“Almost got it. Okay. Where’s the slide?” Her scalp was on fire but she sat perfectly motionless. “This will require a stitch or two. I’ll be as quick as I can.”
A scrape of a chair sounded. Then her fingers were enclosed in warmth. Her gaze dropped to the hand covering hers, then rose to meet Jude’s. He was down on one knee in front of her, his expression somber. “Find a focal point,” he murmured. “It will help.”
It was good advice. But somehow she couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. The voices of the tech and the doctor grew distant. The pain faded.
His nose split his face into two halves, forever unmatched. Hard, chiseled male beauty on one side. On the other, an angry snarl of scars, some deeper than others, that started at his chin. Notched the side of his mouth and veered onto his jaw, blooming on his cheek, stopping short of his eye socket. Like nature had wanted to start over on that side of his face, and had mangled the act.
…someone tried to peel my face off…
His eyes were unreadable. A deep bed of green that promised softness but gave nothing away. She’d been in agony before, and so had he. An unimaginable morass of pain. Once again she had the compulsion to press her hand against that scarred cheek. And in a flash she suddenly realized where the need came from. He wore his injuries on the outside, a silent testament to what he’d experienced. She carried hers within, invisible to the naked eye, but the wounds were just as real. Just as unhealed.
A thought occurred and her eyes widened a fraction. She saw the question in his expression. “This will leave a mark.” The words were nearly inaudible. His response was as well.
“Likely.”
“Then I won’t be perfect anymore.”
“Nope.”
A slow smile curved her lips and the corner of his mouth kicked up. Somehow, in that instant, the scar she was in the process of getting seemed like a final act of defiance.
* * * *
Jude pushed open the door into the sunlight, habit having him shielding Mia while he scanned his surroundings. He could think of few places safer than where they were right now. He should know; some of the technology and security measures had come from Bishop Security. But not all. Adam Raiker was much too cautious a man to entrust his complex to one company. Jude didn’t know for sure how many separate industries had had a hand in this campus’s security. It was a safe bet that some of Raiker’s own technology was in place to secure the various structures.
“Mr. Bishop.” The guard who’d allowed them into building four was at their side as soon as they walked out. “Mr. Raiker has requested that you wait on site until the testing process is complete.”
Jude frowned, flipped his glasses open and settled them on his nose. “He didn’t mention that to me this morning.”
“No, sir.” There was a faint note of apology in the other man’s voice. “He just called. Something has come up and we’re to offer you a late lunch while you wait. We have an excellent cafeteria. He said by the time you finished eating the results should be completed.”
“Did he say please? We’ll stay if he said please.”
Something in Mia’s tone had Jude’s attention snapping to her. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the large-framed sunglasses she wore but he had a feeling if he could they’d be alight with humor.
“Ah…well…” Finally the man gave up. “No, ma’am. But he’s very interested in having you stay for a time.”
“That’s fine.” Jude’s hand drifted to Mia’s elbow. “If you can just point us in the right direction.”
“This approaching gentleman will escort you.”
Jude shrugged mentally and started toward the guard heading their way. He could work anywhere, and it wouldn’t hurt Mia to eat. He’d seen grown men break down under less duress, and despite her stoicism throughout the procedure, her normally creamy features seemed paler than usual. He knew better than to suggest a pain reliever for the headache she had to be experiencing.
“You and Adam Raiker seem to have something in common,” she murmured as they followed the security guard across the blacktop. “You both like to give orders.”
He slanted a look at her. The sundress she wore was the color of smoke and an exact match for her eyes. Jude imagined that was not by accident. Her appearance today was a far cry from the tee shirt and jeans she’d worn in Da Nang, or even the shorts she’d had on this morning. With her too casually tousled long dark hair, high-heeled sandals and sunglasses she looked like she’d stepped off the page of a glamor magazine. And given the repeated glances their new guard shot her way, the effect wasn’t lost on him.
He was beginning to suspect that Mia Deleon wasn’t above using her appearance as a shield. People saw what they wanted to see.
But Jude was guessing that very few had ever glimpsed her vulnerability when that shield cracked, the way it had earlier today.
