Reckless Endangerment (17 page)

“Not really.”

Sounds of a vehicle made her stop in the shadow of a pine.  Devon stood opposite her, camera already in hand.  A limousine drove from behind an iron gate.  From this distance, she could not see a license plate.  She hoped Devon would be able to salvage it from the video. 

“I think we need to wait until dark before trying to get inside the fence,” she whispered, no longer feeling safe within the protection of the trees.

Devon sat back on her heels, face expressionless behind the dark glasses. “I’m not camping.  We’ll get inside now or never.  I have a date with your hot tub tonight, remember?”

From this distance, they had a good view of the limousine twisting its way down the mountain. 

She swallowed hard.  Her heartbeat drummed a samba rhythm in her ears. She pulled the hat from her head and shoved her hands through her hair.  She couldn’t breathe.  She blinked toward the sky as the world spun beneath her feet.  The tree pressed hard against her back through the thin fleece coat.

“Are you okay?”  Devon crouched in front of her, glasses off to reveal the swollen left eye. 

She shook her head and averted her gaze to the fence ten feet away. 

“I don’t know what to do,” she whispered to no one in particular.  She unzipped her jacket that suddenly seemed to be squeezing the breath from her. 

Her mind played tricks on her…Peter’s laugh in her head…Marishka singing to her children…Michael falling face first to the ground…blood on her hands…picking bits of Peter’s skull from her face…dragging Michael through the desert…praying…screaming and screaming.

“Hey.”  Devon grabbed her shoulders and shook her.  “Look at me. We’re going to do what we came here to do and then go home.  We’ll have a glass of wine in your hot tub tonight.  That’s what we’re going to do, okay?  Focus.”

Through the faded images in her mind, she fought to be present.  Her hands moved over her stomach for the secret casualty she couldn’t bear to think about.  Nausea rolled through her like a tidal wave. 

“Is this from the head injury?  What’s wrong?”  Fear flickered over Devon’s face.

She looked over her shoulder at the endless amount of pine trees that soared toward a flawless Colorado blue sky.  Isolated.

“I’m fine,” she said as the fog cleared and the nausea subsided.  Forcing a shaky smile, she patted Devon on the shoulder. “No worries.  I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

She shrugged free of her friend’s hands and reached into her bag for some water.  She stared at the construction trailer behind the fence and forced herself to concentrate. 

The key.  She looked at it from side to side and then looked at the gate below where the limousine had driven through.  Too simple.

“Why not try it?”  Devon stood and looked around the premises.  “I don’t know where that limousine came from.  I don’t see anyone.”

Quiet.  She hated quiet. She shook off the feeling of dread and stood, still leaning against the tree.  Exhaling a long breath, she stared at the development site.  It was a weekday.  Where were the workers?  Where was the activity?  She narrowed her eyes as she adjusted the hat over her hair. 

“Let’s go.”  Like a mountain goat, she navigated the rocky ridge.  The key fit the padlock on the gate.  Too easy.  She didn’t trust simple. 

The gate swung wide.  As an afterthought, she used the hem of her shirt to remove fingerprints from the lock and gate.  Camera in hand, Devon moved ahead of her and filmed the dormant vehicles, the trailer and all else in their view.  An eagle soared overhead and screeched its warning.  

The key fit the lock to the trailer, too.  Digital camera in hand, she took pictures of every file she could see.  Hands moved along the undersurface of desks and drawers.  She found two DVDs, which she slipped inside her bag.  Breaking and entering wasn’t her MO, but she believed in adapting to circumstance. 

A wire leading along the wall to a black box in the corner caught her attention.  A look out the window showed Devon still filming the outside.  Shirt hem pulled over her fingers she opened the box.  Security footage. Finding a wrench, she whacked the recording device and stole the DVD. 

“I don’t even want to know how many felonies I’m committing,” she whispered under her breath.  If these people were responsible for her being attacked the other night and Rourke’s murder—not to mention the human atrocities she imagined--she could live with the consequences.

