Hindsight

by Jody Klaire

  Static. She went to hang up but heard Renee . . . or maybe Renee . . . her voice . . . was she hurt? Frei’s shoulders nearly touched her ears. “Renee, are you alright?”

  “Bread . . . crumb.”

  German. She was speaking in German. Why?

  “There you are. What are you—?” The line cut.

  Frei’s hand shook. A man’s voice. He was speaking French. Parisian. She hurried to her laptop. Bread crumb. Frei tapped her fingertips to her lips. Bread crumb.

  She pressed call on her cell phone.

  “Agent Lorelei?”

  Frei took a long breath. “It’s Frei.”

  Lilia breathed out her relief, making the phone crackle. “Where have you been? Renee is missing. Are you okay, are you hurt?”

  Frei looked at the cell phone. Renee had called in the police . . . hadn’t she?

  “Renee is in trouble.”

  Lilia huffed out another breath. “Yes, her POI was not a friendly.”

  Frei slammed shut her eyes. Lilia had sent her on another fool’s errand. This had to stop. “Where? Who?”

  “Paris. His name is Yannick Bucher.”

  Frei tapped into the CIG screen. She poised to hurl the phone as she read through his file. Were they blind? “He’s a serial killer.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Frei gripped the phone harder. “Bucher. His M.O. Did you check the missing persons’ reports?” She hacked into the French database. Her stomach lurched. Same M.O. He’d been leaving his mark. “You put her in harm’s way.”

  Lilia rapped her nails on the desk. Irritated, her tell. She didn’t enjoy being wrong but who did? “I saw him. He was helping a woman. He was hurt. Knocked out. Someone rammed him against prison bars.”

  “He was probably the one trying to hurt them. I’m on my way. We need to look closer to home.”

  She pulled her laptop shut, threw it into her backpack, then pulled on her discarded jeans, a t-shirt, her tools. She’d need her tools.

  “What do you mean? He’s in France, the French authorities. Ben and Daniel have said—”

  “How long has she been missing?” She really didn’t care much for profilers, or investigators or “intelligence.” What she cared about was getting in there and getting Renee out.

  “A year.”

  Frei stopped in the center of her living room. Either she would buckle and crumple to the floor in a heap or rip the place to shreds. Maybe both. “A . . . year?”

  She knew her tone was icy. She knew Lilia was an agent. Renee’s boss. But she was a fool. A massive, idiotic fool.

  “I’m at a loss. I’ve got everyone I have on it. I’m doing everything I can.” The desperation poured through and Frei calmed. Lilia cared about her too. Frei should never have driven away. She should have stayed and protected her. It was her fault for not being there.

  “Put me in charge.” She didn’t want to play with the ranking system in CIG. It was pathetic. Tradition needed to be smashed and replaced with logic.

  “Done. When can you get here?”

  Frei was surprised at how quickly Lilia had yielded. It showed her desperation. “I need to . . . wrap something up . . . A few hours. Get everyone back. We’re looking closer to home. She said breadcrumbs.”

  Lilia started mumbling but Frei hung up. She’d hear the vision when she got there. She grabbed everything she thought she would need, slid on her jacket, and headed to the door. She needed to stop at the bank and then see Huber. She’d failed Suz, failed her sister, she wasn’t failing Renee.

  “Locks . . .”

  Frei looked around her. The voice familiar . . .

  “Miss Locks . . . please.” Jessie shook her. Wild panic in her eyes.

  Frei gasped for air. She gripped hold of her throat. Her heart hammered. “Jessie, run.”

  Jessie shook her head and glanced at the door. Voices outside. “I can’t leave you.”

  “Jessie, run. You can hide. If you do that, Aeron, Renee, they’ll be able to find you.” She tried unclasping Jessie’s hands from her arm but was too weak. The room dimmed around her. “Please . . . if you run, that gives me a chance, right?”

  Anything to get her to run. Anything so she didn’t get caught.

  The voices grew louder. She wasn’t sure how many of them there were. To her, it sounded like they had surrounded the place. She scoured the rickety excuse for a boathouse, praying there was an escape route. She didn’t want Jessie to try to swim away, the water was deep, dark, swirling. She’d be easy to hit.

