Marsha, apparently recovering from shock, steps forward, frowning at the guard. “What are you doing, Bob? This is my friend Sara. She’s—”
“We know who she is.” The young policeman’s voice quivers slightly, his fingers closing over the hilt of his weapon as he cautiously edges closer. “We don’t want any trouble, but—”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, the girl’s mother is in surgery!” Agnes Levinson elbows her way past her husband and my dad to glare at the guard and the policeman from her full four-foot-eleven height. Her salt-and-pepper hair poofs out like a halo around her small face as she steps in front of me, hands on hips in a wrathful pose as she states, “My husband and son are both lawyers, and I can assure you, we will file harassment charges. Let the girl talk to her father, and then you can have your turn.” She turns toward me, her brown gaze softening. “Sara, dear, are you all right?”
I blink and slowly lower my hands when neither Bob the guard nor the policeman make a move toward me. “I’m… I’m fine. Thank you.” The Levinsons’ friendship with my parents goes back almost two decades, and my parents have always said that Agnes and Isaac consider me to be the daughter they never had. Until this moment, I was convinced it was an exaggeration; I certainly never thought of them as anything more than a nice older couple who happened to be my parents’ friends. Agnes’s defense of me, though, is more like something family would do, and I find myself absurdly touched, especially when Isaac comes forward and starts haranguing my would-be arresters with all the legalese at his disposal, giving my dad a chance to grab my arm and pull me aside.
“Quickly, darling, talk to me.” Dad’s voice is low and urgent as his gaze roams over my face before lingering worriedly on the half-healed scar on my forehead. “What happened? What did he do to you? How did you get away?” Before I can answer, he leans in and whispers in my ear, “We need to get you to a lawyer right away. I know you had to say those things on the phone, but they refuse to believe me. I overheard them talking about it, and they’re going to invoke the Homeland Security Act on account of his links to terrorism. We need to get you a good attorney or—”
“Sara! Holy shit, girl, where have you been?” Marsha joins us, grabbing my arm like I’m about to evaporate into thin air. Her Marilyn Monroe curls sway wildly as she spins me to face her. “What happened to you? Where did you go?” Her blue gaze hones in on my scar, and she gasps. “What happened to your face?”
Overwhelmed, I take a step back. “Marsha, please—”
“Sara Cobakis.” The baby-faced cop somehow got past the Levinsons and is shoving Marsha aside, his hand once again on the hilt of his weapon. “You need to come with me right now.”
I raise my hands again. “No problem. Please, I’m cooperating, I promise.”
Now it’s my dad who belligerently steps forward. “She’s not going anywhere until she gets a lawyer and—”
“Everybody freeze!”
And as we all gape in shock, SWAT commandos swarm the room, face shields lowered and weapons drawn.
11
Sara
“I told you, I don’t know where he is,” I repeat for the fourth time. “I don’t know how he got in and out of the country undetected, and I don’t know the man who drove me from the airport—I’ve never seen him before. I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you.”
Agent Ryson stares at me, his eyes cold in his weathered face. “You might want to rethink that, Dr. Cobakis. You’re facing some very serious charges, and the less you cooperate, the worse it will go for you.”
“I’m cooperating fully.” My nails cut into my palms under the table, but I maintain a calm tone. “I’ve told you everything I know. I was kidnapped and taken to a remote mountain in Japan, where I stayed for the past five months except for a brief sojourn to Cyprus, where my failed escape attempt resulted in a two-week stay at a clinic in Switzerland.”
Ryson leans in, and I catch a whiff of stale coffee breath. He must’ve had to chug quite a bit to stay alert at this late hour. “How idiotic do you think we are, Dr. Cobakis? Nobody’s buying into your act again. One of Sokolov’s shell corporations owns your house and has for months. We have eyewitness reports of your meetings with him at Starbucks and in a club downtown several weeks before your so-called abduction—not to mention, the recordings of all your phone calls to your parents.”
“I already explained all of that.” I’m holding on to my calm by a thread. “What I told my parents on the phone was an attempt to allay their worry about me—nothing more. As to my meetings with him, yes, they happened. After breaking into my house—when he drugged and waterboarded me, remember?—he disappeared for a few months, and then he returned and began stalking me. I reached out to you at that point and told you I felt like I was being watched. I asked you if he could possibly be back, and you assured me I was safe. But I wasn’t. He was there, watching my every move, and you had no clue. You failed to protect me from him, just like you failed to protect George, so don’t pretend like I had no basis to think that turning to you might be worse than useless.”