by Janie Crouch
“No, brother. I’m sorry.”
“Okay, get your team out. Once I’m close enough to grab the pressure trigger and give Ashton the signal, he’ll take him out. But we don’t need to risk more lives.”
“I’m staying,” Lillian piped in.
“Me, too.” That was Derek Waterman, SWAT leader.
One by one, the rest of the Critical Response unit chimed in. None of them would be leaving. They’d lost too much at Freihof’s hands.
“I think you’ve got your answer, Ren. We take this bastard down together.”
Ren dialed the number again as he walked down the corridor of city hall toward the office where Freihof was located.
“Warren,” Freihof said as he answered. “I’m busy. I don’t have time to talk to you anymore.”
“I think you do, Freihof. Especially since I haven’t quite been honest with you.”
“Oh, yeah, about what?”
Ren opened the door to the office and ended the call. Freihof spun around, eyes wide.
“The fact that I’m here in city hall, for one thing,” Ren said.
Freihof immediately held out the pressure trigger in front of him. “Stay back. If I let go of this trigger, this entire building is going to blow. So if you decide to shoot me, we die together.”
Ren took out his sidearm and laid it on the ground, then did the same with his ankle holster. “I’m not going to shoot you.” He kicked them both away.
“How did you know where I was?”
He needed to convince Freihof that he really was just a peon in Omega and he was here alone. “I figured it out when you said that you were somewhere that was special to you and Natalie. I know you got married here.”
“And all your Omega buddies?”
Ren took a tiny step forward. “You’re right. Nobody is very interested in hearing what a peon has to say. They’re all out searching your previous property and places you were known to go. I told them I was coming here but none of them would listen.”
Freihof scoffed and relaxed just slightly. Ren took the opportunity to take another step toward the man.
“That’s the problem with Omega. They’re so gung-ho for action. Always with the working harder rather than smarter. Don’t truly think like a team.”
“Oh, I think they can when it’s truly important. I just don’t think I’m part of the team.” Another half step. He was about eight feet from Freihof now. “Where is Natalie? That’s all I care about.”
“I’m afraid my wife will no longer be available to play the whore for you, Mr. Thompson.”
“Is she dead?”
Freihof looked down at the phone in his hand and Ren quickly took another step forward.
“She’s not dead yet. Although right about now I’d say she’s probably wishing she was.”
Ren swallowed the fear and fury Freihof’s words ignited. “Tell me where she is and I’ll let you go.”
The other man laughed heartily. “See, this is the problem with newbies. You think you have control of the situation, but you don’t. You don’t get to tell me when I go or don’t go, because I’m the one holding the pressure trigger.” Freihof put the phone down on a chair next to a wall and picked up one of the guns Ren had kicked away. “And now I’m holding your gun. So I’m afraid I’m going to walk out of here right after I shoot you.”
“Ren?” Ashton’s voice was in his ear. “I’ve still got the shot.”
Ren gave a slight shake of his head.
“Ren says no.” This time it was Lillian’s voice in his ear. Ashton would only have his sights trained on Freihof, and wouldn’t be able to see Ren.
It wasn’t time yet. Now that Freihof had weapons, he was feeling more secure. Ren was able to take another step closer under the guise of dejection. He was almost close enough. Would almost be able to take the leap and catch the pressure trigger once Ashton took his shot.
“Holding until the go phrase is given,” Ashton muttered. “But hurry up or he’s going to shoot you, Ren.”
“My name isn’t Warren Thompson.” Another step.
Freihof’s eyes narrowed. “So? I don’t really care what your name is. Soon you’ll be dead.”
“My name is Ren McClement.”
“I’ve still never heard of you.”
Ren shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t have. I’m not part of the Critical Response unit. I’m not part of any official Omega unit. Look at me, Freihof. Do I look like I’m a newbie?”
There. The last step he needed. Freihof actually took it for him.
For the first time Freihof didn’t look totally in control. “Wh-what?”
“You’re trying to finish Omega Sector? Then it’s probably fitting that you meet me as you go down. I created Omega Sector, and it will not be destroyed by the likes of you. Your reign of terror is over.”
Ren didn’t wait to see if Ashton would shoot at the agreed upon words, just knew he would. Ren dove toward Freihof’s arm that held the detonator, his hands closing over it as the force of Ashton’s bullet ripped through Freihof’s torso. They both ended up lying on the ground.
Blood was pouring out of Freihof’s chest but he still brought the gun in his other hand up and pointed it at Ren, smiling. Ren couldn’t let go of the trigger device to save himself.
But then another bullet hit Freihof’s hand and knocked the gun out of it, at the same time yet another bullet came from a different direction. Freihof screamed, his arm falling to the side, useless.
Lillian lowered herself from the air-conditioning vent. “Nobody ever expects the ass-kicking midget dropping out of the ceiling.”
“Or the really pissed-off SWAT member waiting outside the door,” Roman Weber, whose shot had hit Freihof’s shoulder, said. “I was in a coma for over a week because of you, you bastard, and you sent my pregnant woman to what would’ve been sure death.”
