Into the Storm (42 page)

Jenk did know. Gillman was talking about how Sophia had gotten those scars.

“No,” he answered, looking at him in the rearview mirror. “But even if she had…Didn’t you just promise Decker not to gossip?”

Larry Decker, who was not the type to make idle threats, had pointed to Gillman, Lopez, Izzy, Jenk, and Lieutenant MacInnough, back at the motel, while they were gearing up.

“The five of you,” he’d said. “Over here. Now.”

Once a former Navy SEAL chief, the man could put a boatload of authority into his voice when he wanted to. Even Mac, an officer, hopped to it at Deck’s command.

“Stay away from Sophia Ghaffari,” Deck had told them. The man was seriously pissed, but his voice was quiet. His delivery was far more effectively frightening than any angry shouting would have been. “Don’t touch her. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even
look
at her. What she’s been through is bad enough without you making it worse. And you see it as something to take advantage of. She’s an easy target, right?
Wrong.
She’s strong. And brave. More than you sons of bitches could ever hope to be. So when you gossip to your friends about her, about her scars? Be sure to mention that. And mention me, too. Because if anyone so much as looks at her sideways, I’ll rip out their fucking throats.”

Mac had been seriously confused. “What scars? Deck, I appreciate your concern for Sophia, but I’ve neither gossiped about her, nor seen any scars.”

Decker looked at him hard, but it was very obvious that Mac wasn’t bullshitting him. “Gillman and Lopez didn’t tell you?” He was seriously taken aback.

The two SEALs in question were offended. “I didn’t tell anyone,” Gillman insisted.

“What kind of jerks do you think we are?” Lopez’s mouth was tight with outrage.

Izzy, for once, just shook his head as Decker looked from him to Jenk.

“We respect Sophia,” Jenk told him.

“Whatever they know about Sophia and her scars—God—none of these men shared it with me,” Mac told Deck.

“You asked her to go to New York with you,” Decker said as if that was proof of Mac’s evildoing.

“Yeah,” Mac said. “Dream big’s always been my credo. If you want to know the truth, Chief, I asked her out because, yes, I had heard rumors that she was some sort of, I don’t know, modern Mata Hari concubine over in some shithole Middle Eastern country and…See, I figured that everyone else had heard these rumors, too, and were completely intimidated by her—both by that and the fact that she’s really beautiful. There’s something I call
out of my league syndrome
that I use to my advantage. When women are too beautiful, no one ever asks them out. I thought this would be doubly the case with Sophia, because, you know. The rumors. I figured I had a real shot at dating her.
Dating
her.”

“So she really is that Mata Hari operative everyone’s been talking about?” Izzy asked. “Whoa.”

“Aw fuck,” Decker had breathed. “Gentlemen, I apologize. Please don’t hold my brash actions against Sophia. I hope you’ll continue to respect her and not spread these…rumors any further.”

Rumors. Right.

“I’m not gossiping,” Gillman said now. “Because we’ve all seen those scars. Gossiping would be me telling Silverman or Junior. Or calling WildCard Karmody in California. I would never do that. I’m…freaked is a good word for it. I mean, it’s no secret either that I kissed her, at the hunting lodge. It never occurred to me that her silence wasn’t an affirmative, that maybe I’d scared her, or…I don’t know what. But I didn’t even ask. I just frenched her. God, I feel awful. And the stupid part is that I still really like her. She’s incredible. But now I don’t know what to say to her. I’m all…yeah, freaked out.”

“You should tell her,” Izzy advised, as they drove through the storm, wipers ineffectively slapping, defroster blasting to keep the windshield from completely freezing. “Definitely tell her, Dan. Life’s too short.”

Jenk glanced at him in the mirror, wondering what it was that Izzy would tell Tracy if he had the chance.

Izzy caught his eye and shook his head. “Just shut up, Weeble.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Jenk protested.

“Yeah, but I know you, and you were going to.”

