by Sara Davison
Daniel smacked the steering wheel with his left hand as he pulled away from the curb. He should have gone as soon as she had returned for her groceries. Those extra few minutes had cost him any ground he’d gained by helping her carry them.
A small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. It had been amazing though, for those brief moments, to catch a glimpse of her being as open and friendly as she had been that day in the diner. He’d give anything to spend a few hours, or days, in the presence of that Nicole.
Unfortunately—his smile faded—given the circumstances under which he would be seeing her from now on, it was highly unlikely he’d see that side of her again.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A light breeze rustled the leaves of the huge oak tree in the middle of the yard, partially masking any sound and movement Rogue made as he crept from the shadows of the bushes in the backyard. With hours to go before the sun’s rays would begin to streak across the early-morning sky, the soft swish of his shoes on the wet grass was swallowed by the thick mist that hung heavy over the yard.
He scanned the building in front of him. No lights gleamed through the windows of the second story. Creeping across the yard, he moved from tree to bush until he reached the house. The soft hoot of an owl broke the silence as he pressed against the brick wall. Rogue pulled the black mask down over his face and stood still for a moment, drawing in calm with the night air.
When his heart rate evened out and his hands felt steady, he pushed himself away from the wall and moved stealthily to the sliding doors that opened on to the back patio. Through the glass, he could make out a coffee maker and toaster sitting on the kitchen counter in the dim glow of the digital clock on the stove. He pulled a small tool out of his pocket and inserted it into the lock. Slowly. Slowly. A soft click sounded, and he slid the door open, barely enough for him to ease through.
As soon as he set his foot through the opening, the shrill wail of an alarm shattered the silence. His heart hurtled into his throat. For two seconds, he thought wildly about racing up the stairs, grabbing the little girl, and taking his chances on trying to get away with half the neighborhood alerted to his presence. Muttering a curse, he yanked his foot out, spun around, and sprinted for the fence. He stuck one running shoe on the lowest board and hurled himself over.
As Rogue darted through the narrow opening between two houses, he heard it, the desperate cry of the little girl he’d been sent to rescue. His chest clenched so tightly he could barely draw a breath as he ducked into the nearest subway stop and took the stairs three at a time to the bottom. He slipped through the doors of the train right before they closed. He had ripped off his hat and gloves and stuck them into his jacket pocket as he ran through the yards, and no one in the nearly empty car spared him a glance as he dropped onto a seat.
He clenched his fists tightly. Everything in him desperately wanted to lash out at someone or something. Instead, he bit his lip until he tasted blood to hold back a scream of frustration and pressed his crossed arms hard against his stomach as he slumped down in the corner of his seat.
Weeks of research and planning had gone down the drain, he’d nearly been caught, and—worst of all—a five-year-old girl was still at the mercy of her violent father, more terrified and in danger than ever. Rogue pounded his fists on his knees. What could have gone wrong? They had assured him the house had no alarm system, and the information they passed along had never been wrong before.
He straightened in his seat. He wanted answers. Yanking his phone from his pocket, he sent a message, in the code they’d given him, demanding a meeting. The second she told him when and where, he would go and see Natalya. Although he knew from past experience it was almost impossible to get information out of her that she didn’t feel he needed to have, he wouldn’t leave her presence without it.
Before the elevator doors had fully opened, Rogue had stormed out and down the hall. He stopped in front of the organization’s temporary headquarters, set up to look like a high-end business in a skyscraper downtown. He scanned the words on the door: Worldwide Investment Strategies – By appointment only. He snorted. Good luck getting one of those appointments. Not bothering to knock in the manner they’d described to him, he shoved through the door. The secretary jumped up from behind her desk and moved to stand in front of a closed office door. Rogue ignored her as he stormed across the room. When he reached her, she held out one arm. “Sir, you can’t just go—”
He reached around her and turned the knob, flinging open the door so hard it slammed against the wall behind it.
Seated on the far side of a large dark cherry wood desk, Natalya looked up from a laptop. Her face was calm and her eyes steel cold when they met his.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I tried to tell him ...”
She raised a hand. “It’s all right, Lydia. Give us a few minutes, please.”
Lydia shot Rogue a reproachful glare as he moved past her. He had to step forward to avoid being hit as she grasped the handle and pulled the door shut behind him with an indignant click.
Natalya propped her elbows on the armrests and clasped her hands under her chin.
Her silence threw fuel on his already blazing fury, and he strode toward the desk and slammed both palms down on the smooth wooden surface. She didn’t flinch.
“What happened?” He spat the words out between clenched teeth.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Her controlled voice mirrored her expression.
His eyes narrowed as he mentally ran through a list of possible actions that might elicit a reaction, any reaction, from her. Nothing that wouldn’t get him arrested came to mind. “I don’t want to sit. I want you to answer my question.”
Natalya didn’t speak, just continued to meet his gaze with a cool stare. Finally, with a deep exhalation of breath, he straightened and dropped onto the leather chair behind him. “Well?”
