“It’s not a secret,” he began, picking his words carefully. “I’m kind of surprised no one else has told you. Gossip and all.”
“I didn’t take part in gossip. When people start that I walk away. Nothing good ever comes from it.”
Jason smiled at her naiveté. “If you control it, manipulate it, it’s not so bad. Since the gossip mill tells this story I don’t have to.”
“Do they get it right?”
Jason sipped at the hot chocolate to give himself time to answer. “No. But that’s okay. No one ever asks me about it.”
“It was bad.”
Brinley didn’t make it sound like a question.
“As I mentioned before I used to work for the DEA. During one of my investigations I was taken hostage by a drug cartel and held for weeks. I finally escaped. That’s why I find it hard to sleep,” he stated calmly. Now she knew what pretty much everyone in Tremont knew.
“That’s why you retired.”
“One of the reasons. By the time I was cleared to go back in the field I found that I didn’t really have the drive anymore. It was like bailing the ocean with a teaspoon. I’d put someone out of business and behind bars and three more would sprout up in his place.”
Jason didn’t even bother to mention the interdepartmental politics and backstabbing that he’d grown tired of. He didn’t have the patience for climbing the ladder that he’d had fresh out of the military.
She set the cup down but didn’t break eye contact with him. “I would imagine being held hostage by a drug cartel is one of the less pleasant things a person could experience. I’ve heard stories about the things they do.”
The unspoken question hung between them. Were the stories true?
“It’s not something I’d like to repeat,” he finally said. It wasn’t as difficult to talk to her about it as he’d thought it would be. She didn’t judge or fake histrionics. She just sat quietly and listened. It’s too bad she hadn’t been around months ago. “They did torture me but not as bad as it could have been. I escaped before it got worse. And it would have. I learned a lot about people from my time being held prisoner.”
Selena, the sister of one of his captors, had told him the cartel had much more diabolical things in store for Jason. He wasn’t giving them the information they wanted and they were determined to get it.
One way or another.
He’d been just as determined not to give it as he’d known that his only value was in the information he had. Once he’d revealed it he was a dead man.
“What did you learn?”
Her softly spoken question was a surprise. The few people that he’d talked to always asked about the torture he’d endured. They wanted the gritty details. At least they thought they did. He rarely satisfied their curiosity.
“I learned that there is good in some people. There was a woman there – Selena – she was the sister of one of the cartel leaders. She was kind to me. She gave me food and water. Eventually she helped me escape by telling me when I wouldn’t be watched. I wouldn’t be breathing if it wasn’t for her.”
Now he had no idea if she was dead or alive. She’s disappeared the same night he’d escaped and hadn’t been heard from since.
“Anything else?”
Somehow her hand had crossed the island and was now resting on his. He turned his so their fingers tangled together, her warmth seeping into his cold, lonely soul.
“I also learned how depraved one human can be to another.”
Images crowded his head but this time he didn’t ruthlessly push them away. Tightening his grip on her hand he allowed them to float in front of him one by one, hoping that familiarity would eventually take away the pain of remembering.
“They hurt you terribly. I can see it in your expression.”
He swallowed hard, his throat tight. “Yes. They weren’t shy about using pain to coerce me to talk.”
Her hazel eyes were bright with unshed tears. He shouldn’t have told her. She was too soft-hearted, too innocent of the things he’d seen even before he’d been captured. “I’m sorry that happened to you but I’m glad you escaped. I’m glad you’re okay.”
Steepling his fingers, he rested his elbows on the countertop. “Okay? I’m not sure what that means anymore. I can function day to day and do my job. I don’t jump and climb under furniture when I hear gunfire, so that’s a positive. I’m not looking over my shoulder paranoid about the world. So I guess you could say I’m okay. There are people walking around a lot more fucked up than I am. Maybe everyone is…in their own way.”
“But you can’t sleep?”
Jason rubbed his chin and tried to smile. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? I can’t sleep because it’s quiet and dark.” He hopped up from the stool to rinse out his cup, not wanting her to see how this subject could still mess with him. “They held me in an underground cell. There was no light except a strip of sun that would come in during the day. At night it was pitch black. And quiet. So fucking quiet. It made the waiting seem like it went on forever.”
Those few weeks in that cell had felt like a lifetime. Even when he’d escaped he’d been afraid that it was all a dream. That reality was the prison and freedom was a fantasy that he’d created as he slowly went out of his mind. It was strange how quickly sanity could desert a man when death and pain were his only companions.
Jason needed to shut the hell up but she’d opened the floodgates with her gentle questions and sympathetic tears. Those tears were trailing down her cheeks, her hand covering her mouth in horror. If he had any fucking sense he’d stop talking and send her to bed.
But he wasn’t all that smart. Not about this.
“It got to where I could tell who was coming by the sound of their shoes on the dirt and stones. It was a good thing to know. If it was one of the men coming to take me for interrogation I could prepare myself mentally. Or maybe it was just someone who would walk by my cell to another poor bastard. While I was there I heard them take away three people that never came back.”
He’d been waiting for that day. Knowing it would come. The only question was when and how they would finally kill him and put him out of his misery. The electrical shocks. The beatings. Funny how the thing he most remembered was being thirsty. It seemed like he could never get enough water. It explained why he now had a case of bottled water in the refrigerator and another in the pantry. He kept extra bottles in the truck. He never wanted to be caught without it.
“God, Jason.” The words seemed torn from Brinley’s throat. He was ashamed that he’d said anything. She hadn’t done anything to deserve to carry this shit around with her.
He abandoned the cup in the sink and came around the kitchen island, pulling her into his arms, her body trembling with emotion. He was humbled to be with a woman who could feel that deeply for someone other than herself. “Hey, no crying, sweetheart. It’s over and done with. The past. I’m alive. That’s the only thing that’s important.”
He brushed at her damp cheeks and she nodded, blinking away the tears. “I know you haven’t told me half of what happened to you.”
And he never would. He’d already told her too much. “What happened isn’t important. I’ve learned to live in the present. It’s just some nights it’s tough, that’s all.”
“That’s when you sit outside and read, isn’t it? I’ve seen you when I couldn’t sleep too,” she sniffled.
“If I’d known you were awake I would have invited you over for a movie marathon.” Jason wanted to lighten the atmosphere that had grown between them. He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him. He sure as shit didn’t feel sorry for himself. It was his own damn fault he’d been captured.
Jason finally got a smile in return, albeit a tad watery. “Now you know. I’d love to watch movies with you.”
Jason looked down at the canine sleeping at his feet. “What do you say, Huck? Should we pop a movie in and see who falls asleep first? My guess it will be the dog.”