Brody Judge (Heartbreakers & Heroes Book 5)

by Ciana Stone

  “You know him?”

  “Don’t play games. What do you want?”

  “I wasn’t lying to you, Catherine. I’m here because− “

  “Because you work with him.” Catherine backed away from the door as Mason entered.

  “I’m not here to hurt you, Sadie.” He held up both hands, palms out.

  “No, you’re here to lead them to me. I’m not going back, Mason.”

  “Hold on.” Etta interjected. “Who’s Sadie?”

  “She is.” Mason responded.

  “No, she’s Catherine. Catherine Mermet.”

  “That’s an alias.” Mason replied. “Tell her Sadie.”

  “Seems you already have partner.” There was enough scorn in that one word to make it clear that Catherine, or Sadie, or whoever this woman was, had nothing but contempt for Mason.

  “Hold on.” Etta needed to get control of the situation. “First, I swear to you that no one is here to lead anyone to you. Isn’t that right, Mason?”

  “She needs to go back, Etta. She isn’t sane. Isn’t that apparent? She’s—fractured. Whatever happened broke her. She doesn’t know who she is. She needs help.”

  “You can’t be serious?” Etta was shocked and furious. “You tricked me?”

  “No. I did what’s best for everyone. Including Sadie. You don’t know her, or what she’s capable of.”

  “Nor, apparently do I know you. Now, tell me the truth. Is someone coming for her?”

  “They are.”

  “And how long do we have?”

  “Fifteen, twenty minutes top.”

  Etta looked at Catherine. “Look, Catherine, or Sadie or whoever you are, you need to get out of here. Now.”

  “I know. But he’s not going to willingly let me go. Are you, Mason?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

  It wasn’t until Catherine nodded that Etta realized there was someone else with them. Before Mason could turn, Brody Judge had him in a sleeper hold. Within seconds, Mason’s eyes rolled back, and Brody dragged him to the sofa in the sitting room.

  “He’s probably being tracked.” Catherine said.

  “How long do we have?” Brody asked.

  “He said fifteen minutes, so I’d guess five.” Etta answered.

  “Are you going to help or hinder, Doc?”

  “Help, if I can. But I need to know.” She looked at Catherine. “Why did he call you Sadie and why does he think you need to be in an institution?”

  “Do you have high level government clearance?”

  “I do.”

  “Then look for a mission he was involved in, partnered with Sadie Rockler and a Mossad agent named Baruch Narkis.”

  “Thank you. Now, what can I do to help?”

  “How good a liar are you?”

  “Very. If required.”

  “Then when they come, don’t let them know Brody was here. Mason won’t know. Brody never spoke, so as long as you don’t tell them he’s safe. Say I left in a car with a man you didn’t get a good look at, but you heard me say we’re headed for the border.”

  “And are you?”

  Catherine stared at her for a long moment. “I need a friend, but not a false one.”

  Etta walked over and offered her hand. “I know you can read me, so take my hand. I swear I won’t betray you.”

  Catherine took Etta’s hand and for several seconds stared directly into Etta’s eyes. Then she nodded. “Thank you.”

  “Whatever you need.” Etta said and gave Catherine’s hand a squeeze. “Call me.”

  Catherine nodded and walked over to Brody. “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “Come on, Red. We’re burning daylight. Let’s get you on the road.”

  “Ok. One sec.” She ran to the bedroom and emerged five seconds later with a big backpack.

  Brody grinned, and she rolled her eyes. “I like to be prepared.” She then gave Etta a final look. “Thank you, Etta. Your kindness won’t be forgotten.”

  “Don’t mention it. And remember what I said. Now go.”

  She watched as the woman headed out of the house with Brody. Etta followed them as far as the door and watched as they got into an older model Jeep.

  Then she closed the door and leaned back against it. She hoped she hadn’t just made a huge mistake, but she believed Mathias was right. This woman wasn’t just empathic. She was a whole lot more and Etta needed to find out just how much and who Baruch Narkis was and his connection to Mason.

  Neither of them spoke until they were miles from the house she’d rented, then she looked over at Brody. “Seriously, you don’t have to do this.”

  “Sadie?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, just checking. And you know that I do have to do this. Not for you, but for Red. And I’d like to talk to her now.”

  “What if I don’t think that’s smart?”

  “I don’t much care, to be honest. The way I see it, I’m a little like you and Catherine. You’re here to protect Trina Rose and so am I. Only I’m not on the run so I’m in a better position to protect her. And I want to talk to her so do whatever it is you do and let her out.”

  She glared at him and he thought she’d refuse, then he saw her expression change. Just fractionally and only for a moment, but in that moment, he saw her. “Red, you need to fight your way past Sadie. I really need to talk to you.”

  She turned her head and looked out of the side window. Brody waited and was about to the point of stopping and trying to shake Trina loose when she turned to look at him.

  “Sorry to make you wait. Sadie can be pretty stubborn and she doesn’t yet trust you the way I do.”

  “Damn, I’m glad to see you, Red.”

  “Not half as glad as I am to see you. Where are we going, Brody?”