She lowered her clasped hands to the desk. “We do our best to prepare for every mission. An entire team of people investigates every possible problem, contemplates every eventuality. In spite of our best efforts, we cannot always know everything going in. In this case, we had no way of knowing that an alarm system, not connected to any known service provider, had been installed in the home.” She leaned toward him. “It is unreasonable of you to assume that everything will go perfectly every time. Part of your responsibility is to deal with the unexpected the best way you can. Which, in our opinion, you did in this instance.”
“Leaving a child in a home with a parent who sent her to the hospital three times last month was the best possible thing I could do?” Bitterness clogged his throat so thickly he had to work to get out the words.
She nodded. “In this instance, yes.” The gray eyes studied him for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was low and soft. “You have to let it go, Kelly.”
Heat rose in his chest. “I can’t. We were so close to getting her out of there. We just—”
“I’m not talking about her.”
Her words were like an ice-cold blast that sucked the air from his lungs, quenching the fire inside him. Rogue stared at her, his jaw tight. “This isn’t about me. Or my past.”
“Isn’t it?” She tilted her head to one side.
Neither of them moved for several seconds, until he slid to the edge of his seat and rested his arms on her desk. “Let me go back for her.”
“No.”
Rage ripped through him again. “She’s completely alone in that house, with no brothers or sisters to protect her. The last time I saw her she had her arm in a sling for the third time. Seriously, what four-year-old breaks her arm three times playing T-ball?” His hands closed into fists. “When she glanced at her father in court, she looked terrified, although unfortunately, the judge didn’t see it. Horrific things are going on in that house. If we don’t go back and get her, he will kill her. I promise you that.”
Nothing flickered in the slate-gray eyes that locked with his. “I will only give you this warn
ing once, Kelly. If you ever go in on your own and take out a child, we will not recognize her. We will not take her into the system. And you will be out.”
Every muscle in his body vibrated with anger and frustration. She was the only person in the world he could talk to about what had happened last night. He desperately needed her to be as worked up as he was. Or at least—he studied her calm, controlled features—worked up to any appreciable degree at all. He bit his lip to keep from screaming, or leaping across the desk, grabbing handfuls of that dark shimmering hair and yanking a response out of her. “You have no idea what it’s like to be in a situation like that. You sit up here in your nice neat office with your nice neat life and your nice neat desk ...” He flung out his arm and knocked over a pile of papers beside the computer. The ceramic vase filled with pens crashed onto its side and shattered into pieces. “Do you ever feel anything at all?”
The door opened behind him. Natalya raised her gaze slightly to look over his shoulder. “Everything’s fine, Lydia. It was an accident. I’ll take care of it.” After three or four seconds, the door clicked shut.
Natalya reached out calmly and started to pick up the pieces of the vase.
He exhaled. “I’ll get it.”
“No, it’s all right. I’ve—”
He jerked his head up at her quick intake of breath. Blood pooled in the palm of her hand.
He jumped to his feet and strode around the desk to stand beside her. “Let me see.” Circling her wrist, he lifted her hand to inspect the wound.
“It’s nothing.” She tugged on her hand, but he didn’t let go. “I need a bandage. Here.” Abandoning her efforts to free herself, she pulled open the top drawer of the desk with her other hand.
He felt sick. It didn’t look to be a deep cut, but blood was already trickling down her arm. “Do you have a tissue or something, it’s—” Rogue pushed back the sleeve of her white blouse slightly so it wouldn’t get stained. He stiffened. Angry red marks, and criss-crossed, puckered skin, marred her arm.
She glanced over at her injured hand and yanked free of his grasp. This time he didn’t resist. Natalya grabbed a box of Band-Aids before sliding the drawer shut and getting to her feet. She strode into the washroom, her high heels clicking on the marble floor before the door closed softly behind her.
He pressed his eyes shut for several seconds, listening to the water running in the sink. When it stopped, he walked around to the other side of the desk and gathered up the fragments of the broken vase. The washroom door opened. He dumped the pieces of ceramic into the empty garbage can with a clatter as she sat at her desk, smoothing her short black skirt beneath her with her good hand as she did.
He caught a glimpse of a square brown bandage before she folded her hands in front of her on the desk. The sleeves of her white shirt and suit jacket were pulled down past her wrists. Rogue pressed his palms to the top of her desk and leaned closer to her. Her eyes, when they lifted to meet his, were colder than he had ever seen them. He suppressed a shudder. “Your father?” The question came out in a hoarse whisper and he cleared his throat.
Natalya shook her head slightly. “My father was gone before I was born. It was my mother. She suffered from some kind of mental illness. According to her, both my older brother and I were possessed by evil spirits that needed to be burned out of us. She hung herself in the basement when I was twelve. My brother found her which, presumably, snapped the fragile grasp he had on his sanity, so he decided to join her. That left me to find both of them.” Her chin lifted. “So no, Kelly, I don’t feel. Not often, anyway, and never for very long. I just act.”
