Scorched Earth (Takedown Book 3)

Scorched Earth

Takedown 3

Bianca Mori

Scorched Earth

Takedown Book 3

Bianca Mori

This is a work of fiction. Settings, names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events and characters, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, excepting brief quotes used in connection with reviews written specifically for a newspaper, blog, magazine or other related media.

Copyright © Bianca Mori 2016

Author’s note

The Interpol described in this book is entirely fictionalized. There are no such things as Interpol agents, a research arm called Database or secret offices around member countries. (Well, I can say this based on what I’ve researched on the Interpol website and ‘What Does Interpol Really Do?’ Google searches. Who knows, really?) In real life, Interpol officers coordinate between different police forces around the world and do not make arrests. That didn’t sound exciting enough for my plot, so I made stuff up for this book. I apologize to law enforcement enthusiasts, and also issue this note very clearly to warn you before you begin reading: this is a work of fiction, and no, that’s not how Interpol really works. Thank you!

This is the longest book I’d ever written and the writing process was intense. Throughout the entire process, and each time I wanted to give up and just leave the trilogy hanging (bet you would’ve loved that!) I would pick up an awesome book, and be encouraged, and feel like moving forward again. I want to thank Tessa Dare, Mina V. Esguerra, Jay E. Tria, Dawn Lanuza, Jennifer Hallock, Neil Gaiman, Kate Evangelista, Susanna Clarke, Miren B. Flores and Suzette de Borja for writing awesome books that pushed this fellow writer to soldier on. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Chapter 1

The girl huddled, squashed in the smelly darkness behind the dumpster. She was a wisp of a thing, flat as a board, all dirty red hair and large blue eyes. The closeness of the space and the thickness of the rotten, garbage-y odors made her breathe rapidly, feeling as if steel bands were crushing her chest, pushing her nose against her skull and turning her lungs into two ropy, wilted petals.

She wriggled towards the gap between the wall and the dumpster. First, to keep an eye on the rubbish-strewn alley into which she had run; second, to relieve the intense, crushing, trapped feeling in her bones.

‘Claus-tro-pho-bee-ya,’ she remembered Diamond telling her, just a week ago.

Can’t stand the clink. Diamond had said to her, frowning as she popped the ever-present wad of gum in her mouth. Diamond was muscular and short, with skin that gleamed like coffee. She said she was 26, but with her orange-y lips and nails, she looked older. They all looked older to her.

Goddamn Kite. Got them claus-tro-pho-bee-ya. Ya know that, hun? Means I can’t be doin’ with no closed spaces.

Of course she knew what claustrophobia meant. She was twelve, after all. But Diamond liked working with her, good enough to split things sixty-forty when Diamond had turned enough tricks for the day or just wasn’t in the mood; allowing the little raggedy street kid to filch the wallets off her johns. And so the girl let Diamond tell her all about how jail triggered her claustrophobia.

It didn’t matter, though. Kite ratted her out a week ago, and now Diamond was ‘in the clink.’

Her blood pounded in her ears. She should’ve known better than to work today, with Diamond gone. Selma didn’t like her one bit, and Selma was one of the better ones. But she’d been hungry. Hungry enough to hang around Selma’s corner and pick the wallet off the guy she was working. It was a wash even before Selma’s eye caught her, before the tall, black woman’s mouth opened and screamed out Kite’s name.

She ran as fast as her two skinny legs could carry her, as fast as her empty belly and swimming head could propel her forward. She zoomed off a side street, found herself in a dead end, and, hearing the running footsteps of Kite and the john echoing behind her, jumped and wriggled into the tiny gap behind the dumpster.

She was only prolonging the inevitable, she knew. They’d seen where she was headed, and even a guy like Kite could figure out the only place where she could hide in that dead end alley. Still, when the two figures appeared in the mouth of the street, silhouetted against the twilight, not running now, just walking, walking with the slow, deliberate tread of predator advancing on prey, growing large with each step closer to the dumpster: she was so scared she thought she just might cry.

Then came Kite’s oily voice, a whisper right in her ear. It was close because he was hanging over the dumpster cover, belly down, his great ugly head right on top of her, crammed and leering into the dark space.

Found you, little Red.

The scream was lodged in Peyton’s throat when she awoke, heart thudding in the dimness of the room. There was an arm thrown over her chest. She flung it back, raised herself on her elbows and yanked her legs from underneath the tangle of bodies on the filthy, stained mattress. She stepped over Ned and Margot and Bibi, and another nameless junkie whose head hung off the mattress. They’d barely stirred through her violent nightmare.

