Exiled (A Madame X Novel) Read online

  I write my name: Isabel de la Vega. Affix the sticker to my chest near my shoulder. Take the elevators up to the fifth floor. The hallways are wide and harshly lit with fluorescent bulbs. My heels click loudly on the floor. The smell of disinfectant and illness assaults my nostrils. Count the rooms, 503 on my left, 504 on my right . . . turn a corner, 511 . . . 512 . . . 513. The door is closed. The ward is hushed. An orderly or nurse pushes a cart past me, one caster wobbling and squealing. A doctor, then. Tall, male, Indian, slender, stethoscope thumping at his chest, flipping through a chart and barely paying attention to where he is going.

  I do not want to go in. I do not want to see Logan wounded. Perhaps dying. Unconscious. Unable to remember me. Fading away, thin and frail and pale. Wrapped up in bandages like a mummy.

  Panic flutters in my throat, in my belly. I blink, and choke back a ragged panting gasp. Blink again, and I feel dizzy. Disoriented. I have to lean against the door frame, rest my head against the wood of the door. Close my eyes.

  * * *

  Darkness.

  Warmth.

  Pain.

  A steady beeping. Snoring. My eyes open, flutter. Haze, blurriness. Disorientation. Open my eyes again. They will not quite open all the way. Won’t focus properly. My skull feels thick, stuffed with cotton. I can see enough to know I am in a hospital. But where? Why? What happened? I hear the snoring again. Scan the room as best as I am able. There. In the corner. A chair reclined into a makeshift bed, thin white blanket pulled over a large, muscular body. A glimpse of black hair.

  A snort, squeaking plasticky leather, and the form shifts, twists. I can see the face now.

  Jakob?

  What is Jakob doing here?

  My throat is clogged. Something is lodged down my throat. Taped to my nose. I can’t speak. I try to moan.

  Jakob starts, sits up immediately.

  “Isabel?” His voice is scratchy, muzzy with sleep.

  * * *

  Miss?” A concerned male voice, lilting, accented. The doctor. A hand cool on my cheek. “Are you okay?”

  I straighten. Nudge his hand away. “Yes. Yes. Thank you. I just . . . I got dizzy.”

  “Are you visiting a patient on this floor, miss?” A penlight, shining in my eyes. Tracking their motion. “Look down, please. Up . . . left . . . and to the right.” I do as instructed. “Very good. When was the last time you have eaten, please?”

  “Recently. An hour or two ago.”

  “Do you feel ill to your stomach? Queasy, at all?” Cool thin long fingers check my pulse at my neck, kind brown eyes watching an analog watch.

  I shrug off his concern. “I’m fine. Just . . . a long day.” I breathe and compose myself. “I’m visiting someone. Logan Ryder. He’s in here.” I reach for the door lever.

  “Ah. I am Dr. Kalawat. Mr. Ryder is very, very fortunate indeed to be alive. Some would even call it miraculous. He is also very tough, I think. Extremely determined.”

  I hesitate to ask, but must. “How is he? I mean . . . I haven’t seen him yet, since—since . . .” I am reluctant to speak the words.

  “Since someone tried to murder him, you mean?” A hardness laces the doctor’s eyes. “As I have said, he is lucky to be alive. The bullet entered his eye socket on an angle oblique enough to pass through without damaging his brain. He lost the eye, of course, and needed rather extensive reconstructive surgery. If the angle had been even a few millimeters different, he would be dead right now, or at best, would have suffered rather more severe brain damage. It’s too soon to be totally sure, of course, but we think he will make a full recovery without any lasting brain damage.”

  Lost the eye? God, Logan.

  “Can I see him?”

  “If he is resting, please allow him to remain asleep. He needs his rest so that he may heal more swiftly.”

  “All right. Thank you, Doctor.”

  A nod. “Of course. And if you feel dizzy again, please, page the nurse. You are in a hospital, after all.” A gentle smile in farewell.

  When he is gone, I softly open Logan’s door. Tiptoe in.

  Beep—beep—beep. I know that sound. It echoes in my skull, in my gut. In my memory. I feel disoriented once more, but shake it off.