The blood flowing from Freihof’s wounds left him with just a few more seconds left to live. The rest of the Omega team filed in, but Ren ignored them.
“Where is she, Damien? This is over. Tell me where Natalie is.”
Ren could hear the pleading in his voice, but he didn’t care. He would beg, threaten, grovel...whatever would get him Natalie back.
“My perfect wife. She wouldn’t have wanted to live without me.” His breaths wheezed in and out of his chest as more blood pooled on the floor. “I had nobody to bury last time. But this time I did. You may have saved your precious Omega, but you won’t save—”
Freihof’s eyes closed and his body went slack.
“No!” Ren screamed the word. Steve’s hands closed over his and took the pressure trigger from him as Ren grabbed Freihof by his shirt. “Tell me where she is, damn it! Tell me.”
But Freihof would never be telling anyone anything ever again.
And Natalie, his first victim, would also be his last.
As the team began preparing the canisters for containment, Steve put his hand on Ren’s shoulder.
“She could be anywhere,” Ren whispered. “If she’s still alive at all. He could’ve buried her in the snow, like he used to do to torture her.”
Although this time there wouldn’t be anyone to let her out when she begged for mercy.
“She could be at his house. The house they lived at.”
Steve nodded. “We’re sending locals over there right now. They’ll search every inch of that property.”
Brandon Han burst through the door. “Andrea figured it out. It’s Freihof’s last words about not having a body to bury the first time, but now he did. We had the grave site exhumed two weeks ago when we found out Natalie was alive.”
“Where?”
Brandon gave the address.
Ren didn’t even respond, just sprinted out of the hallway and to his car. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt
that Brandon and Andrea were correct.
Damien had buried Natalie in her own coffin.
Chapter Twenty-Four
At some point Natalie’s screams died off to raspy whispers. She had no idea how long she’d been inside the casket—minutes? Hours?
Eternity?
She’d tried to have the presence of mind enough to push at the lid. To attempt to bring her legs up so she could use them as leverage to push. But no matter what she did, it wouldn’t budge.
She tried not to think of all the dirt and snow piled on top of her. Because now when she screamed with her broken voice it was just silent, which was somehow worse.
She had lived silent and alone and broken for so many years and now she was going to die silent and alone and broken.
She faded in and out; the moments of nothing were pure bliss that ended too soon. When she would come to, she would have a moment of trying to fight the panic before it would overwhelm her. She ripped at everything. Her clothes. Her hair. The skin of her neck. She knew when her fingers came away wet she had drawn her own blood.
She wished so badly she had kept the tracker on her own body rather than put it on Damien. She didn’t care how selfish it was. Then Ren would’ve found her. Would’ve gotten her out of here.
Finally, everything began to fade to a distance. She felt like she was floating. Almost swaying. Maybe she was running out of oxygen. How long could one survive buried underground?
Through the fog she swore she could almost hear somebody calling her name, but knew that couldn’t be right. Her brain had finally broken completely and was playing tricks on her. The movement she felt had to be her own shudders. Surely this had to be near the end.
“Natalie, can you hear me?”
Yes, Ren, I can hear you. She didn’t try to say the words since her voice was so wrecked. Plus, he wasn’t really here, anyway.
“Hang on, Peaches, I’m coming.”
The noises got louder. The jolting more pronounced. And then Natalie saw something she thought she was never going to see again.
Sunshine. She had to blink against the brightness of it.
“Oh, my God.” Ren’s hands were in her hair, over her heart, running up and down her arms. His lips were all over her face, her cheeks, her eyes, her hair. When he drew back his hands he stared at her blood.
He sat back up and yelled over his shoulder. “She’s here. She’s hurt. Get an ambulance.”
His deep, strong voice broke on the last word. She wanted to tell him that she was okay. That she’d done that to herself in her panic.
“Ren...” Her voice came out in a whisper. She couldn’t say anything else even if she wanted to. She slipped her arms around his neck as he lifted her out of the place she’d known she would die.
He stayed next to her as the paramedics placed her in the ambulance, answering questions she wasn’t able to answer. Stayed with her as the doctors checked her at the hospital, explained about the damage to her vocal cords that would eventually heal and bandaged the superficial damage she’d done to her neck with her own fingernails.
Ren explained that Damien was dead. And the next day, as morbid as it sounded, he’d wheeled her down to the morgue so she could see the body for herself. And know there was no chance Damien was ever coming back.
Ren stayed by her side the first night in the hospital, holding her hand as he slept in a reclining chair beside her.
And through it all she hadn’t said a word to him.
She couldn’t talk to Ren. And not just because of the damage to her voice.
She couldn’t talk to him because she needed space. Needed to find herself. Needed to know what her life was on her own without the constant companionship of fear and panic.
It had nothing to do with not trusting Ren and everything to do with figuring out a way to trust herself.
When Ren went out to talk to Steve and some of the other Omega people the second day, Andrea slipped in to say hello.
