by Mary Eason
Anna turned on him, her anger, fueled by frustration, matching his. “You don't believe that. There’s no way to dress it up as anything but what it was. Aaron trusted us. He deserved better from his friend and wife--ex-wife.”
“Did he? I doubt that.” His answer was like a kick in the gut. It threatened to confirm all of her worst nightmares.
Anna forced him to look at me. “What do you mean?”
John obviously regretted his outburst. “Nothing. I meant nothing.” He scooped up Gemma and turned away. “We should head back. It’s not safe out here.”
She reached for his arm. “No. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you mean by that.”
He glanced down at her hand. “Let it go, Anna. For God's sake, once and for all, let it go.”
“I can’t. I won’t. Tell me! I have to know.”
At her request, he ended her illusions. “Why? Will it make you feel better knowing Aaron was sleeping around?”
The truth she’d always expected, coming after so long, threatened to buckle her knees.
When she could speak she asked, “Was it Cheryl Larsen?” Anna watched John hesitate and hated the pity in his gaze that never left hers.
Slowly he nodded.
“How long? Was she the only one?”
John’s voice flat-lined. “I’m not sure how long or if there were others.”
Anna turned from the tenderness she saw in his eyes. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She swallowed the bile gathering in her throat. “Did he love her? Is that why he divorced me? John, did he know about us?” For reasons she couldn’t begin to explain Anna needed to know the truth. As much as she hated living with the possibility that Aaron might have known about her involvement with John, she needed to clear away all remaining doubts.
“I don’t know if he loved her. And I’m not sure if he knew about us.”
Anna let go of the breath she’d been clutching inside.
“What I do know, Anna, is that he loved you. I don't know the reasons Aaron filed for divorce, but I believe deep in his heart he still cared about you.”
When she didn't respond, John reached for her hand. She yanked it free. “Don’t even try. Don’t you even try to make me feel better. I trusted him. I certainly trusted you.”
Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t stop them. “I trusted you, John. When I no longer knew who Aaron was, I trusted you.”
John lowered his head. “I wanted to tell you for so long because I believed Aaron needed both of our help. I couldn’t. I’d made a promise.” His tone pleaded for understanding.
Anna finally looked at him. “And afterward? All those times I begged you to tell me the truth?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t think it would serve any purpose at that point. I wanted you to keep your sweet memories of Aaron. I wanted you to remember the person he was before that last year.”
When the tears finally stopped, she realized she was shaking from a fury that reached down to her very core. With John, but mostly with Aaron. Why hadn’t Aaron talked to her about whatever problem he believed existed between them? Why simply file for divorce without fighting for them?
Aaron was gone, she couldn’t confront him. Instead, she took all of her anger out on John. “Why? It was all a lie. Our marriage was a lie. All of it.”
“Oh, Anna, that’s not true. He loved you.”
As she started for the cabin, some long unimportant memory resurfaced. When she and Aaron had first started dating, he’d been romantically involved with another one of his students. He’d told Anna it was just a fling. The girl had meant nothing. Now, Anna wondered if she’d been just the fling. Did their marriage mean so little to him? Even though she wasn’t thinking rationally, on some deeper level, she never expected to feel this betrayed by hearing the truth.
“Anna, wait.” She didn’t. At that moment, she hated John. Hated Aaron. But most of all she hated the lies.
She’d almost reached the clearing next to the cabin when the walkie-talkie feature on John’s phone squawked to life.
“John, John, where are you!” Anna barely recognized the frantic sound of Samson’s voice.
John clicked the volume to silent, grabbed Anna's arm, and dragged her back down the path and away from the cabin. When they were safely tucked into a thicket of Cypress trees and undergrowth, he attempted to respond to Samson.
“What’s happened?”
“I’m hurt…bad. He came at me from out of nowhere. I don’t think he’s still in the cabin. The location is compromised. Get out of here.”
John handed Anna the cell phone. “There’s another cabin down at the end of the pier. Head that way and don’t stop until you get there. Hurry. Call my partner Rick Garner. Tell him to get the local PD here immediately and send for as much backup as he can mobilize.”
John gave Anna a quick shove but she didn’t budge. “You can’t go in there. He’ll be waiting for you.”
“I have to. I have a man down. Samson needs my help. I’ll be fine. Go.” He unholstered his Glock and headed for the cabin without another look her way.
Anna forced herself to do as he asked, but kept a close eye over her shoulder for some glimpse of John or Jericho Lewis.
The thick undergrowth tugged at her clothes and hair, as well as Gemma’s. Anna held the dog tight against her body and listened to silence on the phone. She wanted to try to reach out to John. She wondered if Samson was still alive. Was John?
Anna tried to reach Agent Garner but the service in the thicket was nonexistent. She kept hitting redial until she realized it was pointless. She’d need to reach a clearing for any hope at a signal.
Gemma continued her frightening growling, while Anna tried to reassure her. “It’s okay, baby. We’re almost there.”
Up head, Anna could see the path clearing. She ran into the opening and redialed the phone. This time the call went through.
“Garner here.”
“This is Anna Sorenson, listen to me. There’s been an attack at the cabin. Agent Samson is injured. Agent Delaney has gone back after him. We need immediate assistance.”
