“I can understand that,” she said in a tone that was equal parts hollow and anticipatory.
“It was sort of what you helped me do at Bertie’s art studio. I never would have seen that pulley without your help, but you had been there many times before and noticed it right off. Anyway, one morning we reached the village. I did my scope of the village as we were walking through it, looking for anything that looked out of the ordinary.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No, I didn’t. But PFC Laura Diaz did.”
“What did she see?”
“A female villager came out of one of the huts. She seemed fine. Calm, ordinary. She walked toward us. We had seen her before, many times. But as she grew closer, Diaz called out, ‘Bomb.’ We instinctively all scattered and took cover. A second later the bomb that was secreted on the woman detonated. If Diaz hadn’t warned us, we’d all be dead.”
“What did she see that made her believe the woman had a bomb?”
“I asked her that very thing. Diaz told me her mother worked at a hair salon back in a small town in Texas. As a child Diaz would often go to work with her mother. Her mom did hair, makeup, nails, the whole shebang. Her mother told Diaz that women wanted to look their best in important moments. Weddings, parties, funerals. At critical times, they wanted to get their hair, makeup, and nails done. So Diaz noticed that the villager was not wearing her dusty burqa or usual hijab. She had on a beautiful robe with intricate embroidery. Her hair had been immaculately braided and done up in a fancy style. And her nails had been filed, shaped, and painted when they never had before. The woman was sacrificing her life for her cause and she wanted to look her best. That observation by Diaz saved my life and those of a lot of others because I never would have seen it.
“Now, you’re probably wondering what the hell that has to do with your situation, but here it is, for what it’s worth. I’ve sort of been Laura Diaz up here, observing you and others. Seeing things that maybe people in Putnam are too close to everything to see clearly. Your mother and others think you can be world-famous or rich or both, somewhere else. And you probably could. But I don’t think those things are important to you.”
“So you’re saying I should stay here, in Putnam?”
“No, I’m not. I’m actually saying that you have gifts that you need to share with the world. Something terrible happened to you here, Alex. Most people would want to get as far away from that as they could. Now, you didn’t. But I think you didn’t because you were too traumatized to embrace any part of the world. You became fearful of going out, of being around other people.” He looked out the window in the direction of the main house. “You go out but then you run back here, where you feel reasonably safe. But the thing is, your fear is no longer out there.” He tapped his head. “It’s in here. So you can’t outrun it. You can’t really hide from it, not even here.”
“Then what do I do?” she said pleadingly. “How do I get out of No Man’s Land?”
“You master it. You take back control of your life. You dictate the terms of how you will live and where you will live, not anyone else. And certainly not the person who hurt you.”
“But what if he’s still out there?”
“I’m sure he is still out there,” Devine said. “It’s my job to stop him. And I’m really good at my job, Alex.”
He put his arms around her and held her tightly.
“Do you really think I can... master this?”
“I would not have suggested it if I didn’t believe you could. You’re a lot stronger than you think you are.”
“I’m not as strong as Jenny was,” she replied.
He moved her to arm’s length so he could stare into her eyes. “You don’t need to compare yourself to Jenny, not ever again. She loved you. She came up here to help you, to end this misery you were trapped in. And it cost your sister her life. The best way to honor that sacrifice is to cast off the devil that’s in you right now and move on with your life. It’s what Jenny would have wanted. And it’s what you should want, which is what really matters.”
Alex, who had begun quietly sobbing, stopped, and her expression firmed. She looked up at him. “I do want that. And I want something else, Travis.”
She kissed him.
And Devine, hesitant at first, kissed her back.
The two were so focused on one another that they never saw the person who had been watching them move slowly away from the window.
Chapter 65
Hours later Devine let himself out the front door of Jocelyn Point and made sure it securely locked behind him. A light drizzle had started, which the wind kicked around him as he walked to the truck.
He looked for Dak’s motorcycle but didn’t see it. He hadn’t heard anyone come into the house when he’d been up in Alex’s bedroom.
He sat in the truck and stared out the windshield at the house. His first night here he had seen Alex standing naked in her bedroom window. He had seen it as an act of defiance, or at least her feeling of sanctity in her old family home.
He had just seen her naked again, in the most intimate situation two people could experience.
Being with Alex at that moment in time had been the right thing to do, the thing he had wanted to do. They had taken it slow, with physical and emotional revelations by degrees, rather than all of a sudden. Their lovemaking had been assured but controlled. It was as though they somehow already knew the contours and rhythms of each other’s bodies and desires, the instinctual sensations that had delivered them to an ending point that had persisted long beyond the sexual climaxes. They had lain in each other’s arms talking quietly between kisses and caresses, for far longer than their physical lovemaking had endured.
Devine hadn’t known the woman a full week, and yet he felt like he understood her better than he did his own brother and sister. Quantity of time together meant nothing if the desire wasn’t there to learn and relate to someone, the need to understand them. It had been there between him and Alex like nothing he’d really experienced before.
As he fired up the truck his phone buzzed. It wasn’t a call.
His surveillance monitor on the outbuilding had just gone off.
Someone was there.
He drove toward the outbuildings and then parked behind a stand of evergreen bushes, making sure his truck was out of sight. He was going to make the rest of the way to the building on foot. The noise of the waves crashing against the burly Maine substrata followed him with each footfall.
He kept his exposure over open ground to a minimum, just like the Army had trained him. And then he’d gotten a PhD in that same subject out in the field of combat, where mistakes didn’t mean a failing grade but rather a burial plot and white grave marker at Arlington National.
He surveyed all compass points in front of him. It didn’t take long to reach the vicinity of the building. Devine took up position behind a bulky overgrown hedge. Peering around it he observed a Toyota pickup parked in front of the building, its lights and motor on. The door to the building was open and a light was on inside. This gave Devine a clear sight line into the space, which he enhanced using his optics.
A man was standing just inside the doorway with his back to Devine. Over his shoulder Devine could see large green plastic tubs set on tables, and he heard once more the hum of machinery, this time more distinctly with the door open.