Page 26 of Hidden Justice
She begins to tremble so hard against me, I fear she will fly apart. Her eyes dart to the elevator, dart to our escape route with the doors about to close.
Even though Walid passes close enough that I could shoot him, I don’t even think about taking that risk. I need to get Amal out of here. Her panic is palatable.
“Run.” Amal pushes away from me, pointing toward the closing elevator. “The elevator.”
Her fear-shrill voice pierces the hall. Walid gaze falls on Amal in an instant that seems to last a thousand years. His eyebrows raise. A few feet ahead of where he’s stopped, pondering her, two guards I recognize from surveillance photos of Aamir’s compound turn and stop, too. This isn’t good.
These are Aamir’s guards, not the disorganized guards I just faced that belong to Walid. Obviously, even the brothers recognized the lower quality of Walid’s men. So says the fact that Aamir gave the better-quality guards to his brother who was going out, not himself who’d stayed behind. Aamir always looking out for his little brother. Aamir always the smarter one.
Aamir who is fucking with me even in death.
Heart in my throat, I bolt forward, yanking Amal’s arm, half dragging her to the closing elevator.
The guards prove their worth, reacting before Walid’s eyebrows even drop. One drives Walid to the ground, covering him with his own body. The other swings his gun toward me and shoots as I dive with Amal into the elevator. The doors slide shut as another shot rings out and heat rips into my side.
Rolling to my feet, I begin to press multiple floors under the one I plan to get off on. I help Amal up. When the elevator stops, I breathe deeply. “Calm,” I tell her. She nods but looks pale and terrified. We exit quickly and move down the hall to the stairway.
Inside the stairwell, we race up, the sounds of our footsteps echoing. Two floors up, I use my keycard to get us onto the floor and move quickly down the hall.
I’m struggling to remember my training. A bad sign. Training should just kick in—like coughing when you swallow water incorrectly. But that isn’t happening. Might have something to do with being shot. The ache in my side feels like gasoline and fire. My heart pounds like a jackhammer. The weight of my gun remains steady and comforting even as the fragile feel of Amal’s small hand urges me to keep going.
We make it to the room I booked, and I’m glad I spent an entire day arranging this. Leaving my hotel down the street, changing at a restaurant, then coming here in disguise with false ID and credit cards… All worth it.
Time isn’t on our side. No doubt Security is already looking for us, scanning the cameras.
Without me saying anything, Amal follows me into the bathroom. The lights flick on when we enter. I catch sight of myself in the mirror, blood splattered across my F/X distorted face. How desperate must Amal have been to be to come with me?
Peeling off the nose and chin prosthetics, I grab a hand towel and begin to clean off, instructing Amal to do the same. She is frozen, staring at my face. Crap. I explain as quickly as I can that it was a disguise.
Nodding, she begins to shakily clean up. As she does, I grab another towel to staunch the wound on my side. I don’t have time to do more.
My body’s shaking under the surge of adrenaline. Yanking the last piece of metal from my mouth, I race to my suitcase. Inside are three airtight packages and clothes. Nothing that can be tied to me. Except the locket Cooper gave me, which I kiss and quickly put on. Using scissors from my bag, I pierce each of the three packages. A noxious chemical smell fills the room as the sponges expand fully.
Two of the sponges in one hand, I go to the bathroom, place them on the side of the tub, and strip. Everything that’s bloody or damning gets tossed into the tub and the packets go on top. I wash my hands again, and make sure Amal is clean.
Back in the room, I see the last sponge has expanded to the proper size. I take this big-bellied, big-breasted foam and tie it to my front. Over this, I slip my abaya, before adding my niqab and blue contacts.
Amal watches the transformation of me into a pregnant woman with eyes growing larger by the minute. She probably would’ve been less stunned to see a car turn into a Transformer.
Making quick work of it, I grab scissors from my bag, and cut a large enough strip from the sheet. I hold it out to Amal. “Can you make this into a niqab?”
She nods, taking the material, and does a fairly good job of it. I tuck some ragged edges under. Not perfect. Not with her blue dress. But it’ll have to do.
Wiping down any surface we’ve touched, including my suitcase, I go back to the bathroom toss in the last bit of evidence, stroke the wheel on my lighter, and light the two highly flammable packets.
Whoosh. They catch fire. I blink away the orange light on my retinas. A chemical smell fills the room along with a lot of smoke. The material will burn to ash quickly, so it won’t be a danger to the guests, but it will destroy the evidence and create enough smoke to set off the fire alarm.
I strap the gun to my forearm under the wide sleeve of my abaya and grab Amal’s hand.
“When the alarm goes off,” I say, “we head out, down the stairs, and don’t stop until we get outside. Not for anyone.”
The fire alarm blares.
18
SANDESH
Beneath the streetlamp-lit patch of dirt outside Salma’s Gems, I clean bloody strips of cloth from the truck cab and toss them into a steel barrel of trash. My mood is as dark as the night sky.