“Where are you?” Amy calls out. I follow the sound of her voice. I’m in a tunnel, one that narrows as I continue down it. The insides are slick with slime and wetness. As I continue, I have to duck. The tunnel is a pipe, and it’s getting narrower and narrower. The sound of water rushes everywhere.
I hear a squeak and see a rat at my feet. My scream dies in my throat. The light fades more and more as I move toward the sound of Amy’s voice.
“Quickly! He’s coming!” she begs.
“Who?” I ask.
But she doesn’t answer.
Now I am hunched over, crawling on hands and knees. The muck is half a foot deep. Everything smells like burning metal.
I see the outline of a door, far in the distance.
“Help! Hurry, Carrie!” Amy shouts.
“Crawl to me!” I plead as I get close to the door. She sounds like she’s on the other side. All the edges are shining, like there’s a bright light behind it.
I try to open it. The doorknob twists easily.
And when I pry it open, I find Amy.
Armless and legless.
Hanging from the end of a magician’s wand, choking.
“Carrie! Carrie!” Strong hands, warm and powerful, are pushing my shoulders. I open my eyes and sit up, scrabbling across the bed backwards like a crab. My hand goes back for one more movement to get away and finds empty air.
I pitch backward, falling off the bed and onto my shoulder, then head, then hip. The three-part pain jolts me, and I groan, rolling onto my side.
The room is dark, stuffy and frightening.
And I swear I hear Amy’s voice, still calling my name.
“You were dreaming again,” Mark says, climbing off the bed. Gentle hands touch my neck and back. “Are you okay? That sounded like it hurt.”
“Amy,” I groan. “Where is she? Where are her arms and legs?”
I’m pulled up and my face is in Mark’s chest suddenly. He’s shirtless, and my cheek presses against his pec. He begins to rock me like one would a small child.
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” he croons.
“But Amy?”
He sighs. “We still haven’t found her.”
“I did. In my dream. But then when I got to her it was t-t-t-ooo l-l-l-ate,” I sob. I snake my arms around his waist and hold on. Mark is so warm, his body hard and cut. He cradles me. My head pounds from the fall, and my shoulder feels twisted. I squirm, finally finding a comfortable spot.
“I’m okay,” I say, my tears thick in the back of my throat. “It was just a dream.”
“You have a lot of nightmares,” Mark says softly.
“I have a lot of them, yes,” I say, nodding. “My roommates in Oklahoma used to just bang on the door with a shoe to wake me up when I screamed.”
“Oof,” he says, stroking my hair. “I wish I could have been with you, in Oklahoma. I would have helped you.”
My heart feels like he’s squeezing it. “Oh.” I don’t know what to say.
I would have loved that. To have a friend there. Someone to hold me and tell me it was going to be all right. I never had that. For three years I was all alone, scrambling to figure out how to help my dad. How would life have been different if Mark had been there? A DEA agent fighting for Dad might have made all the difference in the world.
Dad might still be alive.
I sniff and run the heel of my hand up my nose. “I need a tissue,” I say, standing awkwardly. My hip’s going to hurt tomorrow, and my shoulder will ache, but otherwise, I’m fine. The nightmare won’t leave my head, though. I look at the bedroom door, which is closed. A cold wave of nausea pours through me.
Mark walks across the room and comes back with a box of tissues. “Here.”
“Thanks.” I blow my nose. “What are you doing here?” I ask him.
“I live here,” he says slowly, a half-grin dancing on his lips.
I make a low chuckle, surprised by my own stupidity. “Right. Duh.” My eyes comb over him. “And you’re half naked because…”
“Because you interrupted me from becoming naked all the way,” he says, leaning against his dresser and folding his arms across his chest.
My eyes dart to the waistband of his uniform pants.
They’re unbuttoned.
Ah. I see.
“You were crawling into bed?”
“No. I was about to take a shower and then crawl into bed.” He walks across the room. “Care to join me in the shower?”
“That shower isn’t big enough for two platypuses, much less two humans,” I joke. The eerie feeling from the dream is fading, thank goodness.
Mark’s undressed body is making my heart skip beats for decidedly more delicious reasons.
“We could try…” he says, stripping naked in one swift move.
“Oh, God,” I say without realizing it, the words out before I can think. He’s unbelievably built, muscled and tall, so beautiful he makes me forget the horrors of the day.
“Besides, I have a bone to pick with you,” Mark says.
I look down. “I think you mean you have a boner to—”
I’m in his arms and his mouth is on mine before I can say the next syllable. I drag my hands across the thick expanse of his back. It’s like stroking granite covered in tanned silk. His mouth is hot and he tastes like coffee and spice, his tongue teasing, willing me to plead for more.
I’m wet in seconds, throbbing and wanting him, me, a bed, and the next twelve hours.
What we get, instead, is a text.
His phone buzzes in his pants on the floor and he groans.
“Damn it!” he says, looking at me with more lust in his eyes than I’ve ever seen. “Fuck it. I’m ignoring it.” He cups my ass and pulls me up against him. I feel his hardness against my thigh as he reaches for the waistband of my pants and begins pulling them off. I fell asleep in his bed after taking a quick shower and I’m wearing his pajamas.
