by Geri Krotow
Today it wasn’t about being warned or afraid. It was a reminder of how far she’d come, and that she was stronger for it.
She brushed her teeth and then packed up her toiletries, noting the bright butterflies printed on her makeup bag. The zippered pouch was a gift from Annie, a reminder to embrace the new woman she’d become, who she was today. Her caterpillar days were long past, as was the long journey of metamorphosis while she processed her pain. The group therapy room as well as her counselor’s office were her chrysalis, the safe spaces where she’d shed the shame and guilt that she’d carried for too long.
Kit placed her hand on the doorknob and had the sense of anticipation she used to as a girl in a village on the outskirts of Kiev, when her mother promised they’d visit her favorite park. The slide was the most fun to her, from the long climb up the steel ladder to the giddy excitement of sitting at its apex, giving herself time to take in the surrounding playground. The best part was seeing her mother or father at the base of the slide, waiting for her, smiles splitting their weathered faces. They couldn’t have been much older than her present twenty-six, and yet her memory saw them looking like the average fifty-year-old in America. Life in Ukraine, a former Soviet satellite, had been difficult for them. She saw that now.
And yet, they waited at the base of the slide, ready to catch her after she shrieked down the long tin surface, knowing their arms would wrap around her and prevent her from landing in the deep mud puddle at the base.
Kit turned the doorknob and left the bathroom. Yes, it was like throwing herself down that slide, but this time she’d be the one to catch herself.
What she didn’t know was if she’d be laughing at the end of the ride.
* * *
Kit’s surprise at having no fear with Luther, none of the usual trepidation she did around a strange man, continued through the morning.
Last night she’d fought with Colt over needing to stay anywhere but her apartment. The shooter had shaken her up, yes, but with SVPD placing a patrol officer in charge of surveillance of her apartment building, she didn’t worry about a reappearance right away. Still, when her bosses told her to stay with Luther, she’d finally complied. Colt and Claudia had offered up their guest room, but staying with a superior wasn’t something she was going to do. She didn’t want to act like a quivering baby and was determined to be the woman she wanted to be. Confident, sure of herself, fearless.
“You’ve been quiet.” Luther was driving. They’d cleared town and were on the highway that would take them into the mountains and open hunting areas.
“You have been, too.”
He grunted, shifting in the heated leather seat. “I like to get my thoughts together before an op.”
She savored the warmth of her car seat on the cold day.
“We went over it pretty extensively yesterday, and again last night.” She looked between the seats to verify for the fifth time that her equipment was loaded.
“You’re as OCD about checklists as I am, I see.” His voice grumbled next to her ear and she straightened, embarrassment forcing a stiffness into her joints.
“I’m not OCD, not in truth.”
“I don’t mean as a medical diagnosis, Kit. It’s a compliment. You’re a professional and you’re making sure you have everything you’re going to need.”
“I’m used to working with SVPD and TH in their different comms vans. I don’t normally have to worry about the equipment being there or not—it’s part of the vehicle.”
“Understandable.” He continued to look straight ahead at the road, and she saw that his gaze took in the large hawk perched on a bare tree.
“As long as I’ve lived here I’ve never gotten over the birds.”
“There are a lot of hawks, eagles and falcons, that’s for sure. Most people don’t notice them.” He cast her a quick look. “But you don’t miss much, do you?”
“I, ah, I’ve had a lot of opportunity in my life to learn that details are what make the difference.”
“I suppose you have.” His voice was upbeat, but she heard the thread of compassion.
“They told you about my past, didn’t they?” When he remained silent, she pressed forward. “It’s okay if they did. Why would you agree to work with someone you didn’t know anything about?”
“Claudia and Colt each briefly mentioned that you’ve got the experience to handle the language translation that we’re going to need. You’re from Ukraine, and you were brought here on false assumptions when you were still a kid, a teen. That’s all I really know.”
“Come on, Luther. They told you who my ex is, I’m sure.”
Silence descended in the front seat as effectively as a wet blanket. Kit couldn’t have spoken another word if she wanted to, and waited for his response.
Finally, she heard Luther’s long exhalation.
“Kit, you’ve had to endure more than most people do in a lifetime. As for your ex—to me, an ex can only be a former spouse or lover, whatever, if it was your choice to be with them in the first place. As I see it, that criminal didn’t count for anything but a source of pain in your life.”
He understood. She’d never spoken to another man about her torturous marriage, the sham of a relationship that had nearly broken her. Had, in fact, at different points. Until she’d summoned the courage to take Annie up on her offer for help.
“Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for, Kit.”
“No, there is. Thank you for understanding, and for your willingness to work with me.”
“Okay, that’s not going to work.” His eyes met hers before looking back at the road.
Her breath hitched. This was what she’d feared. He’d find fault, figure out why she wasn’t up to this task.
“I knew this would happen.” Her voice sounded so damn weak, and if she’d been alone, she would have thrown a pillow across the room, screamed and gone to take a long hot bath.
