Death Angel (Page 70)
She lay awake in the darkness, staring at the ceiling and reviewing everything that had happened from the time Simon first grabbed her. Other than her relief at being free of Rafael, Simon was uppermost on her mind.
He put her in a quandary, representing the most potent temptation that she could face. She would never be indifferent to him. If he crooked his finger at her and said "Come with me," she had no confidence that she wouldn’t do exactly that-somehow she’d have to find the strength to resist him. He was a paid killer; hooking up with him wouldn’t, by any definition, be keeping to the straight and narrow. The hooking up wasn’t the problem, though she couldn’t even think of sex now with anything other than caution, because she’d screwed up so bad in that department before. He was the problem. Who and what he was, everything about him, was the problem.
She had the sudden thought that she should turn him over to the cops, and dread immediately knotted her stomach. She didn’t know if she could do that to him, even though it was the right thing to do. Then she realized that, not only did she not know any of the specifics and therefore couldn’t tell the cops anything that would be of use, what little she did know had taken place outside the country. She didn’t even know what country or countries he’d been in, though she supposed the authorities could find out just by looking at his passport, assuming he didn’t have more than one passport, which she was fairly certain he did. After all, he made a living slipping undetected in and out of countries.
He’d bulletproofed himself, she realized, at least as far as law enforcement in this country went. He was safe from arrest because there was no known crime that could be laid at his feet. Even if she could provide specifics, the cops would likely find no evidence that he’d been out of the country at that particular time.
Turning him in would accomplish exactly nothing. Tears of relief stung her eyes when she realized that. She didn’t want to turn him in; she didn’t want him to spend the rest of his life in prison. Maybe she should, but she wasn’t a saint, and she’d have to be to so totally ignore her own heart.
Further muddying the waters for her was the fact that, although murder was supposed to be the ultimate no-no, altogether he seemed like a far more decent human being than any of the scum her mother had dated. On the scale of badness, which weighed the heaviest, murder or abuse?
The law said murder. But, damn it, there were some people who didn’t deserve to live, and it stood to reason that if a drug lord hired Simon to kill someone, that someone was likely a rival drug lord. How could that be a bad thing? Anything that depleted their numbers had to be good for humanity. Was it bad because Simon made the kills for money rather than out of any notion of bettering the world by lowering its scum-to-human ratio? Motivation couldn’t be everything, because there were a lot of people who, with the best of intentions, did a world of harm.
This wasn’t something she was going to figure out in an hour, and she was too tired to keep worrying at the details. The good news was that she didn’t have to do anything right now. She didn’t have to decide anything about Simon, and she didn’t have to do anything about Rafael. She was free to-
Her thoughts hit a dead stop. Rafael.
So, just because she was safe, it was okay to let him continue as always, importing the drugs that wrecked people’s lives, the drugs that addicted and killed, and getting monstrously rich in the process? Just because she was safe, she had no obligation to do what she could to put an end to Rafael’s operation?
No. The answer in her gut was immediate and emphatic. She had more of an obligation than anyone else on earth, because she had lived off that money, benefited from it, and because she was in the unique position of not only knowing Rafael as well as she did, but she was the one person on earth whose presence would goad him into doing something stupid, something that could give the cops a solid charge to hang on him.
She had to do it. No matter what the risk, this was something she had to do.
Her thoughts circled back around to Simon. He now felt obligated to protect her, which could play hell with any plans she made to poke a figurative stick in Rafael’s eye. She didn’t want Simon involved in this; it was her debt, her obligation. How he would see the situation, however, was something else entirely.
Would he try to stop her? Beyond a doubt. Even worse, she suspected that he usually succeeded at whatever he set his mind to. She didn’t have to stretch her imagination at all to see him holding her captive somewhere, or whisking her out of the country so she couldn’t get to Rafael.
Same old song, different verse: she had to get away from him.
Reassured that she wouldn’t run, he’d relax his guard, she thought. Maybe not right away; he was wily and suspicious, and he might watch her from a distance for the next couple of days. So she’d hang around, make a few preparations, lull his suspicions until he felt safe in leaving. She had no way of knowing exactly when that would be, but he was human; he might be tougher and smarter than most, but he was still human, and he still had to eat and sleep and pee just like everyone else. He had to occasionally let his guard down. With luck, even if he was still hanging around, she could be on a plane and gone long before he realized she wasn’t there.
He’d be able to track her; so far, he’d seen through every move she made, every step she’d taken to change her appearance and identity. She had no hopes that he’d suddenly turn stupid and she’d suddenly turn into a talented escape artist, but all she needed was a couple of days’ head start, maybe not even that long, and she would be in New York.
She would contact the FBI. Rafael had to be under almost constant surveillance, and surely the feds were frustrated by their inability to put together a solid case against him. Surely the agent in charge would jump at the opportunity to use her in some way.