Nick rubbed his forehead. "Not Atlanta. Stay as far away from your family as you can. You've already been researched, and I'm sure your brothers and your parents are already under surveillance."
Aria sat back down and stuck her fork into the spaghetti, twirling it around. Without taking a bite, she set the fork down and put a shaking hand against her forehead. "I don't know what to do," she said. He could hear the tears in her voice.
Nick suddenly realized that, as of this moment, Aria had suffered more changes than she could emotionally handle. She wasn't trained for this. She was a civilian.
In the last twenty-four hours, Aria had realized that the high school JROTC commander she buried was, in fact alive. Then she abandoned her normal sleep pattern, then deserted her home, and had gone on the lam after withdrawing a ton of money from her bank. Now she sat here in unfamiliar surroundings discussing the very real possibility of him getting killed and her being completely alone with trained killers literally gunning for her within the next few hours, all over a plate of spaghetti.
By making this meal, she was trying to reestablish something normal in her life and he had just increased her shock level to the point that he brought her to the edge of tears. He needed to back off and give her time to emotionally adjust. He decided to start by getting back to something normal.
"Mind if I offer a blessing for this meal you've made for us?" Nick asked as he folded his hands in front of him and watched her eyes widen a bit. Nick didn't offer to hold her hands while they blessed the meal. He knew he would not want to stop touching her if he did.
"Please do," she agreed, then bowed her head and folded her hands.
Nick said, "God we thank you for Your gifts of provision. We trust that You have a plan and we trust You will reveal to us the path you've set before us. We pray for the strength to walk that path. Bless this food and let it strengthen our physical bodies as Your word strengthens our spirit. In Your holy name we pray. Amen."
Nick quickly began to put food into his mouth, forcing himself to chew and swallow. He needed the calories, though he didn't want the food. He thought hard, trying to come up with an alternate plan, and hitting dead ends every time.
Not counting Marcus, who was also a civilian, Nick had only one other person whom he could trust to keep Aria alive. He silently prayed he wasn't making a mistake. He hated himself for thinking it but he had to admit, rationally, that she could very easily be part of this whole thing, too.
He swallowed and said, "Thanks for making this, Aria."
Aria grinned, thinking how oddly satisfying it felt to receive this simple expression of gratitude. "You're very welcome. Anytime." Indeed. Anytime at all, Nick Williams.
"Do you know if the Jeep in the garage runs?" he asked, all business again.
"I know the four wheeler does. I don't know about the Jeep."
Nick nodded. "I'll check it out. Let's assume it runs. I know you can drive a stick. I remember your first car back in high school. At first light, get in the Jeep and drive east on 26 to the train station in Madras. Get to Washington D. C. and take the Metro to the Treasury Building. In the lowest level of the parking garage, you'll find a late model white Chevy Impala SS in the handicap space. I'll give you a note to put on the windshield.
"Stay near it and wait. It may take several hours. A tall thin woman with brown hair and a prosthetic arm will come out. After she reads the note, walk toward her. She'll take care of you from there."
"What's her name?"
"Jen Thorne."
¯¯¯¯
Chapter 15
ARIA finished watching the evening news and turned off the television, then stood up and stretched. Though she didn't particularly care for the flavor, she decided to go into the kitchen to make some instant coffee, which was all the cabin offered. She knew she would not be able to sleep tonight until Nick got back. Because he would be back, she promised herself.
In some ways, Aria could already read a few of Nick's largely inscrutable body language signals and she had picked up on his unvoiced concern. Having correctly interpreted those clues, Aria knew that sometime tonight or in the early morning hours, Nick would come back. He would come back so that she didn't have to take a train across the country and seek help from a one-armed woman who may or may not be in on this whole thing.
She turned the teapot on to heat the water and went to the back door where she'd seen Nick go out an hour ago. She found him sitting in a lounge chair facing the mountains, eyes closed, appearing to be asleep. She didn't want to disturb him, so she pulled another chair closer to him and sat down. She wanted to enjoy the view of the sun setting behind the mountains, but she was having a hard time concentrating on it. What would happen tonight? Would Nick come back, or was she going to be on her own?
She had just found him again. How many times had she let herself wallow in melancholy and allowed thoughts of what might have been to dominate her days? How many times had she wondered what their children might have looked like had they married and shared a life together after high school?
Now here he was, reappearing as if from the grave, resurrected in a very different form yet still oddly the same as she remembered. If she were to be completely honest, she didn't want him to leave. She never wanted him to leave again. She wanted to forever remain by his side as long as life endured.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, willing her mind to stop running in circles, and willing her body to relax.
¯¯¯¯
"HI kid. Welcome back to the real world. You did a good job out there — real survivor. I owe you my life and your nation owes you a debt of gratitude." Charlie Zimmerman sat by Nick's hospital cot, wearing a blue terry cloth robe over sky blue scrubs.
Nick took in his surroundings, letting his nose smell the sterile rubbery smell of pure oxygen being piped into his nostrils. He let his skin take in the scratchy, clean, cottony bleached warmth of the blanket that covered his body. He felt the floaty, disconnected feeling of pain killers bathing his bloodstream in artificial comfort. Mostly, he felt the pain in his head and shoulders. His head felt like it was going to explode, and his mouth felt like it had been stuffed with cotton.