  Logan is sleeping on his back, the bed inclined upward slightly. Pressure bandages are wrapped around his head, covering his left eye and cheekbone. His mouth is slack. Arms on top of the thin white blanket.

  I want to cry.

  He has been through so much, and now, again, he is near death. For me. Because of me.

  My eyes water. Sight blurs. Hot salt burns my vision. I am weak in the knees, unable to support my weight. Sick to my stomach. I wasn’t queasy when Dr. Kalawat asked, but I am now. Queasy. Unsettled. Dizzy. My mouth waters, saliva running, pooling against my teeth. My stomach tightens. My gorge rises. I barely make it to the adjoining bathroom. My gut rebels, convulses, and I forcefully empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Again. Again. Until there is nothing left but bile and saliva. When it seems as if my stomach has quieted, I rinse my mouth at the sink, wash my hands.

  Logan is awake when I return to his room.

  “Isabel?” His voice is rough, scratchy.

  I pull the visitor’s chair close to his bed. Take his hand. “I’m here, Logan.”

  “You got . . . away?” God, he sounds so weak.

  I try to smile. Squeeze his hand. “Sort of, yes. Don’t worry about that.”

  He smiles back. Gestures toward his bandaged eye socket. “Arrggh. I’m a pirate.”

  I can’t help but laugh at that. “God, Logan.” I lean closer. Shudder. “I’m so—I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  His hand squeezes mine. His other flutters like a sparrow and finds my shoulder. “Ssshhhh. Don’t be. I’m here. I’m alive.”

  “You almost weren’t. Because of me.”

  “But I am.” His gaze flicks to the bathroom. “You’re sick?”

  I lift a shoulder. “I don’t know. It hit rather suddenly. I’m fine now.”

  “If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be in a hospital.”

  I frown at him. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You’ll just get more sick. Lots of germs in these places.”

  “I’m not sick, Logan. I just . . . felt queasy. I don’t know what it was, but I’m fine now. I’m not leaving your side. Not until you leave the hospital.”

  Logan tugs at me. Shifts to one side, making room on the bed. I lie beside him, on my side, wedged onto the very edge of the bed. His arm curls around my waist. For a moment, at least, I can pretend to feel at peace. In Logan’s arms again. Listening to his heartbeat. Except for the monitor beeping, I could almost pretend we’re in his bed, at his house. Tangled up together. No worries. No lies. No mistakes. No missing eyes.

  He sighs. “About Caleb—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Caleb. Don’t worry about him.”

  “Always worry about Caleb. He doesn’t let go. Doesn’t forget.”

  “I know. But I’m here now. With you.”

  “For how long?”

  I don’t know. Until I tell him what I did.

  “You need to rest.” I whisper it. Pleading.

  “Can’t avoid it forever, Is.” He sounds sleepy, groggy. Fading, but fighting it.

  “I know, Logan. I know.” I twist against him, gently, so very gently kiss his jaw. “Rest. Please.”

  He breathes out, long and slow and resigned. “Stubborn girl.”

  “You were shot. You need to rest so you can heal.”

  “You sound like Dr. Kalawat.”

  “I suppose. I met him outside, just before I came in.”

  “Good doctor. Nice guy.”

  “Yes.” I pat his chest. “Logan?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Shut up
and rest.”

  “Stubborn girl.”

  I smile. He’s still unequivocally, quintessentially Logan.

  * * *

  I wake up some time later. The room is darkened, but afternoon light peeks through a crack in the curtains.

  He’s staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. He sees me, and the pensive expression is replaced by a brighter, happier one. He’s putting on a brave face for me, I think.

  “Hey, you,” he says.

  I stretch. “Hi.”

  “Dr. Kalawat was here. He wants to do some follow-up scans, make doubly sure there’s no damage to my brain. Assuming those come back clear, they’ll keep me a few more days for observation, and then I can go home. I’ll be limited for a while, though. Lots of rest, no exercise, no driving. He wanted to be sure I’d have someone with me.”

  “I’ll be there with you, if that’s what you want.”

