Katie raised her head from Rainey’s chest. She said in a hushed whisper, “I’m so scared to leave you, but I know I have to.”
“Very soon, you won’t have to be scared anymore. You have to trust me,” Rainey said.
“Okay,” was all Katie could manage to say.
They went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on their faces, trying to erase the tearstains. One last kiss at the door and then Katie was gone. Rainey watched the SUV, with Katie in it, until it disappeared from sight. She stood there, staring out the window for a long time after Katie left. Mackie’s voice jolted her out of her thoughts.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” he said, with a knowing grin.
He knew her to well to try to hide her true feelings and she was not afraid of disapproval from him, he loved her too much and she him.
Rainey answered him with a matching grin, “You have no idea.”
Danny arrived shortly after, with the tactical team. The team commander talked with Rainey about the layout of the land and the best places to set up. The team used her kitchen table to put their equipment on and began laying a virtual net over Rainey’s property. Mackie got the old wooden roadblock sawhorses from the back of the office and set up a command post of his own. He parked his Escalade across the road, just where it came out of the trees. No one would get by Mackie and Junior until Danny wanted them to.
It took all morning to set up the surveillance equipment. By noon, when they stopped to eat the barbeque take out provided by one of the agents, all the cameras were in place. The snipers’ nests were located and prepared. Rainey warned all the agents to take lots of water and bug spray with them. If they did not, the mosquitoes and deer flies would eat them alive, if the humidity and heat did not get them first. It was approaching the longest day of the year, when the sun was at its closest to this part of the earth. The Carolina sun would shine brightly for nearly fifteen hours today.
All of the local television and other major media outlets had been leaked the story that something big would be happening out at Rainey’s place of business. It was two o’clock when Mackie moved his barricades and the way was clear for the hordes of reporters sure to show up any minute. The first TV truck pulled up at two fifteen. Soon there were media people of all kinds, being held back on the road by several large men in black suits, and at least three helicopters flying over Rainey’s house.
A big show was made by other agents of packing up electronic equipment and moving it to the SUVs parked in the driveway. Rainey stood on the front deck with Danny, having an animated argument, of course for the benefit of the press. By three o’clock, all the agents piled into the SUVs and made a very fast public exit from Rainey’s property. Junior followed in Mackie’s Escalade and the illusion had been cast. The media got tired of waiting for Rainey to come out and talk to them, so they left, thinking Rainey Bell was now alone, in an isolated cottage out in the woods. The media people had no way of knowing that the tactical team was in place and Rainey was anything but alone, in the little cottage.
So much activity had taken place since Katie left, Rainey did not have the time to let thoughts of her invade her focus, but now that the activity had come to an end, Rainey could think of nothing else. She went into her bedroom, just to be alone for a few minutes with her thoughts. Her face flushed hot when images of Katie flashed in her mind. Katie on top of her, her eyes locked on Rainey’s, smoldering with desire. Rainey had never known that sex could feel like this.
Rainey had not really thought about sex much since the attack. In fact, the thought of it made her sick. Rainey had been around enough victims to know that was a natural response to being raped and as time went by, she would eventually get back to a healthy sex life. Rainey was in no hurry, until she met Katie. Craving Katie the way she did, Rainey never once thought of the rape while in bed with her. Though the attack was still vivid in her mind, the pain was a little more palatable today.
Rainey’s phone began to ring on her hip. She answered it immediately without looking at the caller ID. Rainey was pleasantly surprised, when she recognized the voice on the other end.
“Rainey, it’s Katie. Is everything okay out there?”
Rainey burst into a smile. “Yeah, we’re okay. Nothing happening, probably won’t till after dark.”
“What do you mean, we?” Katie was confused. “I saw you on the four o’clock news. I saw all those agents leave, even Mackie left.”
“Do you really think Mackie would leave me?” Rainey said to ease Katie’s mind. “He’s right out there, in his chair, watching the video feeds.”
Rainey wanted to tell her the truth. There was no way this guy could get to her. Rainey was surrounded by armed SWAT guys and the virtual net would see the killer, long before he got within two hundred yards of her. But she couldn’t tell Katie. She could not take the risk that somehow this guy would find out that a trap had been laid for him. No one knew what was going on, except Danny and the few agents that had been at the cottage. Even the local police had been fed the same story as the media.
“I’m so worried about you. I have been cooking all day. There are pies on every surface in the kitchen,” Katie said.
Rainey laughed, which unsettled Katie even more.
“I’m serious Rainey, I don’t know if I can take this.”
“Hang in there,” Rainey, said. “It will all be over soon.”
“Promise me you’ll be safe,” Katie demanded.
“Katie, as long as I don’t leave here, I promise you I am as safe as I could possibly be.”
Rainey was not lying. She could not be any safer, as long as she stayed home. The only way she would be in danger is if he lured her away somehow, but even then, she would never go alone.
“Okay, I’ll just keep telling myself that,” Katie sighed.
Rainey wanted to change the subject. “How are things at your house?”
“Oh fine. When the agents left your house, they descended on mine. So, I’ve had people to feed. I haven’t seen JW. I assume he’s in his study brooding,” Katie said.
“So, you are completely covered by agents. That’s good.” Rainey ignored the JW comment.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what to say to a room full of first graders tomorrow, when I walk in followed by two big guys in suits,” Katie said.
Rainey panicked. “You’re not going to school, are you?”
“I have to, Rainey. We have a program for the parents tomorrow night. I can’t abandon my babies.”
“No way are you going into a public place tomorrow night,” Rainey said, growing more desperate.
“Rainey, you don’t understand. I have to go. There isn’t anything that could stop me.”