“How are you?” she asked. “I know you can’t really talk. But I just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re okay. I don’t know how much anyone told you, but basically Omega has been under siege by Freihof for months. In my case, longer. So we’re all glad he’s gone and we’re truly thankful for the role you played in taking him down. Putting that tracker on him under those circumstances was an exceptionally brave thing to do.”
Natalie just shrugged, given how she’d cursed herself for that decision.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” Andrea asked. She stepped in closer. “Natalie, I’m not just talking get-you-a-soda type stuff, although I’ll certainly do that. I know what it’s like to feel like you have nothing. To need a chance to find yourself before you can do anything else.”
Natalie took the pad of paper next to her bed that she’d been using to communicate.
I’m not trying to hurt Ren. I’m not angry. But I just can’t be with him right now.
Andrea smiled, understanding and sadness tinting her eyes. “You need to heal. Nobody would begrudge you that. Least of all Ren.”
Andrea sat down next to her, and together they worked out a plan.
Six months later
NATALIE SAT ON the deck of another beach house in Santa Barbara. This one was quite a bit smaller than the one where she’d house-sat months ago. And a couple of blocks from the beach itself. Andrea and the Omega Sector team had helped her find it and, using money confiscated from accounts linked to Damien, had bought it outright for her.
Combat pay, they’d called it.
The house had become her saving grace.
It was here that she’d cried her eyes out for the teenager she’d been who’d made such a bad decision in who she’d married and paid such a steep price for it in the years to come. Here that she’d ranted and slammed dishes on the ground when she thought of the six more years of her life that she’d lost by running and hiding and living in terror.
At first she couldn’t even look at a pack of sticky notes without feeling shame. But then Andrea, who had become a regular visitor, had pointed out—for both of their cases—that someone never needed to apologize for the way they had chosen to survive. And more importantly, that Natalie didn’t need the sticky notes any longer. That was the most important thing.
Other members of Omega Sector had come by to visit also those first few weeks, some Natalie had seen before, others she hadn’t.
Roman Weber, a member of the SWAT team, brought his very pregnant soon-to-be-wife, Keira, also a good friend of Andrea’s. They explained how Freihof had nearly killed them both—on two separate occasions—and thanked her for what she’d done to help stop him.
Tiny, tough SWAT member and occasional bus-ticket-saleswoman Lillian brought her man, Jace, by. They told her the story of how Damien had almost blown up a huge chunk of Denver, and brought Lillian’s worst nightmare back into her life. They thanked Natalie for making sure they would never have to worry about Damien again.
And sharpshooter Ashton, whom Natalie had found out was the one to put the bullet into Damien, brought his new wife and adopted toddler daughter, Chloe, by. She’d played with the adorable little girl for hours on the beach and then set up a little easel for her to paint when she’d expressed interest in Natalie’s own pictures.
“Because of your strength and courage, the world is a better place,” Ashton had said in her ear the next day as he’d hugged her goodbye. “You’re part of the Omega family now. You and Ren both, even though he’s not working there anymore.”
“He’s not?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking, the same way she hadn’t been able to stop herself from thinking about him or dreaming about him.
“Nope. Went back to work on some sheep farm in Montana. Go figure. Said it was where half his heart was. And that he was hoping the other half would get there soon.”
Steve Drackett showed up the next day, a small dog kennel in one hand. He did not look amused.
“I’ve known Ren McClement for more than fifteen years. He’s saved my life more than once. Please tell him when you see him that, after this little stunt, I consider my debt to him well and truly paid.”
He set the crate on the ground and opened it. A puppy came bounding out.
A damned Old English sheepdog puppy.
A sheepdog.
Steve handed her a card.
This little guy might look out of place in Santa Barbara. But he’d be perfect in Montana.
Natalie grabbed the tiny ball of white fur and pulled him up into her arms, giggling as he licked her face over and over.
“Aren’t you just the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen? I shall call you... Cream.”
Steve had just rolled his eyes. “Damn thing howled the entire way here. Tell Ren that next time he has to do his own dirty work.”
But Steve had winked at Natalie, so she knew he wasn’t truly mad.
Cream became her constant companion, his unconditional affection helping to heal Natalie in ways she hadn’t even known she had been broken. She wanted to write Ren, call him, something. But couldn’t quite make herself do it.
The next month the first postcard arrived. It was obviously over ten years old and had a picture of sunny Barcelona, Spain, on the front.
I realized I’d never sent these while I was in the army because I never had someone I wanted to share my life with. You are that person. Yours, Ren.
A couple days later another old postcard, this one from Istanbul, Turkey, showed up.
Growing up, I loved to read but my friends teased me about it, so I used to hide it, only reading while I lay under the covers at night. Yours, Ren.
Every few days, another postcard from his collection would arrive. And on the back, some small truth about his life that would help her to know him better. Some funny. Some heartbreaking. But always honest.
Day sixty-two. Tallinn, Estonia.
I want to give you new memories of the snow. To teach you how to make snow angels. Yours, Ren.