“Natalya.” He waited until her gaze locked with his again. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes softened. The change was so slight that someone who wasn’t searching wildly for a hint of emotion might not have noticed. She sighed. “I know you went the other way after what happened to you and your brother. Frankly, between the two of us, I’m not sure who is luckier.”
His shoulders sagged, and he pushed himself away from the desk. “I’ll wait to hear from you about what I’m supposed to do next.”
She gave him a brief nod and began typing on her keyboard.
Rogue watched her for several more seconds before stumbling for the door.
“Kelly.”
One hand on the knob, he stopped and looked back.
“You’ve done good work, you know. Five children from this city are safe and being cared for and loved already, thanks to you and your predecessor. Do not dwell on the things you cannot change.”
He swallowed hard and nodded before turning and pulling open the door. Stepping into the elevator, he pressed a hand against the wall and gulped in several deep breaths to quell the waves of nausea. When his stomach settled enough that he was pretty sure he wasn’t about to lose its contents, he slumped against the metal railing, completely drained. The numbers flashed over the top of the door and he watched himself descend. All the way down to the ground floor he went over and over her statement in his head, about which of them was luckier, trying to decide if he had an answer.
When the heavy doors slid open and he stepped out into the lobby, he still had absolutely no idea.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Nicole knocked on the door of Gage’s apartment. No response. Same as yesterday. And the day before. Like there’d been no answer any of the times she had called or texted him over the last forty-eight hours. He’d been a little withdrawn since the Sunday after church when he’d called his brother Luke by mistake. She hadn’t seen him until the Friday after, the day she’d dropped all her groceries in the park. He’d been quiet that night, and only picked at his dinner. She’d called him Monday evening to see if he was coming over, but he’d been curt, telling her that he couldn’t talk because he was heading in to work for the evening. Then nothing for the next three days, despite her repeated attempts to get a hold of him. What was going on? Was he hurt? Sick? Maybe she’d pushed him too hard, and he was trying to tell her to back off. Since he wasn’t talking, she could only guess.
In any case, she wasn’t leaving this time until he came to the door and gave her a reasonable explanation for dropping off the face of the planet. Closing her hand into a fist, she pounded on the wood. “Gage?”
A door down the hall opened and an elderly woman stuck her head out. “Is everything all right?”
Nicole lifted her hand. “Yes, sorry. This is my boyfriend’s apartment and I haven’t heard from him for a while, so I’m making sure he’s all right.” She stepped away from the door. “You haven’t seen him around, have you?”
The woman frowned, creating more wrinkles in her already heavily-wrinkled face. “Mr. Kelly? No, come to think of it, I haven’t. I hope he’s all right. Should I call 911?”
“That’s okay. I’m sure he’s fine.” Nicole tugged her phone from her pocket and held it up. “If he doesn’t answer soon, I’ll call them. Thanks, though.”
“All right, then. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” The woman disappeared into her apartment.
Nicole waited until the door closed behind her before taking a deep breath and typing a message into her phone. Gage Kelly, you have ten seconds to open your door before I call the police.
She pressed an ear to the wooden door. For eight seconds, she couldn’t hear a sound on the other side. She was about to type the number for emergency services into her phone when a sound stopped her. Heavy footsteps tromping across the floor.
The dead bolt slid open with a clang, but instead of the door opening, she heard the same heavy footsteps retreating. Seriously?
Nicole turned the knob and pushed open the door.
Surrounded by an empty pizza box and crumpled soda cans, Gage sat slumped on the couch, both feet propped on the coffee table in front of him. Blue light from the television flickered off the walls. He stared at the set and didn’t look at her as she picked her way around a couple of takeout bags that had been crumpled up and tossed ont
o the floor. What in the world?
“Gage?” Nicole shoved a fist against her hip as she stared down at him. His eyes didn’t leave the flickering screen. His hair was disheveled, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved since she had seen him last. Panic and fury tangled in her belly like a pair of wild cats. “What is going on?”
“I’m on a retreat.”
Fury won the battle. “A retreat.” The chill in her voice must have finally gotten through to him because he raised his head. Instead of the contrition she’d expected, anger flashed in his dark eyes.
“That’s right. I needed to get away from it all for a few days.”
Nicole’s jaw tightened. “Did it occur to you to mention these plans to me?”
“I don’t need your input about the way I live my life. Or your permission.”
“What do you need, Gage?”
“To be left alone.”
“It doesn’t look to me like that’s working for you.” The smells of stale fast food and body odor hung in the air and she kept her breaths as shallow as possible. What is going on here?
Gage crossed his arms over a filthy sweatshirt. “What do you think I need?”
“A shower would be a good start.” She turned her head and stared at the television screen for a minute. Some guy with slicked-back hair was gesturing wildly, extolling the virtues of a food chopper they were practically giving away for the next twenty-three minutes.
Slowly she swiveled to face him.
Gage lifted his chin.
“Why are you watching this?”