“Even, if I asked you not to?” Rainey said.
“I asked you not to hang yourself out like a piece of meat to slaughter. Okay, that was not a good illustration, but you have made yourself bait,” Katie argued.
“Touché,” Rainey answered, because she had become the lure.
Katie went on, “And besides, I have these goons that follow me everywhere. I’ll be fine.”
Rainey became dead serious, “You listen to me. Do not go to the bathroom, the copy room, anywhere without them. Do you understand?”
Rainey was frightening Katie. She could hear it in her voice, when Katie answered quietly, “Okay, okay, I understand.”
“I’m sorry, Katie,” Rainey said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m worried, that’s all.”
“I know the feeling,” Katie quipped.
Rainey did not want to waste the time they had to talk discussing how scared they both were.
“I know that feeling, as well,” Katie said, more softly this time.
They sat quietly listening to each other breathe for a moment.
Katie broke the silence, “I pray this will all be over soon.”
“Amen to that,” Rainey said.
Rainey talked with Katie for the better part of an hour. They spent the time learning things about each other, what they liked and did not like, books they had read, anything was new and exciting. They laughed at each other’s stories and pretended nothing else in the world existed, but the two of them. Rainey was sorry to have it end, but Mackie was knocking on her bedroom door.
“Katie, I have to go. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”
“Can’t I call you later?” Katie asked.
“I need to stay focused,” Rainey laughed, “and I cannot do that, if I’m talking to you.”
“I guess you’re right,” Katie conceded. “Be safe, I love you,” she said.
“Me too,” Rainey said and they hung up.
A truck had pulled down to the boat ramp, while Rainey was on the phone. Mackie did not recognize it and wanted to go down and check it out. A debate ensued as to whether Mackie should give away his presence or remain in the house. Finally it was decided that Rainey would walk out on the deck, look at the truck long enough to make the driver nervous, and if that did not make him leave, then Mackie would go down there. It worked like a charm. The two teenagers immediately backed up and drove away, as soon as they saw Rainey. Evidently, the girl and boy were looking for some privacy.
After that, there was no activity until dark. Then a few vehicles pulled down to the landing and were met by a set of powerful flood lights, Rainey’s father had installed, with motion detectors. He did it to help the fisherman at night, he said, but Rainey knew he did it to discourage teenagers from making it a hangout. When the lights would come on, the cars would leave like roaches fleeing back beneath a kitchen cabinet.
Every time she saw car lights, Rainey’s heart sped up. The adrenaline pumped through her veins as she gripped the Glock in her hand. Then the car would leave and she would have to breathe deeply to calm herself down. Mackie was the same way, up and down from his recliner, looking out the windows. He occasionally would check the windows and doors all over the entire house, and then return to the recliner to watch the video feeds. The agents in the kitchen kept up a steady banter with the ones outside of Rainey’s house, talking into their earpieces, as the night grew deeper.
Rainey’s skin began to crawl about three in the morning. The hair on the back of her neck stood up when Freddie began to growl, from his perch in the window. Rainey peered through the darkness, trying to see what he saw.
“You guys see anything in the woods out front?” she called to the kitchen.
Rainey waited for the reply, listening as the agents questioned the men outside in the woods. “Nothing on the monitors, nothing but our guys on night vision or heat signature. There is a small animal, possibly a raccoon near the road, but that’s it,” the agent in the kitchen responded.
“Okay, thanks,” she said and rubbed Freddie’s back. “It’s just a raccoon, remember what happened last time,” Rainey said to the cat, who was still growling at something out the window.
The first and last time Freddie tangled with a raccoon Rainey ended up at the vet getting him shots and stitches. From then on, he would growl when he thought one was around, but you could not make him go outside to see. He had met his match and was giving the raccoon population a wide birth.
Freddie remained on high alert. He stood in the window staring, as if he were watching someone move about. Rainey figured he saw one of the agents and finally relaxed back onto the couch. She started thumbing through a stack of Our State magazines, the state magazine of North Carolina. Rainey had been given a subscription by a former teacher, before leaving for Virginia. The teacher said she always wanted Rainey to stay in touch with her roots. When the subscription ended, she had liked it so much that her father gave her a subscription every year in her Christmas stocking. She had taken over buying it this past year, because it really was a slice of home.
She paged through the June issue, reading the article about Highway Twelve, the Beach Road that wound its way through the outer banks islands of the state. She took the state trivia quizzes, in the front of the magazines, even though she had done them before. It was usually the first page she turned to each month. She was always surprised at what she did not know about a state she thought she knew so well. She knew the eastern part of the state, but the mountain area was a bit of a mystery to her.
Rainey tried to read other articles, but could not concentrate so she got up to pace from room to room, checking and rechecking the slides and ammo of weapons around the house. There were only a few lights on, as if she had gone to bed, so walking amongst the memorabilia was tricky. She picked up a dagger and looked at it. It did not have a fancy blade or ornate handle. A plain knife, with dirty grayed cotton fabric wrapped around the base, was unusual among all the other collectables. She had always meant to ask her father about it, after she found it on the shelf one day, but she never did. Therefore, she did the next best thing, she asked Mackie.
“Your father never told you about that dagger?” his big voice rumbled.
“I never asked him,” Rainey said, still standing by the bookcase.
“Well, see, we were in these fox holes, March 30, 1972, in Quang Tri province, where we were helping the South Vietnamese Army fortify the area around Hue, before we pulled out. Most of the US ground forces were gone by then, except a few of the units like ours, special guys, you know.” Mackie winked, because Green Berets and other Special Forces did a lot of things no one in the media knew about.