Page 80 of I Know You

“Do not make a sound, Coles. I am quite serious when I say my life depends upon only Ben coming here. Please do as I ask and then leave this area without telling anyone else. Do you promise?”

“Is he here, miss?” Coles asks.

I nod.

“I will do as you say,” he says, backing down the hall.

The minute the door shuts, Gibbons is next to me again, trapping me against him. I can’t move any part of my body even if the muzzle of a gun weren’t pressed against the side of my head. “Very good, miss,” Gibbons whispers, his lips too close to my ear. I shudder. “You know, any other woman in this town would have fainted by now. I think I like you.”

I clamp my mouth shut to stop a retort, also unlike something any other woman in town would do. That wouldn’t help anything.

The door opens again. “Clara, what’s going—” Ben stops when the beam of a flashlight falls upon me and my captor. He doesn’t even bother raising his gun. “How did you get in here?”

“He’s CIA, Ben,” I remind him, surprised at the even tone of my voice. No tremor to betray the terror ripping through me.

“Of course,” Ben mutters.

“Do you have my pills?” Gibbons asks.

“I’ll have to go back to my room for them.”

“Be aware that if you return with any of your men, I will shoot your girlfriend on the spot.”

Ben clenches his jaw, answering through his teeth. “I understand.” He disappears back through the door. Gibbons never lets up on his hold on me. What would Quint think of this turn of events? Staying in my room hadn’t turned out safe at all, but there’s no triumph in that I told you so.

Seconds tick by that feel like hours. Ben wouldn’t dare return with backup, I’m sure. Neither of us doubts Gibbons or his coldheartedness. Neither of us doubts that he won’t hesitate to shoot me on the spot, the way he killed that woman without a second thought. How will we stop him now? It’s sickening how close we are to thwarting him—he’s standing in this house, lured here exactly as we’d wanted—but how frustratingly far away from it at the same time.

Gibbons doesn’t speak, doesn’t threaten me while we wait, making the time last that much longer. When Ben returns, only a few minutes have passed, but relief—short-lived anyway—fills me as though it’s taken days.

He holds up the bulging plastic with the tiny white pills encased in it toward Gibbons. “Here they are.”

“Drop them on the floor,” Gibbons instructs. “Then kick them over to me.”

Ben follows the orders to the letter, never taking his eyes off them.

“Now, the girl and I are going to walk out of this house, unmolested. Do not try and stop me. Call your men off. If you attempt anything, I will kill the girl and any man who gets within twenty feet of me. I’m an excellent shot. I won’t leave anyone alive.”

There’s no alternative but for Ben to nod.

Still pressing me against him, Gibbons walks to the door, nodding in a surreally polite way to Ben when he steps aside. I meet Ben’s gaze with absolute panic.

“Don’t worry, Clara,” Ben assures me. “I won’t let you die. I promise.”

Gibbons laughs. “No need to be dramatic. If you do what I ask, I have every reason to keep her alive in case I decide I want to travel somewhere else. I’m getting impatient waiting for my ability to recharge, and Burke and Dr. Cooper think she has the power to travel wherever she likes.”

“You’ll regret it if you kill her,” Ben snaps.

I don’t doubt the menace in Ben’s voice, but Gibbons raises an eyebrow and walks down the hall without making a sound.

The guards at the servants’ entrance raise their weapons, but Ben yells from behind them, “Stand down!” They hold them steady until Ben appears at the door behind Gibbons and me, shouting his instruction again. Gibbons releases me when we get outside, but still holds me against his side, dragging me along down the drive, the gun pressed into my ribs.

I look back at the house as it disappears into the night, catching sight of Quint running up behind Ben. I keep my eyes on him, and the way Ben grips his arm as he tries to come after me. I swallow back my fear, trying to be strong when he shouts my name while Gibbons waves a gun at one of the guards in a car parked on the drive and makes him get out. Despite the terror pulsing through me, they’ll see that I’m strong enough for this. I’m strong enough to survive.

And even so, I crane my neck as we speed away and watch Quint run helplessly after the car.

I stare at the window of the dingy house on the Lower East Side, trying not to think about how the zip ties are rubbing my wrists raw or how my back aches after sitting up in this straight-backed, wooden chair with my hands secured behind me and my feet tied to the legs. I can’t tell how much time has passed. Instead, I tell myself they’re out there. Ben knows where this house is. They’re coming for me. With an army, since it seems that’s what it will take to get to Gibbons. They’re watching, trying to come up with a plan or … they’re doing something. And I think about kissing Quint, who I don’t think I can leave again, and how maybe all those memories that started to blur might become real.

When I’m not daydreaming or straining for an impossible look into the street below or trying to reassure myself with those shifting memories, my surprisingly clear brain turns to the fact that at any moment, Gibbons might decide to disappear with the pills and his plans and take them to Germany. If he leaves me alive, we might not be able to find him before it’s too late.