"Thirsty," he managed to choke out, and a straw was placed between his lips. He greedily took a sip, then the straw was taken away.
"Not too fast, son. You need to take it slow or you'll end up making yourself sick. I'm not sure you would enjoy vomiting right now."
Nick realized he lay in a CASH, probably at Striker but maybe some other installation or forward operating base. The rubberized walls and floors informed him that he was in a medical tent and he wondered why there were no doctors or nurses attending him, only the guy he had dragged out of the desert on a tarp.
"Prisoner?" Nick whispered. Zimmerman grinned.
"Sang like a canary when a tall glass of water appeared in front of him. You did good, son. Saved about ten thousand lives."
Nick nodded. Zimmerman gave him another sip. Nick let the water fill his mouth and savored the feel of it on his tongue and chapped lips before he slowly swallowed, feeling the water trickle all the way down into his belly. He could not remember water ever tasting so good in his life.
At that moment, part of Nick's waking mind realized that he was dreaming, that he had experienced all of these events a lifetime ago, and that he would be waking up very soon.
Zimmerman said, "The pilot and copilot actually survived. They're calling it a miracle. You believe in miracles, son?"
Nick grinned, "I do now."
Zimmerman chuckled and held out his hand. "You survived, too. You're going to pull through and be as good as new, kid. Or, you know, you don't have to. You could die instead. Your choice."
Nick felt his eyebrows knot. What did that mean?
Zimmerman leaned in a bit and placed the straw between Nick's lips again as he said, "You've got skills, kid. And guts. Rare combination. I'd like to make you an offer you'd be wise not to refuse."
WH
EN Nick opened his eyes, the sight that greeted him was breathtaking. The mountains spread out in front of him were framed with glorious streaks of red and orange, and dark clouds formed nearly solid shapes amid the backdrop. It was as if the sun waged a battle with the sky, fighting to the last second to keep from having to leave its realm. Then the darkness won the battle, pushing the sun further behind the mountains and, as if in sorrow, the sky around the mountains turned dark red, a final defiance against the dark.
To be able to sit and enjoy a sunset this spectacular was a rare opportunity, one Nick wished he could take advantage of more often. He turned his head slightly to the left and saw Aria next to him, staring at the sky, lost in her own thoughts. He wanted to reach out and trace her profile, run his finger along the soft skin of her cheek, but kept his hand at his side, his fist clenched.
As if sensing his stare, she turned her head and looked at him with wide, scared eyes. "When do you have to leave?" she asked quietly.
Nick looked at his watch. Six-fifteen. It got dark quicker in the mountains. "In a couple of hours." He sat up and turned, sitting sideways in the chair and facing her. He almost didn't want to ask the next question, afraid to learn that Aria had intimate knowledge of Mr. Harrington's activities. "What kind of schedule does Harrington keep at night?"
Aria shrugged. "Not sure. When his daughter's here, they usually go out to eat. He doesn't cook and so far hasn't asked me to make a meal for them."
Trying to keep his face impassive, he clarified. "That's not what I mean. What time does he usually go to bed?"
"I'm just sure I don't know." Aria turned her head back to the mountains. Only the tips were outlined in red now. Soon it would be completely dark. "I've never been at his house at bedtime."
Nick was once again staring at her profile. He didn't know if the sunset reflecting on her face caused the tinge of pink he saw, or if she was embarrassed about something. Why did he feel relief? What Aria Suarez did or did not do with her boyfriends had nothing to do with him. She didn't even know he was alive before they met at the coffee shop. "When's the latest time at night he's ever called you? Or sent a text?"
She closed her eyes, trying to think back. "Ten, I think. I'm usually up later than that, so I think it was about ten."
Nick nodded. "Good. I'll hit his house about eleven, then be at NWT by twelve, twelve-thirty at the latest."
"You're going to his house while he's there?" Aria asked, her voice shocked.
"No choice. This is the only time I'll get the chance. And, his security system may be turned off while he's home." Before he could even think better of it, he reached over and took her hand. The feel of her skin beneath his fingers startled him into realizing that touching her was a mistake. "I have to find a way to clear your name. I can't go back to D. C. without some sort of proof."
"I have proof."
"All you have could have been created by you or an accomplice in order to frame him. Think about it. How hard would it have been for you, as skilled with computers as you are, to leave a log of his ID with time stamps on your files?"
Nick slowly ran his thumb over her knuckles. He should stop touching her now, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Aria stared at their joined hands. When she looked back to meet his eyes, he felt his breath stop.
"I don't know," she whispered.
Suddenly, he released her hand and shot to his feet, needing to put space between them, needing to break the temptation of contact.
"Nick?"
Nick paused with his hand on the doorknob, his back to her. "If I get distracted, it could cost you your life." He opened the door and went inside.