He was spared having to answer because his phone rang. He tossed it back to Zanella, because he needed both hands on the wheel, and Lopez was wrestling with the map.

“It’s Lindsey,” Izzy said, before he even opened the phone. “Please tell me that we found her alive and in one piece.” There was a pause, then, “Oh, my Jesus God, pull over, pull over, Jenkins—pull
over
!”

Jenk didn’t pull over. He didn’t want to risk another trip into the ditch, but he hit the brakes and they skidded to a stop.

Zanella dropped the phone and bolted out of the car.

Gillman picked it up, grimly handing it to Jenk. “I think it was bad news.”

As he put the phone to his ear, he could barely see Izzy, just standing there, a few feet from the side of the SUV. The falling snow was that heavy. “Linds.”

“Is Zanella okay?” she asked.

“He needed to, um, make a pit stop.” Jenk braced himself. “What’s the news?”

“The DNA test came back. The body we recovered is that of Connie Smith, from Midland, Michigan.”

Thank God. Poor Connie Smith, but thank
God.

“Tracy’s alive,” Jenk told the others.

As Izzy got back into the car, no one commented on either his abrupt departure, or the fact that his face and eyes were red, as if he’d scrubbed himself with a handful of snow to hide whatever emotional reaction he’d had. Gillman just silently handed Iz some Burger King napkins that someone had stuck into the pocket behind the front seat so he could blow his nose.

On the other end of the phone, Lindsey was being cautious. “We don’t know that Tracy’s alive,” she reminded Jenk. “But we can say for sure that the body from the quarry wasn’t hers.”

“She’s still alive,” Jenk repeated his optimistic words. “Thanks for the update. FYI, we’ll be going dark in just a few minutes. We’re approaching the tower. It’ll be shut down for the next thirty to forty minutes. We’ll call in as soon as it’s reset.”

“Be safe, Mark” she said, and cut the connection. He tried not to be disappointed that she hadn’t said,
As long as I’m giving you good news, I just thought I’d say yes to Christmas.
She had, after all, called him Mark in public. Small victories, he reminded himself.

“Can we please drive?” Izzy asked. “Because now we know that Tracy’s with this motherfucker, and personally?” His voice actually shook. “I’m very fond of her eyes right where they are, securely in her head.”

Tracy woke up in the dark, groggy and confused.

Wherever she was, it was cold and damp. Her neck hurt from sleeping on the floor, her head throbbed, and as she moved, a chain clanked, and she remembered.

The man with the gun, the dead man on the floor of the store, the woman in the bed with the gash on her arm.

A Tupperware bowl from the freezer that was filled with human eyes.

He’d dragged her into his kitchen where he’d showed her that nightmare, along with the awful eyeless thing that had once been a woman.

Dear God. Perhaps the darkness was due to the fact that Tracy herself no longer had eyes. But she felt her face, and it was still intact. Lids with eyes beneath them. Nose. Ears.

Clank.
There was some sort of shackle around her ankle. She followed the chain to a bracket in what felt like a stone wall.

She had to be in some kind of subterranean room. A basement or cellar. She had no memory of coming down here, but she could remember him laughing at her screams as he stuck her with a needle.

God, how she’d screamed at the sight of that gruesome mutilated body, just sitting at his kitchen table, as if joining him for lunch.

Had he silenced Tracy because he was afraid someone would hear her?

If she screamed now, would he come down here and do to her what he’d done to that poor woman? Dear God, he’d scalped her, then stretched the skin in an embroidery hoop to dry. Whoever she was, she’d once had long, golden hair, which he’d washed until it shined.

The alternative was to wait in silence, at which point he’d probably kill her anyway.

“Help!” Tracy started to scream. “Someone help me!”

Dave tried to stomp the snow off his feet before getting back into the truck.

“Anything?” Deck asked.

He shook his head. “Just a pair of older ladies. They didn’t want to invite me in at first because, well, their house smelled like pot. But I told them that was okay with me.”

Deck looked at him.

