Chapter 15

 

GETTING OUT OF bed the next morning was a challenge in itself. My rib cage was purple, black, and some weird bluish color. I’m not one for bruising so I guessed that I must have hit myself pretty hard on that cliff face. By the time I’d managed to pull on my t-shirt and make my way down to breakfast both Zack and Renee sat on the sofa reading a book.

The picture made me smile. The fire cricked and crackled away, spraying light over the polished wood floor. Zack was curled up in the crook of Renee’s arm as his blond head rested against her shoulder.

“Deep, deep into the forest he travelled, over mulch and mush and all things brown; then behold he came upon the city, where the new king would be crowned.”

Renee’s voice was soft but full of expression, her love of books shining like the weak sunlight through the windows.

One of the first things I had ever seen about her was that adoration and respect of the written word. It was almost like the religious folk felt about their churches. I guess a reverence for something sacred to their hearts.

I stood and listened to her, listened to her warm tones and felt like I was back beside the river with her. She, like Nan, made me feel as safe and content as a hazy summer day.

I stood there long enough for my left leg to protest my position and I had to shift. The floorboard creaked and Renee turned to smile at me and put her finger to her lips.

“He asleep?” I whispered back. I attempted to creep but every darn piece of wood sang like a snitch. In the end, I gave up and walked to the kitchen followed by Renee’s laughter.

“So what’s the plan for today?” I asked, looking out at the couple of feet of fresh snowfall. “After I’ve shoveled the driveway.”

“All done,” Renee said, lying Zack down on the sofa and covering him with a blanket. “I need to go into town and see if the sheriff has had any luck contacting the local rescue teams.”

“You really think there’s anyone left alive?” I gazed at Zack and Renee put her hands on my arms and steered me to sit at the breakfast bar.

“No.” She morphed into super chef and flitted around the kitchen. “But the sooner they start the recovery process, the sooner the families of the victims will know.”

Zack murmured in his sleep, looking cuter than a kitten. “What will happen to him?”

“It’s best you don’t know.”

“Ain’t there nothin’ we can do?” I rubbed my side as it twinged. “I mean being CIG gotta count for somethin’.”

“One step at a time.” Renee fired up the cooker. Her tools all set out in military precision. “First, I have to try and contact Ursula.” She bit her lip and glanced my way. “Not looking forward to that conversation.”

I cocked my head. “Thought she had your back.”

Renee nodded, her focus on the bacon she was pulling out of the freezer. “She does but she’ll be frantic.” She sighed. “And when she gets worried, she’s not the easiest of people to talk to.”

“Why is she so mean?” The sizzle sound made me smile as the bacon hit the heat.

“She has her reasons.” Renee looked at me. “Aeron, being part of the CIG leaves you with scars. We’ve lost people . . . a few people over the years and without you . . .”

“What do you mean?”

She moved the bacon around in the pan and stared down at it. “The unit has been in existence since before Lilia arrived.” She added some kinda sauce. “You’ve seen the wall they built up in the CIG headquarters.”

“A wall you say?” I leaned on the countertop. “Lucky CIG, maybe one day there’ll be four walls and a roof.”

Renee tutted at me, grabbed some eggs from the fridge, and cracked them into a bowl. “It’s a memorial wall.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, exactly. It’s full of names . . .” She stopped, one egg inches from the rim. “Including my father’s.”

“He was CIG? The famous Colonel Charles Black?”

Renee’s eyes glazed and I slid off my stool and walked to her. Her memories were still raw.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I just meant that he was famous. I didn’t get how he could be CIG too.”

“He was nineteen when he saved the president. Twenty-five when he and his unit rescued all those hostages.” She waved me away to stop me fussing. “I’m not sure when he joined CIG but I knew there was no other place I wanted to be.”

“You ain’t gonna be up on that wall.” I didn’t care what nonsense she’d been filled with. “I’d have seen that and you ain’t.”