  “I found us a house. A lady in town has a little lake house. It’s at the other end of the Clear Springs Lake from Sanctuary and in need of some work, but she was willing to part with it, so I bought it.”

  “You bought a house? Why?”

  “Because no one will think to look for you there, so you’ll be safe. And no one will think twice about me being there because I own it.”

  “What about Etta?”

  “What about her?”

  “Will you tell her I’m there?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I don’t know. I need time to process things.”

  “That’s fine, you just tell me when you’re ready and until then I won’t say a word to anyone. But I do need to ask some questions.”

  “About Mason, I bet.”

  “Yeah. Mason. I know he was a spy so I’m guessing you were, too.”

  “No. I wasn’t. Sadie was. She was in charge for a long time and made all the decisions until—until things got really bad and then Catherine came to life. She isn’t as strong, but she is kind and she can’t answer questions because she really doesn’t know the answers. That makes her very valuable, and it’s how Sadie survived. How we survived. Catherine could beat any test they devised because she wasn’t born when it all went bad. She came later.”

  “What do you mean when it all went bad?”

  Trina leaned her head back on the seat. “I’ll tell you everything I know, Brody but some of it you’ll have to get from Sadie and it’s going to take both of us working together to gain her trust of you. And if you don’t mind, I’d rather have this conversation somewhere other than a moving vehicle.”

  “Okay, then we’ll table that for now.”

  There was a few minutes of silence before she spoke again. She placed her hand on his thigh. “I can’t believe you bought a house.”

  “You might not be so impressed when you see it.”

  “But you bought a house. To keep me safe. A house, Brody.”

  He looked over at her. “And your point?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sure I’ve never met anyone like you.”
/>   “I hope that’s a compliment.”

  “Oh, it is. It very much is.”

  “Then thank you.” He put his hand on top of hers and watched the smile that rose on her face. “I hope you’ll like the house.”

  “I bet I’ll love it.”

  “It needs some cleaning and sprucing up.”

  “I’m a good cleaner.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Then I’ll teach you. And you can teach me.”

  “Teach you what?”

  “How to protect myself.”

  “Red, I think Sadie has that covered.”

  “I know, but…”

  “But what?”

  She chewed her bottom lip for a moment, frowned and then answered. “I think I need to know how—me, not her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s time for me to be on my own.”

  Brody was surprised at that answer. “You think you can accomplish that? Sounds like the others have been with you for a long time.”

  “Maybe too long,” she murmured and turned her head to look out of the window.

  Brody didn’t press for more, but spent the rest of the drive wondering how on earth a person managed with three personalities and how someone went about getting rid of the extras.

  Then it hit him. What if Red wasn’t the original personality? What if he was helping her to essentially kill the real person?

  Suddenly, he realized how truly out of his element he was in this. With luck she’d decide to let him tell Etta where they were, and he could get Etta to help her because he didn’t have a clue what to do next.

  Chapter Ten

  I don’t even know why I’m doing this. Catherine is the one who has the need to write things down, to try to find clues in what she’s written. Well, that’s not entirely true. Sometimes I write, or draw in this diary because it’s the only place I can be completely honest.

  But being honest can be very dangerous. More than likely, I’ll rip this page out and burn it when I’m done. The last thing I want to do is screw up and allow others to know about me and my past.

  The only thing that will do is get us all killed.

  Get us all killed. No one knows how fucking bizarre it is to write or even think that thought. This body we inhabit originally belonged to Katrina Rose, or Trina as she was called. I suppose by rights, ownership should still be hers. Catherine probably wouldn’t care, but then she’s a golem, an anthropomorphic creation willed into life by me and Trina.

  I knew we needed Catherine. She was how we’d survive when we were taken. Trina fought me in the beginning, but the first time we were beaten and left bleeding on the floor, she acquiesced. Trina wasn’t strong enough to hold her ground and keep her mouth shut. She’d have broken in five minutes and I feared there would come a time when we’d waken from torture and she’d be in control.

  That would doom us for sure. Catherine was a way to save us and Trina saw the wisdom in breathing life into her. She was a blank slate, well except for what I let her remember and that was only bits and pieces, nothing of worth or merit.

  She was a fog—insubstantial and comprised of nothing, and therefore had nothing to share.

  Once we escaped that hell, she continued to be of use. She couldn’t tell anyone anything because all she knew was that she was tortured and starved for months on end and she didn’t know why.

  Catherine kept them busy while I planned our escape. It never occurred to me that Trina was manipulating me, steering me here, to Cotton Creek. She’s looking for something she’s been without since she was a child. Her father.

  Trina’s love for her father is part of what caused the first crack in her psyche. She couldn’t understand him leaving her behind. She couldn’t understand why not only her father left, but the one man she’d always been able to depend on left as well.

  Just like she couldn’t understand her new step-father wanting to do things to her that a man should never do to a child. Nor could she accept or forgive her mother for not believing Trina when she said she was being harmed.

  It was her fear and hatred of her stepfather, the things he did to her and her mother’s betrayal that gave me life. And once I was given control, I made sure no one could hurt her. I pushed her back into the safety of darkness and made her a passenger to our life.

