Flame's Dawn (12 page)

He helped her to one of two chairs he'd placed next to the bath. On the other chair, he set out towels, cloths, soaps, and the other clothing he'd purchased.

“Barnaby?”

“Yes, swe—Jane.”

“Why did you really do all of this for me?”

“I'm not—”

“Remember? Language pattern specialist?” She cocked a thumb at her chest. “I can tell when people aren't being honest.”

“No. I don't—” He dragged his hand through his hair. He owed her some explanation. Didn't have to be the entire truth, right? “Look, Jane. I'm a bad person.” Raising his hand at her protest, he continued, “I've done some pretty awful things over the years. And I can't help but feel responsible for the situation you're in.”

“That makes no sense. This mess isn't your fault.”

“It might be.”

Her eyes widened. “I don't understand.”

“The bad things I've done ... have to do with Thompson being so evil. To you.” Shite. He'd said it, hadn't he?

She shook her head. “How?”

“Please. I can't say more without you being in even more danger.”

“More than a cult leader letting me hemorrhage to death? More than falling thirty feet from a garage? More than a maniac pointing a gun at me?” Her eyes glinted in the light.

He opened his mouth once, failed, and tried again. “Yes. More than that.”

When she pressed her lips together, the flat expression on her face shredded his soul.

“Fine.”

“Um, pardon?”

“Fine. You have your secrets. I get that.” She eyed the steaming tub. “Now I'd really like that bath, if you don't mind.” Her shaking hand contradicted the determined set to her jaw.

“Anything.” He stumbled as he backed up. “I'll just be—”

“I don't want you to ... please just don't go far.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, unable to answer. A few seconds later, he had a firmer grip on himself.

“Of course.” He slid the glass on the porch closed and used more willpower than he possessed to turn his back on the woman inside the cabin.

Pink, warm, and most important, scrubbed clean, Jane heaved herself from the tub to the chair and dried off. Barnaby had set out a second set of clothes. The sporty zip-top outfit made her look like the Bionic Woman, minus the super strength, of course. But she didn't care. With a sigh, she drew the pants up, her fingers bumping against the puckered skin on her hip.

The permanent reminder of her horrible decision making could never be erased.

“Barnaby?”

Faster than her eye could register, he was in front of her.

“How?” she stammered. No human could move that fast.

Shifting from one foot to another, he didn't meet her eyes. “Trick of the light.” He crossed his arms over his muscled chest.

She wouldn't learn more about him tonight. “Well, ok, then. Um, thank you for the bath.”

“If you don't mind giving me a moment, I'd like to do the same.”

Heat climbed her neck. “Not in the water I used!”

“Yes, indeed. And you are perfectly fine, clean, and without blemish. I have no qualms using the same bathwater.”

Another wave of ugly shame hit her. Of course, people had shared bathwater for ages. She hadn't done any activity today, hadn't actually required a bath.

But she had
needed
it. Had to erase the nightmare any way possible.

If Barnaby wanted to wash, after all he'd done to help her, how could she deny him?

“Yes, you're right.” She darted a glance around the small cabin. “So, um, where do I need to go?”

“You can sit on the porch outside or in the bedroom over there. Your choice.”

“Porch. If I need anything ...”

“I'll be there in a twinkle.” He helped her walk the ten feet and settled her into a chair. “See? You're already stronger.”

“All that sleep.”

He held up a finger and went back into the cabin. Clanking sounds drifted through the window, until he reappeared.

“Eat, please.” He handed her a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich.

Perfect.

“Thank you.” Wonder Bread smelled like fine cuisine right about now. She took a generous bite and leaned her head back on the chair while she chewed.

“Enjoy the evening air. I'll be back soon.”

The light kiss he dropped on her forehead drew out a shiver.

Like a whisper, he closed the door and disappeared inside.

Stars dotted the clear sky above the surrounding mountains, and a crescent moon had started to rise. Tree frogs chirped, and animals rustled in the underbrush.

