Into the Storm (40 page)

“Oh, yeah?” He worked hard to make his voice come out sounding casual and relaxed, as if his heart wasn’t in his throat, since by introducing the topic, she’d given him permission to ask questions. “You mean, like when your partner shot you?”

She was silent for a moment. “Yes,” she finally said. “Like that.” She paused again. “His name was Dale. He was…We were friends. I mean, I knew he was having problems with his wife, but he always talked about winning her back, like it was a given. She just needed some time, he said.” Another pause. “I had no idea she’d gotten remarried. I had no clue he was using drugs—I mean
no
clue. One day, he didn’t show up for work, so I went to his apartment and…He drew on me. I thought he was kidding at first. I mean, he was standing there, aiming his sidearm at me and…Then I thought he was drunk. I tried to talk him down, but…He shot me. I hear myself say it, and I still can’t believe it. I mean, it would be like
you
shooting me.”

“That would never happen,” Jenk told her. “Never.”

“I know,” she said. “I didn’t mean to imply…It was just…such a surprise. Why didn’t I know he was so desperate?”

“I used to spend a lot of time replaying situations where I made mistakes,” Jenk told her through that crack in the door. “Trying to figure out what I could’ve done differently, to change the outcome.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. Maybe it was easier for her to talk when they weren’t face-to-face. “Although it’s a real bitch when you realize that doing just about
any
thing other than what you did might’ve made the situation end differently.” She made a frustrated noise. “The thing that I beat myself up for the most is that I didn’t see it coming. I should have. I should have known. Instead, it just blindsided me.”

“Probably similar to when your grandfather died, huh?” Jenk said. “His just not waking up one day? That had to suck.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed.

“Because you were used to a big, looming, impending doom,” he guessed. “All those years, living with your mother’s cancer…”

Lindsey flushed the toilet. She came out and washed her hands in the sink, splashing water up and onto her face, too. “The hardest part of
that
nightmare,” she told him, after drying herself on one of the hand towels, “was actually when she was given a clean bill of health. Statistically, people who made it that far in their treatment tended to live cancer-free, but…Hers recurred, much sooner than anyone expected.” She met his eyes in the mirror. “That was it for me. She lived another twelve years, but she was sick almost all that time. It wasn’t really living. It felt more like she took twelve years to die. It was like living with a death sentence.”

Which she’d done while working hard to hide all of her fear and grief and anger and frustration from her mother.

“You once accused me of having a plan for my life,” Lindsey told Jenk now. “Watching TiVo and—”

“I know what I said,” he interrupted. “I was angry and—”

“Truth is, I don’t have a plan,” she said. “I’m unable to plan. I trained myself not to when my mother first got sick. Projecting myself into the future meant…” She shook her head.

It meant imagining a time when her mother was gone. Jenk reached for her, but she deftly sidestepped him.

“I mean, sure, I can do it for work. You know, set schedules and strategize how to get the bad guy, or how to evade capture. I can do that. But when it comes to my personal life…” She shook her head. “I have no long-term career plan. And I never take vacations—I mean, I take time off, but I don’t go anywhere.”

How do you plan for tomorrow, when tomorrow might not come? Jenk reached for her again, this time with the pretense of pulling her over to the bed, so she could sit down. She hadn’t had the luxury of a nap and was obviously exhausted. He tugged her down beside him, their fingers interlaced.

“I know people who have one-year, five-year, ten-year plans for their lives,” she said. “Look at you. You joined the Navy to become a SEAL, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, wishing they had more time, hoping this conversation was just one of many to come. “That was my goal, right from high school.”

“What’s next?” she asked. “Are you staying in, or…?”

“I’m in for another few years,” Jenk told her. “And then…Well, Tommy’s made it clear he wants me. It would definitely be fun to work with you again—and get paid what you’re getting.”

But she was shaking her head. “See,
you
know what you’re doing, where you’ll be. I don’t have plans for two years from now. I don’t have plans for next weekend.”

“You could spend the weekend with me,” Jenk offered. “That is, if you’re up for two in a row, because the one after that is Christmas.”

