Page 119 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

He’d made Jane keep up her training while she was in Berlin. So far away from everything, Jane had thought it was silly to go through the movements every morning, her hands whipping past each other, fists boxing out, as if she expected to go to war. The thing that had driven her most back in San Francisco was the pleasure of kicking Paula’s ass every time they sparred. With Paula gone, and in truth with Nick gone, Jane had found herself slipping—away from her resolve, away from the plan, away from Nick.

What have you been up to, my darling?he would ask across the scratchy, international telephone line.

Nothing, she would lie. I miss you too much to do more than sulk and mark the days off the calendar.

Jane did miss him, but only a certain part of him. The part that was charming. That was loving. That was pleased with her. That didn’t willfully, almost hedonistically, push everything to the breaking point.

What Jane had not realized until she was safely tucked away in Berlin was that for as long as she had been conscious of being alive, she had always had a ball of fear that slept inside of her stomach. For years, she had told herself that being neurotic was the bane of a solo artist’s success, but in truth, the thing that kept her walking carefully, self-censoring her words, conforming her emotions, was the heavy presence of the two men in her life. Sometimes Martin would wake her fear. Sometimes Nick. With their words. With their threats. With their hands. And sometimes, occasionally, with their fists.

In Berlin, for the first time in her memory, Jane had experienced what it was to live a life without fear.

She went to clubs. She danced with lanky, stoned German guys with tattoos on their hands. She attended concerts and art openings and underground political meetings. She sat in cafés arguing about Camus and smoking Gauloises and discussing the tragedy of the human condition. At a distance, Jane would sometimes catch a glimpse of what her life was supposed to be like. She was a world-class performer. She had worked for two decades to get to this place, this exalted position, and yet—

She had never been a child. She had never been a teenager. She had never been a young woman in her twenties. She had never really been single. She had belonged to her father, then Pechenikov and then Nick.

In Berlin, she had belonged to no one.

“Hey.” Nick snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Come back to us, my darling.”

Jane realized that they’d all been having a conversation without her.

Nick said, “We were talking about when to release Jasper’s files. After Chicago? After New York?”

Jane shook her head. “We can’t,” she told Nick. “Please. Enough people have been hurt.”

“Jane,” Andrew said. “We’re not doing this on a whim. People have been hurt, have died, over this. We can’t back out because we’ve lost our nerve. Not when they took a bullet for us.”

“Literally,” Nick said, as if Jane needed to be reminded. “Two people. Two bullets. Laura and Quarter really believed in what we’re doing. How can we let them down now?”

“I can’t,” she told them both. There was nothing more to add. She just couldn’t anymore.

“You’re exhausted, my love.” Nick tightened his arm around Jane’s waist, but he didn’t tell her what she wanted to hear: that they were going to stop now, that Jasper’s files would be destroyed, that they would find their way to Switzerland and try to atone for the damage they had done.

He said, “We should take turns sleeping.” Then he raised his voice so that Paula could hear. “I’ll fly to New York from Chicago. It’s too hot for me to go out of Sacramento. Paula, you’ll stay with your team and make sure they’re set for Chicago. We’ll coordinate times when we get to the safe house.”

Jane waited for Paula to chime in, but she was uncharacteristically silent.

“Jinx?” Andrew asked. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, but he could tell that she was lying. “I’m okay,” she repeated, unable to keep her voice from wavering.

Nick told Andrew, “Go sit with Penny. Keep her awake. Jane and I will sleep, then we’ll take the next shift.”

Jane wanted to tell him no, that Andrew should go first, but she hadn’t the energy and besides, Andrew was already struggling to his knees.

She watched her brother crawl to the front of the van. He sat beside Paula. Jane heard a groan come out of his mouth as he reached toward the radio. The news station was at a low murmur. They should’ve listened to it, but Andrew turned the knob until he found an oldies station.

Jane turned to Nick. “He needs a doctor.”

“We’ve got bigger problems than that.”

Jane knew instantly the problem he was talking about—not that things had gone sideways, but that Nick knew she was doubting him.

He said, “I told you what happened to Maplecroft was an accident.” His voice was so low that only Jane could hear him. “I went crazy when I saw what she’d done to your beautiful face.”

Jane touched her nose. The pain was instantaneous. So much had happened since that awful moment that she had forgotten about Maplecroft punching her.

Nick said, “I know I should’ve just grabbed her, or—something else. I don’t know what happened to me, darling. I just felt so angry. But I wasn’t out of control. Not completely. I promised you that I would never let that happen again.”