“I knew what I signed up for. We all do.” She took a deep breath and blew it out as if she wanted to push the sadness from her. “Without you, more names will be on that wall that don’t need to be.” She poured the mix of eggs and milk into the pan. “But I would take more names, including my own, to make sure that yours never appears there.”

“You’d make a crappy protection officer if you didn’t.”

Her smile crinkled to top of her nose. “Let’s just hope Franken-Frei feels the same way,” she said with a wink.

 

THE WALK INTO town made me almost feel like we were a family on vacation. Zack was swinging between me and Renee as we hoisted him up and down. His giggling filled the crisp air and the sun shimmered behind the haze of puffy white clouds. It was as perfect as a morning could be, if not for the fact we were headed for the sheriff’s office rather than the slopes.

We walked into the café and after Martha filled us with muffins and coffee, not to mention a strawberry milkshake, Renee signaled to her pocket and made the phone call hand signal.

“Sheriff?” I asked, wondering why the secrecy but Renee shook her head.

“Oh, lovely, that man is having fries.” She stared at me until I made the connection. I felt like her eyes would start shooting lasers at me if I hadn’t got it. She got up and walked outside.

Zack looked up at me. His flashed thought powerful. Renee had fries in her hand and was munching away. “Better, Renee?” I asked.

I swallowed with difficulty. “You ain’t meant to call her that,” I whispered, looking out the window to see if I could spot her. “If anybody asks and you figure out how to speak . . . she’s Doc Llys.”

He cocked his head in a gesture of “Why?” and I tried to figure how to explain it without nobody hearing us.

“Remember the hero thing?” I asked.

He smiled. Renee stood in spandex with a cape flowing behind her. Her hands were on her hips, her hair fluttered in the breeze.

My laugh bellowed out of me and I nearly choked on my tea. The few folks still in the café cast curious glances our way.

I winced as my ribs jabbed at me, trying not to show Zack I was in pain. “Well, you know how they got a different identity, to keep themselves secret?”

He nodded. Renee had found a telephone box. She stepped inside. Whirring, flashing. She stepped out. She crept away wearing a long coat and the thickest rimmed glasses I had ever seen.

“Just like that,” I confirmed. I made a mental note to tell Renee of the picture. I only wished I could draw it. That would definitely cheer her up. 

Zack gave a curt nod as if that settled the matter and the secret was safe with him. I leaned onto my fist. Heck, I loved him.

 

YOU RUB YOUR sore hands over each other. Your breath billows out fog-like with the persistent cold. Such a hellhole. A forsaken dump filled with people who think they are happy. It’s pathetic and it jars you. It’s the kind of place that she would love. Tess. You look up and down the crowded street. Where had all these losers come from?

The hotel disgusted you. The people so pitifully joyful. It would do for now, you need to find her, seek her out, and bring her back into your clutches. She will understand. You’ll make her understand.

“Can I help you there?” The man has skin which bears marks of too much time in the sun, his color unnatural, his teeth even more so.

“I’m looking for my wife,” you answer. She is no such thing but people are more forthcoming when they feel you have a claim. “She was driving through here the other day.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” he answers. His concern is genuine and it only makes you detest him more. “Do you have a picture . . . a description?”

“Yes.” You have so many pictures of her. Unfortunate that so many are from afar now but there are a few, before she abandoned you. They will serve to identify her to most.

He seems to know her the instant her face is revealed. You can see in his eyes that he finds her attractive, that he appreciates her far too much. Your sneer must show on your face as he clears his throat and points down the street.

“You’ll find her down there,” he says. “Saw her a while back heading that way.”

You look down the street. At least twenty or so people cross paths on their morning routines. You smile and it makes the stranger hurry from you. Perfect, just perfect.

 

RENEE LOOKED DOWN at the phone in her hands and frowned at the screen. No calls, no messages, nothing. It was unlike Ursula not to contact her. Most of the time she checked in daily, well, hourly lately. The fact that they hadn’t shown up at the training center would have reached her by now.