They took their time in the cafeteria, which in true Raiker fashion was much more like a small restaurant. Jude had his driver come in to eat, as well. No use him sitting out in the heat. He used the time to touch base with Kacee about different operatives they had in the field, and to discuss a potential new client. With two death threats hanging over his head, the man had built a fortress and wanted cutting-edge security measures to protect it. Since this was just the type of job guaranteed to bring future jobs his way, Jude was already constructing mental plans about the latest technology they could offer the man.
And if he occasionally looked Mia’s way, it was just to assure himself that she’d suffered no ill effects from the procedure earlier. There was no sign of the hint of panic she’d displayed when the tech had mentioned drugs. Given her reaction he knew there was more to her aversion to drugs and needles than a queasy stomach. Much more.
It was close to an hour and a half before he received a brief text from Raiker. Cryptic and abrupt, it was much like speaking to the man in person. As if choreographed, the same guard who had shown them the cafeteria appeared at the door. Jude wondered if the man had been posted outside it the whole time, or if he had received orders right before Jude’s message.
“I’m to take you to Mr. Raiker. He arrived a short while ago.”
They left the building that held the cafeteria and walked to the structure that contained Raiker’s offices, while the driver returned to the car. Jude had been there in the past. But always before he’d had a clue about what the hell he was doing there. His interest was piqued as the guard gave them over to another man stationed outside the door. Their IDs were checked again before the security guard used the palm print sensor for their entry.
“The place is like Fort Knox,” muttered Mia as they entered a small waiting area.
“There was a bounty on Adam’s head two years ago. A couple of the attempts were a bit close for comfort. He’s tightened safety precautions.” They waited for a few minutes until the next door opened. But instead of another guard, they were faced with Raiker himself.
“I appreciate your waiting.” He nodded at Mia. “I wanted to talk to you after the results were back.” He led them down a long corridor and bypassed the security to get into the glassed in offices that housed his personal space. But he didn’t take them to his office. Instead they were led to a large conference room dominated by a long polished table and a large screen TV hanging on the wall.
“I want to know about the test results,” Mia said bluntly. Rather than taking a seat, she remained standing. “Was the ink a match?”
Jude eyed her carefully. He was beginning to recognize her moods. Forced inactivity brought on restlessness. Which then increased her unpredictability. Funny that he should have learned that now, after spending a few days with her. Five years ago their business relationship had lasted months. At the end of that time he’d known no more about her than he had at the start.
“To cut to the chase, yes.” Raiker went to a shelf beneath the TV and picked up a remote. “As I said earlier, in terms of the investigation, the link isn’t much help in that we aren’t going to be able to trace it. Too common. Far too many distribution channels. But the similarity in composition is intriguing. No chemicals, toxics, lead, or plastics found in some. The main components are water, sodium and aluminum, which places the ink in the organic category, for marketing purposes.”
“That’s not so unusual these days.” Jude kept watch on Mia from the corner of his eye. Pulling out a chair he sat next to hers, hoping she’d do the same. She didn’t. Her gaze was riveted on Raiker. “More and more people are requesting non-toxic ink these days. The composition isn’t regulated by the FDA.”
“What is irregular is that the scientific makeup of both samples is exactly the same.”
Her voice was dispassionate. “You’re saying the same person might have tattooed both of us?”
“No. All I can say is there’s a good possibility you were both branded with the same ink. I’m going to ask you to carry your cooperation a little further. My forensic anthropologist just completed a facial reconstruction for identification purposes. She’s submitting the likeness to missing persons’ databases as we speak. I wondered if you’d care to take a look.”
“Or Adam can send me the pictures for you to look at later. Maybe tomorrow.” Jude didn’t know where the objection came from. He provided protection services, but he didn’t do
protective
. At least not on a personal level. And if there were ever a woman more self-sufficient than Mia Deleon, he’d yet to meet one.
“No.” The resolute tone was familiar. “I’ll look at them now.”
Raiker lifted the remote and clicked a button. A three-dimensional head fashioned of plaster appeared on the screen. Another click had it revolving slowly. Headshot. Left profile. Right. Before it returned to forward position again. “This process isn’t exact, of course. Hairline, eyebrows, and lips are the most difficult to get correct.”
