The Thief of Secrets Chapter 23

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Meeting My Assassin, 1991

I went back to Mary’s apartment and knocked on the door—the same door she had opened the night before, when I arrived with Roland.

“Oh honey, there you are,” Mary said when she opened the door. “I thought you were not coming back.”

“I told you she would,” Roland said walking behind her, looking into my eyes with a cold look on his face.

Mary led me to the living room and I apologized for abruptly leaving the house before they came back from lunch. I tried my best to compose myself and not let her know the fury which I felt inside me. “I did not want to overstay my welcome,” I lied to her.

“Oh, honey, just as I said before, Land’s friends are my friends. Besides, I haven’t had a chance to embarrass him in front of you,” she said, while she searched through some photo albums, which sat on the coffee table. “Wait until you see pictures of him when he was a little boy,” she said pleased that I was back.

“Honey,” she said, “Land told me that you are a collector?” She asked me with sweet questioning eyes.

I knew I was in trouble then.

“What is it that you collect?”

“She collects maps. Maps and coins,” Roland said hastily, forcing me to agree with him.

“Yes,” I told her looking at him, and I swallowed the knot in my throat that was making me sick. For now, I was playing his game.

It was not ok what he was doing to me. It was not ok what he was doing to the lady who absolutely thought the world of him.

“I am here because there is going to be an auction at the Ritz,” I said and I looked at him in defiance, showing him that I could play his game.

“Oh . . . the Ritz again, we don’t like it there do we Land?”

Mary walked into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the room with the stranger who was playing a dangerous game with me. It was a dangerous game for him to be playing, for I had nothing to lose anymore. The only one who could get hurt was he. There were absolutely no more places for scars in me.

Mary came back to the room carrying a tray with the chocolate mousse from the night before. This reminded me that I had not seen Roland since dinner, when he answered the call and told us that he was going to step out for a few minutes—but did not come back for hours. I had hoped not to see him again.

I was feeling ashamed playing his game. Inside me, there was a fury waiting to explode. I was just trying not to do it in front of Mary. After all, she seemed like a kind lady, but did she really know her Land?

Roland ate his mousse while Mary insisted on showing me some old family pictures. She kept the albums like treasures, for they held the accounts of her Land’s life.

I vaguely remember the pictures, but there were pictures of Land steering grandpa’s boat; Land riding his bike; Land in his school play; Land blowing out ten candles; Land, Mary, Grandpa and Douglas.

Douglas?

I turned the page of the old yellowed album back and tried to focus on the picture where Roland was standing next to him. I could not believe my eyes. My heart sank, and together all my dreams sank with it. Who was Roland? Why was he in a picture with Douglas?

It could not be. I looked at Roland and tears filled my eyes. He grabbed me by the hand and dragged me out the door, giving Mary some excuse, which I could not comprehend; my brain had detached from my heart and all reason had vanished.

He pushed me inside the elevator, which felt claustrophobic, and he closed the iron door behind us. The sound of the old metal door being slammed was terrifying. As I watched the floors through the elaborate iron door as we descended in the old building, I felt as if I was going to throw up. I was light headed and my knees were going to give up on me. My heart started to race as he tightened his grip. It was the same feeling from the day before, while flying from Morocco next to him.

I obeyed him and followed him out of the elevator and out through the huge iron doors which guarded his home. I tried to take a breath, but instead I choked on my tears as he pushed me against the building’s wall where he held my other hand and pressed his body against mine. Now, he had both my hands and his face was inches from mine. I finally gave in. My knees gave in, and he pressed his body harder into mine so I would not fall to the hard ground. He let go of one of my hands and touched the back of my head. As he did so, my chin fell on his chest and I felt beaten. I did not know what to do.