Triumph (The Bellator Saga Book 6)

by Cecilia London

  “Hardly. And honestly, the only person who said he had any involvement with the rebellion is the last person you’d expect.”

  Caroline’s stomach lurched. There were very few politicians on whom she and Christine agreed completely. But the way she spoke. The contempt in her voice. Surely she couldn’t mean- “Who?”

  Christine blew out a hard breath. “Jeffrey Murdock.”

  Jack blasted out of his chair. “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Where is he?”

  He’d caught her by surprise. Christine practically fell onto the floor. “Jeffrey? I don’t know. He doesn’t stay here. Said he wanted to live on his own. I thought it was odd, but-”

  “Where is he?” Jack repeated.

  He was breathing fire, ready to take on the world with nothing but swift rage and bare hands. The kind of reaction she should have had. But Caroline felt numb. Nothing Christine said made sense. It couldn’t be possible. Murdock had his own ambitions and goals, his own need for power. He shared the same narcissistic sociopathy as Santos. Surely he was still in Washington, perhaps even the White House, working side by side with the man he had tried daily to impress at The Fed.

  “Jack,” Caroline started. “Let her explain.”

  Christine glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Would one of you please tell me what’s going on?”

  Jack grabbed Caroline’s knapsack and started rummaging around. “Someone’s gonna get his ass beat, that’s what.”

  Shit. He was channeling her bodyguards. That wasn’t good. Christine brought her hands up, confused. “Caroline?”

  “Murdock was one of my interrogators at The Fed,” she said. “I’m not sure you want to know all the details.”

  Christine went pale. “He interrogated you?”

  Jack slammed his palm on the table, his gun already in his hand. “Call it what it is, Caroline. He tortured her. Almost killed her. She told the International Criminal Court all about it.”

  Christine put her hand over her mouth. “I – Jesus Christ.”

  “When did he get here?” Jack asked.

  “Whenever it got too hot for him, I suspect,” Caroline said.

  Her best friend looked like she was about to lose her dinner. She started pacing around the kitchen, wringing her hands. “He got here a few months ago. Said he’d almost been arrested, he’d been working with the Underground. And he – when the papers were released he came here and comforted us.” She brought a trembling finger to her lips. “I can’t-”

  Caroline had done her best to be the adult. To stay sane when Jack was losing his head. But her tormentor, her torturer, her nemesis…he had consoled her best friend and children? Her cool resolve shattered. “He was here? In this apartment? When?”

  Christine wiped her mouth. Yes, she definitely looked ill. “Right after the records were released. He came over on a whim and-”

  “Did he touch my children?” Caroline resisted the urge to shake Christine by the shoulders. “Did he? Did he touch you? What did he say to you?”

  Christine sank into her chair, warily eyeing Jack, who was running one of his palms back and forth across the barrel of his handgun. “He gave us hugs. Told a few stories about Congress. It was total bullshit but I was still in such shock that I didn’t stop him. When he was done he kissed my cheek, told me and the girls he’d always admired your tenacity.” She put her face in her hands. “Punky, I’m so sorry. I feel sick.”

  Murdock was exactly who they thought he was. Who he always would be. “It’s not your fault,” Caroline said. “He’s a sociopath.”

  “I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt,” Christine whispered. “After everything that’s happened, I wanted to believe he was a good person.”

  Caroline clenched her fists. Christine wasn’t to blame. Nor was she, or Jack, or their children. The blame lay solely at the feet of one Jeffrey Murdock. “Don’t be mad at yourself for being a decent human being,” she said. “You couldn’t have known.”

  “We’re going to get him here,” Jack said. “There’s a warrant for his arrest. Get him here now.”

  Fuck. He was locked and loaded and just as hotheaded as her. She wasn’t sure how she was able to regain her sense of calm, but if it meant she kept her husband from making a grievous error, she’d take it. Caroline yanked his arm. “Jesus, Jack. What are you going to do? Run around Ottawa and gun him down? Put down the weapon.”

  He shoved the gun in his waistband. “He conned your best friend and our children. He tortured you. A bullet in his chest is a mercy killing compared to what I’d like to do to him. Where is he?”

