The Good Liar. Laura Caldwell
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I said, standing up. “What was that about?”
He stared in the direction of the girls. He blinked fast. “Sorry.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“What did you think was happening there?”
“I don’t know. I got startled, I guess.” He lowered his head to kiss my neck and then whisper in my ear. “So where were we?”
I pulled his face to mine, so I could see his expression. The calm demeanor he usually wore had returned. “You’re okay?”
“I’m with you, aren’t I?” He grabbed me around the waist and nuzzled my collarbone.
“Yes.”
“Then I’m good.”
I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re sure?”
“I’m fine,” he said, but under his shirt, I could feel his heart beating fast.
14
Anguilla, West Indies
L iza sat on her balcony at Cap Juluca resort. Below her, the white sand was combed smooth and the morning sun glittered like diamonds on the aqua of the Caribbean Sea. She turned her attention to the table in front of her. Like many vacationers at the resort, Liza’s table bore coffee, rolls and the mini version of the New York Times. But Liza was not a vacationer, and so she pushed away the rolls, took a sip of her black coffee and opened up the complete version of the Times on her BlackBerry.
It was hard to focus on the articles. Normally, when she was on a job like this, focus was never a problem. But now Aleksei was gone, and she hadn’t been able to find out a damn thing about the crash. The Trust, which knew all about her and Aleksei and also knew that she might be distracted by his death, had sent her on this mission to Anguilla. She’d been grateful, but now she was finding that she was the distraction.
Normally, Liza would conduct surveillance and collect intel, and if an elimination was necessary, and only then, would she design the job based on what she’d found. In this situation, she hadn’t performed the legwork, she’d just been asked to take care of the end result. The piecemeal approach was the way the Trust seemed to work these days, which made Liza uncomfortable. She liked to know everything about a project and a target. Today’s mission was a simple one, at least for her, but seemingly simple jobs could turn into chaos if the operative wasn’t completely attentive and alert.
So Liza tried to put aside thoughts of Aleksei and questions about his death. Later, she told herself. Later. Yet she found it impossible not to remember.
15
Five years earlier
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
T he Trust called it a safe house, but really it was just a different apartment, bought the same way the place in Gávea across the street from Franco’s house had been purchased—quickly and with a lot of money. Similarly, the safe house had been stripped of the remnants of its previous owners, and then it had been decorated in what Liza liked to call Twentieth-Century Hotel. It was clean and decently appointed in lots of beige. Spending any amount of time there had always reminded Liza of the starkness in her life. But now Aleksei was with her. And the safe house seemed bursting with light and chock-full of something very new and very exciting.
It had been three days since she’d accosted the poor man and made him tell his story. After they’d left Rocinha, she’d placed the rock for him in a better spot, one which would catch the faces of those entering Franco’s house instead of their profiles. She had no interest in stopping the Russians from gaining information about Franco and Gustavo. The photos were easy, the kind of surveillance anyone could get, and Liza’s organization wouldn’t compete. They left other countries, other groups, to their own devices unless it appeared those countries or groups could compromise the United States and its citizens. Then they could get highly competitive. The results weren’t pretty, but they were necessary. That’s what Liza had always believed—would always have to believe if she were to keep her sanity.
One of the things Liza taught Aleksei was how to perform without emotion. It was never lost on her that she’d done the exact opposite when she’d met him. But she kept trying to teach him this nonetheless, because he also had to do his job without being particularly successful at it. He didn’t believe in what he was doing, not like Liza did, but for the safety of his friends and family he had to appear as if he cared very much. His handlers had instructed him in a rudimentary way on how to spot a tail and how to make a drop and various other tactics, but he was awful at them. Liza taught him the way she’d been taught.
They made sure it appeared as if Aleksei was living in the small hotel room where he’d been told to stay, and they made sure he checked in with his handler and turned over the photos that his sad little rock acquired every day. Once those things were done, no one seemed to care much about Aleksei. Except for Liza.
Every day, Liza conducted lessons with him, breaking the rules in a whopping way by letting him into the apartment in Gávea. She showed him the scopes and the listening devices and the alarms and bugs. She was reckless; she felt literally out of control. She had at first entertained the idea that Aleksei’s facade was just that—a facade—and that he might be a much better spy than she was, one who had quickly and easily wormed his way into her world.
And yet, for once, Liza trusted someone. She felt pulled toward him by an undercurrent she’d never seen coming and didn’t totally understand. She was attracted to him, but there was also something intangible that made her feel deeply connected to him. Throwing caution to the wind was intoxicating.
He never asked who she worked for, and she never told him. If an outsider learned about the Trust’s existence, there was a serious possibility that outsider would be eliminated. So Aleksei didn’t know her employer, but he knew everything else. She told him everything about her life, and she felt like he had grown to know all of her.
“You’re so lucky I’m teaching you all these things,” she said one night.
They were stationed in front of the window in Gávea, peering through night scopes at Franco’s front door and the one window that faced the street. Because of a party Franco was having, the window was open and the drapery pulled back.
Aleksei had been trying to quit smoking, he said, but Liza could smell the scent of a cigarette on his jacket. She hated cigarettes, and yet with him she didn’t mind. She even liked it. She liked everything about the man—his book-smarts, the way his thick hair was colicky and hard to tame, the way his green eyes filled with pain when he saw children barely clothed and nearly starving on the Rio streets.
“I am lucky,” he said, and then he was silent. His silences were different than that day in Rocinha. They were comfortable silences now.
“You probably would have been killed sooner rather than later if it wasn’t for me.” She had no idea why she was doing this bragging. “I could be killed for teaching you what I know.”
Aleksei remained quiet, then out of the corner of her eye, she saw him sit back from the scope. He gazed at his hands. He gazed at her.
In the moonlight filling the apartment, he appeared larger, the scar on his cheek almost white.
He moved toward her. It was a quick, clumsy rush of physical movement, and Liza almost blocked him. She could have easily defended herself if he were trying to harm her. But in a fraction of a second, in that moonlight, she caught the look in his eyes, and it was not the look she’d seen when she’d been attacked by someone before. This was a gentler look, and Liza thought, Is he going to kiss me? Then she thought, Finally.
Aleksei’s body met hers, his weight pushed her off her stool and the two of them tumbled to the hardwood floor. And then he was kissing her, and then his hands were on her shoulders, on her breasts, on her back, her waist. He was