A breeze ruffled through the fir trees, creating a low hum of background sound.

Yellow light shone from every window in the cabin. It blew her mind that he'd lit the place up on her say so.

Instead of relaxing her, the tiny noises and changes in air pressure set her nerves on edge.

The rustles became hinges squeaking and the creak of bedsprings, and memories of that Saigon closet and her time with Thompson rose up in her mind's eye. Terror clawed its way into her throat and threatened to strangle her.

No. She would not fall into the pit again.

Standing, she clung to the back of the oversized Adirondack chair and peeked in the window. See? Barnaby was right there, mere feet away. His big shoulders flexed as he rinsed his hair. If she called, he would be there in a second. She sank back into the chair.

She was safe.

For now.

Damn this fear. She had to purge herself of the horror, or she wouldn't be able to function. Wasn't that what they preached in training? Debrief after the mission.

Maybe, too, if something happened to her, Barnaby could still find a way to save those innocent women.

A faint splash and footsteps reached her ears.

The porch door slid open. He'd tucked a striped, long-sleeved shirt into the narrow waist of his Levi's. Both knit and denim stretched over ridges of muscles in a way that both reassured and unsettled her. He'd combed his thick hair back, and damp, it glinted in the cabin's light.

He offered her the quilt, and she wrapped it around her body.

“How are you doing?” he asked, dropping into the chair next to hers.

“Okay.”

“These things take time.”

A tight fist of fear squeezed until she had to concentrate to breathe. “I need to tell you what happened.”

“You need to tell me, or you need to tell someone?”

An odd question, but the answer brought clarity. “Both.” She paused.

“But it's scary?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” He didn't touch her, but the warmth in his voice wrapped around her like a comfortable sweater, not binding, but moving as she needed to move.

Swallowing, she began. “So you know how I joined the DEA and went through training? Well, I hadn't completely gotten over my fears from that night in Saigon.”

“Really?”

“That night really rattled my cage. You try waiting for your death in a dark closet.” She laughed. “Actually, you did, and you handled it way better than I did. Anyway, that experience scared the hell out of me, and I struggled with the need to control my own destiny afterward.”

“Makes sense.”

“When I was offered the job at the DEA, I figured it was a way to take charge of my life. Before I could blink, I was playing the part of a brainwashed inductee of the People's Palace, blindly following the divine teachings of Tim Thompson.” His name left a foul taste in her mouth.

Rolling her neck to loosen the tight muscles, she continued. “I lost control of the mission. I didn't know how to get them to trust me without jumping in with both feet. But the DEA had strict rules about how far an agent could go. And Thompson was suspicious of anyone who didn't participate fully in the teachings ... or the drugs.”

“So you participated?”

“I'm not proud that I did it. But I tried to get rid of the substances whenever possible. Participation was the only way I could gain trust and inside information about the drugs and the trafficking.”

“Drug trafficking?”

She almost couldn't say the words. “Yes. And human.”

“What?”

“Yeah, once I figured out what was happening, I had to get the information needed to shut down this organization, once and for all.”

“Wow.”

“One day, I reported in to my CO, Howard. He basically fired me on the spot for not completing my mission. But he also made comments that were wrong. He knew more than he should have.” She tapped her head. “I can tell. I think he yanked me because I was about to reveal his involvement. Maybe others in the DEA were involved, too.”

“So those bastards tried to run you out of the DEA?”

“Basically. But dirty rats didn't figure on my stubborn streak” She swallowed a sip of milk. It didn't calm her stomach. “I was so tired of failure that I decided to freelance the rest of the mission. Damn it, I was so close.”

“Wait. You continued the job?” In the darkness, his voice carried a sharp edge.

“Idealistic? Sure. Vindictive? Maybe a little bit. Smart? Not in the least. When I got back to the house, Thompson and his second-in-command, Chuck, cornered me.”

“Whoresons.”

“Chuck's the guy you killed, by the way.”

“Good riddance.”

