“I’m taking you to my home, where you can pick up my son’s car to drive back to Titusville. He’s grounded for a month. I caught him on Snapchat drinking shooters at a party. He’s seventeen.”
Rebel had to smile. “Guess he underestimated his old man.”
“I hope Elliott will continue to do so until he’s a fully grown adult with a fully grown functioning brain, though that’s never guaranteed, is it? Here is my card. Mail me a retainer for ten thousand dollars.”
Rebel nodded. He thought of Tash, wondered what he’d belike at seventeen. If he drank and got caught, would his father ground him? Would he?
Rebel didn’t drive Elliott Jordan’s bright red Camaro back to Titusville that night; he drove it to the Burberry Hotel in Ardmore on the Main Line.
He had plans.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Savich house
Georgetown
Friday night
Elizabeth’s eyes flew open. Her breath was heaving with terror, sweat soaking her sleep shirt. Without thinking, she pulled the small key from her pajama pocket, opened the bedside table lock, and jerked open the pouch that held the bullets for the small Ruger Hurley had given her. She stopped cold.Get a grip, it was a nightmare, only a nightmare. No one’s outside the bloody window ready to smash the glass, leap through, and kill you.
There was no threat, only a nightmare, nothing more than a pisser of a nightmare. Elizabeth fell back against her pillow and forced herself to take slow, deep breaths.
A dream so clear about being in her bedroom that night, terrified, pinned down on her back and fighting for her life. This time, she’d felt the whoosh of hot air when the knife came down. So real. She had to keep reminding herself it hadn’t come down, the man had thrown it into Benny’s chest instead, nearly killing him.
—hold the bitch down! I’m going to cut up that pretty face!
The vicious words echoed clearly in her mind, as clearly as the moment the man said them, like he was high on drugs he was so excited. And yes, there’d been a slight accent, likeBasara’s, but had she heard his voice before? Was that even possible?
She didn’t think, she jumped out of bed and ran to the Saviches’ bedroom, raised her fist to knock, then realized it was early, far too early. She pulled back her hand and leaned against the hallway wall trying to get hold of herself. That voice. When she’d finally calmed, her heart rate nearly back to normal, she realized she’d heard that voice only that one day and night in England, and in her dreams.
Chapter Forty
Khaled’s apartment
Wyverly Mews, London
Saturday
Khaled’s mobile sounded out the James Bond theme “Diamonds Are Forever.”
Adara.
He took a last bite of his scrambled eggs, drew a deep breath. “Good morning, Adara. Did you sleep well last night?”
Her musical laugh played a glissando on his nerves.
“Perhaps I was lonely, Khaled. Did you think of me after we parted company last night?”
“If I’d known where your bedroom is I might have tried to sneak in.”
“Maybe I’d have let you. So tell me, what did you think of my friends?”
“I found the two younger men more or less like me, and then there was Yusuf.”
“Yusuf is a master of impressions. He can appear to be whoever he wishes to be, only with a higher IQ. But he’s not important at the moment.” Her voice dropped low, as if to whisper a secret. “Did my brother tell you I was interested in you?”
“I believe he did mention that, yes. I believe he was embarrassed about it.”