“Where are you, Anna? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m almost to the neighboring cabin. Hurry.”
“I’m sending help right away. I’ll have someone come get you.”
Anna closed the phone without answering. The sound of gunfire pierced the solitude. The police would never make it in time to help John.
Anna pulled out the weapon she’d tucked inside her jacket. She sat Gemma on the ground. “Wait here, baby. Don’t move. I have to help him.”
Gemma didn’t like her command, but she obeyed. With a final glance the dog's way, Anna followed the beach to where she guessed the backside of John’s cabin to be.
She almost believed she’d misjudged the distance until the back of the cabin came into view. Anna slipped quietly along the house until she found a window that she could see inside although the early morning shadows made it next to impossible. The cabin was dark. The lights off.
Anna tried the window. It was locked. She moved on to the next until she found one unlocked. This would be how Jericho Lewis entered the house.
She secured the weapon in the band of her jeans and hoisted herself up through the open window.
The house was eerily silent. She waited for her eyes grow accustomed to the filmy darkness still clinging to the inside of the house. She was in the bedroom she’d once slept in. She tried not to think about what waited for her beyond the walls of this room.
Anna drew her weapon and made her way to the door. Luckily, it stood slightly ajar.
She peered through the crack and froze. A silhouetted figure of a man stood over another on the floor.
Anna slipped through the door and realized it wasn’t John but a stranger standing over the deathly still body of the man she still loved.
Jericho Lewis straightened, picking up the sound of her faint footsteps.
And then he turned to Ann
a.
She’d never seen the man before, and yet something deep inside her stirred at the sight of him as if the heart in her responded.
“Brenda?” Jericho Lewis held the bloodied knife in his hand.
Anna froze. A new fear crept inside her that had nothing to do with the present circumstances. The part of her that had once belonged to Brenda was reacting to the man.
She forced Brenda's fear aside. She had to be strong. Only the tiniest of movements from John was enough to tell her he was still alive, if only just barely.
She needed to think rationally. Needed to reach out to Lewis in the only way she could. As Brenda. John’s life depended on it.
“Yes, it’s me. You’ve found me at last.”
His face crumpled with emotion. “I didn’t mean to do it.” Anna barely recognized the voice as human. It appeared animalistic.
It was as if seeing him again had brought all of Brenda’s memories to life. In the last moments before her death, Brenda had won back some of her control. Her death had come at her own hands and had been by her own choosing. Jericho Lewis hadn’t murdered his wife.
"I know the truth. It’s okay. I’m here now. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill me. I took my own life. It’s okay now.”
He stepped closer, the knife he still clutched in his hand nicking agitatedly at his pant’s leg. He wasn’t aware he’d drawn blood. “I never told anyone. I let them believe it was my fault. I never told a soul. I did it for you, Brenda. Because you deserved better. They tried to tell me you were gone, but I didn’t believe it. Through all those years in that terrible place, I didn’t believe. I knew I’d find you again. I knew we’d be together.”
“Yes.” In the distance, Anna could hear police vehicles advancing rapidly on the cabin.
She glanced at John and saw that his eyes had opened. He was aware of her. What was happening around him, but his injuries were severe. He had lost a tremendous amount of blood.
Lewis appeared caught in a daze until the approaching vehicles suddenly snapped him out of it. He glanced outside then back to Anna.
“You. You called them. You’re not my Brenda. My Brenda would never have betrayed me in such a way.” He raised the knife and lunged for her. Anna barely had time to get off two shots before he reached her side. The first grazed the left side of his ear. The second hit its mark dead on. Straight through the heart of a killer.
Jericho Lewis fell to ground like a rock, mere inches from Anna. The agent in her kicked the knife from his reach, checked for a pulse, knowing she wouldn’t find one. Then she rushed to John.
His eyes were open, but he couldn’t speak. His throat had been slashed and he’d lost so much blood.
She reached for his hand and squeezed it, her eyes filling with tears. “Hang in there. Help is on the way. They’ll be here in a moment. Don’t try to speak, just hang in there.”
And for the life of her, she believed he squeezed her hand in answer.
Chapter Sixteen
“The doctor believes he’ll make it.” Rick found Anna sitting in the waiting room of the hospital where she’d lost her husband and child. She’d been sitting in this same chair for hours, since she’d arrived at the hospital with John, covered in his blood.
She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of thanks. “Thank you, God. Oh thank you.”
Rick managed a weak smile. “He’s awake and asking for you. Want to see him?”
Anna nodded because she couldn’t speak over the lump that had formed in her throat.
She followed Rick inside the stark walls of the hospital room. The sight of John threatened to crack her fragile resolve.
She went to him, took his hand, and kissed his cheek. “I was so worried.”
He squeezed her hand as he had at the cabin. His eyes never left hers. She realized they were alone. John’s neck was bandaged, a thin red line of blood oozed through the white gauze.
“I’m okay,” he croaked.
“Don’t talk. You need to rest.”
“Then don’t you leave again.”
As hard as she tried, she couldn’t make that promise to him. “I’m not leaving any time soon.”