Jude didn’t even pretend to look at the screen. He was watching Mia. Her features were arranged in the expressionless mask he was beginning to recognize. The chair scraped the floor as she pulled it out. Collapsed into it as if her bones would no longer support her body.
Her voice was a whisper. “She should have come with me. Why didn’t she come with me?”
“Do you recognize this woman, Miss Deleon?”
“She was one of us. He called her Eight.”
5
“I don’t know her name.” Mia spoke to forestall Raiker’s next question. “That was his first rule. No names. No talking. The first month I was taken…I was in isolation. I think he did that with all of them. Chains on the wall. A bare mattress. He called it boot camp. Constant assaults and beatings. Drugs.” A violent shudder shook her then. The hallucinogens had heightened the nightmare. One more tool in his quest for mind control. “The time was spent learning his rules. His…needs. But I know now that his intent was really to strip us of our identities. Numbers rather than names. Completely shaven. No clothes. We didn’t exist as people anymore. He wanted to make sure we remembered that.”
She stopped and considered the sculpture on the screen more critically. They hadn’t been allowed to keep eyebrows. But the lips were close to Eight’s. Perhaps a bit thinner. “Her eyes…they were brown. It was hard to keep track of time, but I know she came well after I did. Maybe a year. No more than eighteen months.”
“Eight came after you? So the numbers…they weren’t chronological?”
She shook her head in response to Jude’s question. “I don’t know what the numbers represented to him. Four was his first. She reminded us of that often. But Eight…” Her gaze returned to the screen. “I always thought…she might have come from Michigan. Or at least visited there.”
“Why would you say that?” Raiker’s question was sharp.
“We could earn privileges.” Hers had been damn infrequent. She hadn’t been a model pupil. “Sometimes he let us paint. I saw a picture she’d done. It was a street scene of Mackinac Island.” At Jude’s blank look she added, “I went on vacation there when I was a senior in high school with a friend’s family. I recognized it.” She went silent then. A year after graduating she’d been at the mercy of a monster, her future forever detoured. Fate was a miserable bastard.
And it had been even more so for the woman she’d known only as Eight.
Abruptly she pushed her chair back. Stood. “I want to leave now.” She was only half conscious of Jude rising as well.
“You’ve been more than cooperative. I realize this has been difficult.” Raiker’s voice gentled. “I appreciate your help.”
“Maybe you can do more with it than the police could five years ago.” It was difficult to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Because if they’d found him back then, Eight wouldn’t be dead.”
She turned, her eyes burning, but dry. She’d lost her capacity for tears long ago. Mia pulled open the door. Was met by the guard who had accompanied them to the building. Silently she followed him outside and started in the direction of the vehicle they’d arrived in.
Four years. The words burned through her. Eight had been dead a year after Mia had escaped. How had Mia’s gamble for freedom impacted the others? She’d often wondered. Had the women been moved? Treated more harshly?
The heat dampened her temples as she strode along. She’d worried that he might have killed them all to avoid police scrutiny. But Dr. Halston hadn’t thought so. The victims were too important to him. What was a collector without his collection?
But he’d killed one. And although living as the captive of a monster was its own kind of death, Eight’s was much more final.
If Michigan was indeed the woman’s home, she’d never see it again.
At her approach, the driver started the vehicle and cruised up to her. Mia got inside and let her head fall back on the headrest. The day seemed interminable. It would be longer still before she’d get to sleep tonight.
Because now those pictures of the corpse Raiker had shown her this morning would all wear Eight’s face.
It was several more minutes before Jude joined them. Although he shot her a concerned glance, he was silent other than to give the driver instructions to return to the apartment where she was staying. They collected Mia’s knife at the security station at the gate. The drive back to DC was slower than it had been on the way down. The afternoon was getting later, and traffic was thicker, although not yet as snarled as it would be in another hour. They’d traveled nearly forty minutes before he finally spoke.
“Adam said they’ve also submitted a DNA sample taken from the remains to the missing persons’ databases.”
“Let me guess.” She felt as though she’d been drained of all emotion. “There have been no matches.”
