Devil’s in the Details (35 page)

I dropped the handgun on the couch after hearing Dani's voice. I called up to her, "In the basement. Close and lock the door behind you, please."

She rushed down the stairs in her uniform, tucking her own handgun back into the black briefcase she carried, giving me a dirty look, "For fuck's sake, both doors left open?" She tossed her briefcase on the bar and picked up the bottle of bourbon, giving me another look before walking back over to me with a thick manila envelope. "Old lady sent me over with the payment. She was too afraid to send it over the wire." Dani dropped the envelope on the side table next to me. I caught her looking at the mess of memories I had spread out.

Her face dropped slightly, "I see why the bourbon." Dani sat down next to me, filling up my glass before taking a swig from the bottle. She let out a breathless curse at how strong the bourbon was, "Phew, that shit is strong." Motioning to the mess in front of me, "Why do you want to remember?"

I looked up at her with red, teary eyes. "Alex." Shrugging I picked up the bourbon and drank.

Dani sighed, her hand falling to my shoulder, "What happened?"

Dani was the last person I wanted to open up about Alex or anything else in my private life, but I had no one else that would understand. I held the glass in both hands, "Ireland went bad. The mark got into my head and found a chink in my armor." I stared at the brown liquid that was sinking into my veins, making me feel numb as I needed and wanted to be, "I came home and went right to Alex. I needed to feel something, to connect to something and someone to prove that old bitch wrong, but when Alex kept reaching for my scar, I kept stopping her." I glanced at Dani as the tears clouded my eyes. "She told me she loved me."

Dani let out a slow breath, pulling me to lean against her as she wrapped an arm around me, "And you love her." She said it as if she had known from the moment I asked her to find the woman I helped that night. A night that now felt a lifetime ago.

I nodded silently as I leaned against her, "I told her I wasn't safe to love and left." I waved at the mess in front of us, "Dug all of this out to try and figure out a way. A way to be able to love Alex and hide this. Hide the monster I am, the hero I am, the stupid fucking asshole I am for thinking I could..."

"It took me thirteen days to find you, Victoria." Dani cut me off, "Thirteen days because the walls of the cave they kept you in were so thick, the signal from the chip you hid in your boot would come and go. They all told me to quit, to give up, to let you go. That you and the rest of the unit were lost to us days ago, but then you would blip up on my radar, giving me hope."

She looked down at me, her own memories of how we met filled her green eyes. "I went to the old lady and old man, not having any idea who they were. Begging them to give me a team of six to go in and get you out. I was the one who sold them on how smart you were and how much smarter I was than you." She smirked as I shook my head at the bit of arrogance coming through in the heartfelt moment. "If anyone is to blame, it’s me. I look back now and see that I dragged you into this, along with that asshole Colonel."

I sighed, wiping my eyes, "You saved my life, Dani. They would have killed me the next day."

Dani reached up, wiping my cheek with the back of her hand, "And you saved mine. You saw that guy behind me." She stopped speaking, she didn't have to finish, we both knew. We both had the same memories from that day.

I frowned, "The only reason I was able to stop the frenzy I was in, was because I saw your green eyes. They all had brown eyes and the only thing I could understand was to kill everyone with brown eyes, because of what they did to me and my team." I squeezed my eyes shut when I heard the pops of gunfire, the flashes of the knife I had in my hand followed by the blood spurting here and there as I cut and slashed my way out. Then came Dani's bright green eyes, highlighted by the dirt and mud covering her face and helmet, making me stop for a split second. Realizing she was out of place, her voice telling me I was okay, that I was safe. Far different from the harsh male voices screaming at me for days on end in broken English, Farsi, and Arabic.

She dropped her head down, "We both did things and saw things that day. I’m certain both of our brains are rewired in ways I don't think I ever want to understand." Dani reached over and tapped the file she had gotten for me two years ago when I began to ask the old man and old lady for my original case file to review out of curiosity. "Our secrets lie in here, Victoria."

I nodded slowly, sipping at the bourbon that was starting to give me a heavy buzz. My tears coming back as I thought about Alex, "What do I do about her?" It came out so soft, I almost didn't hear my own voice.

Dani grabbed my wrist gently, pulling my attention to her phone. The screen was lit up with ping notifications, my name popping up on internet searches of that day. The polished up news reports, and media releases of the mission, and how I received the medals sitting in my den. "I think if you love nurse blue eyes as much as you clearly do. I think the only route to take is the truthful one, since she has already begun searching out the mystery that is the brooding Professor."

I looked at the phone as my name moved across the screen, Alex clearly reading every little news report she could about a Lieutenant Victoria Bancroft and her actions on a day in May, 2004. "But maybe leave out the part about Voltaire and becoming a killer for a black ops agency within our own government."

Dani set her phone in her lap, standing up she scanned over the memories, "Because you know I’m still looking for the truth from the inside out. The less you and I pop up on their radar, the easier it will be for me to keep digging and keep you and nurse blue eyes safe."

I looked up at the tall redhead, "I thought you gave that up a few years ago, looking into who we work for." I was confused, especially since Dani had seemed to be more of a company woman and far more dedicated than she had been since the beginning days of us becoming partners in Voltaire's projects.

