Girl of Vengeance by Charles Sheehan-Miles Read Free Book Online Page A

continuous low-grade terror.
    Whatever his current state, he’d agreed to her driving to Spain with their daughters for a week-long visit with her family. It would be the first time she’d been home since her wedding.
    Adelina got into the driver’s seat. Julia was buckling in next to her, and her lower lip was pouting out. As Adelina started the car and put it into gear, she said, “What’s wrong, Julia?”
    A moment later she was driving out of the Embassy compound and onto the streets of Brussels, Belgium. Of the cities she’d lived in so far, Brussels was probably her least favorite after Washington. In San Francisco, she’d mostly felt a sense of freedom—at least until the night Richard almost killed her ( the night Alexandra was conceived, whispered her unconscious—she shoved the thought down). Washington had mostly been terror. Belgium was unstable. One day he was incredibly kind, the next cruel and erratic. She lived in a constant state of tension and fear, and the panic attacks continued to grow worse all the time.
    As she drove into the traffic, she considered turning around. What if she had a panic attack on the road?
    She looked over at Julia again. Tears were running down the girl’s face, smearing her mascara. Her mascara? When did she start wearing makeup? She thanked God Lewis was an honorable man and looked at Julia as a daughter, because the girl had no sense at all when it came to him.
    “Why the tears, Julia?”
    “I don’t want to go to stupid Spain. I want to stay with Daddy.”
    Bitterness swept over Adelina again, but she swallowed it. “We’ll be back in a week, dear. Your father has important meetings this week”— with prostitutes and his secretary, undoubtedly —“he won’t be around to look after you.”
    Julia shook her head and looked out the window. She muttered something under her breath.
    “What did you say?” Adelina asked.
    “I said, that’s nothing new. No one looks after me except Corporal Lewis.” Her tone was sullen.
    Adelina looked in the rearview mirror. Carrie was already wrapped up in a book. Steel Beach by John Varley. She didn’t understand Carrie or the strange things she read. Science fiction mostly, but also a fair amount of romance. The girl was smart beyond her age and had abandoned young-adult books by the time she was nine.
    She looked so much like George-Phillip sometimes it broke Adelina’s heart. It broke her heart that she would never see him again, and it broke her heart that he didn’t know his daughter. She often wished she’d acceded to his demands—that she’d run away, that she’d given in.
    But when she thought that way, her mind always returned to Richard’s threats. The most recent had been crude. She’d walked into her bedroom and found a photograph on her pillow. Black and white, it depicted a young man—fifteen or sixteen years old, with a crude crosshair drawn over his face in black Sharpie.
    It was her younger brother, Luis.
    She was stunned, really, that Richard had allowed her to make this drive. But he’d been distracted, preparing for the upcoming NATO summit, and for a moment the leash loosened. She took immediate advantage.
    On the dashboard, she had taped the map, which Corporal Lewis had painstakingly highlighted in red. Beside it, directions were handwritten and also taped to the dashboard. Lewis and Bear had been fanatically protective of Adelina and her daughters, as if they sensed something was seriously wrong in her family but didn’t quite know what it was.
    Julia had slipped on a headset and put a cassette in her Sony Walkman. It had been one of her Christmas gifts, and she listened to it constantly. She never wanted to do her piano practice, but there was no question she loved music. Although Adelina had doubts about some of the “music” Julia listened to. Right now it sounded like the croaking of frogs was leaking out of her headphones.
    “Julia,” she said. “Turn that down.”
    Instead of