Chapter 10 - The Woman in Every Photograph
Peter Halden was alive when they reached the safe house.
Barely conscious from exhaustion and dehydration, but alive.
No graphic injuries.
No blood.
Just a frightened man who had spent two days believing he would never see daylight again.
He looked at Vera and started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
She sat opposite him.
“For what?”
“They made me help.”
Nikolai stood behind her.
Peter looked toward him and immediately lowered his eyes.
Vera spoke gently.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“Who took the greenhouse equipment?”
Peter swallowed.
“Mrs. Caldwell.”
Vera stared.
“Miriam?”
The estate housekeeper.
Sixty-two years old.
Worked there eleven years.
Baked terrible cookies and insisted they were “European.”
Vera trusted her.
Everyone did.
“Why?”
“She didn’t know what it was for.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I gave her the instruction.”
Nikolai’s voice became dangerous.
“You?”
Peter flinched.
Vera raised a hand.
“Let him finish.”
Peter breathed shakily.
“Rourke contacted me three months ago. He knew about debts my brother had. He said nobody would get hurt. He wanted schedules. Keys copied. Little things.”
“So you were the mole,” Dmitri said.
“Yes.”
“But your access record?”
“Fake. I never entered the greenhouse.”
“Miriam did?”
“I told her Mr. Voss needed two connectors brought to the security office. She believed me.”
Vera closed her eyes briefly.
Manipulation inside manipulation.
“Why did they take you?” she asked.
“I tried to stop.”
“When?”
“After they asked about you.”
Nikolai’s gaze sharpened.
Peter continued.
“At first it was property information. Then they wanted your schedule. Where you shopped. When you slept. Whether Mr. Voss visited your cottage.”
Vera felt sick.
“I refused.”
“So they kidnapped you,” Dmitri said.
Peter nodded.
“They wanted everyone to think I ran.”
“Why let you live?” Nikolai asked.
Peter looked terrified.
“Because Adrian wanted me to deliver something.”
He reached into the pocket of the borrowed jacket.
Dmitri reacted instantly.
“Slow.”
Peter removed a photograph.
Another image of Vera.
But this one was different.
Vera was standing beside Nikolai at the lake six months earlier.
They were arguing about a dockside garden bed.
She remembered the day.
Nikolai had looked annoyed.
She had looked furious.
In the photograph, however, the distance between them seemed strangely intimate.
Peter placed a second image beside it.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
Months of photographs.
Vera at the greenhouse.
Nikolai watching from a doorway.
Vera laughing while Dmitri carried bags of soil.
Nikolai looking at her instead of the people around him.
Vera bringing Nikolai coffee during an outdoor meeting.
His eyes following her as she walked away.
The surveillance had begun much earlier than eleven days.
“How long?” Vera whispered.
Peter looked miserable.
“Almost a year.”
The room became silent.
Nikolai’s expression turned terrifyingly calm.
“Adrian has been studying her for a year.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Peter looked toward Vera.
“He said he had finally found the one thing Nikolai Voss couldn’t replace.”
Vera’s heart stumbled.
She did not look at Nikolai.
Not yet.
Peter continued.
“He said money can be replaced. Businesses can be rebuilt. Soldiers can be hired.”
“And Vera?” Dmitri asked.
Peter’s eyes dropped.
“He said there was only one Vera Sullivan.”
Nobody spoke.
Vera finally looked at Nikolai.
There were moments when another person’s silence could say more than language.
This was one.
He did not deny it.
Did not joke.
Did not retreat behind business.
He simply looked at her.
And Vera understood why the photographs had value.
They showed something she and Nikolai had spent three years pretending not to see.
“Everybody out,” Nikolai said.
Dmitri hesitated.
Then led Peter away.
Vera remained.
“You knew,” she said.
“That he was watching a year ago? No.”
“That I wasn’t replaceable.”
Nikolai looked away.
“Do not make me answer this while someone is using it to threaten you.”
“Maybe that is exactly why you should.”
He turned back.
“You want the truth?”
“Yes.”
“The truth is that the first morning you didn’t arrive for work, I noticed before your supervisor did.”
Vera’s breathing slowed.
“The truth is that I know you drink coffee too strong, hate thunderstorms when you’re driving, refuse umbrellas, and sing badly when you think nobody is near the greenhouse.”
“I do not sing badly.”
“You do.”
“Continue.”
His mouth almost moved.
Then seriousness returned.
“The truth is that every time you leave those gates, part of me waits for you to return.”
Vera could hear her heartbeat.
“And last night?”
“I waited in the kitchen because sitting upstairs pretending I wasn’t afraid became impossible.”
There.
The word.
Afraid.
Nikolai Voss had finally said it.
Vera stepped closer.
Neither touched.
“I’m here.”
“For now.”
“For now is what everybody gets.”
His eyes held hers.
The space between them narrowed.
Then Nikolai’s phone rang.
He closed his eyes as if the universe had personally offended him.
Vera almost laughed.
He answered.
Dmitri spoke from the hallway.
“We received Helian’s terms.”
“What terms?”
“Marrow contracts by midnight tomorrow.”
“And if not?”
A pause.
Dmitri looked through the open doorway at Vera.
May you like
“They say they stop taking photographs.”
Nobody needed to ask what they would start doing instead.