She stepped out to what Piers had called the ‘parlor’—a largish front room with another moldering mattress, springs sticking out of it like feeble antennae, a couple of decayed office chairs and many empty bottles, clogged with the wax of old candles or swishing with the dregs of old, cheap alcohol. There were a few bodies lying about here too, though not as many as last night, and one of them would raise a joint to its mouth and blow smoke rings every now and then. Peyton thought of whales calling out to each other in the deep, sending out seawater from their blowholes.

The walls were covered in depressing graffiti and the windows opened to the same dank, rat-and-junkie infested hallways, but she could tell by the heat and the stillness that it was nearly noon. She cleared the remains of someone’s meal off the old office desk and leaned against it. It smelled like shit in here—shit and vomit and unwashed clothes and body odor and rot. Between the smell and the four people piled on her as she slept that night, it was no wonder the old nightmare came back to haunt her.

But it’s morning, she whispered, too low for the whales to hear, a mantra. Every day since she had run from the Amsterdam docks, she had whispered that to herself, proof that she still lived, that she might yet find a way out of her situation. Today though, nearly two months on the run, in the filthiest squat in Maastricht (where she was admitted, two weeks ago, with enormous reluctance by the junkies that ran it), the nightmare fresh in her mind and her resources depleted, she was beginning to feel that there was no way out. She was so scared she thought she just might cry.

She’d been burned, that much has been clear from Anja’s note. The events of the last two months flashed in her head. The job that she and a handsome rogue named Carson had been forced to take: blocking the sale of a painting.

(Well, she had been forced. Carson was pretty much employed.)

(She didn’t like thinking about Carson. It made her chest feel tight and sunken.)

The pretty blonde art dealer called Anja that she had nearly felt sorry for depriving of a juicy payday. And the double-cross that took her for a loop: the pretty blonde art dealer was working all along for her boss, Roi, and therefore she was, in effect, fired.

Which was a dangerous prospect when you were in Peyton’s line of business.

All she had when she ran were the clothes on her back and the cash in her wallet. There were cards in the wallet too, but she knew that one swipe would be all it took for Roi to find her, never mind that the accounts would surely be frozen or cancelled by now. Her IDs were good as trash, the fake Caroline Meryton passport she had used to travel from Singapore to Amsterdam (another long story) left in the flat in Brouwersgracht, her cash down to loose change.

Thinking of the lonely coins rattling in her pockets gave her a push. She squared her shoulders.

She needed to hide, but she needed to survive, too.

The dream seemed a good place to start.

The vibrant red of her hair was dulled by dirt (the squat had no running water), but she wrapped it up and stuffed it into a knit hat. The non-spring finally warmed enough to become true summer, and she had long since hocked her coat. She was grateful for the navy trackpants (they hid the stains, at least) but nothing could be done for the grime of her shirt. With another set of her chin, she made up her mind and headed outside.

She walked, head down, just another strung-out hippie in the less-savory part of town. Looking at her, it was nearly impossible to tell that her heart was beating in her ears. She wondered if she still had the moves, the deft fingers, the quickness. Those skills, from her previous life, had come in use at some of her takedowns. But now out on the street, in the wild, as it were—did she still have what it took?

She hurried away from the squats, secreted in a row of abandoned tenements slated for demolition, and went down a street of shops with a slightly downtrodden feel. A quick glance settled her. Not here…people were too wary. Shoppers shifted their eyes and clutched their purses, their senses high and out, alert. She slunk down a few more streets.

An hour’s walk found her in the clean, bustling commercial district. Tourists meandered in the square, careless and distracted, their eyes tilted to the skies, cameras and phones pointed to capture the various scenes around them as the locals darted past, eager to get to their destination.

She cased one prospect, a round-shouldered man with a loud and pronounced Australian accent. She bumped against him, trying to feel for the tell-tale bulk of wallet from the back pocket of his cargo shorts. He felt her, turned, saw the filthy specimen before him and recoiled.

It was just as good, she thought as he walked away; she spied the fanny pack nestled underneath his paunch. Good luck prying something out of that kangaroo pouch.

She ambled around the square, working the nerve to just do it, just bump against someone and pick their pocket. Another mantra started up in her mind: come on, Peyton, don’t chicken out now, you used to do this as a kid, nothing at all, a flash, a pincer, a fumble--there’s a girl, there’s her purse, the flap hanging open in invitation, the zipper one of those giant trendy ones that slide down so smoothly, so satisfying, an itch to be scratched, it would be easy and quick, over in a flash, and the girl wouldn’t even know, wouldn’t even feel it.

She moved in, eye trained on the swaying of the purse, edging closer, flexing her mental muscle. A deep breath, and her hand crept forward to the open flap.

It was caught in a warm, strong grip before it made contact with the zipper. She glanced at the hand upon hers and then up at the face staring at her.

Peyton Riley’s heart turned to ice and dropped to her stomach.

