by A J Rivers
He would be home soon. Five days without him felt so long. She was used to him having to leave and the time it took away from her. It wasn’t something she would ever complain about or try to fight against. What he did was important, just like what she did was important, and he never tried to keep her away from the days she had to leave for that. It made the time they had together more precious. The love and affection they couldn’t give to each other in those days when they were apart was distilled down into when they could be together, making every one of those seconds more valuable.
She wanted to stay awake and wait for him, but there was no way of knowing exactly when he would get back. It could be tonight; it could be tomorrow afternoon. At least she knew she would be in his arms by dinner the next day. He had promised. And he never broke a promise to her.
She left the window open to let in the freshness of the August night. She took a shower and dressed in a gauzy nightgown before slipping into bed. Crisp, newly cleaned sheets, felt soft and cool against her skin, lulling her quickly to sleep.
The sleep didn’t stay with her long. It felt like her eyes were closed for only a few minutes when the other side of the bed dipped down, and warmth cradled her body. The darkness of the room sharpened her other senses. His touch sent shivers along her skin. He leaned toward her and touched his lips to the side of her neck. She tried to speak to him, but he silenced her with a kiss.
He gently rolled her onto her back and settled over her, the weight of his body pressing her down into the mattress and surrounding her. She could disappear into this. She could melt into the enveloping presence of him and not think of anything else.
And that was just what she did. She thought of nothing else and let him fade away the emptiness of the five days they were apart. They didn’t matter now. She fell asleep in his arms and knew nothing until morning.
It wasn’t a kiss or even the shift of his body that woke her up. Early sunlight came through the window, glowing on her eyes. She vaguely shed her layers of sleep enough to become aware of the sound of a car rumbling into the driveway. Her eyes snapped open. Was Ian leaving again? He just got home.
The other side of the bed was cold when she felt it. That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t have gotten up that long ago. Slipping into her bathrobe, she rushed across the room. There was no smell of soap, no feeling of lingering steam from a shower coming from the open bathroom door. The closet door was still closed, a dress she’d hung from it the day before undisturbed.
She got to the window just in time to hear the driver’s side door close and see Ian walk around to the trunk. He opened it and reached inside for his suitcase. Confusion twisted in her mind. As if he could feel her eyes on him, he looked up and caught sight of her in the window. A bright smile crossed his face, and he waved.
“Hello, darling,” he called. “I’ve missed you. You’re up early. I thought I was going to get a chance to surprise you.”
Her stomach turned as searing heat clawed down the back of her neck. By the time Ian got inside, she was in the bathroom, soaking in scalding water and scrubbing away any of the touches that might have lingered on her skin.
Chapter Eighteen
Now
Dean sets his piece of pizza down and wipes his hands off on a napkin as he stares at me.
“You mean you think she was helping your mother,” he says.
“Yes,” I tell him. “When I was younger, right up until the day she died, we traveled around all the time. We moved constantly. There would be stretches of time when my father was gone and then stretches of time when my mother was gone. My mother being gone wasn’t as common, but it always seemed that when we moved somewhere new, she would go away for several days, or had meetings or appointments. Then when it was done, we might settle down for a little while, but then we were scooped up and moved again. I always assumed it was my father’s CIA work. And I’m sure some of it was. But now I know we were moving, and she was leaving to help the women she was rescuing.”
“What does that have to do with my mother?” Dean asks, suddenly sounding almost defensive, like I’m threatening the already tenuous grasp he has on his mother’s life and what it all means.
“Maybe she was helping my mother with one of her missions. I can’t even imagine what these women were going through when they needed to be rescued. I can’t even wrap my head around being in a place in life where you feel so hopeless that the only option is to leave everything behind. To have to reach out to someone to help you. Can you imagine the fear?”
“Of course I can. I saw it in my mother’s face every day. Every time she watched the news and they talked about a woman getting attacked, or she saw surveillance footage of someone who looked even slightly like her ex-husband, I saw the terror all over again.”
“Then you understand why it would be hard. That level of fear doesn’t come from feeling like you have freedom or a life worth living. The most dangerous days of an abused woman’s life are the ones right before and right after she leaves. Statistically, that’s when most of them are killed. Their partner finds out what they’re planning, or they come home, and she’s gone. They know they’ve lost control, and they destroy the woman who angered and offended them. For some women, that terror is enough to keep them from leaving. They would rather just stay with the brutality and fear they already live with on a daily basis than have to try to make their own way in the world while also coping with the fear of losing their lives. As much as I would like to think that the women offered help by the Spice organization would be eager to accept it, my professional experience tells me it’s not that simple,” I tell him.
“Mine too,” he sighs. “I’ve been hired by those monsters to follow women and find out if they are planning on leaving and where they are going. Or they tried, anyway. I would always tip the women off and do what I could to cover their tracks.”
