“They knew we were coming to see Drango tonight. They killed her and waited around to kill us. When we went looking for her and slipped down the alley, it was perfect for them.”
“Only they missed,” said Robie.
“But they wouldn’t have the second time, so I’d be dead but for you,” replied Reel slowly, her gaze rigid as she looked out the windshield. “I froze again.”
“It happens.”
“No, it doesn’t. At least not to me. But it keeps happening. To me. And one time you’re not going to be there, Robie. Or you will be and I’ll be the reason you get killed. I can’t let that happen.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
“There’s no other way to see it!” she barked.
He slowed the truck and then pulled off the road. He turned to her. “What happened in Iraq?”
“I’m not lying on a couch and you’re not my shrink.”
“But like you just said, I have a vested interest in you not freezing again, right? Because then maybe I’m dead too.”
Reel clearly had no logical response to his words and her subdued expression evidenced this.
She leaned back in her seat. “Keep driving. This might take a while.”
Robie pulled back onto the road.
Reel was silent for a few moments as though collecting her thoughts. “Until that night things had been going okay, but then it all went to hell in a minute.” She described the events of that night in a detached fashion, but the hollow tone of her words and haunted look evidenced that Jessica Reel was barely keeping it together.
“I was the only survivor. The rest of the team was either blown up, burned up, or lying around without their heads. And I just kept shooting. I used my main gun with incendiary rounds to take out the trucks and the fifty-cals, then my backup gun with the Raufoss round. Found the soft spot on the ASV and that was… that. The SEALs came back for me and… ”
As her voice trailed off, Reel looked out the window, where a steady drizzle had commenced.
“I’m sorry, Jess. But you’ve got to realize that you did everything by the book. Combat is totally indiscriminate. It kills those who are incompetent and those who are unlucky. And everyone in between. You’ve got survivor’s guilt. You know that.”
“I know a lot of things, Robie. I know that when we were being chased by Dolph’s assholes, my mind flashed back to Iraq and suddenly I couldn’t do my job.” She shot him a glance. “And you almost died because I didn’t do my job.”
Robie slowed the truck. “Maybe we’re getting too old for this, Jess. I’m seeing people in my crosshairs who aren’t even there. I’m freezing up and can’t do my job.”
“You had family issues,” she reminded him.
“I don’t think it matters what causes it,” he replied. “So long as you address it. You helped me face my past in Mississippi. I can help you address your issues. If you’ll let me.”
She glanced at him, and her eyes were so full of pain and hurt and some things Robe couldn’t readily identify that he could hardly believe the person next to him was the indomitable Jessica Reel. The person who had killed more people, survived more hellish situations, overcome more obstacles than anyone alive.
Except possibly for me.
“I don’t think you can help me, Robie. But thanks for the offer.”
“Is that what you meant by ‘It’s complicated’?”
She looked away. “I wrote that because it is… complicated.”
He attempted a smile. “More complicated than a messed-up kid from Mississippi with daddy issues who was seeing nonexistent people?”
She slowly nodded. “I think so, yeah.”
His grin faded. “Can you at least tell me why? I’m a good listener. I’ll listen as long as you want me to.”
“It won’t take long, Robie, to tell you.”
“Then tell me.”
He seemed to sense the monumental moment that was fast approaching, so Robie pulled off the road again. The only sounds were those of the engine and the wipers flicking off the rain.
He turned to her.
Reel turned to him.
“The problem is… I love you, Will Robie. More than I’ve loved anyone. And that’s why you’ll never be able to help me through this.”
CHAPTER
51
Robie sat on his bed in the hotel in Grand.
His face was pointed directly at the floor.
And though his feet were firmly planted on the carpet, his thoughts were in another galaxy.
The drizzle had opened up into a hail of rain that pounded the single window in his room. Streaks of lightning popped and faded, as thunder rumbled consistently after each slash of light.
It was good to be indoors on such a night. And yet Robie was oblivious to the unruly elements.
The problem is… I love you, Will Robie. More than I’ve loved anyone. And that’s why you’ll never be able to help me through this.
It made no sense. It was a complete contradiction. But Reel had said it with total conviction, and Robie understood that there was nothing he could do to change her mind.
They had driven back in silence, as the weather and their moods had worsened.
She had gone to her room and he to his.
When he felt his hands shaking, Robie stood, went into the bathroom, and ran cold water over his face. When he looked up from the sink he caught his reflection staring back at him in the mirror.
He looked ten years older, he thought, than when he had started the day.
He gripped both sides of the sink and willed himself not to throw up, or pull his gun and go looking for something, someone to kill. Right now, it would have been too easy.
He looked to his left toward Reel’s room.
Is she as miserable as I am? But then again, she did say she loved me. More than anyone else.
Robie’s momentary flicker of hope was extinguished just as quickly.
He well knew that there was a steely resolve in the woman that even Robie could not match. If she had truly made up her mind, then that was that, whether she loved him or not.
So why am I still screwing around? Forget it. Forget her. I need to move on.
And Robie was going to start that journey right now.
He went downstairs and then outside. He glanced down the street.
Malloy’s police cruiser wasn’t there. She had probably gone to her house, wherever that was.
He pulled out his phone and called her. She answered on the second ring.
“You want some company?” he asked.
She gave him her address. It was about twenty minutes outside of town, tucked away off some little back road.
That’s all there seemed to be out here, he thought.
Back roads.
To nowhere.
Houses tucked away.
In nowhere.
The rain had slackened to a steady drizzle. He had just about reached his truck when Patti Bender appeared out of the darkness. She was dressed in the same odd assortment of work clothes she was wearing when they first met her. And a pistol was in a holster on her hip.
“What are you doing out this late?” he said, stopping with his hand on the truck door.
“I’m too old for curfews, Will,” she said with a smile. “You look troubled.”
“Story of my life, I guess.”
“Any word on Mr. Walton?”
“Nothing. But we have some leads.”
“Well, that’s better than nothing.”
“We went back to the cabin where Walton was staying. Malloy thought she recognized a boot print there. She’s going to follow it up.”
“She’s a good cop, and that’s not an easy thing to be out here.”
“How about your brother? Is he a good cop?”
“I was surprised, to tell the truth, when he put on the badge. He was a hellion as a teenager. More likely to be arrested than arrest somebody else.”