Free Fall (5 page)

“Why? Damn it, Rainie, I didn’t want to get into this last night, but what the hell did you think you were doing, going out alone like that? You of all people should know the danger out there right now, especially for us. None of us know for sure if our cover has been compromised, or by who, for that matter. We have to stick together on this.”

“I know,” I said. After all, Roc was right. “I know it was stupid, but I just needed to get out of the apartment for a while and we’d just had a huge fight, so I couldn’t come to you.”

“So this is my fault?” he asked with the beginnings of a smile.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Roc, I don’t want to fight with you. I screwed up. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“Why are you in such a hurry to leave, Rainie? Stay with me tonight?” He took a step closer. Even though he’d made no move to touch me yet, my resolve began to crumble. Roc was waiting for me to make the next move.

Tell him the truth
, my heart pleaded. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know where I stood with Roc anymore, or even if we still might have a future together.

I loved him. Roc was the only man I’d ever dated who treated me like his equal. He valued my opinion and often times it ended up the source of our disagreeing. But somehow, we’d always managed to work beyond those disagreements, unlike all my past boyfriends who took my five-feet-three-inch height and short blonde curls to mean I was weak and defenseless, and might need a big, strong man to tell me what to do.

“I can’t,” I said at last before reaching out to pull him closer to me. We were equals and I loved being with Roc, but I was restless again tonight. I felt as if I were searching for something just beyond my reach.

“Why can’t you?” he asked, stroking a strand of hair behind my ear in a gesture I would always associate with Roc.

“Because…” I didn’t even attempt to explain. How could I? I didn’t know the answer. I simply kissed him once and pulled away.

When I reached the door, I turned back for one last look. The hurt expression in his eyes had me wavering. It was hard to take. What was wrong with me? Roc was my husband and I loved him. What more was I looking for?

I’d known for a long time now that Roc was just waiting for me to say the word to keep our relationship going or end it entirely, but I couldn’t say those words.

I told myself I wasn’t ready for any major changes in my life yet. The work we did was too dangerous to get into a serious discussion about the future with him, but deep in my heart I understood these were all lies. What I really didn’t want to hear was what Roc’s answers might be, because I believed I could recite them all by heart.

Roc wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of the job. Not even me. The Agency would always be his first love, and someday soon I was going to have to deal with this. But I wasn’t ready to tonight.

“Rainie, don’t do anything foolish tonight. Think about what you’re doing. Do you really think last night’s incident was just a coincidence? You’re not that naïve.”

“I’m okay, Roc. I’ll be fine. Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll call you in the morning, okay? Don’t worry so much.”

“Rainie…”

I turned back to look at him one last time, blowing him a quick kiss before I closed the door softly on our uncharted future.

* * * *

I got in my vehicle and drove away. I left the meeting feeling restless again, doubting everything I once believed I wanted from my life. Of course, I knew the dangers just as I realized I was behaving irresponsibly by making light of them, but I needed to exorcise my demons more than I feared what secrets the night might hold.

Justin
.

Even as a child of seven, I understood my brother was involved in something bad. My parents told me Justin had emotional problems, but from the scraps of conversation I’d overheard through the years, I was able to piece together the truth. My brother had had a serious drug addiction.

By age seventeen, Justin graduated to hard stuff. My parents and my brother argued all the time about it, which usually ended up with Justin storming out of the house. He would stay away for days on end. My parents tried to get him help. Shortly before he went missing, they’d booked him into one of the foremost drug treatment centers in the state. But then one night, my brother simply vanished in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again.

My parents spent the rest of their lives and thousands of dollars searching for the truth behind Justin’s disappearance. I’d always believed Justin was dead and my parents had died without ever knowing what happened to him. But what if I was wrong?

I parked the Expedition in a well-lit parking lot close to the spot where I was supposed to have met my brother last night.

As I started walking, a threat of rain hung heavy in the air, keeping the crowds to a minimum. I glanced up as the moon went behind a cloud, bringing the world around me into shadows. I looked around me in surprise. I’d long since left the lights of Wisconsin Avenue behind. It was then that I felt the first uneasy prickle at the base of my spine.

From somewhere close behind, a noise brought my attention back to my current situation. I was alone and in unfamiliar territory.

It was then that I saw him standing there. My brother. Even from a distance, I could see he was no longer the confused young kid who walked out into the night all those years ago.

“Justin?”

The sound of my voice appeared to startle him for a moment. He watched me warily, not attempting to answer me.

“Justin? It’s really you, isn’t it? You’re alive. Mom and Dad were right all along. They never stopped believing they’d find you alive someday.”

I’d taken another step closer when it hit me. The man standing before me was nothing like the gangly teenager I remembered from the past. A boy of seventeen disappeared into the night; the man who watched me now held only a faint resemblance to that boy.

“Justin, it’s okay. I can help you. Whatever you’ve done, I can help, but you have to trust me. You have to turn yourself in.”

“Stop. Don’t come any closer, Rainie.” Even his voice sent me back into the past. It held a thin reminder of the troubled kid who had very little patience for the sister who always wanted to tag along.

But the fear behind Justin’s words was real enough and hard to deny. I did as he asked, stopping a few feet away from him.

I studied my brother carefully, looking for any familiar telltale signs. I didn’t trust him. After all, what did I really know about the man he’d become? The things I’d read about Jeremiah Silvers made it hard to believe this could be the same person standing before me now.

“Justin, I promise I won’t let anyone hurt you. Whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, I promise we can work this out. I’ll help you.”

The sound of his laughter sent an uneasy awareness along my spine.

“You can’t help me. There’s nothing you, or anyone connected to you can do to help me now. It’s too late for me, Rainie. I came back for you. To warn you. There are things happening here that you don’t understand. Walk away from this while you still can. Get out before it’s too late for you as well.”

