Frank called Pete as they made their way to the airfield. Pete let him know he wasn’t happy with him for not telling him about the text message, not calling in the bomb squad when he found the Ford Escape on Jacaranda Street, not reporting finding the vehicle immediately, borrowing lock picks from his wife (Rachel had insisted that Frank not tell her any details so that she wouldn’t have to lie to Pete), leaving his partner of many years behind in Las Piernas, and half a dozen other aspects of the situation-all before Frank told him about anything that had happened once they reached Quinn Moore’s mountain lodge.
“Pete,” Frank said when his partner finally drew a breath. “Listen up. You can help me, or you can bitch about my doing my level best not to get the captain as pissed off at you as he will be with me.”
“You think I give a flying fuck about that?”
“Not for a minute. But I’m not going to ask you to sink your career along with mine.”
Pete fell silent. It was an unhappy silence, but Frank took advantage of it and told him about the mysterious Donovan, assuming the man had told Violet his real name. He told him about Quinn’s and Donovan’s family ties to Kai and Parrish. “There’s someone else-he may be headed to Las Piernas right now. His name is Roderick Beignet.” He gave Pete the description and told him about the attack on Violet. “Vince and Reed need to know all of this, of course.”
“Talk about people who are going to be pissed off at you…”
“Like you, they’re friends,” Frank said. “I hope they’ll forgive me for it. Thanks, Pete.” He said good-bye before his partner could start a second tirade.
They were within sight of the helicopter when Frank got a text message from Ethan.
All OK. SBSD just arrived.
Then he texted a line of Morse code that spelled out “Tell Jack I said hi.”
“Sometimes that kid scares the shit out of me,” Jack said.
FORTY-THREE
Ten. Nine. Eight…”
Parrish was standing outside the bathroom door, counting down the time I had left in the two minutes of privacy allotted to me-one hundred and twenty seconds of a small degree of freedom.
I had awoken as the SUV stopped before a freestanding cinder-block building with a corrugated tin roof. Parrish pressed a remote, and a metal door rolled up. We drove into the building, he pressed the remote again and shut off the engine.
The men got out of the car but left the doors open. Donovan walked straight back to the bathroom, not doing anything to help me but not asking anyone’s permission to move around as he pleased. Marking his territory first?
The others followed suit. Next, Parrish ordered Donovan to bring me to the bathroom. He picked me up as if I weighed nothing, which is far from the case. Although running has kept me lean, I’m five seven in my bare feet. He set me on my feet and pulled out a knife.
“What are you doing?” Parrish asked angrily.
“I’m not going to carry her. There’s more tape. I’ve only got one back.”
Not that heavy, I thought.
“She’s not that heavy,” Parrish said, instantly proving he could still unsettle me with no more than a few words.
“You’re in no shape to carry her, and neither is Kai,” Donovan said. He bent and sliced through the tape that bound my ankles. He straightened. “I’m probably going to end up carrying everything anyway, so I’m not going to risk injury now.”
Parrish watched him move the knife toward my hands. “You are not going to free her hands!”
Donovan looked at me. There was something so powerful, so compelling in his gaze-for the first time, I felt frightened by him. I found myself struggling to name that something even as I felt it hit me like a blow.
It was not as if he cast a spell. I would have laughed at an attempt to cast a spell.
He did not hypnotize me. Hypnotism seemed a very weak thing next to this.
It was akin to command but not that, even though it demanded obedience and promised consequences for disobedience. It was sharp and cold and said, in no uncertain terms, that any ideas I cherished about myself mattered not a whit to him, that in this particular moment, all that was true was what he was about to say to me, and whether I liked it or not was utterly immaterial. Giving him my undivided attention seemed all that allowed me to breathe.
My mouth went dry.
I felt sure he knew that, knew my heart rate had quickened, knew I had broken out in a cold sweat. Felt sure that no condition or emotion of mine was unknown to him.
When he spoke, he did not raise his voice. He said, calmly and matter-of-factly, “If you use your hands to attack any of us or try to escape, I’ll cut them off. Then I’ll bandage your wrists so that you will live long enough to experience things that will make you think losing your hands wasn’t so bad-compared to what followed.” He paused. “So, Irene, are you going to leave here with your hands attached to your wrists?”
I could not breathe, let alone speak. I nodded.
I felt faint as I watched the blade move toward my hands, arcing precisely and quickly to slice the tape between my wrists. I did not move.
He sheathed the knife and took me gently by the arm. He began to guide me toward the back of the building. I went as easily as if he had me on a leash. We passed Parrish, who seemed stunned, as did Kai. I couldn’t blame them.
When we were out of earshot of either of them, Donovan said softly, “Are you okay?”
Startled, I looked back up at him. The icy look was gone. The man who had intervened at the café, the man who had tapped out a little reassuring message to me was back. But who the hell was he?
“You did well,” he added. “Keep acting afraid of me.”
That wasn’t going to be a problem.
Parrish seemed to snap out of whatever daze he was in and told me I had exactly two minutes to use the bathroom before he would come in and force me out of it. Not surprisingly, to someone who was thinking At least I still have my hands, that threat wasn’t as powerful as he might have hoped it would be.
Even with the time limit, I had a chance to wash my face and hands and spend glorious seconds without Parrish or his spawn sharing the same four walls. Maybe not enough time to completely center myself but enough to get rid of the worst of my shakiness.
I made a quick search of my pockets, in case I didn’t get a chance to look through them again. Energy bars, the winter gloves that had been in the duffel. Cheer up! You’re not a human bomb!
There was no mirror on the bathroom wall, for which I felt grateful. If you had asked me just weeks before if I would have thought of a small bathroom in an industrial building in the Mojave as my idea of a slice of heaven…
Well, it’s not the past, it’s now. Take what you have. I knew I also had to stop thinking about all the horrific things Parrish might do in the future, had to stop wishing that what had happened hadn’t. It happened. I slowed my breathing, calmly opened the bathroom door, and walked out when Parrish was still on “five.” That was clearly a letdown for him, which made it easier for me to keep my head up.
There was no kitchen per se, but near the back wall was a long folding table surrounded by metal folding chairs and a metal counter that held a small refrigerator. Ian told me to sit at the table and opened the refrigerator, which was stocked with water bottles and ham and cheese sandwiches. I ate and drank what was given to me without protest. No one addressed any remarks to me or discussed any plans, which aided my efforts to calm down.
The meal was mostly silent. Kai had stretched his legs out on the one empty chair at the table, until Donovan raised an eyebrow at him. He then put both feet on the floor.