Echoes at Dawn (23 page)

He groaned again. Did she honestly think he was going to tell her no?

GRACE
was shaken awake to see Rio looming above her, a tight frown marring his face. She came instantly to awareness, blinking away the layers of sleep. Sunlight shone in from the high window, softly illuminating the room in morning sunshine.

“I have to do some recon,” he said tersely.

She scrambled to a sitting position. “What does that mean? Do I need to go?”

He held out a hand. “No, no. You stay here. Browning’s going to be here with you. I’m going out with Terrence while Decker, Diego and Alton are going to post a perimeter to make sure no one gets in.”

“Is someone here?” she demanded. “What’s going on, Rio?”

“Maybe nothing, but I’m not taking any chances. Browning just came off his watch and he reported movement in the southern sector bordering the river. Said they didn’t look like locals. As I said, it could be nothing, but I’m sure as hell going to check it out.”

She bit her lip but nodded.

“Listen to me. I want you up and dressed and prepared for anything. But I want you to stay in this room until I come back. Unless Browning tells you to move out. If for some reason I can’t return to get you and we need to move, he’ll bring you to meet me through one of the escape tunnels.”

Her pulse raced out of control until she could feel it at her temples. She scrambled out of bed, staring left and right, unsure of what she was even looking for.

Rio put his hands on her shoulders and then turned her around to meet his gaze. He lowered his head and kissed her hard and quick.

“Don’t freak. I need you calm. There are clothes in the closet. Get what you need. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He kissed her one last time and then was gone before she could even tell him to be careful.

There was no hope of her actually relaxing after that kind of wake-up call. She rummaged through the closet until she found a shirt and a pair of shorts with a drawstring waist. Perfect.

She frowned as she considered whether or not to take a quick shower. He hadn’t really had time to leave yet. If he found trouble, he wouldn’t find it this quickly, would he?

Finally deciding to risk it, she set a record for getting hair and body washed and clean. She toweled off, pulled her clothing on and then began drying her hair. She combed it out, left it mostly damp and pulled it back into one of the rubber bands she found in the bathroom drawer.

She wouldn’t win any beauty contests but she was ready for anything.

Knowing her morning was shot to hell and she needed to find a way to relax, she climbed onto the bed and went through the exercises Rio had shown her the day before.

Gradually the anxiety melted away and she found her focus. Calm descended. It was as if her mind was a knotted rope that was uncoiling and loosening and finding its way free.

Tentatively she reached for her sister, trying to find her
way back to that familiar path she’d used for so many years. She was changed, though. Her mind was different.
She
was different. Nothing was as it was before, and she had to find her way again.

She brought the image of Shea’s face to the center of her focus and let everything else fall away. She brought to mind the sound of her sister’s voice. How it echoed in her memory. The way it sounded through the telepathic link.

Warmth spread over her, soothing and comforting. She could literally feel her sister’s smile. And then the faintest echo, so faint she thought she’d imagined it.

Grace
.

Her name. Shea was calling to her.

She was about to respond when her door burst open and Browning flew inside, his expression grave.

“Let’s go. We have to meet Rio.”

Her heart pounding out of her chest, she scrambled off the bed, thrust her feet into the pair of shoes on the floor and hurried after Browning, who was already on his way down the hall.

“What is it? What’s happened?” she asked.

“I don’t have all the details. Rio said to get you out and that’s what I’m doing. He’ll meet us in the northwest corner.”

Grace frowned. That was away from the river. Had they come for her? Had she been found this quickly?

Browning led her through a tunnel she hadn’t been in. It came out in a small cave, really more of a carved-out hole a few feet up a cliff overgrown with vines and thick moss.

He dropped down first and then motioned for her to jump to him. He broke her fall and then took her hand, tugging her farther into the dense foliage.

Limbs and brush slapped at her face, chest and legs. Several times she got tangled up in the undergrowth and nearly fell. She stumbled into Browning, who seemed impatient with how slowly she was moving.

