Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  Sophia decided not to think more about it. Lynx and Brian did this for a living. They probably knew what was best. “I should probably have something else on besides a bikini and flip flops when I go. Let me change.” Sophia moved up the stairs with the distinct feeling that this was the beginning of the end. Not in the happily-ever-after ending kind of way, more like the holy shit, I never saw that coming ending. But maybe this would give her some much-needed respite, letting her stand, even if for a brief moment, in the calm eye of her hurricane.

  25

  Brian

  Saturday p.m.

  “When Lynx left, she took your car.” Sophia pointed out the obvious as she unlocked her house. She had her paperwork from the magistrate held tightly in her hand.

  Brian was glad that hadn’t been as painful as Sophia had expected. Having talked to the police about the situation before and not gotten any kind of support, she hadn’t expected to be successful. But true to their word, an Iniquus lawyer had shown up to assist them. Brian had flashed his credentials and explained what he’d witnessed. The magistrate didn’t blink an eye as she filled out the requisite form and gave the information to the sheriff’s office.

  “Lynx is picking up one of her team members, Deep Del Toro, and they’ll drop my car off. They should be back soon.” Brian scanned the yard, then pushed the door wide, flicked on the lights and pulled her inside. “Wait here, please.” He slid the bolt into place then moved on silent feet through the downstairs—opening closets, looking behind furniture. He took the stairs with his shoulder pressed to the wall.

  “All clear,” he called as he jogged down the stairs.

  She turned from her place at the window and watched as he moved to stand behind her. He rested his hands on her shoulders, easily able to see over her head. Sophia stiffened, but he didn’t move his hands. He was standing close enough that he could see around the curtain she had shifted out of place.

  “There are blue lights up at Marla’s house. Do you think that’s the sheriff, serving her notice?” she asked.

  “We’ll know in a minute. I gave them Kay’s address as an alternative. Yep, looks like they’re headed this way. That’s a sheriff’s car, not the police, so now we just need to see if Marla’s at the party.” Across the street, Brian spotted the odd angle of the Sheppards’s curtain. “Looks like someone over at the Sheppards’s is interested in what’s going on too.”

  Sophia followed his finger to the upstairs window.

  Brian laid his hand back on her shoulder. “You’re shivering.”

  “I’m scared.” Sophia’s admission seemed to encompass more than this particular situation; it seemed to define her lot in life.

  The sheriff climbed slowly out of his car, taking a moment to assess the situation. He reached up to put his hat on. Standing at the end of Kay’s driveway, clipboard in hand, he turned and looked directly toward where Brian and Sophia huddled. He turned his focus to the window of the Sheppards’s. Brian would bet this guy had combat experience. The sheriff could feel and find the eyes on him. The man had a good handle on the situation. Though Brian was ready, if need be, to head over and give the guy a hand.

  The sheriff rang the bell, and there was a decided increase in noise as the front door swung open and women with margarita glasses in their hands swelled out of the door and onto the porch. The sheriff called out directives.

  “It’s like herding cats,” Brian said.

  Finally, the sheriff got his finger in Marla’s face and directed her away from the rest. He turned to the others and must have ordered them into the house because they gathered in a swarm and headed back into the hive. They moved to the front window, and like Sophia and him, watched what happened next. And it was something to watch. Like a fireworks display, Marla went off. Brian saw the sheriff tapping the radio strapped to his shoulder; he must be calling for backup.

  Marla was stomping away from the sheriff and toward Sophia’s house when the phone in Sophia’s office rang. Brian hated what came out of his mouth next. “You’d better go get that. Someone’s been trying to reach you all day.”

  He didn’t watch Sophia as she moved away from the window, he needed to keep his eyes on Marla and her craziness. He hated it, though, that Sophia picked the receiver up and put it down without a word. He hated that his job was to take Sophia down if she was culpable. That was a pretty big if. Brian wasn’t convinced she was a bad guy. Too much circumstance, not enough cold hard fact.

