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Stunned, she put the hand mirror down. Then she picked it up again and rechecked behind her ears. Yep, the scars were still there. Very fine, and very faint. W
hoever the cosmetic surgeon was, he or she had been very good.
So this face was hers, or at least what hers had been made to be. The real question now was, how in hell had this happened, and how could she find out?
Chapter Five
I thought I might be having a stroke.
The knotted tension in Xavier’s shoulders eased when he heard that, because it was the perfect explanation for that string of numbers she’d twice recited. Even better, she hadn’t asked her best friend how long she’d actually been working at Becker, hadn’t mentioned the conversation with Maryjo Winchell at all. Good. With luck, they’d skate by this without a shit storm blowing up in their faces.
It helped that she really was sick. Yet another episode of nausea came in loud and clear over the speakers.
But—luck? He’d never trusted that bitch.
He’d rather go with his own instincts, his own knowledge of her, that said the cell-phone bit was too coincidental to be a coincidence.
He wanted eyes on her, but as long as she stayed in the house he had to stay put so he could monitor the situation. Instead he sent a secure message to a friend who would make sure nothing unusual was going on in her vicinity: “Heads up. If she leaves the house, or if you see any unusual activity—repairmen, poll takers, insurance salesmen, anything—let me know asap.”
An IM popped up on his screen within seconds: “Will do.”
If she did anything the least bit suspicious, he’d have to move fast, and having someone already there would give him an enormous advantage. Al Forge had a formidable network, but Xavier wasn’t without his own resources; he’d spent years cultivating a spider’s web of allies and assets, knowing that he was walking a tightrope between being too dangerous to kill and too dangerous not to kill. He still took assignments knowing that putting himself in harm’s way made it easier for him to be eliminated without it appearing to be anything more than part of the job, but he needed the extremely good money he made from those assignments. What he did wasn’t cheap, and neither were the safeguards he’d put in place. Moreover, his services were needed, and that meant something. He could probably make more money by selling his skills on the black market, but he hadn’t crossed over to the dark side yet.
The “yet” was always there, looming like a storm cloud that never quite reached him, but kept him checking its position. If push came to shove, would he go there?
Probably.
Six years ago, he’d have said “no.”
Five years ago, he’d faced a hard reality that sometimes doing the right thing was the wrong thing to do, and vice versa.
Four years ago, he’d been enraged at the trap they were caught in.
Three years ago, he’d become the trapper.
He had no idea how in hell this situation was going to play out, but none of them could quit the game. He was in it to the end, whatever that end happened to be. But, damn, he was so tired of the status quo he was almost ready to push some buttons just to make things change.
He needed to see her. There had been pictures, clips, audio, but he hadn’t seen her in person in four years. As dangerous as it was, he needed to actually put eyes on her, hear her voice, make contact and see for himself if she had any reaction to him or if the block was still holding. The next time she left the house would be the perfect opportunity, a small gap in surveillance now that her cell phone was no longer operational. She’d get a new one, it would be duly cloned and bugged, but until then there wouldn’t be any ears listening unless she was in the house or in her car.
She’d probably be watched, of course, but if so he’d be able to spot that ahead of time. There was also the possibility that he himself would be followed, but the day he couldn’t lose a tail would be the day he quit the business. Actually, the day he couldn’t lose a tail would be the day he died, which equaled “quitting the business.”
There was nothing he could do now except wait.
Lizette dozed off again, and woke feeling as if she’d been beaten up and tossed into a ditch on the side of the road. The headache and nausea were gone, but they’d taken a lot out of her. Did she know what it felt like to be beaten up and tossed into a ditch? She could almost laugh, if she didn’t have an uneasy feeling that sometime during those missing two years she might actually have found that out.
Instead of actively searching her mind for memories, because she was afraid of what the result would be if she did, she took a deep breath, rolled from bed, and tried to think of something to do. This was Friday, so she was supposed to be at work, and doing something other than that wasn’t in her routine. She’d stayed home sick, so it felt vaguely like cheating to do anything other than be sick.
Now that she felt better—aside from the beaten-and-tossed-into-a-ditch thing—she could go to a doctor, but that seemed stupid. What could she say? “I was sick this morning but I’m feeling better now, and, by the way, I appear to have had facial surgery during two years that I don’t remember at all. Am I crazy, or brain-damaged?” She didn’t want to be admitted to a hospital for observation, and that alarm buried deep inside recoiled at the idea that someone might make some inquiries into her medical history.
But her stomach was calm, and her head wasn’t hurting, so she felt as if she should be doing something. It made the most sense to do what she did on the weekends, just to get a jump on things. She liked everything around her to be very organized. She was good at that, keeping things orderly—her ducks marching in a row—and following a routine.
She eased upright in the bed, took stock. So far, so good. Gingerly she stood, feeling as if her system might go haywire if she moved too fast, and shuffled out of the bedroom. In the kitchen, she put her hand to the coffeepot; it had long ago turned off, and the coffee was stone cold, but she could reheat it in the microwave. A big cup of coffee would go a long way toward making her feel better.
Uh—maybe not yet. She didn’t want anything in her stomach until she was certain it would stay there. She’d thrown up so much the muscles in her abdomen were sore from strain.
Instead she went into the small spare bedroom down the hall that she’d turned into a home office, not that she worked at home very often. Here was where she paid bills, balanced her checkbook, and occasionally played computer card games to pass the time. Now and then she browsed the Internet, and every year she filled out her taxes online.
Taxes.