They pool at my feet with one light tug from him.
Bzzzzzz.
“NO!” he shouts, pulling back, hot and pacing like a frustrated animal.
“You have to answer it,” I say sadly. Every cell in me pulses for him. “It could be another woman.”
He gives me a sharp look.
“No, no, I mean another kidnapped woman. Not another woman woman.”
We both snicker.
“I hate being responsible sometimes,” he says with a sigh. As he bends down, the full power of his thighs is on display, flexing and tight.
He looks at his phone and freezes.
“It’s my director.”
“Director?”
“At the DEA. Something big’s happened.” He yanks open a dresser drawer and pulls out a pair of khakis. Mark starts to get dressed.
“What?”
That uncertain look passes over his face.
“Don’t lie to me,” I insist.
“Sometimes I truly can’t tell you information, Carrie,” he says, almost apologetic. “I am a federal agent. Information that is classified can’t be shared.”
He has a point. I don’t like it, but the man has a point.
“Fine. Then tell me what you can share.”
“More information on the logistics of how El Brujo is smuggling women across the border. That’s all the text says. If we can figure out the route, we can cut it off. I gotta go.”
“Where?”
“To D.C.”
“D.C.? As in Washington, D.C.?”
He just nods, grabbing clothes and throwing them in a small travel bag.
“You’re serious?”
He nods again.
“What about Chief Cummings? I know he doesn’t know you’re with the DEA, but you can’t just disappear!”
“I have a cover story.”
“You have a what?”
“He thinks my dad is dying. In hospice. On the east coast.”
I pause. Three years ago, we didn’t talk much about Mark’s dad. He mentione
d having one, and that he didn’t have much contact. That was it. In the effort to create a life that isn’t real, he’d invented an ailing dad?
“You have all the bases covered, don’t you?”
“I have to. That’s how it works when you’re deep undercover.” His eyes are closed off, and his voice makes him seem so distant. It hits me.
He’s compartmentalizing. He has to. If he’s too friendly as he separates to go away for a few days it’ll make everything harder.
“Stay here in the cottage while I’m gone,” he insists. He walks out of the bedroom and comes back with a shaving kit. “It’s safer.”
“It’s weird.”
“It’s safer, Carrie.”
“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me.”
He stops and stares at me. “Are you nuts? Of course I do.”
“No, you don’t. I’ll be fine.”
“Someone kidnapped your best friend. In fact, if I could take you to D.C. with me, I would.” He frowns as if thinking of different ways to make that happen.
“I have a job here! I start classes on Tuesday. No way I’m just disappearing with you to D.C.”
“Maybe next time.” He finishes packing, then stops.
“What’s wrong?”
“I still need that shower.”
“I think you need a kiss more.”
Bzzzz.
Anxiety fills me, like I’m immersed in it and I can’t breathe. He really is leaving this fast. Every movement is efficient. Mark’s changed before my eyes, turning from the loose but authoritative man I’m in love with into a ruthless, focused—
Undercover federal agent.
How many selves are inside him? How many versions of Mark do I need to get to know before I understand all of him?
His goodbye kiss is quick, hot, and unraveling.
“Look, Carrie,” he says, staring at me with piercing eyes the color of whisky. “I mean it. Stay safe. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be home in a few days. If the chief asks, my dad is sick.” He snorts. “It’s not far from the truth. Galt is sick. Not hospice sick, but he’s a sick guy.”
“Okay,” I say, suddenly meek.
“By the time I get back, I’ll know more. When I know more, I can do more.”
“Okay.” I’m feeling even smaller.
“And the more information and resources I have, the sooner we can take this motherfucker down.”
I just nod.
I want him to tell me it will all be okay. That he’ll find Amy. That she’ll be rescued and home and everything will go back to the way it was right after I came home. I know he can’t say any of that, but I wish he could.
I wish he would.
I lunge at him, wrapping every part of me around him that I can. “I’ll miss you,” I whisper.
I love you.
Oh, how I want to say it, but the time isn’t right. It’s too early. It’s too soon. It’s premature and—
“I love you, Carrie,” Mark murmurs against my ear.
Or, maybe not.
“I know it’s crazy to say it like this,” he adds, his breath hard against my ear. “But I can’t hold back the truth. And it’s killing me to have to leave like this.”
He pulls back, both hands cradling my jaw. Our eyes are riveted to each other.
“I love you, too,” I gasp. “Always have.”
“I couldn’t stop. No other woman ever compared. I waited and wanted and damn it, Carrie, I need you.” The kiss we share is so sweet and warm, a commitment and a promise.
And then:
Bzzzz.
Mark snaps to attention as if poked by a cattle prod. “I have to go. I’m going to just walk away and break contact with you because if I keep standing here I’ll have you naked and up against the wall in about ten seconds, and if I do that I’ll want you in my bed and on all fours, on your back, riding me, on the chair…everywhere.”
His eyes blaze with passion. “And if we do that, I’ll never get to D.C.”
“Fuck D.C.” I declare.
He groans, laughing, as he forces himself to walk away from me.
“Sometimes you surprise me, Carrie. And I love it.”