  Brian knew, that right this minute, Thorn and Nutsbe were in the war room, culling through the data, and putting together a timeline for the FBI. There could be a reasonable explanation for what Sophia was doing and saying, though none of them had been able to fathom what it might be. He knew that Monday the FBI would be at the airport ready to gather the last of the evidence to put the icing on the cake, the lid on the box, to hammer this one home.

  Sophia went upstairs to the hall bathroom. She shut the door and Brian could hear the lock click, the faucet flowing, then the ringing of her cell. Her voice washed down the drain with the water.

  Brian watched out the window as backup came into view. Someone must have called Pierre Richards, because here he came through the trees and over the lawn toward Marla. Interestingly, Richards stood next to the sheriff, not next to Marla. He knew the sheriff wouldn’t like that much. And sure enough, Richards was sent to sit on the steps, but that told Brian that this guy wasn’t feeling very protective of his wife. Two sets of car headlights lit up the window. Brian watched Lynx get out of his car. She saw him in the window and signaled him out.

  Brian jogged up the drive.

  “Brian.” Lynx leaned against his car and looked up at the sky, indecision on her face. She shook her head. “I’m just going to say it. You do with it what you will,” she said. “This is between you and me, and not to go beyond us.” She lifted her brows and waited for his nod of agreement. “I have a strong sixth sense. Knowings, I call them.” She looked over to the house and back at him. “When I was in Sophia’s house, I realized there’s something wrong there. I mean scary wrong. And it’s angry.”

  “Someone?” Brian tried.

  “Something. Otherworldly. Evil intent is what I’d call it.”

  Brian gave a short shake of his head. He wasn’t following.

  “I think Sophia has a strong sixth-sense too—I imagine she’s empathic, that she can pick up energy signatures. It’s not an unusual trait for people who have gone through trauma. It’s a survival instinct that’s magnified, much like our hearing acuity increases when we’re stuck in the dark.”

  Brian crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his hips back against his car.

  “Science shows that sociopaths tend to target empaths because they don’t have to say or do anything to make someone who is empathic a victim. Sociopaths have an instinct for finding and singling out empaths. Empaths can feel the sociopath’s viciousness and threat in the air and over great distances. An empath doesn’t need to be in the same area as a sociopath to be victimized.”

  “Go back to this angry energy. Is it Marla?” This was a conversation he never thought he’d have. Brian had experienced some inexplicable things on his own out in the Middle East. Things he had no context for. And he truly believed he had survived over there because of his own sixth-sense. His ability to pull his foot back just before he stepped on the mine or snagged the trip wire. He was open to the idea that Sophie could sense such things as a survival technique. Her life was filled with trauma after trauma, after all.

  “No, it’s bigger than Marla. Marla is a sociopath, but this energy is pure evil. Keep a close eye on her. If I’m right about all of this, it makes her even more vulnerable.” Lynx reached out and gripped Brian’s arm. “She’s in serious danger.” And with that, Lynx walked over to Deep’s car and climbed in.

  Brian scrubbed a hand over his head and blew out some of the stress that had filled his lungs. He walked back to Sophia’s living room and sat down. He put the c
onversation in a box. He’d have to look at it later, when he could focus on what that all meant.

  “You should go.”

  Brian turned to see Sophia standing at the bottom of the stairs with a frown pulling down the corners of her mouth. He’d never seen her look so sad. Terrified, frustrated, exhausted, yes. But this was deep down grief.

  He stood and ran his hands down the thighs of his pants. “What happened?” He took a step toward her. “Are you okay?”

  “No. Not really. Look, it’s late. Marla has been served her papers.” She gestured toward the door. “If I have any trouble, I’ll call the police.”

  “I’m not leaving you here alone tonight.” Brian’s voice was flatly adamant.

  “Lynx is on her way home. She’ll be waiting for you. Go, spend some time with her. She’s been so incredibly kind and generous to have let you stay here this week. Would you please tell her thank you for me?”