  She turned around. “Chrissy, help me reason with him.”

  Christine put her head in her hands. “I’m not sure I want to. Unfortunately, I don’t know where he is…not right now. We can get him here, though.”

  “Let’s do that. We’ll let the Mounties know there’s a fugitive in our midst.” Caroline held out her hand. “Jack, give me your weapon.”

  He scowled at her, reluctantly handing it over. “I want it fucking back.”

  Dammit. Before they left Canada he’d be bound and determined to have a villain’s blood on his righteous hands. “Not when you’re upset.”

  Christine not so discreetly topped off her tea with some whiskey. “I don’t believe this.”

  Poor woman. She’d had quite the day. “It’s…well, I won’t lie, Chrissy. You’re going to have to.”

  “I know.” Christine stared at the handgun. “I think I’d feel a little better if you put that away.”

  So would they all. The last thing Caroline needed was a reactionary and overly emotional husband with a loaded weapon. She could hide it in Christine’s room, perhaps. “Jack, you’re tired. Call it a day.”

  He started pacing. Yeah, that probably wasn’t going to happen. “Tomorrow,” he said. “We get him here tomorrow. We nail his ass to the wall. We let the cops take care of the rest.”

  She’d find a way to keep him from doing anything stupid. Maybe they could ask for a few extra Mounties just in case. “We’ll get him here when we can,” Caroline said. “And you’d best listen to Chrissy. It’s her house.”

  Jack let his shoulders slump. “I’m sorry, Christine. I shouldn’t have – we’ve all had a long day and I have to learn to control myself better.”

  “Hard to do when it involves Punky.” She took the gun out of Caroline’s hand. “This is loaded?”

  “It is. Be careful.”

  Christine held it by the muzzle. “I’ll put this someplace safe,” she said, and hustled into her bedroom.

  Away from Jack, she meant. Caroline patted his cheek. “Get some rest.”

  He glanced toward the living room. “You sure?”

  “I’d feel better knowing one of us was well rested.”

  Christine returned to the kitchen looking relieved. Yeah, she still had no interest in firearms. Jack gave Caroline a kiss. “Behave. Both of you. Wake me up if you need anything.”

  Protective and doting as always. “I will.”

  He headed to the couch, fluffing up a pillow Christine had placed on the armrest for him. He and Caroline jointly decided he’d crash there while she shared a room with Christine. Christine tried to give them both her bedroom but they refused.

  He dozed off right away. Caroline knew he would. She’d never been able to fall asleep easily, especially now. She was jealous he was able to manage it so quickly.

  “The girls seem to be doing okay,” she said softly. “Better than I thought.”

  Christine set a steaming cup of tea on the table in front of her. “Today was a good day. I think they should stay home for as long as you’re here. Particularly since very few people know you’re alive.”

  “People will figure it out eventually. I’ve been debating whether we need to take that step. Once Santos finds out about the ICC investigation, he’ll know I’m the star witness.”

  “True,” Christine mused. “But you don’t have to advertise it. That wou
ld be looking for trouble.”

  Which Caroline seemed to be famous for. “Desperate times,” she said, glancing at the living room. Jack was curled up comfortably on the couch, still in his street clothes. Caroline covered him up with a blanket she’d found neatly folded on the top of a recliner. He shifted and she kissed his cheek, smoothing back his hair before returning to the kitchen.

  “You two are cute,” Christine said.

  “You think the leaders of the next American Revolution are cute?”

  “I meant the two of you together. It’s nice.”

  She sounded genuinely happy. “It used to bug the hell out of you.”

  “Doesn’t bother me so much now.”

  Caroline took a sip out of her own cup of tea. “I kind of like new Christine.”

  “She hasn’t had a lot going for her lately.”

  “Don’t say that. She’s done a great job with my nerdlings.”

  Christine stirred her tea again. “She did what she could.”

  “I know.” Best to damn the torpedoes. They’d tiptoed long enough. Even a brief reference to The Fed wasn’t enough. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

  “You and Jack telling me Jeffrey Murdock is a sadist isn’t enough for one night?”