But she was with Luther, the stalwart undercover agent who saw through her with each glance. Keeping her tears to herself, she lifted her chin and prepared for him to turn the car around.
“Drop me at my apartment. I can go stay with Annie and Josh if I need to.”
“What. The. Hell.” Luther’s voice boomed in the car and she involuntarily jumped.
* * *
Luther wanted to kick himself in the mouth, except his foot was already there. Both feet, actually. Kit had shown nothing but total courage and professional detachment since she’d walked into Colt’s office and heard their mission objective. Through the brief and somewhat frenzied planning and shopping she’d stayed cool. When the bullet tore through her skylight, she’d jumped—out of the way, following standard evasion tactics.
To see her face white and pasty now, because of something he had or hadn’t said, filled his mouth with the taste of bile.
“Kit, you misunderstood me. Let me try again.”
He saw her shake her head vigorously, in his peripheral vision. If he could grab her hand, look her in the eyes, he would. So that she’d see his sincerity. But they’d started to climb and the highway had gone down to two lanes, winding around the first cluster of mountain foothills.
“No need. Just take me back home.” This version of Kit was not the woman who’d greeted him this morning. Great, just great. It’d taken him, what, fifteen minutes to make mincemeat of her self-confidence? He felt like the lowest bird on the food chain, unable to escape the raptor that was his big mouth.
“I’m not taking you home, Kit. We’re going on this mission, together. I’m sorry if I pushed too hard on your history—it’s none of my business. None of it.” He needed to hear the words as much as say them. The reminder that she was a mob operative’s spouse, albeit an ex, would keep him from seeing her as anything but his work colleague.
She’s nothing like Evalina.
> The memory of how the ROC mob honcho’s wife had used him, how stupidly he’d fallen for her sexual charms, made his self-disgust all the greater. It was one thing that he’d allowed himself to be duped and his heart dragged through the ROC crap. It was another to cause Kit, a true victim of her circumstances, any pain.
“Are you sure you can trust me, Luther? Did you know that I’ve had years of therapy and medical help for what I went through with Vadim?”
The mention of her ex made his skin tighten, the tendons in his hands taut with the need to get vengeance for her.
“Which is why you’re perfect for this job, Kit. You’re a survivor. I wouldn’t have agreed to come out here with some amateur who might know the Russian language but is clueless about the idioms and colloquialisms. You’ve got a special gift. The fact that Claudia and Colt are willing to send you out in the field speaks for itself.”
She didn’t reply, and he risked a look at her profile. The stoniness was still there in her face, but her posture had eased the tiniest bit. Her teeth gnawed at her lower lip and he saw his opportunity.
Let her know you care, but not too much.
“Look, I’ve been working organized crime ops for the better part of a decade. I was in the FBI before, and spent a lot of time analyzing the movements and habits of ROC thugs. After I signed on to Trail Hikers I learned even more and became imbedded with ROC gangs on three different occasions.” The last had been what he’d thought of as his last undercover with ROC, and yet here he was again, heading into the fray.
“So why do you need me?”
“That’s what I’m trying to explain, Kit. Even with all that experience, I still missed the signs during my last mission, and it almost cost several agents their lives.” “My partner came in and at the last minute saved my life, because he’s a native speaker like you.” Like Kit, his partner had also been trafficked here and forced to perform sexual acts as a minor. But that was his story to tell, not Luther’s.
“Where’s your partner now? Wouldn’t he be better to go into the woods with?”
“No. He’s been assigned to another op.” His partner was in Silver Valley too, but working a much bigger issue—cybercrime on the Navy base. Silver Valley boasted one of the few landlocked Navy bases in the States, and it happened to be the headquarters of many different military commands. Commands that had access to the highest classifications of government secrets. The thought of working inside buildings and cubicles, either inside a government agency or monitoring for an enemy hack, didn’t appeal to Luther. He preferred to be out in the world of more tangible enemy targets and goings-on.
“Too bad for you.” Her voice was stronger and he let himself relax a smidge. The Kit he’d met a week ago and gotten to know this past week was coming back.
Just in time.
* * *
The morning passed quickly as Luther drove them through miles of pristine Appalachian Mountain scenery. The direct route to the hunting cabin wasn’t more than a twenty-five minute drive, but he’d explained that he couldn’t take a direct route to the hideout, and she understood. Basic evasion tactics were always enforced with SVPD and Trail Hikers. After being targeted by the mystery shooter, ensuring they weren’t followed was all the more important.
Luther was a pro at the wheel and she wasn’t tense around him, until the woods became more than passing scenery. The twisting roads cut through heavily treed areas, often with precipitous shoulder drops.
Kit found herself fighting the urge to tell Luther she’d changed her mind about going undercover with him. It wasn’t the undercover part, or being with Luther, which is what she’d expected to cause her some trigger issues. Instead it was a bit of motion sickness, combined with being surrounded by the dense trees as the truck climbed higher into the mountains and the forest surrounded them.