The man holding her hand smiled, the shining deep brown tidal pools that were his eyes dissolving in relief as the furrow between his brows smoothed. Found you, Carson Varis breathed, barely able to control his voice.

Chapter 2

He kept staring at her as he brought her to his flat, looking with wonder and fear as though she would disappear at any moment.

It was starting to make her feel shifty. It was bad enough that he had to see her like this. Did he really have to study her so closely?

He broke off his stare and asked: "What do you need?

Shower. Clothes.

You got it. He let her precede him as they went up the stairs. There were sounds of movement behind the other doors, but thankfully no one was out and about at this time.

Your neighbors will think you’re slumming, she said, trying to sound lighthearted but failing. Taking in a dirty, junkie prostitute.

They can think I screw sheep for all I care, he huffed. Long as you’re here.

Her cheeks flamed at the sound of relief in his voice. She was grateful to see him and ashamed at the shape he’d found her. It wasn’t a combination of feelings she liked.

You need to go back for anything? he asked, taking a key out and opening the first door across the third floor landing.

She thought back to the squat, the useless pile of fake IDs and cards strewn around the mattress she’d woken from that morning. No.

He nodded to the door opposite the one they’d entered. Shower’s through there.

The flat was nearly bare; Peyton registered an open suitcase, a low coffee table and an unmade sofa bed. She took a few hesitant steps inside, her shoulders hunched, acutely aware of just how filthy she was against the flat’s pristine wood floor. She stopped against the bathroom door. Carson—

We’ll talk later. You go do what you need to do. You hungry?

Her stomach growled, loud enough to be embarrassing. She nodded.

I got it.

She’d taken showers for granted ever since she’d gotten off the streets, as a young orphan (or rather, it was Roi who had taken her off the streets and under his wing–the thought made her feel stabbed in the heart), but her weeks on the run and the days without running water made her relish the strong jets now pouring over her head. She turned the heat up until it was nearly scalding and scoured herself, letting the water run until it was no longer gray.

It was enough to enjoy this nearly boiling cleanse for now. Enough to finally feel clean and whole once again. That was all her mind wanted to contemplate, at the moment. There was time enough to think of other things later. Specifically: just how Carson Varis found her.

After nearly an hour, she finally stepped out of the bathroom, wrapped in a short, slightly shabby bathrobe, hair loose down her back. Carson stood from fixing the sofa bed. He stared at her, and the look in his eyes could make time stand still. She shifted uncomfortably on her toes.

Oh Peyton, he said sadly, taking her in.

Living rough and on the run had left its marks on her. Her eyes were sunken. There were bruises on her legs and a gash on her calf, nearly healed but still livid against her pale skin. She was acutely aware of the collarbones that jutted against the open collar of the bathrobe; she drew the edges tight against her neck.

You were a mess when I found you. I was hoping–a hot shower would set you to rights–but— and words failed him as he gestured to encompass her. Their eyes locked and Peyton’s stomach growled again.

Sorry, he said, drawing her down on the sofa beside him. There were two massive sandwiches on the coffee table and Peyton’s mouth watered indecently as she picked one up. She tried to take her time and savor every bite, especially with Carson watching so closely, but an animal nature took over and she started gobbling it up. Liverwurst was never her favorite food, but today, it was heaven.

Carson waited patiently while she ate. His spine was stiff and his mouth was set in a grim line. Peyton ignored him as she stuffed the last of the first sandwich in her mouth, only facing him as soon as she successfully got it down her throat. Her hunger nearly sated, she picked up the second sandwich and bit into it more decorously.

Better? he asked. His eyes blazed.

Yeah, she said, nibbling at her sandwich.

Good, he said, and then he gripped her shoulders hard.

Ow! What the hell, Carson?

"‘What the hell? What the hell?’" feverish color sprang into his cheeks.

What are you so mad about? she cried, holding tightly to her sandwich, because Carson had begun to shake her, and no way was she giving it up now.

Evidently this was too much for him to take. His color heightened as he spluttered, "You–you disappeared! No word for weeks–could’ve died–I find you–pretty banged up–don’t know what happened–anything–and–no word–just gone!" The words died–it seemed that he was too overwrought to get any more out–and he released her from his grip, running his fingers though his curls furiously.

Peyton started in on the sandwich again, determined to finish it while she could.

He lifted his face and looked at her with frustration, but his eyes sparked with a tiny bit of amusement. Any chance you can set that down and we talk?

No chance, she said, taking a massive bite, nearly unable to close her mouth.

For God’s sake Peyton, you’re going to make yourself sick. He crossed the room and got her a glass of water.

She accepted it gratefully. I’m hungry, she said simply, soon as her mouth was clear.

So I see. He sighed, ran his hands through his brown curls again. Are you going to tell me what happened?

She raised an eyebrow. Why?

His eyes blazed once again. "Because I was