  “The tracker says they’re in here.”

  Frei fought the urge to shudder, fought the panic, the need to cry.

  She knew that voice.

  No.

  She gripped hold of Jessie, fought the tears, the terror, the need to curl up. “Please . . . run . . . you have to tell them. Find Aeron, Renee, tell them.” Her words slurred, her vision distorted.

  The door groaned as whatever Jessie had piled against it buckled. The owner of the voice wouldn’t let a little thing like that slow them down.

  Frei shook Jessie, desperation flooding through every pore. “Run.”

  Something flickered across Jessie’s eyes. She looked at the door and back to her then she set her jaw. “Yes, that way, they won’t find you.”

  Frei shook her head. “No. Jessie . . . No—”

  She tried to grab for Jessie, tried to beg but her throat closed.

  Jessie ducked away, ripped open the side door, and slammed it behind her.

  Another familiar voice called out and she blinked back the tears. Jessie had their attention now and she couldn’t help her.

  Frei slumped onto the dirty wooden planks. She willed her body to move but it only twitched. Her breathing shallow, sharp, rattling.

  She could only lie there and pray Jessie could run faster than her pursuers.

  Chapter 71

  THE ROADS WERE narrow out of the city. I could see dark smudges of shapes beyond. The fields would be green maybe, lush, with dazzling red and gold leaves on the trees and crunching under foot. Maybe it was a lot like back home with squirrels burying their nuts and the river slicing through. Such a contrast from the gray concrete, the harassed hum. Home was definitely in the countryside for me, wherever it was.

  Out here, I could breathe. There was space to think. The mucky glow of streetlights had faded to leave twinkling stars high overhead. Renee had her rifle in her hands, ready. Stosur was driving and from my position behind her, I watched Huber. I knew Renee had figured much of it out but there was more. I knew that if we were going to find her, really find her, I needed to see for myself. I reached over to touch him on the shoulder, maybe it was to comfort him in some way too but he jolted at my movement, instinctive, and grabbed for my hand.

  “There’s the full amount.” Ursula had become so unyielding, so strong over the years. He’d always known she’d march in and throw it at him. He wondered why it had taken her so long.

  “You need my help to find her.”

  She sighed. Flashes of regret in her incredible eyes. Eyes he’d watched mature into sheer beauty. “She could be anywhere.”

  “So you abandon your wish to help?” He held in his hurt. Silly but he didn’t want to let her go.

  “Renee.”

  He bit back the irritation. Ah, the blonde. She’d wriggled her way in and changed Ursula’s priorities, her heart. She’d softened her. He was glad to see it. That cheeky girl who ran rings around him had been buried when . . . what did it matter? She was a woman now. A strong woman. Like her mother had been.

  “What foolish trail does she have you following now?”

  Icy blue eyes met his. There was no cockiness, no cutting remark, only worry, only that horrid heartbreaking look he’d seen back then. “She’s missing.”

  He flicked the money to the side. “You think you have a chance of helping?”

  “I have a better chance than they do.” Her gaze flicked to the window. “I have . . . I can’t lose he
r.”

  “Done.” Her surprise was painful. What did she think of him? “Take whatever you need. Use whatever you need.”

  “Huber, I’m buying myself out.” Said as if he didn’t know.

  “So I see. Go find the officer.” Said as if it didn’t ache to watch her leave.

  Her short hair was as defiant as her stride. She was everything her mother had been and everything he missed. He caught sight of the silver ring.

  His ring.

  She had been quite the woman.

  He grated his teeth at the thought of the money, knowing exactly what he would do with it. The same Locks—No Ursula—would do. Silly girl. As cold as he was, as abrupt toward her, she had never needed to buy anything.

  He’d never enslave his own child.

  He only wished he had the courage to tell her she’d always been free.

  I snapped my hand back. Huber grunted.

  “I was just . . . I wanted to show you my support. I didn’t mean . . .” I rubbed at my mitt. He’d tried strangling it. I knew where Frei got her strength from now.

  He glanced at Stosur. “My apologies. I’m not used to trusting people.”