Dani bent down to my ear, whispering, "Never. They destroyed my life, I want to destroy them even if it takes me until my very last breath." She stood back up looking around the basement, "By the way, I encoded bug zappers into your house, so if you do tell nurse blue eyes the truth, do it here. Even I won't hear a thing."

She moved around the couch, picking up her briefcase she looked back at me as she stepped up on the first step leading back up to the kitchen. "Victoria, I mean it. I will always have your back and if you decide that you want to do this with Alex, I will be there for her as well." She stared in my eyes for a lengthy second to ensure that I understood.

I nodded once, biting back the tears, "Thank you Dani."

Dani saluted me, "Till next time Professor. I’m taking the leftover muffins on my way out."

After I heard the side door close, followed by my garage door, I cleaned up most of the pieces I had pulled out of the bin. Leaving it open, I placed the file on top and slowly closed it. I knew Dani was right. The truth was the only way at this point. If Alex decided that this was too much, that my past was too much to bear and she walked away from me. I knew she would be safe. Only hearing terrible war stories from a veteran that would not link back to Voltaire in any way. I also knew that Dani would make sure Voltaire would never know about Alex's existence if this all went south and Alex left me.

Walking back upstairs, I grabbed my cellphone. My heart twitching when I saw there were no phone calls or texts from Alex in the last two hours. I set my bourbon down and hit Alex's contact button. Chewing on my lip as I waited through the rings until I heard her trembling voice, "Victoria."

I could hear and feel that she had been crying, that I had possibly broken her heart again. I bit deeper into my lip to keep myself on track, "Alex, can you come over to my house? I think I have some things I need to tell you."

Chapter 11

My eyes were glued to the screen of my laptop. Reading news report after news report, watching all the video clips of real time war footage followed up by the medal ceremony a few months later. All of them showing a very young Victoria covered in mud and blood being rushed to a helicopter as reporters chased after her in what looked to be like the center of a city that could have been Baghdad.

The reports that accompanied the clips had the basics. A unit of Army Rangers and Navy Seals had gone in for what was supposed to be a successful rescue mission. Rescuing a group of three survivors of a citizen support envoy trying to establish a place for refugee help weeks after Baghdad finally fell. The unit of six had been captured and taken hostage by a lingering group of insurgents.

After that, the report fell into the patriotic propaganda of the time. Pushing ideas that America was winning the war, bringing peace and freedom to the people. There were no details of any mission or rescue, just Victoria's name and rank. There were two other medals included in a report that was issued a few days before her medal ceremony, but I wasn’t able to track those down. The most detailed report I did find, only named the Purple Heart and the Silver Star she had received, but there was no other mention of the other medals I had found in the box. The ones that the internet attached to the CIA as being the organization who handed them out.

The one video clip that broke my heart the most was watching her receive her medals from the President. She was standing in a line with a handful of other soldiers who had done more than their fair share in a senseless war and were receiving the tokens of our country's appreciation. It was this Victoria, the clean woman in her dress uniform, covered in faded bruises, holding on to the arm of shorter red head standing next to her, that crushed my heart. The way she looked around the room like she was scared and lost, not knowing how to act and flinched whenever someone brushed her arm, or when the President shook her hand.

It was the look in her eyes that made me fall apart and cry. I could see in them that there was more to the story the news fed to the world. There was more to her envoy being attacked and her unit being kidnapped. All because I had seen that look in thousands of others over my time as a nurse. Whether it was in police officers, firefighters, paramedics or veterans, they all had a look that told you that they had gone past the limits humans can endure. They were humans who have seen more than anyone ever should and came out of it. Seen things and done things to survive that could be covered up by clean uniforms and shiny medals, but would poke its head out whenever you stared in their eyes for too long.

My strong Victoria, the woman who had been nothing but tender, soft, kind, and giving since the moment I met her, was hiding ten years of pain and hurt underneath the mask all survivors build and put on so they could pretend as long as they could. Never wanting to show or talk about the hell they endured. It now made sense why she was so guarded.

I kept reading and watching clips until my eyes wouldn't allow me to see through the tears. Forcing me to cover my face and rest my elbows on the edge of the metal desk. I was still angry at Victoria for walking out on me like she did. Especially right after I said the three little words that held so much power, but now I understood some of the reasons why she was like she was.

I sniffled and looked up, hearing my phone ring from over on my bed. It was Victoria's ring tone, the Navy fight song.

Slipping out of the old metal chair I walked to the bed, feeling the anger rise with my tears. Victoria knew I could handle hearing her past in the war, handle hearing the hell she had been through. She had to have known it the second I told her I loved her, that I wasn't ever going anywhere. Taking a deep breath, I answered the phone, "Victoria."

"Alex, can you come over to my house? I think have I some things I need to tell you."

My jaw clenched on its own. Her voice was feathery, as if she could barely get the words out, it was so thick with apprehension. I struggled, picking at the edge of my deep purple comforter. I wanted to go to her, but I knew if I faltered and let Victoria hide away, I would be lying to myself and allowing her to continue to hide whatever she thought she had to from me. The only way I saw to do this was to lay it all out, be honest and force more of it from the both of us.