Page 53 of Soothsayer

“Hi, Annie.” She had a surprisingly firm grip. “Thanks for lending us your husband. Sören and I would definitely have been in trouble without Roger’s timely arrival.”

“My honey’s a good guy,” she said. “And you’re the boy givin’ everyone fits, huh?” she asked Sören.

“I…think so?”

“Way to keep life interesting!” She patted his shoulder. “Y’all come aboard the jet. There’re drinks waiting. I daresay there’re some other things you want to ask, but we oughta get to know each other a little first, right?” She led the way up into the plane, and Roger followed, stars in his eyes. I glanced at Sören, who looked at me and shrugged.

“I suppose we should accompany them.”

“Guess so.” I did have a few more things to ask for, after all. We followed them up the little ladder and into a plane that was more blinged out than anything I’d been in for nearly a decade, with red velvet seat covers and shiny bronzed cow skulls on the walls. Annie got us all drinks, and then we sat down, and I learned a little more about exactly how awesome she actually was.

Annie, it turned out, wasn’t solely a millionaire’s wife. She was an entrepreneur who ran the private security company her father had founded and had been in charge of it for the past ten years. She was also an Iraq war veteran, a licensed helicopter pilot, and apparently a crack shot with a pistol.

“My friends called me Annie Oakley growing up,” she said fondly. “I always thought it was a lovely compliment.” Annie’s company, Snakebite Security, had offices in over twenty states and provided security to everyone from traveling business people to diplomats to celebrities. And they had an office in Chicago. Excellent.

“Now, I don’t personally hold much with luck?I’ve never found it to be reliable in a firefight,” she said bluntly. “But you saved my man’s life, and you seem like a nice boy, so I’m willin’ to hear you out.”

“I didn’t say I needed anything else,” I pointed out.

Annie snorted. “Honey, please. I’ve negotiated with terrorists?I’m used to lookin’ for tells. You still want somethin’.”

I stared at her. “You’re kind of frightening.”

“She’s the scariest little thing in high heels,” Roger said adoringly. “Nobody messes with Annie twice, that’s for sure.”

“I believe it.” I marshaled my thoughts. “Okay. There’s a man in Chicago. His name is Andre Jones. First things first, I need to know what’s happening with him and his family.” This would set the arc of all my future actions in motion. “If he’s not responding but his family is, I need them put into protective custody. Or at the very least, moved out of Chicago to somewhere they’re less likely to be found for a couple of days.”

“Hmm. Have you got a number?”

“Yeah, and an address.” I gave both to her, thanking my past self for all the work I’d put into my memory tricks.

“Do you think his family will be amenable to being in protection?”

“I…have no idea.” Except I kind of did. “He’s a wartime reporter, just tell them it has to do with, I don’t know, Syria or something. Afghanistan, maybe.”

“And should I mention you?”

“No, they don’t know about me.” Annie was being as surprisingly amenable as her husband. “Why are you going along with this so easily?”

“Two reasons, darlin’. One, my Roger’s vouched for you, and that’s good enough for me. And two, speed is essential when it comes to success in an operation like this, so the less we sitaround with our thumbs up our butts, the better.” She started tapping on her phone, bright pink nails clacking, and I watched with helpless gratitude.

“Hi there, Natasha, it’s Annie. Yeah! Oh, you bet, honey. Mm-hmm. And the kids? Great, great, give Zane all my love, yeah. Listen, honey, I need you to handle a little situation for me out in your neck of the woods.”

It took all of five minutes for Annie to get a crew together to go to Andre’s house. Half an hour later, they reported back in. Andre’s wife and baby were fine, if very worried and confused, and Andre himself hadn’t been home in twelve hours and was no longer answering his phone.

That settled that. They’d found him, found him before Jakob ever came and threatened me here, and had snatched him up as a hostage without bothering to tell me. It made me feel way better about my mom and Marisol’s chances, and way worse about Andre’s, but I had a plan. The beginnings of a plan, anyway.

Sören touched my arm and smiled at me. “You already arranged for a sacrifice!” he whispered excitedly. I felt sick, witnessing his glee. “It’s perfect!”

It was so, so far from perfect, but I wasn’t ready to confess anything to Sören yet.

I shifted in my chair so the little Buddha dug less into my hip and looked over at Roger and Annie. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to fly us to Chicago?”

“Hell, son,” Roger drawled. “All you had to do was ask.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

There was a long list of things I needed to review before my actual confrontation with Ólafur and his brood. The trouble was, I couldn’t quite remember any of it. Most of it was setup, things thatIneeded to do at just the right time in order to get the result I wanted. I was heading out to conduct a symphony of violence and lies, and there was no time for rehearsal. Everything had to happen just right, which would take an unholy amount of concentration, but my mind swam around like a guppy in a fishbowl, turning in endless circles but not getting anywhere at all.

---