Several times he looked as though he would say something, but he clamped his lips shut and urged her on.

After what seemed like an hour of him all but dragging her through the jungle, they stepped into a clearing. Ahead, there was what looked like a village right on the banks of the river. Browning had said northwest, but northwest from the house wasn’t the river.

She struggled to catch up then pulled at his arm when several people stepped from the small huts that were erected a distance from the banks.

“Browning, what’s going on? What are we doing here?”

He grimaced and then caught hold of her wrist. He held it so firmly that it hurt, but when she tried to twist away, he only tightened his hold.

“I’m sorry, Grace,” he said in a low voice. “This is something I had to do. Rio’s going to be pissed that I gave him false information so he and the others would go out, but I had to do it because he would have never let you come otherwise.”

Fear burned through her stomach. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She tried to take a step back, but he wouldn’t release her hand. She started to struggle, but he pulled out his pistol. She went still, unbelieving what she was seeing. What was happening? Browning pointed the gun at
her
.

“Don’t, Grace. Please. I’m not going to hurt you unless you make it necessary. Just listen to me, okay? We don’t have a lot of time.”

Just then a young woman ran up to Browning, babbling a stream that Grace didn’t understand. Browning held up the hand holding the pistol to silence the other woman but then pulled her into his side and held her, even as he gripped Grace’s wrist with his other hand.

Grace’s blood ran cold and panic gripped her throat. She hadn’t questioned Browning. Rio himself had told her to go with Browning if he told her to. She’d trusted Rio’s men because they were an extension of him. What was she supposed to have done, though, when Rio told her to do just as she’d done?

Browning had set Rio and the others up so he could get Grace out of the house. But why?

Browning said something to the woman and then gestured her away. He then turned his attention back to Grace. “I need your help.”

His tone was pleading but Grace was just pissed. “Lying to me, dragging me through a jungle and pointing a gun at me isn’t the way to go about asking for my help.” She looked pointedly down at her wrist. “You’re hurting me.”

He loosened his grip slightly but wouldn’t let her go. He kept looking in the direction that the woman had run, and a moment later, relief flooded his eyes. Grace followed the direction of his gaze to see the woman hurrying toward them with a baby in her arms.

Several of the villagers had formed a loose perimeter, and still more gathered, murmuring in low voices. Several shot the young woman holding the baby looks of sympathy. Others shook their heads and made gestures to suggest she was crazy.

The woman slowed as she approached Grace. Her expression was pleading and she spoke to Grace in broken English. “Please do not be angry with Mitch. I begged him to do this. It’s the only way. You’re our only hope.”

Grace looked at Browning in confusion.

“Mitch is my first name,” he muttered.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Why am I here?”

Finally he let go of her wrist but then she noticed that several of the villagers were behind her as well. She had nowhere to go even if she decided to run. She cupped her arm, rubbing absently at the red marks as she waited for someone to tell her what the hell was happening.

Browning pulled the young woman into his side, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. There was a fierceness in his expression, one she recognized because it was the way Rio looked at her.

“This is Sumathi, my woman, and our child, Ana. Ana
is…” He broke off, his voice thick with emotion. “She’s sick. She’s dying.”

Sumathi interjected again. “Please, you must help her. There is nothing else to do. She’s so weak. I’m afraid she will die today if nothing is done to help her.”

Some of Grace’s anger slipped away as she stared at the infant in Sumathi’s arms. She was a thin baby, not at all like the chubby, rosy-looking babies that signified good health. The baby lay listlessly in the blanket.

“What’s wrong with her?” Grace asked Browning.

“The doctors call it failure to thrive. No one really knows. She just won’t eat. She has no strength. She’s wasting away and I don’t know what to do. I wanted to take her to the U.S. so she could be hospitalized. I was going to ask Rio for help. I know he would have given it to me. But I didn’t know until just a short time ago and now I don’t think she would be able to make the trip. Sumathi has taken her to see doctors here, but they tell her to feed her. Give her special formulas. She’s tried everything, even asking another woman to nurse her. But she’s dying.”