  And she hadn’t heard the half of it. Just vague allusions to the ICC investigation and a brief history of Jack and Caroline’s travels. Caroline swallowed the tremor in her voice. “I know you, Chrissy. You need details. I don’t know how much I can tell you but I don’t want you to go crazy.”

  “I’ve already gone a little crazy. It seems silly to make you talk about uncomfortable topics simply to make me feel better.”

  “Then ask the easy questions. We don’t have to talk about the hard stuff. I know there are things you didn’t want to ask in front of the girls.”

  Christine stood up. “I don’t want to talk out here.”

  “Whatever you want,” Caroline said, following Christine into her bedroom, closing the door behind them. She set her mug directly onto the wooden nightstand, laughing when Christine moved it on top of a magazine instead. “Still some OCD there, Senator.”

  “Just a shade.”

  “So,” Caroline said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why does the government think you’re dead? How did you pull that one off?”

  Man, she was plowing toward Act II without seeing the beginning or stopping for an intermission. “Straight into the meat, I see.”

  “You didn’t give me any limits. I’ll ask, and you can tell me if you don’t want to answer.”

  That seemed fair enough. Caroline explained to Christine what had happened at the federal holding facility. The sanitized version, which was still pretty damn painful. There were certain things she’d put at the back of her mind, desperate not to relive. Especially since she’d had to relive them in The Hague. But she told her about the beatings, about Powell/Edwards and Fischer, about Murdock, about Bob and Ellie, about her devastation at hearing what she believed to be true about the girls. Showed her the scars on her wrists, the tattoo on her arm. Christine cried, feeling guilty for needing comfort, but Caroline was glad to provide it. She took Christine through her journey across the country, her difficulties adjusting at the base, her friendship with Natalie, her long, hard struggle to reconnect with Jack.

  Christine put her chin on Caroline’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Punky.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You didn’t cause any of it.”

  “I owe you an explanation,” Christine said.

  “About what?”

  “I don’t really talk about what happened to us that night at the border stop.” Christine bit her lip. “I feel so badly; Maggie and Soph tried to prod me into talking about it and I wouldn’t. But you know I’ve never been one to share, not even with Tom.”

  “No,” Caroline said. “You haven’t. I still have a hard time talking about everything that’s happened. I talked to Natalie and Jack about it, managed to get through that deposition, but the memories are still so…raw. I don’t like thinking about it.”

  “Do you want to know how Murdock got your scarf? And that stuffed animal?”

  Caroline brought her head up. She hadn’t remembered mentioning that detail. “Did I tell you that?”

  “You said enough. I pieced it together. I know that’s why you thought Marguerite and Sophie were dead. You knew damn well they’d never give those things up. Ever. But there’s a good reason he had them.” Christine closed her eyes. “That one moment has caused you so much misery the last two years.”

  The misery wasn’t confined to Caroline. “Chrissy, you don’t have to talk about any of this.”

  “I want to,” she said, her eyes watery. “I think it would make me feel better. Might make you feel better too.”

  “Or it might make us both feel like shit.”

  “That is also a distinct possibility.”

  “Okay,” Caroline said softly. “But if you need to stop, you can. I won’t hold it against you.”

  Christine gripped her hand. “It was snowing that night. We changed plans numerous times after we left your house. We considered going through Buffalo but Tom thought it better to pick a more obscure outpost so we wouldn’t be so conspicuous. In hindsight, it made us bigger targets. But if we hadn’t gone to Fort Covington, we would have never made it across if we had to leave the car. Because of the water,” she explained.

  Caroline laughed. “I’m somewhat familiar with American geography.”

  Christine smiled wryly. “Which border did you and Jack head toward?”

  She hadn’t lost her perceptiveness. “Buffalo. We’re not as logical as you.”

  “It had nothing to do with me. Marguerite remembered that part of the state from summer camp. You can thank your daughter for that change of plans.”

  Maybe all that driving had paid off. “So you headed to upstate New York,” Caroline said.