“Nothing yet. But not all missing persons reports are submitted to databases. He’s going to make sure the sculpture photos get to all law enforcement agencies in the country.” When she said nothing he continued, “That’s big, Mia. Any detective who’s taken a missing person’s report across the nation will see this. Someone is going to recognize her.”
She lacked the strength even to lift her head, so she merely rolled it on the headrest to look him. “Unless she’s like me.” The bleakness in her tone couldn’t be tempered even if she tried. “And no one missed her after she disappeared.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Something she couldn’t identify. “I wondered about something you said.” He folded his arms, the gesture pulling the shirt across his chest. “About the woman in those photos not coming with you when you escaped.”
The last few hours had hollowed her out. She drew her bent knees to the seat, arranged the skirt of her dress and wrapped her arms around them while she shifted her gaze. Talking about her captivity was more difficult with his eyes on her. Maybe because she still felt like he was weighing her every word. Searching for nuances and fabrication.
“There were cameras. Wired for sight and sound. We were punished for anything we might say or do when he came back. He must have monitored us remotely. We were never let out of the building. Never went outside. Once he brought us there, that became our world.” She stopped for a moment. Found it more difficult than it should have been to go on. It wasn’t her world any longer. She’d beaten the odds. But the past still had a death grip on her. Perhaps it always would.
“The only time I could be sure he couldn’t view the cameras, at least immediately, was when he was assaulting one of us. So I knew that would be my only chance. We were locked in our cells if he…when he chose someone else. Except when he selected…a group of us.”
She focused on the horizon, the rise and dip of where sky met land. “He took sexual enhancement pills. At least I assume so. And when he was finished with one or more of us he’d send us back to our cells. But first we had to fetch others. We were supposed to go back and lock ourselves in our spaces. To disobey…no one ever did.”
“Until you.”
“I was terrified. But I was dying inside, a little more every day. I sent the others as he’d ordered. But…I didn’t go back to my cell. Eight was with me. I grabbed her hand, tried to pull her along…” She could still feel the way the woman had dug in her heels, her eyes wide and frightened. She’d tugged her wrist out of Mia’s grip and scurried back to her cell. But she hadn’t given Mia away. She hadn’t yelled for help. And now Mia wondered what that act had cost the woman.
“Chances were one in a thousand that those exact circumstances would ever occur again.” Her voice was a near whisper. “He’d carried in some…props…for the night ahead. The main door was usually barred, but that night he only locked it. Eight was two cells down. The women on either side of me and directly across were…” Their screams shrieked across her mind, supplied by a haunting snippet of memory. “…with him. I didn’t even think. Not really. I grabbed something from my cell and ran.” Across the shadowy building to the door he always entered through. She’d gone to the discipline room. Picked the lock with a bit of wire she’d hidden there. Then grabbed one of the slim plastic strips he sometimes used as whips. Worked it into the crease of the doorjamb on the main door and after several attempts managed to slip the lock.
“I saw a YouTube video once.” Unconsciously she began to pleat the dress fabric in her fingers. “An animal rescue team unlocked a pen of dogs that had been horribly abused. Some of them growled and snapped at the rescuers. Others cowered in the corner of the pen. Wouldn’t leave the area even when the door was left wide open. I think Eight…it was like that.” He made a small sound but she didn’t turn toward him. Couldn’t. “Fear of the unknown can be crippling. The odds were insurmountable. I climbed a staircase, pushed open a door and found myself in darkness outside. Then I just…ran.”
“Ran where?”
She shook her head mutely. She hadn’t known. “It was terrifying to walk up that staircase. It was terrifying to be free. No one can understand. I expected him to catch me at any minute. I distrusted every decision. I stayed away from roads, tried to find wooded areas to hide in.” She’d lain all day in some weeds watching a farmhouse, Mia recalled. It had seemed empty, but it had taken night to fall before she’d gotten the courage to break into it. It had no phone, although people seemed to be living in it.