  Well that was unexpected. “Sophia, do you think that Lynx and I are a couple?”

  She didn’t answer, just made her way into the living room and sat on the sofa in front of her boys’ picture.

  “What happened on the phone call? Did you get some bad news?” He moved to sit in the chair opposite her.

  Sophia did what Sophia always did when she didn’t want to answer. She played with her gold bracelet and didn’t make eye contact. Well, he’d find out soon enough, by listening to the recording back in the war room. No need to press. “You look exhausted. Go take a sleeping pill. Get some sleep.”

  She sat there and said nothing. He wanted the question of Lynx out of Sophia’s thoughts, he needed to make the case for staying there. His gut told him to hang on tight; things were about to spin out of control.

  “You mentioned my colleague, Lynx. I didn’t do a good job of introducing her before. Lynx Sobado is an intelligence operative who works on another Iniquus team called Strike Force. Their commander is Striker Rheas, and he’s Lynx’s fiancé. All of us operatives work hand in hand. We often rely on each other to stay alive in some very bad situations here and overseas. You probably thought we were together because you were picking up on that closeness. I’m her brother in arms. I’d do anything for her, and she for me. But we don’t have feelings for each other. I don’t feel anything for Lynx, not like—” Brian slammed the door on that thought.

  He certainly couldn’t say “what I feel for you,” though that’s what he wanted to say. There was so much he wanted to say to her. Like, it tore at his heart that she was in so much pain. Like, he would crawl through fire for one of her smiles—to hear her laugh. Like, though he’d barely met her boys, he’d seen so much of her in their eyes that he couldn’t help but fall in love with them. Just as he’d fallen for Sophia the moment she’d walked into the bar. He’d looked up, and he knew that there she was, the woman he had been made to love.

  “It must be weird for you,” Sophia said, her finger sliding in and out of the bracelet’s clasp. “You probably thought I was a completely different person last fall. I bet you had no idea that I was such a mess. Thank you for keeping me company on my birthday. Thank you for making my birthday memorable.”

  Brian pushed back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Where the heck was she going with this? “Yes, I thought it was memorable too.”

  “I want to make sure, though, that we understand each other. I consider that night to be an aberration from who and what I ordinarily am. Normally I don’t have sex outside of a committed relationship.”

  “I understood that night that sleeping with strangers wasn’t your deal.” He watched her face flame red. Brian kept his expression unaffected. He thought maybe she was trying to bait him. No. That didn’t seem right.

  “I want to make sure you understand that I don’t date. It’s nothing personal.” She glanced up at him briefly then lowered her lashes again. “It’s simply practical. I don’t know if you thought that it might be a possibility and maybe that’s why you’re going out of your way for me.” She cleared her throat then muttered, “God, that sounded egotistical.” She gathered her hair over her shoulder and twisted it around her hand.

  Lynx had told Brian that it was a self-soothing gesture. But Brian didn’t need to know that to understand Sophia was stressed.

  “Please don’t go out of your way for me. I’m not interested in a relationship of any kind. Not emotional, not intimate.” She swallowed audibly, then fixed her gaze on him steadily. “I’m saying this for your own safety—you need to keep your distance from me. You need to stay uninvolved except within the scope of your contract with my company.”

  Brian leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I’m caught on the ‘for your safety’ part of that sentence. Would you care to elaborate?”

  “No. I would not. Just take it at face value.”

  “You want me to act within the scope of my job and not consider you romantically because doing so would put me at some sort of risk. Emotional risk?” He canted his head. “Physical risk?”

  “Stop pushing me.”

  “I just want more information.”

  “I’m done with this conversation.” She stood. “I was clear. There can be no misunderstanding about our association.” She tilted her head back as if she was talking to someone hovering above them. She raised her voice, but not at him. “We have a professional relationship contracted through my employer.”