  I glanced from Stosur to him and back. I could see where Frei got her icy blues. Huber’s eyes, her stature, but I couldn’t see nothing of Stosur in her. “Makeup?”

  Stosur flicked her eyes to mine in the mirror. “Better than that.”

  Huber was still gazing at her as if he could see the beauty beneath whatever disguise Stosur wore.

  “Does she know?” I asked him.

  He frowned at me. I’d never paid that much attention to him in Caprock. He was different enough from her that only the eyes really stuck out, but because of her beauty, it never registered, even to me.

  “If they knew who her mother was . . .” He smiled at Stosur with a warmth that twinkled from him. “Who she was, she would have been in far more danger.”

  “So what happened?” Renee touched my hand as she spoke, sending a soothing ripple through me.

  “Sven was good to me but Jäger had designs on his fortune . . . and me,” Stosur whispered.

  “So I helped her leave.” Huber sighed. “Jäger was looking for a way to muscle in. If he’d discovered that we . . . that we had . . .” He shook his head.

  “Me escaping humiliated Sven. He sent Jäger to do his dirty work. To find me and drag me back.” Stosur sighed. “I took the girls and a few of us left. Acted like married couples.”

  “Only Jäger found the trail.” Renee sucked in a breath next to me. “I’m guessing someone gave him information.”

  Huber nodded. “I stepped in when the girls were found. I thought I’d lost her.”

  “So they were safe, I could stay near, disguise myself. I hoped I could let him know when Sven had called off the hunt. Only, a complication appeared.”

  “Megan.” The light dinged on in my head. “She had some issue with you?”

  Huber laughed. “Megan has issue with how much I love Ursula.”

  Renee met my eyes and I nodded. “Don’t suppose you put a tracker on her did you?”

  Chapter 72

  JESSIE SPRINTED THROUGH the field, ducking the bullets cracking and pinging all around her. Asthma or no asthma, Aeron had made sure she could run when she needed to. Her lungs burned, her throat constricted but she threw herself behind a tin shed.

  Footfalls pounded closer. One person. She crouched low. The man hurtled around the corner. She launched at him, gripped his gun, snapped it inward, ripped it free. She hit him in the stomach with her elbow, slammed her foot down onto the back of his knee.

  He turned to swipe for her but she smacked him with the butt of the gun, knocking him to the ground. She checked his pulse. Out cold.

  She closed her eyes and focused, like Aeron had said to, focused on knowing her mother was the coolest. That Aeron and Renee were heroes, that Miroslav and the others were free. She beamed, that she was free.

  She peeked around the shed. Three men were closing in on the boathouse. She looked down at the gun. She hated guns. She aimed at the ground near the first man and fired.

  Bam.

  He turned. The other two with him. A woman appeared from the side. “There. Get her.”

  One of the men turned back to the boathouse. She couldn’t make out their faces in the dark. Jessie fired again.

  Bam.

  The woman snapped her fingers and two of the men fired. Both of them and the woman gave chase. Jessie sprinted into motion. Her inhaler had run out. Her chest burned. She scoured for another place to hide.

  Bam.

  Bam.

  She rolled away from the gunshots, feeling one whip past her arm. She shuddered out a breath as she hit the ground. Her hands and feet primed, she sprang back up. She spotted some kind of barn and made for it. At least she had lured most of them away. It was up to Aeron now. Aeron and Renee would get there, she knew they would.

  Chapter 73

  “THERE.”

  The pulse of love, of hope hit me like a flare. Stosur nodded and swung the car off the main highway onto the dirt road.

  “Boathouse,” I murmured to Renee as the sweat dribbled down my forehead. “I told her to get to the boathouse.”

  Stosur screeched the car to a halt and exchanged a look with Huber.

  “What?” Renee asked. “What is it?”

  “That’s Jäger’s car.” Huber’s voice sounded more cutting than I’d ever heard it. “He’ll have some of Sven’s men with him.”

  He looked at Stosur who nodded. “I’ll stay out of sight.” She smiled at him, got out, and sprinted into the field. I could see where Frei got her stealth from.