¯¯¯¯
WHEN Aria felt like she could face Nick again, she went back inside and found him sitting in the middle of the floor in front of the glass wall, the darkness of the night reflecting the room back to them on the glass. He was once again checking his equipment, opening and closing a pulley, oiling a grappling gun, checking the batteries in a pair of night vision goggles. Some of the equipment was familiar to her. Since his retirement from the Army, her father had taken up mountain climbing as a hobby, and the tools were very similar. Some of the equipment, though, was very foreign to her, and she didn't want to know what it was all for.
"Do you want something to eat?" she asked, breaking the silence of the room. He didn't speak, just shook his head and kept fiddling with whatever it was he was fiddling with. "Is there anything I can do to help you?" She was going to lose her mind if she sat idle one more minute. She felt like she needed to do something.
"Still remember how to clean a weapon?" Nick asked. Aria shrugged, then nodded. Nick reached into his bag and pulled out a .45 caliber XD9525 GAP pistol, removed the magazine, checked to ensure there wasn't a round in the chamber, then passed it to her with the slide locked to the rear. Aria grabbed the cleaning kit she saw amid the stuff on the floor and studied the pistol.
"It's light," she observed. She sat on the couch and, when she felt confident she could do so successfully, disassembled the pistol to clean it.
"Peter has a standard house security system, no motion detectors or anything inside that I ever saw," she confided a short while later. "He doesn't have a dog, and the house is a split-level, three story. If you went in the front door, it seems like you're on the first floor, but actually it's the second. His bedroom is the first door off the top of the stairs, here." She pointed to her tiny map.
"When you go in the front door of the house, his office is to the right. I've never been in there, only looked in through the open door a few times. The lower level has no windows facing the front, but has a living area with a sliding door leading to the backyard. There's a little brick patio where he keeps his gas grill."
Nick turned to look at her and said, "Thank you."
"I brought my laptop with me. If you want, I can try to hack into his computer from here. That could save us some time."
"You can't do anything until after ten."
"Right," she agreed. "Neither can you."
Nick stopped what he was doing so he could direct his full attention to her. "Why didn't you hack his home computer before now?"
Aria finished putting the pistol together and set it on the couch next to her. "This is my first attempt at espionage. It only just occurred to me."
Nick smiled on one side of his mouth and went back to work. "You're proving that you're a natural. Maybe we'll recruit you when this is all over with."
"Ha. Ha. Ha. So funny." She stood and stretched. "I'm going to make some tea. Do you want anything?"
Nick shook his head and kept working.
Aria went into the kitchen and the aroma reminded her that she'd already made instant coffee, so she poured herself a cup and sat at the table, then decided to write her mother a letter. She knew better than to try to call, as much as she needed to hear her mother's voice, so she opened the laptop and sat there, staring at the screen. How did she begin?
Hello, Mom. Remember Nick — the boy I always talked about in high school? The boy we buried who left me all that money? Well, turns out he's not dead. He's a secret agent and he's helping me try to clear my name while simultaneously keeping trained killers from murdering me in my sleep and foiling a nuclear incident the size of Hiroshima.
She laughed at the thought, then felt tears come to her eyes. What would it be like to have no one? She couldn't imagine it, though when her brothers shielded her as if she were still ten years old the thought had some appeal. She wondered what it might be like to claim the kind of anonymity only death could offer. What must the Nick of ten years ago have felt in his heart? Did he think the only person in the world who maybe cared about him was the girl with the locker next to his in high school? She turned her head and saw Nick standing in the doorway, watching her. She was starting to get used to the way he could sneak up on her, and wasn't startled.
She stood up from the table and walked up to him until she had to crane her neck back to look up at him. They stood
like that for several heartbeats. She wanted to touch him, but was afraid he would push her away. Instead, she asked him a question that had been bothering her for years. "Why did you leave that money to me, Nick?" It came out in almost a whisper.
The look that crossed Nick's face was almost painful, and he lifted a hand to touch her hair. "I didn't have anyone else." His voice was as quiet as hers.
"That's no answer," she said, reading the look in his ice blue eyes.
His jaw clenched three times and he said, "Back in high school I would have given you the moon if I thought it would make you happy." His deep voice carried through the still space and echoed quietly off the cedar walls.
Aria leaned her head forward until it rested on his chest. She felt his hand gently fall onto her hair. "You always rejected me," she said.
It seemed to Aria that they stood that way forever, when in fact it was just the span of a few seconds. He kept his hand on her hair and didn't pull her any closer. "I was always afraid I'd hurt you."
She thought about it. "You only hurt me when you rejected me."
He stepped back and ran a hand from her shoulder to her wrist, bringing her right hand up to inspect the small scars that crisscrossed the top of it. "Look what happened to you because of me."
"You didn't do that. Raymond did." She felt her eyelashes wet with tears. "And it changed him. He sobered up and found God. So, it became a good thing."
Nick's eyebrows drew together in a frown. "What?"
"It's an amazing story. But, to hear it you need to come back tonight." She stepped back, wiping her eyes with both hands. "There. Now you have some incentive." Her voice sounded shrill, panicked, and she felt a bubble of hysteria trying to rise in her chest but she pushed it back down. Suddenly, she noticed that he had changed clothes and was now dressed completely in black. "Do you have to leave right now?"
An Aria for Nick (Christian Romantic Suspense) (Song of Suspense) Page 13