I nod. “They need all the help they can get. They need to know they are safe. Tell me something. After those four days when your mother was gone, did she get better? Did she have as many of the phases you were talking about?”
“No.”
“Because she helped someone else. She got that reminder of what she escaped from and the future she had in front of her. Those four days were spent saving another woman’s life,” I tell him. “It must be that.”
“Is there any way to find out what she did or where she went? Records? Anything?” he asks.
“I just found out about this organization,” I remind him. “I didn’t even know it existed, much less that my mother was a part of it. My father arranged to have all of her things moved after she died, and I don’t remember ever seeing anything like files or records.”
My phone alerts me to a new message, and I stand up to get it. It’s Eric.
“Eric got footage from the convenience store down the block from the bus station,” I announce.
I try to temper my excitement, to cool the shock of optimism. I remind myself that it doesn’t mean we actually found anything or have more information than we did, to begin with. We still don’t know who the man is, or if he saw anything useful at the station. All I can hope is that this footage will show more of his face, and we can recognize him.
Pulling up the footage, I sit down between the two men so we can all watch it. The camera angle isn’t perfect. It’s more like a time-lapse, so the video is uneven and jerking, but it’s something. We watch the sidewalk carefully, and sure enough, the man appears on the screen.
“He pulled his hood up,” Sam points out. “We can’t see his face.”
“No, but that’s definitely him. Those are the same boots, the same pants. He’s the same size,” I say.
The man doesn’t seem in a rush or at all concerned as he makes his way toward the building.
“Where is he going?” Dean mutters.
He’s not heading toward the doors or the gas pumps but moving around to the side. I glance at the time clock ticking by on the screen.
“The explosion is going to happen any second,” I note.
My body braces. I know it’s coming, yet there’s still anxiety. There’s no sound, but at the exact moment I know it’s going to come, there’s a flash of light at the upper corner of the screen. People scatter. Some run in the direction of the explosion while others move inside the store as fast as they can. I keep my eyes locked on where the man stepped off-screen. It takes a few seconds, but he steps back out into view.
“He’s completely calm,” Sam notes. “He’s not reacting. Everybody else is doing something. They’re running around or staring. They’re on the phone. Look, they’re all reacting to what just happened, but he’s not. It’s like he has no idea what just happened.”
“Or he knows exactly what happened,” I counter.
“Because he knew it was going to,” Dean agrees.
“He’s going toward the parking area,” Sam points out. “There are only a few minutes until the emergency responders show up. He knows he’s got to get the hell out of there.”
The camera covers most of the parking area, cutting off only the edges of the outermost cars at the edge of the visible row. But that doesn’t make a difference. The man walks out of sight again, disappearing around to the other side of the building.
“You don’t have footage from any cameras there?” Dean asks.
“This is all Eric sent me,” I tell him. “Wait. Look.”
A champagne sedan glides into view and stops at the entrance to the parking lot, waiting calmly for people running by. It’s a still, steady moment, like the car exists in a totally different realm of reality. All around it, people are frantic. Cars speed down the street. Lights of emergency vehicles start flashing at the edges of the screen. But the nondescript compact sits patiently at the entrance, the turn signal ticking, until the way is clear, then moves smoothly and easily onto the road.
“Turn it back, look for a license plate,” Sam says.
We watch the footage again, but it’s too grainy to make out the plate number.
“Damn it,” I growl. “Why bother having cameras that don’t show the details that actually matter?”
“It did,” Sam offers. “It showed him.”
“We just have to figure out who he is.”
The video is far from conclusive. It shows little more than a hooded man responding to an emergency situation with indifference, and then an admittedly common as hell car drive away. But it’s enough to create a link. It’s enough to make me want to know more.
A call coming in breaks up the video, and a number appears across the screen.
“It’s the hospital,” Sam says.
I get to my feet, stepping away from the couch as I answer.
“Hello?”
My heart is in my throat as I wait for the doctor to tell me Greg took a turn for the worse or security was breached again. Both as another human being and as a person I have a history with, I don’t want to think of him suffering anymore. Or losing his life. But it’s more than that. He has information locked inside him. Secrets and details only he can tell. I need to hear them to know what happened.
“Emma?”
The voice on the other end of the line cracks, rising barely above a whisper, but the chill it creates lifts the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck. I reach out for Sam, and he jumps up to take my hand, pulling me close against him.
“Greg?”
Chapter Nineteen
“I told him what happened when he was mumbling. He wanted to be the one to call you,” Amelia calls after me as I burst out of the elevator and onto the secure hospital floor.
She was waiting for us outside the elevator and fell into step behind me as I rush past her toward Greg’s room.
“How long has he been awake?” I ask.
“About forty-five minutes before he called you,” she says.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“The doctors insisted on checking him over and making sure he was in good condition.”
“And?”