But he knew in time she would.
Over the next twenty-four hours, John drifted in and out of consciousness while bits and pieces of the case fell into place slowly. With each new victim, Jericho Lewis’ frustration had grown. He was searching for his Brenda—Brenda’s heart. The women he’d killed were all transplant patients around the same time Brenda’s vital organs were harvested. With the exception of Cheryl Larsen. Lewis had screwed up the name. A Sheryl Larson had received a liver transplant around that time. Cheryl was just unlucky. The fact that she worked as a nurse had nothing to do with her death. She was an innocent victim of a madman.
Jericho Lewis was one sick human being. That he’d ever been released from Brookhaven was unbelievable. There would be lawsuits to follow from the families of the victims who didn’t have to die, but that didn’t concern Anna. Nor did the fact that she’d taken Lewis’ life. She’d made peace with it, knowing she’d saved John’s life, her own and countless others. Samson was not so lucky. He’d died before reaching the hospital due to the injuries he'd sustained at Lewis' hand. He never stood a chance.
They’d learned a few days after Lewis’ death that he’d killed his former psychiatrist. A patient found Doctor Archibald Baldwin’s body. He’d been stabbed dozens of times. The list of Jericho's victims continued to grow.
AD Warren assured Anna that Peterson would never see the light of day. He might not have been responsible for the deaths of all of the victims once laid at his feet, but he had been convicted for murdering a federal agent. He’d pay with his life for taking Aaron’s.
Once Anna was certain John would be okay, she knew it was time to leave D.C. for good. But letting go of John and the memories of their past wasn’t so easy.
She’d started tapering her visits to the hospital. When he was released, she decided it was time to leave. Bev and Ed were going to accompany her to Florida where she’d take care of some pressing things first then go and spend a few weeks with them in New York.
The night before she was scheduled to fly to Florida, John came to see her at her hotel.
He was almost back to normal again. The bandage was barely visible by now.
Anna opened the door and let him in. “You look much better.”
“And you’ve been ignoring my calls,” he said without preamble.
“Yes.”
The pain in his eyes had nothing to do with his wounds. His next question took her by surprise.
“How the hell did he know where to find you? It was almost as if…” He shook his head. John was a cold, hard facts man. He couldn’t accept that there might have been a connection left between Jericho and his wife. Anna could tell this had been troubling him.
She smiled. He just needed a little push to believe. “You know.”
He shook his head.
“I dreamed about him, you know. At the time, well, I thought I was going crazy. It was Brenda’s dreams, though. I understand that now.”
Anna took a deep breath and told him everything. “I think sometimes, well, maybe our connection to people we care about doesn’t end with death, not when we’re the ones closest to them. Not when they die so violently. Like Brenda. And Aaron,” she added, reluctant to bring the past and her failures up again. “I dreamed of him as well. I think Aaron was trying to tell me we’d gotten the wrong person. He can rest now. Jericho’s gone.”
“Anna…”
“And we can too. We can get on with our lives now, John. We couldn’t before. We, we were frozen in time, but now we can move on.”
He spotted her packed suitcases next to the door. “You’re leaving.”
Anna never would have associated so much pain with John.
“Yes. I have to, John.”
“Dammit, Anna, don’t. Don’t throw us away like this.”
He
came to her and reached for her arms. She tried to pull away but he wouldn’t let her go.
“I’m not throwing us away. There’s no ‘us’ to throw away, John, and you know it.”
He drew her closer, and for a moment, she welcomed the strength and warmth of his body. “There is. You’re just too damn determined to blame yourself for Aaron’s death to accept it. For being happy with me. Let go of the guilt, Anna. We all made mistakes, including Aaron. He wasn’t the saint you’d made him out to be.”
“Don’t talk about him like that.” She yanked free. “Just go.”
“Anna, don’t do this. Give us a chance.”
The anger left her at the pleading in his eyes. “John, it wouldn’t work. Don’t you see, there would always be the past, Aaron, the baby, Cheryl, Jericho and all the terrible things you and I have seen standing there between us. The secrets we’ve kept from each other, ourselves…from Aaron. To move forward and make a fresh start, to have some hope for a future beyond all this horror, we have to let go of the past. Of us. You have to let it go. Please, just let me go. Get on with your life. Let me go. Fall in love.”
She saw the hopelessness in him before he headed for the door. “Too late. I already have.”
* * * * *
It took everything inside him not to follow her to Florida, or the ends of the earth for that matter. Everything not to force her to admit the truth, but in the end it was what she’d said that kept him from going after her.
Too much stood between them. Part of it was true. The biggest part was the unknown. Was there a chance at having a normal life for them after all the horror they'd seen? Was there one for him without Anna? He had to try.
But first he had one final piece of Bureau business to complete. John parked his truck in the parking garage and took the stairs to his floor. This was his first day back. He'd put this moment off for days. He couldn't any longer.
It’d been weeks since he’d last darkened these once hallowed walls. The night the truth came out. Today was different. The weight of the world had left him and he had a purpose in mind.
His partner spotted him the minute he walked into the door. “Where’ve you been? He’s been screaming for you for days. I thought you were coming back last Monday?”