Lost in Shadows (15 page)

Lucky took her hand, squeezed it tight. Finally, after all of the department shrinks, well-meaning friends and family, finally here was someone who understood. 

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“Michael proposed to me here, in this cave.” Her words startled him. “I always thought this would be one place where no matter what, I would always feel close to him. But,” her breath shuddered through her body and he felt her hand tremble, “he’s gone. Really gone.”

Why was it that every time he felt close to her, she brought up her dead husband? 

It was time to exorcize this memory, clear the air. “He was killed in the line?”

“Shot by a kid holding up a gas station. Sometimes I think it was his own fault. I get so angry that he wasted everything, that he should have done something different. Most of the time, I blame myself.”

“You were there?” Jeezit, she saw her husband die? No wonder the wound was still fresh even though she’d said it happened more than two years ago. 

Talk about living your nightmares—especially for a woman like Vinnie, accustomed to being able to take charge of any situation.

“We were on our way down here. My family runs a roadside café just north of here, near Seneca Rocks. I grew up in these mountains, met Michael when he and a few friends were up here hiking and got lost.”

“I’ll bet he wasn’t too happy to have a girl be the one to find him.”

She lifted her head, a wistful half-smile parting her lips. “Typical hot-shot cop. His two buddies were cops as well, you’d think between them they’d learn how to read a map properly. Till the day he died he swore that they knew exactly where they were the entire time, that they meant to end up down in the gorge with no way out.”

“You said he had to win you over.”

“Turns out you Irishmen are just as stubborn as us Italians. Before I even got their sorry butts out of the gorge and back on solid ground, he was marking his territory, telling his buddies he was going to marry me. Michael never believed much in beating around the bush.”

Her trembling had stopped, and her voice was steady again. Lucky wondered if she’d ever spoken of this to anyone. He felt privileged that she had chosen him. “Michael would fit right into my family—all cops and all bull-headed.”

“That was Michael. But he was sweet, too. Had this way about him, people just always wanted to be near.”

“Charismatic.” 

“Right. Finally I agreed to go out with him, and he started driving down here on weekends. When I showed him this cave, the sun was shining, filling the air with rainbows shimmering every way. He said the only thing more beautiful was the feeling he had when he was in my arms. And he asked me to marry him.” 

She fell silent, her eyes half closed as she remembered. Lucky brushed her hair back, watched as the emotions swirled across her face. Joy, sorrow, finally resignation.

“So we got married and moved to the city. I worked as a medic and he got promoted to detective and then one night we stopped at the wrong gas station and pouf, everything was gone.”

The words came out in a rush as if the faster she said them, the less pain would accompany them. 

Lucky could tell by the look on her face that it hadn’t worked. He knew the feeling, had learned the hard way that you couldn’t outrun your memories.

“So now you know my entire life history, tell me about yourself. Aren’t you upset that you missed your friend’s wedding? Or are you more upset that you missed getting the girl?”

Lucky cringed at her directness. Talk about not beating around the bush. “I like KC a lot, but not that way. She and Chase are perfect for each other.” 

She arched an eyebrow at the twinge of jealousy that colored his voice. 

“I just wish that—Chase had been through a lot before he met KC, first over in Afghanistan, then during our assignment undercover, so don’t get me wrong, he deserves every happiness—it’s just that lately I keep wondering if I’ll ever feel that way.” 

Wondered if he would ever really feel anything again. It had taken all his acting ability to maintain a show of enthusiasm about the wedding—even though, in his heart he was happy for Chase and KC. He just couldn’t feel it. 

It was as if his heart was numb, dead wood. Maybe the doctors had been wrong about the damage being only temporary.

“You said something happened last month—with The Preacher, that you had to kill a man.”

Now it was his turn to look away, pull away. She had struck too close to the heart of the problem, and he just wasn’t ready to go there. 

“I thought we were talking about weddings,” he muttered. 

He glanced around the cave. Everyone it seemed, was able to find someone, to find happiness even if only for a short time—everyone except him. 

Then he remembered the way Vinnie had stirred his soul last night, the raw passion she’d awakened inside him. Was it her? Or just the natural healing process?

“After I lost Michael,” she said and stopped herself. “Isn’t that a silly thing to call it? Like I could get him back if I found the right claim ticket. After Michael died, my mom did what all Italian moms do, she cooked. All my favorites, food that should’ve brought memories of better times, food of comfort, solace. It all tasted of ashes. It was like I was numb on the inside, couldn’t feel anything—except fear. At first I couldn’t get into a car, pass a gas station without having panic attacks, then it got to the point where I didn’t want to leave the house. I couldn’t bear the idea of all those people looking at me, being so close that they could hurt me. I left. Ran away, actually, from the city and moved in with my parents.”

“Did that help?” 

“No. Then I really felt under the magnifying lens of their pity and concern. Vinnie, what’s the matter? Why don’t you eat? Vinnie, everything’s going to be all right, it just takes time—that was the biggest joke of all. Every day it was like I was being graded on how many steps of grief I’d completed. So I ran some more, back here to where I’m close to Michael, in control, surrounded by peace and quiet. Until some idiot from the city comes along that needs rescuing.”