She pulled her hand away. Stood up. “I don’t know, Mark.”

He’d scared her. Okay. “This isn’t a marriage proposal, Lindsey. This is just about spending time together. I love being with you. It’s that simple.”

She managed a smile. “The sex is great.”

“The sex,” he agreed, “
is
great.” If she wanted to pretend that sex was all this was, he was willing to let her. At least for now.

But then she turned away. “God, I’m really screwed up.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. “Well, a little, maybe, but who’s not?”

“You’re not,” she countered.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m the one who thought using his fourteen-year-old self’s criteria for selecting a wife was a good idea.”

“That was just testosterone talking.” Her smile faded far too soon. “Seriously, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You keep saying that,” he said. “So just don’t hurt me.”

“I’m afraid of everything. Plus, I’ve got this totally messed-up relationship with my father, who wishes I’d never been born.”

“You’ve talked to him about this?” Jenk asked.

“Well, no, but—”

“Linds. Then how do you know—”

“I overheard him talking to my mother. After my grandfather died, he found out his biological father was responsible for terrible war crimes—genocide—in China before the U.S. even got into World War II. And then in the Philippines…So many Allied prisoners died because of him. He was a monster. It was like finding out my real grandfather was Joseph Goebbels. I can’t believe I’m telling you this!” She found her jacket. “We really need to go.”

Jenk didn’t stand up. “So let me see if I’ve got this right. Because his father was a monster,
your
father felt as if he shouldn’t have had a child, as what? Some kind of punishment or penance? Like his lineage should die out or something?”

Lindsey nodded.

“That’s crazy,” he said. “Because your father didn’t spring forth from his father’s thigh. He’s just as much his mother’s child.”

She put on her jacket. “Look, it’s
his
craziness. I don’t—”

“But you believe it, too.”

“No, I don’t.”

He didn’t push. “Well, good.” He also didn’t believe her. “Because that
is
crazy. I mean, if your father really does feel that way. If this wasn’t just something he said in a knee-jerk reaction. God knows no one in your family’s ever had a knee-jerk reaction before.”

That got the smile he was hoping for, along with an eye roll. “Yeah, but I’m nothing like him. My father is an economics professor. He talks reeeeally slowly. I don’t think he’s ever said anything he didn’t mean.”

“To you,” Jenk pointed out. “But he wasn’t talking to you, right? He was talking to your mother. And he’d just found out that his father lied—and Henry was his
real
father, biology be damned. Henry lied to him. That had to have hurt.”

She nodded, acknowledging that. “We should go.”

Jenk put on his jacket, pocketed his room key, and followed her outside. They were halfway down the stairs before he said, “You know, sometimes, when people hear stuff when they’re kids, they believe it without questioning. And they hang on to those beliefs as adults, and they don’t stop to think,
is this really true?
And sometimes when you stop and really think about those beliefs, you realize,
wow, that’s really wrong.
Or
believing that doesn’t help me.
”

Lindsey wasn’t running away, but she wasn’t exactly hanging on his every word. Still, Jenk kept going—both talking and following her through the gently falling snow.

“I was afraid of heights for the longest time,” he told her. “I had a total fear of falling, like I really believed if I fell, I’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I almost didn’t make it through BUD/S because of it. And I sat down with it, and I thought about, and I realized it was probably something my mom had drilled into me when I was, like, two years old, so I wouldn’t climb the trees in our yard or play on the roof or something. But it didn’t apply to me anymore. As an adult, I could learn to climb, learn how to do it as safely as possible. I really went after it, to knock the fear—the belief—out of my system. I did a lot of rope work at first, and purposely took falls. It was scary, but I wanted to be a SEAL. I wanted it badly enough.”

She’d stopped, but now she pushed through the door to the motel lobby. “I don’t know what I want,” she admitted.

Ouch.

She must’ve realized how harsh that sounded, considering that the rather obvious subtext of his words were
if she wanted
him
badly enough she, too, could face down her fears.
Because she added, “Please don’t take that personally. It’s not about you.”

Yeah, right.

