is built on a lie now. I can never say who I really am or talk about my past. So how can I marry anyone with that kind of secret between us?”
“We’d better get some rest.” He shifted and Ciara moved to the edge of the couch. “You can take the master bedroom and I’ll stay downstairs where I can keep an eye on things.”
She nodded “This has been the longest day of my life.”
“I’ve never had one this long or this crazy.” He wanted to touch her, to feel her in his arms, but he had to keep distance between them. “We’ll get you someplace safe tomorrow.”
“I feel safe now.” She smiled at him. “You make me feel that way.”
He returned her smile. At this moment, more than anything, he wanted to be the man who would always make her feel safe.
.
7
Ciara thought her heart would explode. She and Beck tore through the night, running barefoot on a deserted road.
Even in the darkness, birds dove at them, scratching their talons over Ciara’s skin. Insects stung their flesh, injecting poison that made her stumble and fall.
Beck grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. The swarm of birds and insects grew bigger and bigger, whirling around them like a hurricane of feathers, talons, stingers, wings.
Ciara screamed. Her skin ached and bled. They had to get out of there. Had to get to safety.
They pushed their way through the maelstrom even as the birds picked flesh from their bodies and insects jabbed and poisoned them.
Ciara stumbled. The poison drugged her, and she wouldn’t stay conscious much longer.
She stopped running. Her attackers surrounded her, whirling in a cloud that grew darker and darker, blocking out moonlight.
“Ciara.” Beck called to her in a harsh whisper over and over. She tried to hear him, tried to make sense of his words.
“Ciara, wake up.”
She woke with a startled cry, only to find a hand over her mouth, muffling her scream. Her heart thundered.
“Quiet.” Beck’s voice. “I heard something outside. Get your clothes on, but don’t make a sound. It might be nothing, but I want you ready.”