“Justin, let me help you.”

“Don’t worry about me. Just let me go. You don’t know who I am anymore. Let go of the past, Rainie. It doesn’t exist for either of us.”

“Justin, I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” I took another step closer, desperate to make eye contact. If I could force him to look me in the eye, I believed I might be able to reach him. The young man he’d once been was still in there somewhere.

What he said next stopped me cold in my tracks.

“You’re on the wrong side of this thing, Rainie. You’re fighting the wrong enemy and you can’t win. What you are doing is destined to fail. Walk away before it costs you your life. You think you know what’s happening. You have no idea what the truth really is.”

I didn’t understand what he meant by this but there was no denying Justin’s fear. His eyes constantly searched the darkness around us, looking for something, or someone. My brother was afraid for his life.

“Justin, what are you trying to tell me? Help me understand what you mean. What are you afraid of? What happened to you? Where have you been all these years? Justin, tell me—”

I didn’t finish because Justin was no longer listening to me. Something caught his attention off in the distance. He was ready to flee.

“Wait, Justin. Don’t go. Let me come with you. I can help you.”

“No!” For a moment, his eyes met mine. The emptiness in them was hard to take.

Something drew his attention from me once more. “Don’t try to follow me and don’t try to contact me again. Stay out of this. Leave while you still have the choice. And don’t trust anyone—not even the people closest to you.”

Without another word, Justin disappeared into the shadows. I went after him, weapon drawn, but he was nowhere to be seen. I’m not sure how long I spent searching the darkness, hoping Justin would return to dispel all of my doubts. It was well after midnight when I finally gave up and went home to my apartment, but my night had only just begun.

I unlocked the door to the sound of a ringing phone. Even before I answered the call, I guessed it would be Roc. The flashing red light on my answering machine told me this was not the first time he’d tried to reach me tonight.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“Where have you been? I’ve been texting you for a while. I was almost ready to call out the team to search for you. What the hell’s up with you, Rainie?”

“Nothing…nothing. I just needed to think.”

“You needed to think? About what?”

“About nothing…about everything. I don’t know. Look, I’m sorry I worried you, Roc, but I’m okay, really, and it’s late and I’m tired and I have to be up early tomorrow.” At this out-and-out lie, I crossed my fingers and said a silent prayer for forgiveness. But I just couldn’t face the inevitable with Roc tonight.

“Rainie, don’t hang up on me.”

“I’m not…but I don’t want to talk about this right now Roc, so…good-night.” At this point, I did hang up on the man who had been there for me through so many bad moments in my life.

I was stunned, ecstatic, frightened. Restless. All these emotions crowded in as I went back over every little detail of my first face-to-face meeting with my brother in over twenty years.

Surprisingly, there were tears as well. I hadn’t cried since my parents’ deaths. I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I’d have to do something soon.

Surely, the very fact Justin was back in my life after all these years meant something. A sign that it was time for me to take a new direction in life.

I glanced down at my hand that still held the phone and realized I was trembling. Tonight had shaken me beyond what I wanted to admit.

I made coffee, more to give myself something to do with my hands, and hopefully stop them from trembling, than anything else. My mind worked overtime. I certainly didn’t need any more added stimulation. I’d been working off sheer adrenaline for hours as it was.

“My brother is my enemy,” I said aloud, barely registering that I’d spoken at all. “But how can that be possible?” Against my will, I remembered all the terrible details The Agency had uncovered about Jeremiah Silvers. One fact stood out above them all: Jeremiah Silvers was a cold-blooded killer. The man I believed was my brother possessed the same cold, empty stare of a killer.

Outside, the clouds had disappeared entirely. The light from the moon, rising above the neighboring apartment complex, spread its light into the small window of the dining room where I sat. Its allure was too powerful to resist. The second I stepped out onto the balcony, I became aware of a certain electricity in the air. As if something unstoppable had been set in motion tonight.

I found myself searching the shadows of the lawn outside my first floor apartment.

“Justin?” I called out, but my only answer was silence. A strange, uneasy silence that precedes something about to happen.

It was a long time before I slept that night and even then, my sleep was broken with uneasy dreams that disappeared with the light of day.

* * * *

When I awoke the following morning, all the previous night’s transgressions came back to haunt me.

I’d lied to Roc, the man I was in love with, driving a deeper wedge between us. I’d been dishonest with my team—the people I counted on to have my back—and I’d failed to disclose a valuable piece of information in not letting Roc know about my suspicions about Justin, which might someday be responsible for getting myself or another one of my team killed.

By keeping silent, I’d committed what amounted to subversion.

The usual nausea followed me throughout the day. I was sick most of the time now and yet I had been avoiding facing the truth until today.

I’d stashed the pregnancy tests out of sight underneath the bathroom sink in case Roc should drop by, but even after having confirmation of my pregnancy in my hands, I still couldn’t accept it. After all, Roc and I were always so careful, taking all the necessary precautions, and yet according to the little pink positive signs on all three pregnancy tests, his guys managed to get through our best line of defense.

I was pregnant. My future was all but sealed. I had to get out for my child’s safety.

But even if by some crazy miracle, I was able to walk away from The Agency, which meant leaving Roc, I’d spend the rest of my life looking back over my shoulder. Wondering at every unnamed sound, every strange bump in the night, if this was the moment. Paybacks can be hell on earth. Payback for the type of work we performed might prove to be fatal.

I’d wanted out for a long time now. Learning about the baby just made the decision final for me.

This was Roc’s biggest concern when he’d recruited me to The Agency a little more than three years earlier. How many times did he tell me, ‘Rainie, don’t rush into this decision. You’ve been through a lot lately, losing your parents suddenly. Take all the time you need before giving me your answer. You have to be willing to commit your whole life to The Agency. There is no getting out.’