  “We got there late one night. The outpost is very small. We had your fake IDs, the account information, everything you’d given me. Jess and the girls had a few other items in their backpacks, and Tom and Jess had concealed those guns you gave us. But we didn’t want any trouble. We’d taken a few steps to disguise ourselves, just enough to match those odd pictures you’d put on the passports. When they first took our documents I thought they’d let us pass. If we weren’t so easily recognizable it might have worked.”

  “Those passports weren’t cheap,” Caroline said.

  “They were good. They would have worked for lower profile people, I’m sure of it.”

  “I shouldn’t have made you do it.”

  “Enough of that. I’ve told you how I feel about that issue and you keep bringing it up. Let me finish my damn story.”

  Yes, new Christine was definitely welcome. Caroline rested her head on her shoulder. “Go on,” she whispered.

  “The guy at the booth stepped into their office. I could see him talking to another man, pointing toward us. Once he pulled a shotgun out of a closet I knew we had to bolt. We grabbed what we could and started running toward the forest. The Canadian border was nearby; we just weren’t sure where.”

  “Tom and Jess were behind us,” Christine said. “They wanted – they had the guns, they told us to keep running, no matter what. I could hear voices telling us to stop, but we didn’t listen. We ran past a clearing into the woods. Thank God I’d been smart enough to wear boots but I still had that stupid cashmere coat and scarf on. They’re not all that practical to traipse around in the snow. We started darting in between the trees and I heard gunshots. Tom yelled at us to keep running but the snow was so deep we were mostly digging our way through.” She took a deep breath, trying to pace herself. “I heard gunfire, a heavy exchange. I never knew what it sounded like before that. I hit the ground, shielding the girls. We lay in the snow and listened. Tom and Jess had to have been a good fifty feet behind us. Then the gunfire stopped and I heard the sound of men retreating.�
�

  Caroline put her arms around Christine. That was all she could do.

  “I don’t know why they pulled back,” Christine said. “Part of me thought it was a trick to draw us out. But I couldn’t help myself. I walked back toward the clearing anyway, hiding behind the trees. I peeked out and a couple of men were on the ground, yards away, not moving. The rest must have gone back to the patrol office. Maybe to search our car, maybe because they thought they’d gotten us all, I don’t know. It was all so confusing. Blurry. And then I saw her.”

  Caroline closed her eyes. “Who did you see, Chrissy?”

  “My baby girl,” she whispered, and started to cry.

  Jess. The child Caroline had adored nearly as much as her own daughters. “Where?” she asked softly.

  Christine grabbed a tissue. “By this pine tree. It was the damndest thing. It was tall and green and glorious. Shrouded in snow but so clean and fresh. Majestic and beautiful in the middle of this disgusting bloody battleground. She’d been shot in the head and the back. Through and through. She was already dead. I couldn’t – I didn’t know what to do. My heart stopped. I could hear Maggie and Soph coming up behind me and I tried to block their view. Sophie started screaming. Marguerite covered her mouth, telling her to be quiet, that the men would come back. It was like I was outside myself, just floating away. I was tempted to run out into the clearing and make myself a target but Marguerite’s voice brought me back to reality.”

  “Oh, Chrissy.”

  Christine let out another sob. “And then I heard him.”

  “Chrissy, you don’t have to-”

  “I want to.” Her sorrow flared to anger. “You need to know this. You need to know what they did for us.”

  Caroline could respect that. If she dealt with things in her own way, she had to acknowledge when Christine needed the same consideration. Catharsis was never easy. “Okay.”

  “He was trying to pull himself up against a tree.” Christine started weeping again. “He’d been shot in the abdomen. There was blood everywhere. And he knew as well as I that-” She blew her nose. “I ran over to him. Marguerite was behind me. I don’t know where Sophie was. I took my scarf off and pressed it to the wound but it soaked through almost immediately. I couldn’t get enough pressure to slow the bleeding down. Marguerite handed me her scarf but that was just as useless. I tried. My hands were shaking, they were covered in blood, and Tom kept telling me to go. Leave with the girls, run across the border before the men came back. But I wasn’t listening. I kept trying to stop – there was so much blood.”