Outside she saw Devon snooping through the trashcan.  Good girl.  Smiling, she jogged to her.

“We should go.  I hate how quiet this place is.  Gives me the creeps.”  She looked over her shoulder and thought she saw movement behind one of the dormant earthmovers.  “C’mon, Dev.”

Devon held out a picture of the two of them walking from the diner Monday.  It had been crumpled and tossed aside.  Here. 

“Take it.”  She squinted toward the earthmover.  Nothing.  Could have been an animal.  But still…  “If you really don’t want to camp tonight, we should go.”

Devon rubbed her forehead and grimaced.  “Damn headache.  I can’t believe I don’t have a concussion.  Feels like my head’s going to crack in two. I don’t suppose you have any Ibuprofen in that bag of yours?”

She pulled out a traveling packet and tossed it to Devon.  She remembered the blood that had pooled in the snow only two days ago.   

“We should have waited to come here.  You have a head injury,” she said.

“Hard head.  So did you. Those stitches above your eye make you look more dangerous than you did before.  What will your Michael say about that?”  Devon gulped the pills without water.  “The doctor said I was fine and I am. I just have a headache.  Let’s go.”

Something was wrong here. Looking around her as she relocked the gate, she didn’t see anything or anyone.  They climbed back the way they had come, all the while the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

* * * *

Well, Hope had been true to her word when she’d said she planned on disappearing.  She’d dropped completely off the grid for two days.  He glared at her sister as he held the bars and tried to stand on his own.  He hadn’t seen her on the news either.  Questions ached to be shouted:
Where the hell had she gone?
What was happening outside these ugly yellow walls?

Not that she owed him anything, not at all. Hell, he had anticipated this.

But he hadn’t anticipated McGee showing up and camping on his sofa since yesterday morning.  All he would say is that Hope asked him to come down and keep him company.  The last thing he needed was company, let alone from McGee who never stopped talking…and eating…and playing video games…and talking...Oh my God, what he would give for some peace. 

And then there were the strange looks Becky kept giving him, like she wanted to say something but didn’t dare.

“You’re not focusing,” Becky said, her hands holding his forearms.

Sweat dripped into his eyes.  He used all of his strength to hold himself on the bars.  Okay, so he had minimal feeling in his right leg but none of it was pleasurable.  He missed the numbness.  Stabbing pain ripped through his waist and shot up his spine.  His entire body shook with the effort.  If he were alone, he would have cried.  He wondered what had happened to the man he had been, the man with the courage, the stamina, the strength.

His body succumbed to spasms. He fell forward only to be caught by Becky and her partner, Gabriel. 

“Enough for today,” he managed to say.

“You have it in you, sir.”  Gabriel, who resembled a linebacker with a crew cut, smiled with encouragement.  “Five more minutes.  What’s five more minutes?”

Hell. 
He closed his eyes.  Even his eyelids stung.

“C’mon, Colonel,” Becky urged.  “One step.”

He looked at her, physically not like her sister at all but it was obvious they shared a similar spirit and thirst for torture. He shook his head no.

“Try,” she said again, her green eyes hardening with determination. 

“I’ve been trying,” he bit out between clenched teeth. 

“Colonel, try again.”

Michael glanced at the man from the corner of his eye and wanted to punch him.  Of course punching anyone or anything would require physical exertion.

He nodded, tired of fighting with them.  They held him while he adjusted his hands on the bar.  Every muscle in his upper body protested.  He stared down at his feet and willed them to move forward.  An inch.  A half-inch.  Nothing.  He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to picture himself jogging as he once had every morning.  He visualized himself jogging on a mountain trail, morning air cool and damp on his skin, mist rising from the valley below.  He could almost smell the pine trees…almost.