“It’s hot in here.” She shrugged out of her overcoat, wishing she hadn’t worn long thermal underwear in preparation for the predicted below freezing temperatures. The cabin couldn’t be trusted to have a steady heat source, and her clothing choices had seemed perfectly sane this morning.
“You can lower the heat on your side. Here.” He reached over and turned off the seat heater. She’d been so busy paying attention to Luther and her reactions to him she’d forgotten about the seat heater. “Go ahead and open your window. We’re almost there, anyhow.”
“Claudia wasn’t kidding when she said it was in the middle of nowhere.” Trail Hikers had several safe houses available throughout the world, and in Pennsylvania they tended to be of the more rustic variety. Although she’d heard that there were some very modern shelters that TH agents used when in deep undercover, she’d never seen them. With TH, everything was on a need-to-know basis. As an unsworn SVPD employee who provided similar support to Trail Hikers, her information access was limited mostly to communications for specific ops.
Kit didn’t think she’d ever want to be a full-fledged agent, as she’d seen too much violence while being forced to live with Vadim. Agents like Luther had to clean up the dirtiest, most vile corners of the planet, which often included eliminating the bad guy.
Bad guy or not, Kit didn’t want to be the one pulling the trigger.
“Your face is red. Do you feel okay?” Concern etched his query as Luther turned into what looked like an overgrown underbrush, but in fact was a dirt road that gave “off-road” new definition.
“I-I’m fine, just need some fresh air.” She held tight to the handle above her window and tried to lean into the jarring bumps as the undercarriage hit rut after rut. The cooler outside air fanned her face through the window crack. It was impossible to close her eyes and do her usual breathing exercises.
“How much longer?”
“Three minutes, tops.”
She gritted her teeth and tried to distract herself with the feel of the plastic handle under her palm and fingers, the sight of so many tree trunks and the bright green of the pines. A flash of black and white on the forest floor just feet from the vehicle reminded her of childhood cartoons that she’d loved in Ukraine, featuring a skunk.
“I just saw a skunk.”
“We’re going to see a lot more than skunks this weekend. Here we go.” The bumping stopped as Luther pulled around a small, nondescript wooden building. It was barely discernible from the woods that surrounded it, and she knew the road wasn’t anything marked on a map.
“Thanks. I’m okay—I just need a minute.” She opened her door the second he put the car in Park and relished the feel of solid ground beneath her feet, the brisk pine-scented air cooling her cheeks. She braced herself for Luther’s concern, ready to urge him to give her some space.
The sound of a door closing and the matching reverberation through the auto’s steel frame vibrated against her back as she leaned against the car. Another thump as the back hatch opened. Eyes closed, she kept breathing in the fresh, clean air and expelling what she envisioned as her anxiety and impending panic attack. If she could just have a little time to herself, she’d get through this.
The problem was explaining to Luther what the heck was going on, and that wasn’t something she ever enjoyed. His footsteps sounded on the ground, crunching leaves and pine needles with his sure stride.
It’s no one else’s business, unless it affects your work.
Annie’s assurance echoed in her memory, and she opened her eyes. She could tell Luther whatever she wanted. He knew enough about her past—if he was concerned she wasn’t reliable, he wouldn’t have brought her out here. Would he?
As she eased off the car and took a few steps, her anxiety evaporated. It had been motion sickness, a too-hot car. Not a PTSD flashback. Relieved, she realized she’d made it through a rough spot.
Luther wasn’t anywhere in sight. She looked around. Besides the hut of sorts, there was nothing but trees. Kit closed her door and walked around the perimeter of the
tiny clearing. Luther stood with one foot on a small stoop as he methodically lifted boxes and equipment off the ground where he’d placed them and into an open door. She noted that the door looked like nothing more than plywood on the outside, but in truth was four inches thick, probably steel. “Nice door.”
He grinned, a quick flash of levity she didn’t expect. “It really passes as an old, beat-up hunting stop, doesn’t it?”
“Let me help.” She walked up to him and peered into the dark interior. “This is a whole lot of shack and not quite the cabin I expected.”
Luther grunted. “We’re ‘hunting,’ remember? All we need is a place to sleep and maybe warm up each night. We’ll be outside most of the time.”
“Not really, though, right?” She handed him one of the boxes, filled with dry goods. They’d planned for up to two weeks, just in case, but it was a foregone conclusion that they wouldn’t be out here longer than the holiday weekend.
He stopped and stared at her. “Yes, really. A little less talk and more getting unpacked.” The grim expression on his face reminded her that she wasn’t here as a simple assistant or even comms expert. She was part of their team while they waited for Ivanov to show up.
“Sorry.” Annoyance flared the moment the word left her tongue, and she stood and looked at him. “Wait a minute—no, I’m not sorry. This is the first time I’ve been out on a mission like this. I’m still learning, Luther.”
“Again, less talk while you’re at it, too.” His glance was noncommittal, as if she were no more than a new teammate who’d need more instruction.