“It’s about…me.” Lindsey struggled to find the words. “I really don’t know…anything. For me, tomorrow is this…gray shadow of a doorway that I know I’ll step through. It’s coming—it’s unavoidable. But I can’t see through to the other side. For such a long time, I didn’t want to see. And now, no matter how hard I try, I just
can’t
see.”

On one side of the lobby, someone—probably Stella—had set up a little Christmas tree. It was only about four feet tall, but it was alive, its roots in a big container. It was covered with ornaments of all different shapes and sizes, and lights that flashed off and on.

“Check this out,” Jenk said, taking Lindsey’s hand and pulling her over to it. “My mother is so totally into Christmas, she added a room onto our house that she calls the Christmas Tree Room. It’s really the playroom, but she insisted on cathedral ceilings, so she could have a twelve-foot-tall tree. It’s got a ceramic tile floor, because back when they built it, Chewie was a hundred and ten in dog years, and he got so upset when he had an accident—”

“Your dog was named after Chewbacca?”

“He was an awesome dog,” he told her. “Now they’ve got Threepio, who’s a little high-strung. Anyway, picture this: The tree’s at one end of the room, and it’s like this one—smothered in ornaments, and each one has its own history. In fact, the trimming of the tree, which always happens on Christmas Eve, is all about telling the stories. Like, the year I was born, there was a fire in the attic, and all but three ornaments were destroyed. You’ll know my mother likes you if she lets you hold one of them. She’s in the no-flashing school as far as the lights go. But multicolored. None of that monochromatic crap on her tree. Her words. There’ll be a fire in the fireplace, and a crèche on the mantel, but don’t put Jesus in the manger until Christmas morning or there’ll be trouble. And don’t be freaked out by the tiny Santa-head mugs. They’re antiques, and they need to be out on display, even if seeing them makes you realize that the difference between Santa and Satan is the placement of a single N.

“My dad is into the ritual watching of
The Christmas Story
—you know, the kid who wants a BB gun—‘
It’ll put your eye out,’
and the
Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
But the best part about Christmas at my house is that you never know who’s going to show up for dinner. Foreign exchange students, coworkers whose families lived too far away, kids from the teen shelter…One year it was a trio of drag queens who’d gotten snowed in and stranded at the train station.” He laughed. “From that year on, there’s been mandatory tiara wearing at dinner. We draw straws to see who gets the honor. My mother swears it’s all fair, but it’s usually always me or my dad. Can you picture me sitting at the table in pink rhinestones?
Please pass the gravy…
”

Lindsey was laughing. “Actually, yes.”

“Good,” Jenk said. “Now picture yourself sitting next to me.” And then, because wariness leaped back into her eyes, he pulled her close, and added, “My hand on your leg, signaling for you to pretend to help clear the table, but in truth to meet me in the upstairs bathroom for a quickie, because my mother has her house rules, so we’ll be sleeping in separate bedrooms. By dinnertime, I’ll be so freaking crazy from wanting you, I’ll actually have eaten the turnips that my mother insists are traditional, but oh, my God. They look like winter squash, but don’t take too large of a spoonful, because like I said, oh, my God.”

Lindsey was laughing again by the time his watch beeped.

“Come on.” Jenk kissed her neck. “Let’s go find out that the body we recovered wasn’t Tracy’s.”

But she stopped him. “Mark.”

He turned, bracing himself for God knows what. Something that started with,
I know the sex is great, but…

Instead, she said, “I think we should be prepared for the worst.”

She was talking about Tracy. Jenk nodded. “I know you do. But the more I think about it, I don’t think it was her. She hasn’t been missing that long. Whoever did that…It had to take time.” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m a fool, but I’d rather hope for the best. That we can find her. That we
will
find her.”

He could see her disbelief. “She could be anywhere,” Lindsey pointed out. “And we’re about to be smacked with what they’re calling the biggest snowstorm of the decade.”

Most of the SEALs and members of Tom’s team were already in the motel restaurant, waiting for the meeting to start. Jenk opened the door, letting her go first, determined to stick with her. She could run, but this time he was going to keep pace.

“Maybe that’s good,” he said. “It’ll keep this bastard from leaving the state.”