His strength gave out and he fell back onto his chair. Arms limp he stared at the reality around him.  Other patients worked with physical therapists.  Some lifted weights at the far end of the room.  He glanced toward the windows and the mountains beyond the city.  Sweat dripped into his eyes and down his face but he made no effort to wipe it away.

Becky adjusted his legs while reassuring him that he had made incredible progress for his first week. 

“Where is Hope?  Have you heard from her lately?” he asked.  When she gritted her teeth together and refused to meet his gaze or answer, he knew that she was holding back. 

He closed his eyes.  This pain was indescribable.  He wanted to die.  He wanted to curl up and die, wished at times like these that he had died.  At least then he would have died in battle instead of living through this daily nightmare.  Just like his tattoo said...death before dishonor. 

“We’re done for today, Colonel.” Becky pushed his chair back to his suite.  “How did your therapy session with Dr. Sade go this morning?”

He rolled his eyes. He now had mandatory psychotherapy every morning with Dr. Sade as a condition of staying at New Horizons.  He looked at his hands instead of answering. 

“Colonel,” McGee said from where he sat on the sofa playing Xbox.  “I didn’t think you would be back yet.”

He growled under his breath.  The overgrown child on his sofa wore on his last nerve.  He wanted to know what was going on and he wanted to know now. 

“Sit down,” he ordered Becky when she was about to turn on her heel and leave.  “And, you, turn off that damn video game.  You’re both annoying the hell out of me.”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Colonel,” Becky bit out from between clenched teeth.

“Yes, you do. Sit.”  He pointed to the sofa. 

By the way she looked at him, he wondered what bad news weighed her down.  The cheerful grin from Monday morning had long since disappeared.  His power to bring people down amazed him.  He should write a How-to-Depress-Even-Miss-Perky book. 

“You look worried.  Is it my physical progress, the outburst from Tuesday or my legal issues that makes you look like that?”  Fighting off the doom, he twisted his hands in the material of his sweatpants.  “Which one is it?  Tell me.”

“Should I go?” McGee stood.  “If this is a patient/therapist issue—”

“Sit.” He pointed toward the sofa until McGee complied.  “Where is Hope? Tell me exactly what happened,” he said to McGee who stiffened into his Deny-Everything-Admit-Nothing Marine face.  “I know she’s in danger.  I deduced that much when she sneaked in here in the middle of the night, but now I want details and I know you two have them.”  Not even a flutter of an eyelash from McGee.  “Tell me where the hell my wife is and what she’s gotten herself into this time.”

“Wife?  Did you say
wife
?” Becky stared at him, mouth agape.  “What?”

He looked toward the cactus.  For a shot of ouzo, he might dredge up a miracle and walk on his own damn two feet if these fools didn’t answer him soon.  He tossed the wedding picture into her lap before moving toward the kitchen and grabbing a soda. 

“What’s this?” she asked before turning her attention to McGee.  “You’re in this picture, what is this? Where is this?”

“Greece, ma’am.  Mykonos,” McGee answered.

He rolled his eyes as he let McGee fill in the details.  The soda was a pale substitute for what he knew rested behind that cactus.  He dropped his glass and cursed as soda spread across the counter. 

“You’re not like her at all,” she finally said in a voice barely loud enough for him to hear.  “She is the eternal optimist, always fighting for the underdog, always searching for the answer.  Hope would battle to the death for people she loves or a cause worth fighting. You…you gave up a long time ago.”

Staying quiet—his new special talent in addition to depressing people—his focused on the bottle hidden behind the cactus.

“You two are married.”  Becky jabbed the picture through the air like a sword dripping with accusation.  “Married?  How did this remain a secret?  Why is it a secret?  Why are you here?  Why aren’t you in outpatient therapy and living in that monstrosity of a loft she bought?  You’re married?  This isn’t a joke?  This is real?”

“She told me I was threatened when she came here, but that was two days ago now.  Two days.  Where is she? She’s too stubborn to just leave me alone for days when I’m in the same city so…” he noticed the look she and McGee exchanged.  “What’s going on?”