  Brian looked around to see who she was communicating to. This last part was obviously not meant for him, but someone else. He wondered if someone might be listening in on comms. He’d definitely do a sweep next time she was out of the house. Brian felt a cold prickle start at his hairline and crackle its way down his body. He felt spooked. He had never been spooked before. It was an eerie, otherworldly sensation that made him think of the broken goblet and the story about the Ouija board.

  “Sophia, things have been going badly for you for so long you can’t tell up from down. You have to lean on people you trust.” And as he said it, he realized that his name was going on the long list of people who were taking her down. Though he would do everything in his power to make the landing as soft as possible. Maybe if she approached the FBI before the FBI caught her, if she showed good faith, things might be all right. She’d have to trust him though. And he didn’t have much time to make his case. It was Saturday night and Jael was flying in on Monday.

  Sophia shook her head. “I don’t want to become dependent on anyone. If I use a crutch, how am I going to be strong?”

  Brian stayed seated so that she would feel like she had control. “Sophia, are you hearing yourself? Tell me one physical problem that requires a crutch that doesn’t help you get stronger quicker for using it? What if you had a strain, or a break, or a twist in your ankle? Would you be better or worse for the crutch?”

  “Better.” She pouted.

  “What are you trying to prove to yourself?”

  “It’s not what I’m trying to prove to myself, it’s what’s already been proven to me. I can’t depend on anyone. Not my parents. Not my husband. Not my children’s grandparents. Not through their own fault, but that’s how the stars lined themselves up. When I lean on a wall, the wall topples. It’s better to build up my own muscles and not lean, because when the wall goes, I go with it. I can’t play the trust game and lean on any more walls. I don’t think I can survive it.”

  “That’s a metaphor that I can understand better. It’s rational from where you’re standing. I get it. I’ve never lived through what you have. But if you changed ‘person’ to ‘team’ I think you might change your mind. There are people who want to play on your team. Nadia, Lana, me, Lynx, Thorn, Nutsbe. If you have more players on a team, then if someone fumbles—and they will—the others can step up and help you move the ball to the end zone.”

  “Are you really talking sports with me?”

  “You’re trying to deflect. In this metaphor, the ball is your boys. You have to be happy and healthy for your boys. If
you stand alone, and God forbid something were to happen to you, it’s not the wall that comes tumbling down, it’s their whole world. If you’re their everything, and fate steps in, then they have nothing. Build a team for their sake.”

  Sophia’s gaze was on the photo of her children. Maybe he’d pushed too far. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. He held very still. If she said yes to help, he could make a case with Iniquus to bring in the FBI and make a new plan, one where she wasn’t in prison, away from her kids.

  “I’d like to have some time to myself, to sing in the shower without you hearing me.” She smiled vacantly. She stood and headed for the stairs. “Feel free to check and make sure everything is locked up so you feel comfortable about leaving. I’m going to go wash away this day and go to bed.”

  “You had another seizure.” Brian couldn’t hide his frustration.

  She kept walking slowly up the stairs like she was carrying the weight of the world. “And it’s over,” she called over her shoulder. “Really.” She stopped with her hand on the newel post. “I want you to go home, Brian.”

  Brian was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her.

  “I’m not asking you to leave.”

  Relief flooded through Brian.

  “I’m telling you to.”

  26

  Brian

  Sunday a.m.

  “How’d the thing go yesterday?” Brian asked as he moved to Nutsbe’s work station and looked at what he had going on. “Do we have everything ready for Finley and Andersson?”

  “We’re still dotting our i’s and crossing a few t’s,” Nutsbe said. “I did background checks on Will and Janice Sheppard. He’s an accountant at an insurance company. He’s been there for fifteen years. Been in their house for twelve. Nothing on his record, not even a traffic ticket. Janice hasn’t paid taxes in two years. It looks like she’s a stay-at-home wife. Her record is clean too. Nothing sticks out on that end. Have you met them?”