The silence from CIG preyed on her mind. She’d checked her phone each morning in this same spot which had the best link to the satellite. Normal cell phones would be useless with the nearest cell tower down. She’d heard people chatting about the repair crews being unable to get out to it because of the weather and the avalanche warnings. She felt the guilt clawing at her stomach that she hadn’t simply given her phone to the sheriff so that he could call in help.

You’re an agent, not law enforcement, she reminded herself.

Renee glanced back at the café and met Aeron’s eyes through the window. Maybe she’d been more reluctant than she cared to admit. It was wonderful to be near Aeron again. It filled her heart with hope and God, had she missed that feeling. Everything she wanted seemed to have fallen right into her lap. This place, Aeron, even little Zack.

She’d asked Renee to stay. She’d asked her to forget everything and live here with her.

The only thing that stopped you agreeing was that idiot. Renee scowled at the thought of him, then smiled at Aeron’s reaction. If only . . .

The problem with this idyllic isolation was that Renee was starting to forget just why they were stuck in the town. Aeron always managed to do it to her, no matter how hard she tried to fend off whatever that was. Somehow, Aeron always wriggled through a gap and got her opening up, got her talking. She gets me so tied up that I’m ready to tell her everything.

Renee glanced around the street. Haven’t you learned yet how dangerous that is? She glared down at her phone. Why isn’t she calling?

Her stomach tightened like a fist ready for impact and she pressed call. The screen remained dormant. She pressed the key harder. The panic prickled along her arms, making her shiver. Again nothing.

“Please work,” she asked it. “Please.”

She manually tapped in Ursula’s number and pressed call. Her heart hammered. Her mouth so dry that her tongue felt twice its usual size.

Nothing.

She paced around in a circle. Her thoughts whirred, her stomach with them. If her phone had broken, it could have been broken since when?

The realization hit her and she swore.

Since the night they were caught in the avalanche—it must have been. That meant that nearly three days had passed and CIG didn’t know where she was.

They would have checked her route. She hung her head and swore again. No, they would have assumed that she took the lower road, the one Ursula advised.

Why didn’t I listen to her?

Renee bit her lip, the dried skin rough against her tongue. There would be a high alert status by now. Ursula would have made it top priority for all law enforcement. She looked up at the café. Aeron peered at her through the window with a question on her face. If they assumed Aeron was MIA too . . .

Renee looked at the sheriff’s office. She needed to talk to Ursula, now.

The street was busy, she could feel it, hear it rather than see it. At least she had her gun. If the past came hunting, then at least she still had that. She touched her hand to the bulk of metal in her waistband, so familiar. Aeron never asked why she had taken to sleeping with it under her pillow.

When I get back. I’ll tell her. I’ll tell her everything.

She brushed past a woman who was clearly trying to get information on someone named James. The tone of the woman’s voice said it was a secretive inquiry, the hoarseness of her voice sung with heartbreak.

You’ll be safe here for now, she told herself, not believing a damn word of it. You won’t be found here.

The sound of three men laughing registered. Panic. Thudding. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. She identified the voices. Mark from the ski shop joking with Brad and another man she didn’t recognize. Football was the topic with the Broncos chances being analyzed. It was nothing, they were safe.

Ursula could have tracked your cell, she told herself as she walked. Last location, she would have known you came this way.

Snatches of daily life around her filtered in as she hurried.

“Martha!” Hal, the deputy was attempting to call Martha and Earl. Apparently Earl had forgotten the ketchup for the rescue team and Martha had forgotten Hal’s burger.

The road is blocked.

Renee stopped with the thought. How will they get here? Aeron needed to be safe. She couldn’t do it alone.

Joyce and Charlie bickered as she passed them near the steps. Renee could hear Joyce telling him that he shouldn’t go to work. She’d seen the blood, the fall. He was trying to reassure her.

It registered as odd. She thought about turning to them but spotted Sheriff McKinley.

“Sheriff?” she called to him. There was no way she could hide this. Hopefully he would keep it private and no one would have to know.

“Sheriff!”

Renee hurried up the steps. She halted. Frozen. Halfway. An explosion of fear detonated within her. Every muscle rigid. She spun. Drew her gun and fired.