The despair in his voice softened her anger. She looked helplessly at the baby, knowing that she had to try. Knowing what it would do to her and that she might not be able to sustain another healing.

She wasn’t even sure she
could
do it.

Her voice cracked. Emotion and dread knotted in her throat. “You should know that I’m not certain I can do this. I haven’t been able to connect to my sister since…all this happened. I haven’t tried to heal. I don’t know if I can do it anymore.”

“All I ask is that you try,” Browning said in a soft voice. “All
we
ask is that you try.”

Grace glanced around at all the curious spectators. Unease crawled over her. Did they all know what it was Browning was asking her to do? She glanced sharply at him.

He shook his head. “I’ve only told them you were a physician and that you specialized in matters like this. They
don’t know what you can do. I may be a selfish, lying bastard, but I wouldn’t have exposed you like that.”

“I’ll want privacy,” she said.

“Then you’ll do it?”

The instant hope in his voice was crushing. Sumathi’s eyes lit up and tears swamped her vision.

“Thank you,” Sumathi whispered. “May God bless you for the rest of your days.”

How to tell this woman that the end of her days might well be here and that she could well be trading her life for this child’s? But as she stared down at that tiny life, so weak and barely fighting, Grace knew she couldn’t turn her back. She couldn’t walk away no matter what it did to her. This child was innocent. She deserved a chance to grow up and be someone extraordinary.

Maybe her purpose was to save
this
child.

“Come this way,” Browning said, guiding her toward a distant hut.

“Why are they here?” Grace demanded. “Why aren’t they with you in the U.S., where they can be taken care of?”

Browning sighed. “I didn’t know of Sumathi’s pregnancy. We met between missions, when I was here with Rio. The next time I was able to see her was for just a few moments because we were involved in another mission, using Rio’s place as a safe house. I came to see her this time because I wanted her to come back with me to the U.S. I wanted to buy her a house so we could be a family. I’ve missed so much of Ana’s childhood already and she’s just an infant. Maybe…Maybe if I’d been here sooner, I could have done something. Taken her to doctors in the U.S. But now we’re out of time and you’re our only hope.”

Grace closed her eyes. It was a familiar story. She was someone’s only hope. Who was supposed to be hers?

When they reached the hut, Grace stepped inside and Browning came in behind her, closing the door. Sumathi stood anxiously to the side, cradling Ana as she stared hopefully at Grace.

“You know what this does to me,” Grace said in a low
voice. “You can’t just leave me here. I’ll be completely helpless.”

“Whatever you may think of me, I would never just leave you. Rio will know where to find you.”

It was only a small consolation. She was still riddled with fear and uncertainty. She warred with the consequences. Before she wouldn’t have hesitated. She’d been so depleted, so broken, she would have chosen to give this baby her life at the expense of her own in a heartbeat.

But things were different now. Weren’t they?

Someone cared about her. Rio said he was going to be part of her life.

But then she stared at Sumathi’s tearstained face and saw a mother’s love and desperation shining in the nearly black depths. How could she live with herself if she sentenced this baby to die in her mother’s arms?

She would be no better than the man who’d murdered Rio’s sister.

“Bring her to me,” she said in resignation.

Sumathi hurried over and readily relinquished the baby into Grace’s arms. Grace sank to the floor on her knees and then positioned the baby so she’d be warm and comfortable.

She was so listless. As if she’d already given up the fight.

Grace reached out to her, hoping to find a connection. She made the contact as warm and as soothing as she knew how. Closing her eyes, she narrowed her focus to nothing but this baby in front of her. She blocked out her surroundings, the distant noises, even the worried parents who loomed over her.

The pathway was so feeble that Grace almost missed it. There was only the faintest sign of life, and she knew that indeed it was nearly too late for this little one.

As soon as she was able to feel the pathway, she then concentrated on drawing away the weakness, the faint darkness that seemed to surround the baby’s soul. Death had come for her and it was up to Grace to deny it.