by Dana Mentink
“It’s been a horrible week, but...”
“But?”
“I’ve been starting to feel things, bad things and frightening ones sometimes, but at least it’s something besides just the numbness.”
“That’s progress. Maybe that’s even healing,” he ventured.
She answered with another sigh so deep that it moved right through her and into him. He gathered her closer. “I’m glad.” After a moment, he dared to ask. “What are you going to do next?”
She sighed. “I don’t know.”
“There is...help, especially for people with PTSD,” he said gently, realizing at once it was the wrong thing to say.
She sat back, scooting to the far end of the sofa and wiping her eyes. “I’ll fix things myself.”
“You’re plenty strong enough, Sage. I was just suggesting...”
“That I need to go see a shrink,” she said, springing to her feet. “So he can analyze me or maybe give me some pills.”
“No,” he began.
She folded her arms across her chest. “But Captain Black doesn’t need to do that.”
The sarcasm bit at him. “I would talk to someone if I needed to.”
“But you don’t need to because you’ve got God on your side? In spite of what you’ve done to your brother?” Anger hummed in her voice. “I wonder why He’s not on my side, then.”
Trey searched for a way to put out the fire he’d inadvertently lit. “He is.”
“If He was on my side He wouldn’t have let Luis die. He wouldn’t have let me have my arrogant way. He would have saved me from myself.” The last phrase came out in a whisper.
“Sometimes He doesn’t do that.”
“He saved your brother.”
Trey sighed. “Yes, but that wasn’t because I deserved it.”
She opened her mouth to answer but stopped, turned on her heel and walked away, taking the lantern with her and leaving him alone in the darkness.
FOURTEEN
When do I turn back into myself? Muscles taut as wire, Sage tried to stifle her sniffling as she slid between the cold sheets. She didn’t understand why she’d twisted the sweet moment between them into something ugly. Trey was trying to help and she’d shoved him away on a tidal wave of anger that came out of nowhere. Strangest of all, she did not want him to go away, she realized. He was the one person she desperately wanted close, though she could not comprehend that desire either. Attraction? Yes. Something deeper? The thought scared her.
Careful not to wake Antonia by tossing on the squeaky bed, she clasped her hands together so hard her fingernails bit into the skin. Where to start? What to say? How could she possibly explain?
The thought filtered up through her heart, pushing by the darkness and cold that filled that space. “Come find me because I can’t find You,” she whispered, head spinning and tears flowing, hot, down onto the pillow.
She heard the rustle of blankets and found Antonia sitting up, dark eyes gleaming as she watched Sage.
“Sorry,” Sage mumbled. “Did I wake you?”
Antonia might have shaken her head, but Sage couldn’t tell in the darkness. “I thought I heard someone crying.”
“Bad day,” Sage managed.
“Barbara told me you were back from Afghanistan and it was...hard there.”
Sage closed her eyes. “Yes. Hard.”
“You’re lucky to have someone who understands.” Antonia paused and Sage realized she must be referring to Trey.
“He was the captain of the platoon where I was stationed.”
“He’s a man you can trust?”
Shame burned inside her for the anguish she knew she’d caused him only a short time ago. “Yes, he is,” she said carefully. A man who should be trusted, and loved by someone who could treat him the way he deserved.
“Then hang on to him,” she said, lying down on the bed again. “Most men are not worth loving.”
“Like Derick?”
She hissed out a breath. “Like all men. The ones you can trust are rare.”
“Antonia, how did you meet my cousin?”
Antonia rolled onto her back now, her tone softer. “She was vacationing in Florida and I’d done some murals in a hotel there. She’d heard about my work and came to see it and hired me to consult on the Imperial.”
“Long way to go from Florida to San Francisco.”
“I needed the money. My sister...” Her voice trailed off. “I just needed the money.”
“Rosalind said...” Sage hesitated.
She exhaled. “That I’ve been in trouble, and she’s right. Barbara knew, but she let me keep my past mistakes where they belong...in the past. I won’t ever forget that. It’s part of the reason I was so determined to help her when I thought...well, you know what I thought.”
Keeping the past in the past. Sage wished she was able to accomplish that feat. She felt a sudden overwhelming desire to see Barbara again, and her father and mother, her sister, Erika. If she could be with them, safely grounded again in the years of loving history between them, maybe that love would give her the power to put the past where it belonged. But she’d tried. How she’d tried to resurrect the person she’d been before, the Sage Harrington her family had known. She could not trust in her own strength.
Trey would say she had to trust in Jesus because He had already won the battle.
But how could she do that? How could she find the courage?
She recalled the way she felt, pressed into his chest, listening to the beating of his heart. So close. Steady. Reverberating down to the core of her, past the layers of darkness and fear.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Trey is someone to hang on to.”
And then the conversation was over. Movement from the other bed indicated Antonia had turned away, giving her back to Sage.
The ones you can trust are rare.
Trey Black was definitely one of the rare ones.
