Page 72 of Kill For Me Kill For You
A pair of large brown leather shoes came into the room. They were dirty from the street. Splashed here and there with muddy water. Farrow never looked as though he paid much attention to his dress, and she guessed he cleaned his shoes when he could no longer see the leather. The bed covers hung a little over the mattress, leaving her a gap of maybe eight inches from which to watch those inquisitive shoes.
Those shoes stood still for a time, sinking deep into the carpet. Farrow was a large man.
Then they turned and made their way to the nightstand.
Suddenly she was hyper aware of her entire body. Her legs, curled up and motionless, began to ache with the need to move. She knew she was imagining it, but the dull throb in her knee was not a product of her imagination. It was hurting, and there was nothing she could do but take the pain.
Don’t move.
Don’t breathe.
Take the pain.
She heard the soft brush of varnished wood on wood. He was either opening the drawer or closing it.
Those shoes didn’t move. He was thinking.
She imagined the lockbox calling out to Farrow, whispering its location. Begging him to get down and look under the bed.
Her chest began to hurt. Holding her breath was not going to work. Slowly, she released the air from her lungs and started to breathe as lightly as possible. She could feel the pressure building with each shallow breath that brought her body off the floor, and brought it back down as she exhaled. She knew she was trembling, and her breath sounded like a bellows. She opened her mouth, hoping it would make the sound softer.
The shoes turned.
Farrow’s feet pointed straight at her.
This was it.
He was going to bend down, lift the covers and peer under the bed. Every cop would look under a bed, wouldn’t they?
She saw the leg of his blue suit pants riding up, his heels lifting from the ground as he crouched. The rattle of his bottle of painkillers in his coat pocket.
Amanda held her breath.
Four large fingers appeared, taking hold of the bottom of the bedsheets.
36
Farrow
‘Hey, come look at this,’ said Hernandez from the other room.
Farrow let go of the bedsheets, straightening up with a groan.
His pills were calling to him.
But not yet. He needed to think.
He gazed once again at the half-open drawer of the nightstand. There was nothing in the drawer. No reason to believe whatever had been in the drawer was of any significance. It was just that it hadn’t been closed fully, and the rest of the house was so neat.
From the décor – charcoals, grays and blacks laid over a palette of white walls – it didn’t much look like a woman lived in the property. Everything felt masculine. Even the dark, abstract paintings on the walls.
‘What’ve you got?’ said Farrow, coming out of the master bedroom.
Hernandez was in the adjacent bedroom.
‘Check this out,’ she said, pointing to another bookcase.
Farrow scanned the books. A lot of them were on counter espionage, biographies of ex-CIA and KGB agents, and how-to manuals on spy tradecraft and cyber warfare.