As the door clicks shut, I stare out the window at the moon.
It stares back.
Chapter Forty-One
The first four days without Mark go by in a blur. Between visiting Minnie, who is sedated most of the time, talking to Elaine about Minnie and the latest town gossip, and going out my mind with worry over Amy, time flies.
And then there’s work.
On Thursday, I walk into work to find my entire desk cleared. All the piles I’d sorted paperwork into are gone. It looks like someone took everything and created one big, sloppy pile on top of the long counter that houses the air conditioning unit.
And instead of those piles, there’s Claudia Landau’s ass all over my desk.
“What are you doing?” I challenge, marching in and getting right up in her face. I’m so sick of her, and now that I know Mark’s in D.C. getting more evidence against her father, I frankly don’t give a crap.
I’m not afraid of her.
She’s clearly surprised. If she thinks I’m going to cower any more, or pretend she isn’t being a bitch when she acts like one, she’s sadly mistaken.
“There was a leak,” she says, pointing up at the ceiling. The tile right above my desk looks clear as can be.
“What leak?”
“Right there. Can’t you see it?”
I look again. “No.”
“Then you’re blind.”
“And you’re an asshole. Get your skanky ho ass off my desk.” The words are out before I realize what I’ve said.
Boy, I really have had it, haven’t I?
She looks like she’s about to explode. “What did you say to me, you little shit?”
“If I’m blind, I guess you’re deaf, Claudia. I said, Get your skanky ho ass off my desk.” I lower my voice as I say the last part.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” She looks around the office as if expecting someone to come to her rescue.
“I just did. You’re not my boss. You don’t work here. Get out.”
Alarm floods her eyes as she realizes I’m not backing down. Funny how bullies freak out when you call them on their antics.
“I’m telling my father what you’ve said.”
“Go ahead. I suspect he won’t care. It’s pretty obvious he’s sick of micromanaging you like you’re a child.”
Her cheeks go bright red with fury. “You’ll regret this.”
“What are you going to do? Kidnap me and cut off my arms and legs?”
The room turns to ice.
Her eyes get impossibly wide, the black eyeliner she wears on her bottom lids looking like a thick chunk of charcoal. Her mouth drops open into a little O of astonishment.
I got her.
But why are my words so shocking?
Effie wanders in at that exact moment, humming to herself and carrying a folder. I can’t tell if she’s heard any of our conversation. She ambles over to the photocopier.
“Hi Carrie,” she says.
“Hi Effie.”
Without looking at Claudia, she says pleasantly, “Hi, Skanky Ho.”
I guess she did hear.
Claudia makes a sound of disgust and flees.
“Carrie?” Effie asks casually, as if that didn’t happen. She loads more paper into the copier. “What’s a ‘skanky ho’?”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, Effie. You don’t want to know.”
She sets the photocopier up and starts copying a hundred sets of syllabi for a professor. “Your desk is so clean,” she observes.
I point to the mess Claudia’s made. “Not exactly.”
If there’s one thing you never, ever do when it comes to staff at a university, it’s this: touch the stacks of paper on their desks. Effie knows this. I know this.
So when Effie realizes what Claudia’s done,
she inhales sharply, the gasp going on for so long I’m worried she’s having a stroke.
“She did that?”
“Yes.”
“Double skanky ho.” Effie makes a clucking sound and moves quickly for the door. I realize her phone is ringing in the distance.
As I look at the giant pile of papers Claudia’s made, I slump forward. This is at least an hour or two of re-sorting and organizing. A low-grade hum of anxious energy begins inside me.
What have I done?
I’m two Carries right now. The first is the quiet, get-along young woman who is back with a mission: to exonerate my dad. That Carrie stays quiet, lays low, and has one goal.
The other Carrie is just sick of being treated like a doormat by people like Claudia and doesn’t care about jeopardizing any mission. It’s all about dignity and calling people like Claudia on their crap.
For years, Carrie #1 has dominated.
Looks like Carrie #2 is ready for her turn.
It’s been four days since I’ve heard from Mark. When I woke up on Sunday, I got a cryptic text from him that just said:
Lockdown. Don’t expect contact. Home Thursday or Friday.
Great. A “few” days had turned into a week. As hopeful as I am, I doubt he’ll be home tomorrow. I expect Friday at the earliest. Who knows what information they’ve uncovered? I’d rather Mark stay there and do this right than rush home and have the operation all fall apart.
And I certainly don’t want another innocent person to be wrongly accused of anything.
“You see Eric Horner?” Effie asks me as she grabs finished copies off the copy machine. She limps over to a big table and begins making stacks. Five stacks of one hundred sheets of paper. No matter how many times I’ve tried to explain how to use the copier to collate and staple, Effie doesn’t seem to care.
She sits down with a stapler and thumbs her way through one copy of each page. Squares them by banging the small stack on the table top. Staples them.
And prepares to repeat that ninety-nine times.
Welcome to academic administration.
“Not since Saturday, no,” I say. Last night was my first class of the new semester. Anthropology. I half-expected to see Eric in building. New professors get stuck with the night classes. No Eric.
“Hmmm. My son says he’s missing.”
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