  I never realized until recently that Trina knew far more than I gave her credit for. She may have been a passenger, but when sleep claimed me she came to power and that’s when she planted things in my mind. Things I’d come to believe were my own thoughts.

  More than that, she scoured my sleeping mind, ferreting out what I knew, what I’d experienced and how I felt. She became a secret vault of all things Sadie while I learned nothing of worth about her all those years.

  Yes, Trina is far brighter than I ever realized and now she wants to kill me. Me and Catherine. She wants to live without us.

  I know we’re not three separate people, yet I feel like I am a unique and separate entity. I lived all those years while Trina watched and now I feel this body, this mind is mine.

  Does she have the power to take that from me or do I have the power to send her back into the darkness to watch forever?

  Sadie put down the pen and reached for the page, intent upon tearing it from the notebook. If Catherine read it she’d freak out and her knowing would insure that Trina found out. Better to burn the page and pretend that she never wrote any of those words.

  Before she could rip the page free, however, the front door opened and Brody’s voice rang out. “Red? You here?”

  Sadie grabbed the notebook and jumped up from her seat at the kitchen table. She crammed the notebook into the drawer with the dish towels and had just turned when Brody entered the kitchen.

  “Hey, I thought maybe you were out. Have you had lunch?”

  “No, I thought I’d stay here and see if I can get the rugs beaten clean. The place is a real pig sty, but hey what can you expect from people who would decorate this way, right? I found some rope in the outside storage room and I think I can string it between a couple of trees and hang the rugs on it so I can pound them.”

  “I’ll help you with that later if you like.”

  “It’s nice of you to offer but I can handle it. As for lunch, I’d offer to fix you something but I think all we have left is two eggs and a little cheese. But I could scramble the eggs and throw on some cheese if you like.”

  “I have groceries in the truck. And I got take-out from the diner.”

  “Oh! Well, let me help you get them in.”

  “Okay.” Brody turned and headed back the way he’d come. Sadie followed, feeling a bit like she’d been holding her breath the last few moments. She’d prefer Brody to think he was dealing with Trina. He obviously had a thing for Trina, at least a desire to protect her, so it was probably wise to make him think he was spending time with her.

  She grabbed some of the bags and followed Brody back into the house. In silence they unloaded the supplies and put away the food. The Styrofoam containers from the diner contained club sandwiches and fries, all of which had been wrapped in foil and were still a bit warm.

  Sadie hated that she was unsure how to behave with Brody. When Trina was in control, she completely shut Sadie and Catherine out, so Sadie had no real clue how friendly or intimate Trina and Brody were, or what Trina had told him.

  Getting shut out was a first and told Sadie several things. First, Trina was getting stronger, and second she didn’t want Sadie and Catherine to know anything about her and Brody. That left Sadie with an uncomfortable choice. Stay quiet and hope he didn’t notice a difference, or take a chance on saying the wrong thing by talking too much.

  She opted for staying quiet and thought it was going pretty well until he finished his lunch.

  “So how long have you been in charge, Sadie?”

  “What makes you think I’m Sadie?”

  Brody smiled. “You nearly pulled it off except for one thing.”
>
  “Which is?”

  “Red is kind. Genuinely kind. She smiles to put others at ease and she would never call this place a pig sty and make fun of the decorations. She’s way too polite for that.”

  Something about his glowing praise for Trina annoyed Sadie. “Yeah, she’s a real saint.”

  “Not a saint, but yes, she is real.”

  “Implying that I’m not?”

  Brody shrugged. “I’d be willing to bet that you feel that you’re as real as anyone else. It has to be one screwed up situation, sharing a body and mind with two others.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “You obviously found a way to make it work for you. I mean, from what I understand, you’ve been dominant for a long time—since Red was what, twelve?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you with her before then?”

  “Yes, I was born when her father left, but I wasn’t in control yet.”

  “That must have been tough for you—you and Red.”

  “For her. She thought he was something special. A real bona fide hero who showed up now and then and gave her Catherine Mermet tea roses and said he loved her.”

  “Catherine Mermet? Is that why the third personality is called Catherine Mermet?”

  “It seemed as good a name as any and it turned Trina’s mind to memories of her father, which allowed me to focus on more important matters. While she was busy remembering Daddy Dearest, I was going about the business of survival.”

  “You don’t sound like you believe that her father loved her.”

  “I think the facts speak pretty clear. He left Trina and her mother, and she never saw him again. Does that sound like love to you?”

  “Not much, no.”

  “Then I rest my case.”

  “And what about you, Sadie? Have you ever loved anyone?”

  Sadie suddenly felt that she’d been maneuvered, and that made her uncomfortable and angry. “What difference does it make?”

  “Just curious. Seeing as how you and I are on the same team now, we might as well be friendly.”

  “Same team?”

  “Of course. Protecting Red. That is your objective, isn’t it? To protect her?”

  Fuck. He’d cornered her and somehow she got the feeling that he was looking inside her, searching for that lie. The one that revealed the truth. She might have been brought to life to protect Trina, but she’d had a taste of life. It was she who had lived all those years, gone to college, gotten recruited by the CIA, had lovers and experiences most people couldn’t imagine.