  He seems a little confused by my statement. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I don’t know. I guess you would.”

  “Isabel?”

  “He’s still out there. Nothing has really changed. But now you’re injured. You lost an eye.” I have to pause for breath, for courage. “All this is because of me. He wouldn’t care about you if I weren’t in the picture. I’m dangerous to you.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know.”

  “How did you get away?”

  To explain that, I’d have to tell him. How do I tell him?

  I hesitated too long.

  “Isabel?” His voice is unsure. “Talk to me.”

  A shaky sigh escapes me. “Nothing makes any sense anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I can’t do this lying in his arms. I get up, poke the curtains open a little wider; nothing to see beyond but a wall opposite, windows, a square of roof below, white pebbles and spinning air-conditioning units. I speak to the window.

  “He drugged me. I saw Thomas a split second before it all happened. Thomas hit you. Len injected me with some kind of drug to knock me out. Maybe that’s why I threw up, the drug? I don’t know. I saw Thomas hit you. I heard the gunshot. I knew he’d shot you. And then . . . I woke up. Back in my apartment. Everything like it used to be . . . before you. He was calling me X again. Acting like nothing had happened. But I had a dream. Or a memory? I don’t know. It felt like . . . like he knows more than he’s saying.”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you all along, Is.”

  “I know. And I’m realizing you’re right. But it just feels like . . . like what he knows is . . . much different from what he’s been telling me. Nothing makes sense. Nothing adds up. And he won’t answer me. He won’t tell me the truth. I’ve asked him over and over to just tell me the fucking truth, but he doesn’t. He won’t. He ignores me, or gives a non-answer, or just . . . distracts me. And I just . . . I want to know, Logan. I want to know who I am. I want to know what happened to me.”

  I cannot bring myself to say it: I slept with Caleb again. I FUCKED Caleb again.

  And I surely cannot even begin to verbalize what it was like. How different it was.

  I turn around, and Logan is facing me, but his eye isn’t on me. It’s downcast. At the sheet over his lap. “Isabel, I—”

  “I have to tell you something, Logan.”

  “I lied to you.” He says this over me.

  “I—what? You did? About what?”

  “Caleb . . . Jakob Kasparek. I said—I told you I couldn’t find anything on that name. That was a lie. I just—I was worried it would all be too much for you. I figured I’d fill you in later, when I had a chance to look into it more.”

  “So you do know something about . . . Jakob?”

  He nods. “Yeah. There really isn’t much.” He pauses. Deep breath in, and lets it out. “Jakob Kasparek was born in 1976 to Tomás and Marta Kasparek. Tomás was a businessman from an extremely wealthy Czech family, and Marta was an Ashkenazi Jew from Vienna, from an even wealthier family. Which means Jakob was born into extreme wealth, in Prague, what was then Czechoslovakia. His mother died suddenly, and his father committed suicide not long after. The particulars are sparse, but it seems Marta’s family disowned her after she married Tomás, since he was a gentile. So she had family, but they were in Vienna and refused to have anything to do with the kid after his parents passed. Tomás only had one distant cousin, living here in the States, in New York. After Tomás shot himself, Jakob was sent here to live with the cousin, but from what I could find, that didn’t last long. Jakob vanished then, around about the same time when his cousin rather suddenly came into a lot of money. Theory is the cousin took Jakob’s inheritance from his parents’ estate and tossed the kid out on the street.” He glances at me, but I keep my expression neutral. Nothing new, so far, and it matches what you told me. I turn away, look out the window as I listen. “This is where I really had to pull out my amateur detective skills. In the early nineties there was a prostitution ring working in several of the New York boroughs, operated by a woman named Amy Llewellyn. She was a pretty slick figure, I’ve been told. No one could ever pin anything down on her, even though the operation wasn’t precisely secret. Amy primarily catered to the extremely wealthy socialites, the upper-crust businessmen with a taste for a little something illicit on the side. She didn’t run escorts, didn’t run a brothel or women working the streets. Everything I’m telling you right now I learned from a retired detective who worked the case back in the nineties. He could never get enough evidence to nail her or take her down, despite that fact that Miss Amy, as she was called, was a known madam. Jakob, I think, got pulled into her ring somehow. There were interviews with some of Miss Amy’s former call girls who heard talk of a young man who worked for Amy, but not as part of the central ring. Privately, on the side, so to speak. This is hearsay, mind you. No one I spoke to ever actually met him. No one could find anyone who would admit to being a client of his. It was all very mysterious. So, basically, I’m just guessing. But it all fits.