* * *
Somewhere between her encounter with Trey and the hours before dawn, she must have slept, awaking with a jolt and a pounding heart. She clutched the blanket, assessing, trying to remember how she’d wound up in a small hotel room, the cracked clock on the wall pegging the time at just before six. The curtains shrouding the window trembled slightly and she realized they’d had another aftershock.
Calm down, she told her hammering heart. Still, she knew the safest course of action was to get moving, just in case there was a need to evacuate. She sat up, rubbing the grit from her eyes, and walked to Antonia’s bed.
“Another earthquake,” she said softly. “We’d better get up, just in case.”
There was no answer from Antonia, so she reached a hand out to her shoulder, encountering only a soft mound of rumpled blankets.
“Antonia?” The sheets were cold to the touch. She padded out into the quiet hallway and into the lobby, where she found Trey heating water on the camp stove with Wally watching him from his perch on the arm of the sofa.
“Aftershock wake you?”
“Yes.” Ignoring the flutter in her stomach when his eyes roamed her face, she got to the point. “Antonia isn’t in her bed. I think she’s left.”
Trey didn’t answer for a moment. “There’s really nothing to keep her here, I guess. Awkward situation in view of the fact that she accused Derick of murder and Rosalind announced that Antonia was a liar. Maybe it’s easiest on everyone if she did leave.”
Sage paced the small room, arms folded against the chill. “I just feel like something isn’t right.”
Rosalind bustled in without shoes, hugging her soiled jacket around herself. “Derick is gone.”
Sage stared. “When?”
“I just checked his room, the bathroom, the grounds. Nothing.”
“They might have gone to get some air,” Trey suggested.
“They?” Rosalind’s mouth creased with worry lines as she heard about Antonia. “Oh, no. Maybe she had a knife, a weapon of some sort, and forced him to go with her.”
“I think we would have heard him struggle, or cry out or something,” Sage said, mind spinning.
“I’ll go to the police,” Rosalind said.
Trey took the pot off the burner. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Maybe they went back to the deli, or took a walk.”
Rosalind nodded. “I’ll get my shoes and see if I can find them.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sage said.
“We’ll go,” Trey said, correcting her.
A flush of something like happiness and relief warmed her stomach. She hadn’t driven him away completely and for that she was grateful.
Emiliano was just padding into the kitchen as they opened the front door. He stifled a yawn. “Are you leaving this early? It’s not even sunup yet.”
“Antonia and Derick have gone somewhere.”
Emiliano raised an eyebrow. “That explains it.”
Sage’s gut clenched. “Did you see them leave?”
“I heard a noise a few hours ago. I thought it was more looters, so I grabbed my baseball bat and took a look around, but there was no one. Out the window I just caught sight of Mr. Long with a flashlight moving away from the hotel. Didn’t see Antonia with him.”
“That shoots down the theory that Antonia forced him to leave,” Trey said.
Rosalind’s eyes rolled. “I can’t believe this. Like we haven’t been through enough. Which way did he go?”
Emiliano pointed a finger in the direction of the ruined opera house.
Sage understood why Antonia had left, but she could not comprehend why Derick would have any reason to go back to the Imperial.
Antonia’s earlier revelation came back to her.
I checked the shoes. They were covered in dirt and flecks of gold plaster. She swallowed the thick wave of fear. If the phone call from Barbara was fake...
Trey grabbed his pack and gave Emiliano the handheld radio that Derick had used earlier. “Contact us if either of them returns here.”
Rosalind pulled on the shoes she’d fetched from her room. “Let’s go before he does something stupid.”
The moist air chilled Sage immediately. “What do you think he’s up to, Rosalind?”
“Who knows?” she said over her shoulder.
“I think you do.”
Rosalind flicked a quick glance at her and then away. “I have no idea.” She quickened her pace over the slick cement, which was cracked and heaved up in places. Wally trailed behind her, leaping on dainty legs over chunks that blocked his way.
Trey moved close and put his arm around Sage’s shoulders. Her body reacted to the feel of his strength, the warmth that passed from his skin to hers. He whispered, “What do you think?”
She put her mouth to his ear, resisting a wild urge to kiss his neck. “I think she’s covering for him. Derick’s gone back in there for some reason and she knows what it is.”
He stopped her then and she thought his breathing was a bit erratic much like her own.
“Sage, I don’t want anyone back in that opera house. For any reason. It was a wonder that we all got out in one piece, and if Derick was crazy enough to go in there again, he’s on his own.”
“What if he was lying all along? If Antonia was right and Barbara is down there?”
His jaw muscles tightened. “Rubio told us Barbara called the station. She’s fine. It’s over.”
She didn’t answer but something deep down inside, the part of her that she used to rely on as instinct, told her that the situation was far from over.
Trey had an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu as they arrived outside the front entrance of the Imperial. It was just before sunup and the sky had edged from black to gray. There was no sign of Derick or Antonia and he did not intend to let Rosalind or Sage set one toe inside the wreck again. There were acceptable risks, and there was just plain stupidity. Though he could not explain Derick’s odd behavior, if the guy wanted to go get himself entombed in his opera house, he could do it alone.