“Medical marijuana,” Dave explained. “One of them was bald from chemo—it was kind of obvious what was going on. They were friendly and willing to help, but they didn’t recognize either Tracy or our Ralph Fiennes impersonator.”

Deck nodded. “Single truck in the garage. The bulkhead to the basement was open, so I went in. It was spotless—I think they paint their basement floor.”

After leaving the motel, they’d quickly established a pattern. Dave would go to the door, while Deck did a quick circuit of the outside of the house. He also checked any outbuildings or garages for a car with a nine in the license plate.

“Where to now?” Dave asked.

Deck turned on the interior light to check the map. “House number five is about four miles up the hill. It’s the next house on the left. The road curves so take it slow.”

As if there was any other way to travel in this weather. Dave put the truck in gear. He could barely see through the windshield. But they were definitely moving faster than they would’ve been able to on foot. Although frequently Decker had to get out and find the road for him, as he had to do right now.

It was then, when he was climbing back into the cab that Deck surprised the hell out of him.

“I really fucked up today,” he said. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell Sophia.”

Dave glanced at him. “Tell her what?”

Deck pretended to look at the map, but Dave knew he was just avoiding eye contact. “I went all cowboy,” he admitted. “On Gillman and MacInnough. And Zanella and Lopez and Jenkins. Jesus. I thought…” He exhaled his frustration. “I thought they’d found out about Sophia.”

About how she’d used sex to stay alive in Bashir’s palace.

“I thought their interest in her was inappropriate,” Deck continued. “I was wrong. They didn’t know. But they do now.” At Dave’s glance, he added, “Yeah. I managed to confirm the rumors. Brilliant, huh?”

Does everyone know?

Sophia was going to be upset, but Dave couldn’t help but think that this would be, in the long run, a good thing.

“She has nothing to be ashamed of,” he told Decker. “The truth is that she managed to survive a terrible situation. Keeping it a secret isn’t going to change what happened. It’ll never be just magically erased. Frankly, I think she’ll be better off with everyone knowing. I think she should be talking about it. Maybe now she will.”

Decker was just shaking his head.

“What, you disagree?”

“No,” Deck said. “You’re probably right. I just…
I’m
ashamed.”

“Of Sophia?”

The look Deck shot him would’ve turned Dave into stone in another dimension. “Of myself.”

Screw that!

“Get over it!” Dave said. “Do you have any clue at all just how much she cares about you? How many times do we have to have this conversation anyway?” He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. “But this is it. The last time. Listen carefully, because after this, you are on your own. I’m not going to say this again. Ask her to dinner, and when she says yes—which she
will say
with an expression of total joy on her face—put your arms around her and kiss the hell out of her. Just do it! Don’t think, don’t analyze, don’t argue, and for the love of God, don’t, don’t,
don’t
feel ashamed. The past is over. Let it go. Start focusing on the future.”

Decker didn’t look convinced. “She told Mac it was too soon to start dating—”

“Yeah—to start dating
Mac.
” Dave completely lost it. He actually pounded on the steering wheel. “Do you have any idea,
any idea,
what I would give to be you, you stupid, stupid fool? I wouldn’t have waited a second longer than I’d had to. By now she would be pregnant with my child, my ring around her finger. And she wouldn’t have nightmares anymore, because I would be there at night, to talk to her, to hold her, to make sure she knew that she was safe forever.
God,
I am
so
in love with her, but you’re the one she wants—you total fucking idiot. How can you just throw that away because you’re ashamed of some mistake that you made a million years ago? A mistake that she’s forgiven you for!”

Silence seemed to ring in the car, broken only by the sound of the tires and the windshield wiper laboring to clear away the falling snow.

“I didn’t know,” Decker finally said.

“Well, congratulations, now you do.” Dave was so done. He used to think Deck would be good for Sophia, but now…It was over. He was no longer willing to help her find happiness by pushing Decker in her direction, by trying to talk him into spending time with her. He was finished with that. Finis. No more.