“He looks good. All considering. He was very eager to talk to you.”
“He doesn’t sound great,” I say. “His voice sounds really rough.”
“The ventilator often causes a little bit of temporary damage to the throat. There’s some evidence of minor throat injuries from whatever happened to him before he was found. But it’s not permanent. He should be back to normal with continued healing and practice speaking,” she tells me.
I get to the door to his room and pause. I’ve been here before. In this moment of hesitation and uncertainty before walking in. Only this time, I know what’s on the other side of the curtain. This time I know he’s awake. Hopefully, he’s gotten through the worst of it. It would seem that after spending the last few days in the room with him, it wouldn’t seem so nerve-wracking to go in, but nervousness flutters inside me. In all the time he was gone, and even more once he reappeared on my front lawn unconscious, I let myself think about what it would be like to actually talk to him again. All my focus was on just hoping he would survive. But now I have to navigate how different my life is now than it was the last time we saw each other.
Taking a breath, I open the door and push the curtain aside. In that second, I’m in two segments of my life. It’s suddenly two years ago, before Feathered Nest, before Sherwood. I’m trying to understand my relationship with Greg and what it means. I don’t want to be in this place, wondering if he’s going to try to explain away our breakup and try again. But Sam steps up behind me, and the warmth of his hand on my hip keeps me anchored here.
Greg is looking toward the window when we walk in, but he turns to me as I step up to the side of the bed. Even looking less severe with healing, the bruises and cuts on his face change his appearance. It’s hard to look at him. I know it’s him. There isn’t a question about that, but it’s still difficult to process seeing him awake and responding to me after two years of questions and wondering.
“Hi, Emma,” he whispers, not trying to force his voice louder like he did on the phone.
I step up closer.
“Hi, Greg,” I smile sadly. “It’s good to see you awake.”
I want to ask how he’s feeling, but the words feel like feathers in my mouth. Useless and flighty. Just something people say to fill space and acknowledge set situations. Instead, I pull a chair over and sit down. Maybe this should be one of those times I push my career aside and try to think purely as one person reaching out to another, but I can’t. When I look at Greg, I’m relieved he’s awake and healing. I don’t want him to suffer any more pain or experience any ill effects after this. But I also can’t wait. I can’t use up any more of the time I have waiting for information, searching for details.
“Greg, how did you get here? Two years ago… what happened?”
“The nurse told me there was a picture,” he croaks.
I nod. “Do you know how they found you?”
“Not much. Just that I’ve been out for a while.”
“You were wrapped in plastic. There were pictures wrapped with you and he…”
Emotion hits me suddenly, but I fight to keep it out of my voice, not wanting to cause any more stress and upset in this already difficult situation. “He dumped you out of a car into my yard.”
He drew in a breath. I can almost see his mind grinding, churning through the memories of what happened to him over the last two years.
“Do you have the picture?” he asks.
The original is in the investigation files. It didn’t occur to me Amelia would tell him about it without telling him what was in it. I take out my phone and search through the messages for the one Bellamy sent to me the day they found Greg.
“There are others, but this is the one they showed me.”
I turn the screen to him, and he takes the phone from my hand, staring with a stony jaw at the image of him and my uncle sitting in the car.
“What are the other ones?” he asks.
“Your i
njuries, another of the two of you together, one of an open grave.”
He nods slowly, then hands me the phone.
“Do you remember the night you were working late, and I got upset because we weren’t going to get to the restaurant on time?” he asks.
“Yes,” I tell him. “You went to pick some food up for us.”
“Yes,” Greg nods. “That’s when I met him.” He nods toward the phone. “He was in the parking deck. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. There, standing in front of me, was the mythical Ian Griffin.”
“Greg,” I say painfully, shaking my head as I try to figure out how I’m going to explain this all to him.
“I know,” he says before I can even continue.
“You do?” I ask.
“That wasn’t your father. I didn’t know it at the time. Really, I didn’t. I had heard so much about him and how incredible his career was. It was such an honor just to meet him, then when he said,” Greg pauses, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as he seems to concentrate on taking in a breath and swallowing.
“You don’t have to keep going,” I tell him. “You can take a break.”
He lifts his head, shaking it adamantly.
“No, I need to tell you this. I’ve been waiting two years for this.”
“Alright,” I say. “Go ahead.”
“He told me the reason no one had seen him in so long was he was deep undercover doing extremely dangerous, highly classified work. He wasn’t able to tell you what he was doing or where he was going because he needed to protect you. So I wasn’t allowed to tell you I saw him. He told me he came to recruit me; that he’d been watching my career closely and was impressed, so he wanted me to work with him. He had an organization called Leviathan, and I had been chosen to apprentice under him. Of course, I agreed. Then he told me I would have to leave essentially my entire life behind. I would have to end my relationship with you and just disappear the way he had. It felt like an impossible decision.”