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And even if Benson had engineered her activation, no way could he have predicted the LSD. No way could Wagner and O’Donnell be sober enough to follow some script that Benson had given them. No way could Wagner and O’Donnell know Scarlet was in the room eavesdropping. No way could O’Donnell bethatgood an actress to fake sobs and whimpers while tripping her ass off.
But at the same time, no way O’Donnell could know those details without Benson telling her.
Unless it was a memory.
Now Scarlet’s mind started to spin again. LSD was a psychoactive drug, which meant it lit up the brain in unpredictable ways, firing neurons that might not have been activated in decades, surfacing memories buried so deep they mayneverhave been conscious.
And the dates lined up too.
Scarlet had seen Indy O’Donnell’s file.
Seen Indy O’Donnell’s birthdate.
Files could be faked, of course. But Scarlet had seen O’Donnell in the flesh. She looked about twenty-nine or thirty.
It lined up.
It was possible.
And given the alternative explanation of Benson somehow engineering events that couldn’t be predicted, couldn’t be controlled, couldn’t even beconceived. . . shit, this was actually theleastcrazy explanation!
“But she died,” Scarlet muttered, staring absentmindedly at the gun hanging limply in her left hand. “She stopped breathing, went still against my breast, didn’t stir when Benson busted in. She died. I . . . I killed her. Didn’t I?”
The spins came rushing back. Scarlet’s vision veered towards blackness again. She tried to recall the sequence of events that day thirty years ago, but it was all a jumble after Benson had busted into her apartment. She’d been exhausted after giving birth, in a state of surreal shock after smothering her newborn daughter, had no idea what was happening when that wolf-eyed man entered the room like some wizard from another dimension.
“You need to get out of here,” Scarlet mumbled out loud just to keep a grip on reality. She was still on her knees, and she stayed down and caught her breath, scanning the room for the front door, her vision going in and out, disbelief still swirling through the shock of what she’d heard. “Maybe you did get some of the drug into your system. Maybe you are hearing things. Or maybe this really is a setup, some twisted plot conceived by Benson, a level of manic manipulation that’s beyond even your comprehension. Either way, nobody’s seen you yet. You can still walk away. Just get to the door, leave the room, disappear forever. It’s easy. You’ve planned for this. You’ve always known that one day you’ll need to exit the game, disappear into the same shadows where you’ve lived for thirty years. It’s over, Scarlet. You’re free. Nobody knows you’re here. That technical glitch in the NOC system cut you off from whoever activated you. You’ve been set free by circumstance, liberated by dumb luck. Maybe this is fate’s way of saying farewell. Destiny waving goodbye. Maybe it is all scripted and your role is done. Exit stage left, Scarlet. Move.”
Her gaze settled on the front door. It came into sharp focus. Scarlet sighed, then forced herself upright. A flicker of relief passed through her. She still couldn’t understand what she’d just heard, couldn’t allow herself to believe it.
She took an unsteady step towards the exit, then another, her grip on reality strengthening as she moved away from that bedroom which might well be a cosmic window into her own madness.
By the time she reached the front door Scarlet decided that although she’d heard O’Donnell’s words clearly enough, it was entirely plausible that O’Donnell was describing something else—a movie, a novel, even a memory that was close enough to that pivotal event thirty years ago that it triggered Scarlet’s emotions, fooled her own brain into filling in false details, making a connection that wasn’t there, seeing meaning in the meaningless.
Relief trickled into her system as Scarlet got to the door. She exhaled and shook her head, feeling the sweat ooze from her pores like a fever had just broken.
An exhausted smile curled her lips. Only in a fever-dream could she convince herself that this whole thing had been engineered. It was absurd. Benson was history, gone with the wind just like Scarlet would be the moment she opened the door and stepped through it.
She huffed out another breath, was about to pull open the door when she realized Wagner’s spare gun was still in her hand.
Shit.
Nowshewas getting sloppy.
She’d better dismantle it again and slide it back into those hidden compartments. She’d probably be fine just leaving it on the damn table, but it was best to exit clean.
Scarlet hurried to the duffel, got down on a knee, was about to break down the weapon when suddenly Wagner’s voice came through the closed bedroom door—far too close for comfort.
“Can’t remember if I slid the deadbolt across the front door when I opened it to stick that DO NOT DISTURB sign outside,” he was saying to O’Donnell. “Be right back.”
Scarlet froze, her eyes snapping wide open, adrenaline roaring back through her sweat-soaked body. She considered bolting to the front door, getting out before Wagner saw her. She was quick, and Wagner might not trust his own eyes even if he did catch a glimpse of her from behind as she left.
She leapt to her feet, the gun still in her hand. She whipped her body around towards the front door, then heard the bedroom door fly open behind her.
Scarlet spun around, raised the gun, aimed it dead center at the heavily muscled shirtless man standing in the doorway, his green eyes wide like flying saucers.
“Don’t move!” Scarlet pointed the gun squarely at Wagner’s chest, locked her gaze on his eyes to make sure he got the message that this wasn’t an optical illusion. “This is real, Wagner. Do what I say and you live. Hands behind your head. Now, please.”
Wagner stopped dead in the doorway, cocking his head and squinting as if he was seriously considering the possibility that Scarlet was a hologram. He took a breath, then exhaled with a coolness that rippled through his ridged body in a way that unsettled Scarlet.