The doors were closed, a gap between them revealing how badly the building had shifted. Rosalind stepped under the yellow tape Rubio had tied across the doors and yanked on one. It opened with a hideous creak that set his teeth on edge.
She peered inside. “No sign that anyone has been here. Maybe they went back to the deli for some reason.”
“Or decided to try to get back to the house on foot,” Sage mused aloud.
“Why bother if the roads are going to reopen today?” Trey wished he hadn’t added fuel to Sage’s suspicions.
“Exactly.” She looked over the top of Rosalind’s head. “Are you sure there are no footprints in the dust?”
Trey didn’t like her proximity. He was about to use his captain’s voice when Wally pushed in between Sage’s legs, barking madly. In a moment he was through the door, his barks now amplified.
“Wally,” Trey called. “Come here.”
The dog obeyed about as well as anyone else clustered on the sidewalk at that moment. He surged forward, oblivious to Trey’s commands and now adding in a shrill whine to accompany the barking.
“Come here,” Trey thundered. He caught sight of Wally’s hind legs kicking up clouds of dust as he pawed at a new section of wall that had collapsed since the last time they’d clapped eyes on the lobby.
Trey elbowed past Sage and Rosalind. “I’ll get him.” Sage held a flashlight into the space as he headed for the dog.
“We’re going to end up at the bottom of a pile of rubble, Wally.” Trey tried to reach for Wally’s collar, but all he got was a handful of hair off the trembling body. He moved in farther, brushing cobwebs off his face and trying not to inhale the filthy air.
Wally continued to work at a spot near the floor, which appeared to be nothing but a dark hole to Trey’s eyes.
“Come on, dog. Let’s get out of here.” This time he got a grip on the animal, which whined pitifully and sent up a loud barking protest. As he slid Wally away, Sage’s flashlight beam hit on something. A piece of rubber, he thought, until he bent closer.
No, not rubber.
He turned and handed the dog to Rosalind. “Hold him for a minute.”
Her eyes rounded in fear. “Why? What did you find?”
He didn’t answer, returning to the spot and confirming for himself that his eyes had not played tricks on him. Grasping the black rubberized sole, he gently pulled, hoping the motion would not bring the rest of the structure down on his head.
The thing in his hands was a pair of boots, attached to a soiled pair of legs. He continued to ease the legs free, an inch or two at a time, until he got one wrist clear of the mess. Kneeling, he checked for a pulse.
The cold skin told him before the terrible stillness. There was no pulse, no life, left in this victim.
Sage and Rosalind had taken a step, involuntarily perhaps, towards him.
* * *
“Who...?” Sage’s lips were rounded into a horrified O. He grasped the boots once again and continued to pull the figure free until the face was visible, whitened with plaster.
Wally leapt out of Rosalind’s hands and ran to the body of his owner.
“Fred Tipley,” Sage breathed. “How come we didn’t see him before?”
“He was in the storage room just behind the lobby wall. It probably collapsed because of the aftershocks.”
Rosalind let out a low moan. “Horrible. How many has this earthquake killed?”
Trey bent closer, examining Fred’s motionless face. “Not this one.”
Sage je
rked. “What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t killed by a collapse.” Trey pointed to a hole in the middle of a dark shadow on Fred’s shirt. “He was shot. I think that’s where the blood on Wally came from.”
He did not allow himself to think about the little animal mourning next to his dying owner. All the smart scientist types said that dogs don’t grieve. They were wrong.
“Oh, Fred,” Sage whispered. “Who would want to kill you?”
The words hovered there as if held aloft by the shock that all three felt in that moment. Trey knelt next to Fred and did a cursory check. Minor bruises, a scrape on his hairy arm. Though his mind wanted to shy away from it, the truth shouted itself loud and strong in his ears. Fred had been murdered. Not by looters, he figured. What was there in the old wreck worth stealing?
Sage turned to Rosalind. “You said he left.”
She shook her head, eyes round, mouth twisted. “He did. He must have gone back in for something. I feel sick.”
Trey patted Fred’s pockets and removed a crumpled five-dollar bill and a handful of change. There were no car keys. The other pocket yielded only a balled-up handkerchief and a half-inch-long oval pill. He rolled it around in his palm.
Sage shone the light on it and her face went so dead white, he grabbed her arm. “Deep breaths.”
She sucked in some air and swallowed hard. “Trey, that’s a prenatal vitamin. I remember them from my sister, Erika’s, pregnancy.”
He looked again at the pill, which he now saw was bright pink in color. “Prenatal?” The word circled stupidly through his brain. An old man with a prenatal vitamin in his pocket.
Her eyes were no longer locked on the vitamin, but they were fixed on Trey’s other hand, dirty from grasping Fred Tipley’s shoes. He followed her horrified stare to the dirt that caked his fingers and the tiny flecks of gold that shone like sparks in the beam of light.
FIFTEEN
“Fred was in the basement before he was killed,” Sage said, her stomach flipping over itself, cold shivers running through her.