“Every house I saw could have been his. I stole some clothes. Traveled only at night. And finally got brave enough to go up to a gas station. I was going to ask for help…but a sheriff’s car pulled in. He’d made us think that the law couldn’t touch him. I thought he might be law enforcement himself. So instead I jumped in the back of a semi. Rode for hours before finding another one and rode hours more…” She shook her head, finally chancing a look at him. “It didn’t occur to me that I needed to figure out where I was, because all I wanted was
away
. Fear…it takes over everything. Shuts down logic. I was operating on sheer animal instinct. You probably can’t understand.”
“I do.” There was a storm brewing in his eyes, but something told her it wasn’t directed at her. “I understand what fear can do. What helplessness feels like.”
She searched his expression, hardly believing his words. How could he know? How could anyone else really comprehend that kind of terror? Her gaze fixed on his cheek then.
Someone tried to peel my face off…
And she recalled his military service. An experience there maybe. She felt an odd sort of kinship.
“I’ll never be helpless again,” she murmured hoarsely. She’d die before ever being at someone’s mercy.
Some days, it didn’t seem like much of a sacrifice.
* * * *
Jude watched her enter the apartment and head directly to the bedroom she was using. The door shut behind her with a quiet note of finality. He stared at it, strangely torn.
“Did you eat before coming back?” Caro turned from resecuring the front door. “I can order something.”
“We had a late lunch.”
“Well maybe she’ll be hungry later.” She shot him a curious glance when he made no move to leave. “Anything I need to be caught up on?”
That managed to snag his attention. “What? No. Raiker is checking out some information Mia provided.”
“I would think there would be police files he could access.” She smothered a yawn with one hand. “Wasn’t there some sort of investigation a few years back?”
“Yeah.” An investigation that had yielded nothing to support Mia’s story. Proof hadn’t mattered to him at the time. Her security needs had been his priority. But even as recently as two days ago he’d given her little credibility. About her past, her roommate’s murder, the woman after her… Jude was unused to feeling guilt. A suspicious nature was a natural by-product of his experiences, and had saved his life more than once. But it’d take a harder heart than his to listen to her today and remain unmoved. If even a fraction of what she shared was true, she’d been let down continuously once she’d returned five and a half years ago. By the police. By her father. By the investigators she’d hired. Damned by public opinion in the rags that made celebrities their business. Damned in private by those who mattered most to her.
And he had an inkling of what that must feel like.
Involuntarily, his gaze went to her closed bedroom door again. Without conscious volition he crossed to it. Knocked. “Mia.” He half expected her not to answer. When she did he opened the door and slipped inside, closing it behind him.
He found her at the window, looking out between the slatted blinds. The glass was bullet proof and the blinds were selected with privacy in mind. She turned as he entered, her face composed in that blank mask he was really coming to hate.
“Have you heard something already?”
“No.” She’d mean from Raiker, but Jude wasn’t there for the other man. He’d come for himself.
He jammed his fingertips into the pockets of his jeans. Now that he was here he felt oddly uneasy. “I lived with my dad when I was little.” The words were unplanned. Unprepared. And offered to few others in his life. “Never knew my mom. It was just the two of us, but we did okay. At least to a little kid it seemed that way. He went to prison when I was five for manufacturing and distributing meth. I still remember when my grandfather came for me in foster care. I’d never known I had a grandfather. But there he was. Big booming voice. Charismatic. He was a minister in his town. Respected. Well-liked. I was lucky. Everyone said so.”
She took a single step in his direction. Stopped.
“There were social worker visits.” He propped himself against the wall. “More at the beginning, but they began to taper off. I was just so lucky, see. Nice house. A doting grandfather who was thrilled to discover he had a grandson. I’d get a good Christian upbringing. I was one of the few fortunate ones.”
He recognized something in the tone he heard himself using. Recalled that it was much like Mia’s in her recounting earlier today. And he knew the reason for that purposeful disengagement.
“I was six when he began sexually abusing me.” He watched her face for shock. Pity. Finding neither made the rest easier. “I told the social workers each time it happened. But he was so believable.” Long concerned talks with the school counselor about his penchant for wild stories. Serious discussions with the police officers that brought him home each time he ran away.
I don’t know what gets into the boy. I’m afraid he takes after his father. You know Chris was never quite right.