  “See, Miss Amy was killed in 1998, hit by a distracted cabbie. Should have been the end of the ring. And, when it comes to her ring of call girls, it was. They all scattered after her death, either were able to find legitimate work or were snapped up by someone else. But then the antiprostitution task force started getting evidence of a new ring. All young girls, all former runaways and homeless girls. Their pimp was, once again, hard to pin down, impossible to find. They wouldn’t talk about him, on the rare occasion his girls were picked up. And I say rare, because they didn’t operate like typical escorts or call girls, and certainly not like your average whore. Much more discreet, and, if you can apply such a word to prostitution—elegant. The girls were paid on commission, sort of. They were paid a flat base salary, and earned commission and bonuses based on repeat clients, extra time requests, that sort of thing. The setup allowed them to get ahead, in a way most prostitutes can’t, usually, unless they’re high-end escorts, who are usually only in the business temporarily anyway. The other unusual thing is the girls were always totally clean, no drugs, no diseases.”

  He pauses, scratches carefully over the bandage near his eye, and then winces.

  “This is where things get tricky. Jakob Kasparek suddenly reappeared, legally speaking. Meaning, there was evidence of his existence. He suddenly had money, and was spending it. He bought a restaurant. A shipping company a few months later. An import-export business a year after that. A big corporate accounting firm next. A hotel. One after another, bam-bam-bam. Big dollars. And one by one, the prostitutes I suspect he formerly employed were living legit lives, in nice apartments, working jobs that didn’t involve being on their backs or knees. They gave plenty of interviews to the task force my guy was part of, but they couldn’t give anything concrete. They didn’t know his last name, didn’t know where he lived, didn’t know
anything about him. Jakob, that’s all they knew. Tall, dark, and good-looking. Possibly from Europe, somewhere.

  “And then, abruptly, Jakob disappeared. No reason, no explanation. Sold all of his businesses and properties for a massive profit, and just . . . poof. Vanished. Gone. No one ever heard from him or spoke his name again.”

  Another pause, this one for effect, I think. I turn to face Logan.

  A glance at me. “Not long after, the first rumors of a man named Caleb Indigo started percolating around the New York business world. A property here, a business there.”

  I breathe out. “None of this seems to have anything to do with me.”

  He tips his head to one side. “Gotta go back to Jakob. The prostitutes. The girls the task force spoke to all told very similar stories. They weren’t kidnapped and forced into prostitution. It wasn’t accidental, like ‘I’m starving, can I give you a blow job for ten bucks?’ They were all homeless, runaways, orphans, addicts. Young girls with no one who cared, with nowhere to go. They talked about how Jakob took care of them. Took them in. Fed them, clothed them. Got them off drugs. The prostitution was added gradually, and the girls were always given a choice. They weren’t tossed into a locked room with horny criminals. They were introduced to ‘friends of Jakob’s.’ They had no money of their own, nowhere to go, and were usually desperate to avoid being back on the street. Hunger is a powerful motivator. It’s . . . manipulative, shitty, shady, and disgusting. But incredibly effective. They essentially chose it. Wasn’t much of a choice, whore yourself out or starve, but . . . still.” A glance at me again. “Sounding familiar, yet?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Well, number one, it’s obvious Jakob became Caleb Indigo.” A breath, a pause. “Jakob preyed on lonely, desperate young women. Some of them were only sixteen or seventeen when they met Caleb. He never personally touched them, they were always very clear on that. After the car accident, what were you? A sixteen-year-old girl, beautiful, orphaned, and without a memory. No past, no future. A blank slate. A piece of clay he could manipulate into being whatever he wanted you to be. A pet. A project.”