Scrubbing at her face, she took a big breath. “So when they caught me sneaking back in, it was a bad scene. Thompson chose that moment to share his lust for me and wanted me to become his number one wife, which isn't an honor, in case you wondered. To refuse would have been certain death, as suspicious as Thompson had become.”

“So is that when—”

“Yes. I became his ... partner in April. Although my position as first wife landed me a seat at the meeting table, which yielded all kinds of good intel, most of my time was spent in a drugged haze, awaiting his ... pleasure. God, I can still hear the creak of rusty springs when he'd kneel on the bed, and ... yeah.” She sniffed. “At least I found out about how the trafficking worked since he'd talk while he did things to me. Then, as you know, I became pregnant.” Acid burned in her stomach, and her lower pelvis clenched. The desire to scrub herself all over again distracted her. “I feel so disgusting. So wrong. So screwed up.”

“It's not your fault.”

“Logically, you might be right. I had the information to take his entire organization down and reveal the mole in the DEA. But once I got thrown in the asylum, nothing mattered. I had volunteered for the mission and failed. The complicit drug use and sex ruined any credibility I had. Didn't help that I'd been fired and free-lanced the mission. And my failure meant that more women would have the same fate, or even worse. What I'd do to get those women out of there. In some ways, the miscarriage was a blessing.”

She raised her hand at his protest. “If I hadn't escaped long enough to get help and force him to place me in the hospital, I would have died right there in the house.”

“Good lord.”

“The day you got me out of the hospital, Thompson was coming for me. I'm betting he and the DEA wanted to learn what information I had collected, and then he'd orchestrate a medical accident. Or he'd try to make me have more babies. Either option was not good.”

“That's sick.”

“That's how he thinks. The other weird thing was how his personality shifted during the time I knew him.”

“How?” The quick way Barnaby asked suggested he knew the answer.

She shook her head. “He got angrier, harder. More intense. Not exactly more driven, but somehow bigger. Colder? More evil? It's hard to explain.”

“That's a good job profiling him.”

“Also part of the problem. I posed a massive security risk. So he paid off the staff at that hospital and threw me in the psychiatric ward. Good thing I was given antibiotics to go along with my tranquilizers. If that hadn't happened, I'd be dead, no question.”

“I can't believe you survived.”

“I can't believe you found me. You know what's funny though? I could swear I saw you on that day when Thompson and Chuck caught me. But that didn't make sense. Besides, you were dead, remember? I must've been hallucinating.”

“Maybe not. For whatever reason, I was ... drawn ... to the Haight district.” His voice, low and grim, sliced through the evening air. “I would have gotten you out of there if I'd known.”

Her eyes burned. “How could you have known? I was deep undercover.”

“I just ... should have known.”

“It's not your fault, Barnaby.”

“Nor is it yours that these horrible things have happened.”

“I made my own decisions.”

His low voice cut through the night air. “Listen to me. It's not your fault.”

“Okay.”

“No. Let me repeat. It's not your fault.”

“Not my fault?” A fist tightened in her chest until she couldn't breathe.

“No.”

That damned fist in her chest released like a spring unloading.

In the bedroom, Barnaby sat in a straight-backed chair he'd brought in from the kitchen. He hadn't left Jane's side since her horrific story.

This woman had tried her hardest to do the right thing, and it backfired on her in the worst possible way. Khe Sanh became Saigon became Thompson's basement and then the psych ward. Nightmare blending into unending nightmare.

It took all of Barnaby's unnatural power to hold his rage in check. The last thing Jane needed was for him to scare her in an explosion of supernaturally fueled anger. Maybe one day she'd need his fury, but not tonight. Her spirit had been bent so close to the breaking point, but she still hung on.

Especially if Barnaby had anything to do with it.

Interestingly, it sounded like Thompson hadn't been a minion when Jane first arrived at People's Palace. So at some recent point, Jerahmeel had turned Thompson into an even bigger monster. How? Why?