  “You think it’s a good idea he knows you’re here?” I asked. I didn’t know how much Jäger knew, not really. It didn’t seem clever to cause him to go looking.

  “Ursula is my locksmith and my mistress as far as he’s concerned. It would be bad taste if I didn’t protect my property.” He turned and met our eyes. “If I so happen to remove parts of his anatomy in the process, it’s all in good sport, yes?”

  Renee met his eyes. “Not if I catch him first.”

  I looked from one to the other and raised my eyebrows. “Can we focus on Frei?” I asked as Renee helped me out of the car.

  I shut my eyes, hoping I could feel something but my legs buckled.

  “Aeron, what can you see?” Renee knelt beside me. Her brow furrowed in concern.

  “I can’t. I’m too tired.”

  Bam.

  A gunshot ripped through the silence. I met her eyes. “Go. I’m fine. Go.”

  Huber was off and sprinting toward the noise. Renee took off after him. I sucked in my breaths, my energy waning. I crawled over to Jäger’s car, touched it.

  “If it is Locks, sell her for a reasonable price this time.” I couldn’t make out who was speaking only blurred voices and images.

  “I’ve got more than that on my mind.” That voice was Jäger’s. I could feel his energy, his infatuation. “She’ll do as I want her to this time.”

  “You think she’ll buckle? You’re more of a fool than I thought.” The voice was too faint, too distorted.

  I slumped onto the ground but a ripple of a breeze touched my cheek. “Shorty, Icy kinda needs you to stop laying ’round.”

  A freezing blast of wind ran right up my spine.

  I hurtled to my feet like it had shot me with adrenaline. “Thanks, Nan.”

  The field swayed in front of me, zooming in and out of view. Nausea curled through my gut.

  “Follow that heart of yours.” Nan’s comfort, her energy, her love poured through me and I nodded.

  Follow my heart.

  I focused on every hug, every moment of joy, every ounce of love I had for Frei and fixed on the boathouse. I hurled myself forward, staggering more than jogging. I stumbled through the field, the effort of getting to the ramshackle place was more than I had but somehow I kept moving.

  “I’m comin’,
Frei,” I whispered. “Just hold on.”

  Chapter 74

  RENEE DUCKED THROUGH the bushes separating one field from another, Huber was up ahead. Two men spotted him and opened fire so he ducked behind a tin shed of some kind. Renee dropped to her haunches. Snapped her scope up. One had a semi-automatic, the other a shotgun. Huber fired back. The sound of his pistol cracked through the air. Renee scoured the field. Stosur was headed toward some kind of barn.

  She took a breath, somehow she knew Jessie was in the barn but where was Frei? Why couldn’t she feel her? The men opened fire again and Renee pulled the trigger, her shots pinged off the dirt next to their feet. She had no intention of hitting them—not unless there was no other option. If they could capture them, they could give them answers.

  Huber opened fire again.

  One of the men gripped his arm. Dropped to the ground.

  Renee sighed. That’s if Huber didn’t decide otherwise.

  JESSIE DIVED INTO the barn as a bullet pinged off the wall beside her. She couldn’t breathe. Whatever animal had been kept inside, she was allergic to them. Her chest burned. She gripped hold of her throat, gasping.

  “There you are.”

  Jessie turned to catch a pistol across her face. She slumped to the floor, her cheek throbbing. She kicked out at the woman, catching her shin.

  The woman yelped and gripped for Jessie’s hair. Jessie fought to free herself but her chest convulsed. She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes watered as she looked up at the woman’s face.

  Bam.

  The woman shrieked. She let go of Jessie, her eyes wide as she stared at the doorway.

  She sprinted off.

  Not a word.

  Nothing.

  Just ran.

  Jessie crawled to the doorway, hoping she could breathe better outside. She hit a pair of boots in the dirt and looked up the long legs.

  “Hello there, need a hand?” The woman reached down and picked her up in her arms.

  All she could do was gasp and point to her throat. The woman nodded. Gunfire pinged off something nearby and the woman scowled in the direction it came from. She ducked into a crouch, as Jessie clung on, and sprinted. Two men were firing at each other in the distance.