Her smile warmed him. Lucky realized that she wasn’t referring to her saving him from The Preacher or his injuries. “You’re saying I can’t run from myself.”

“Maybe. Maybe all I’m saying is that sometimes when the worst thing we can imagine actually happens to us, sometimes it’s harder to go on living than it is to give up. Sometimes it takes more strength and courage to face the future than it did to survive that awful moment.” 

She shrugged, “Or maybe I’m just talking because, unlike you Irishmen who suffer in stoic silence, drowning your sorrows in whiskey, we Italians have this compulsion to talk things out.”

“Got any whiskey?” he asked hopefully.

“At my cabin there’s a nice bottle of Black Bush—for medicinal purposes only, of course.”

“Of course. Think the storm’s slowed enough for me to get moving?”

Her smile died at his words. “Me, what’s this me? You’re not going anywhere, shape you’re in.”

“You don’t think I’m going to stay here and let a civilian go to face The Preacher, do you?” 

The thought of her in The Preacher’s hands made his stomach clench with fear. The sounds of Vinnie’s screams filled his mind, leaving him nauseous. He forced them aside and concentrated on climbing to his feet.

She didn’t move to help, even when his breath grew ragged with pain. He blinked back the dizziness that swept over him and staggered to her backpack. When he bent over to open it, the world seemed to tilt and he began to fall.

Would have fallen if she hadn’t been there. Her strong hands caught him, eased him to the ground. At least she didn’t say she told him so.

“Don’t you ever get tired of being right?” he asked her when he could breathe again. His vision was still blurry and his head was pounding.

She handed him a water bottle in answer. “We’ve got time,” she said. “Nothing’s going to be able to move on this mountain for hours yet. Not unless you want to risk get blown off it, into the gorge.”

Lucky remembered the way the bridge had swung him out over the bottomless chasm. “No thanks.”

She added more fuel to the fire and settled back beside him, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms hugging them. “Tell me about your family. You said they were all police officers.”

“My father and three older brothers are all with Metro PD.” This was better than talking about The Preacher or her dead husband, Lucky thought as he finished the water. “My big sister’s the over-achiever of the family, she’s with the Secret Service.”

Vinnie looked up at that. “Alice?”

“Yeah. How’d you know that?” Lucky wracked his memory. 

He hadn’t told her Alice’s name, he was certain of it. He remembered how he’d kidded her about being psychic. No way, he was a scientist, he didn’t believe in any of that mumbo-jumbo. How else could she have known?

A chilly finger of fear ran up his spine, and his hand went to his Glock. It wasn’t possible, not after all they’d been through, it didn’t make any sense—but how did Vinnie know his sister’s name unless she was working for The Preacher?

He looked over at her, desperate to believe that she hadn’t betrayed him, that there was one person on this mountain that he could depend upon. 

Her eyes were half closed and a strange smile played across her face as if she was remembering a particularly sweet moment.

“And your mom,” she prompted, still not looking at him, lost in her memories, “tell me about your mom. She wasn’t a cop, was she?”

She leaned forward, waiting his reply. Lucky saw no trace of deceit in her face, but still, he tightened his grip on the Glock, held it beneath his jacket where it was out of sight. This was getting too freaky.

“No, she wasn’t.” He fought to keep his voice level. “Mom was the toughest of us all. She drove a Metro bus for twenty-three years.”

Her eyes popped open, and she sucked in her breath as if he’d answered her prayers. A wide grin crossed her face. “Oh my God,” she said with a musical laugh that echoed from the cave walls. “You’re Mrs. Cavanaugh’s baby boy!”

It was the sound of her laughter that brought the memory back in full force to Lucky. He’d heard that laugh once before, six years ago, on the day he’d joined the ATF. A hot, August afternoon. 

“You were eating an Italian ice,” he said, releasing the Glock. 

She nodded. “I was the last passenger on your mom’s bus. I was waiting for Michael to get out of a counterfeiting symposium. Your mom was waiting for you—she bought us both ices and talked about how proud she was of all her kids, that she could finally retire now that her baby boy finally got himself a real job.”

“Cherry Italian ice,” he continued, lost in the memory now. 

He’d walked into a wall of heat and humidity when he left the air conditioning of the Treasury Building and spotted his mom’s bus sitting at the curb. He’d stepped onto to it, surprised to see that she wasn’t alone. 

A gorgeous, dark-haired woman with flashing eyes and a rich, body-stirring laugh sat with Elaine Cavanaugh, Italian ice melting down her arm in a scarlet streak. He’d watched, mesmerized as she grinned and licked the syrup like a child, then crammed the rest of the succulent treat into her mouth, smearing more scarlet syrup over her face.

“Your hair was short then,” he said. 

He’d wiped her face with his handkerchief before noticing her wedding band. Then he’d given it to her to finish. He remembered thinking that the best ones were always taken.

“I still have that handkerchief,” she said.

Lucky looked up at that. “Why?”

“Don’t know. Just could never bear to throw it away for some reason. It’s at the cabin now.” 

She shivered, looked away. “I don’t believe in fate, Karma, God’s big plan—whatever you want to call it,” she said, her voice sounding distant. “Not since Michael. There’s no such thing as signs.”

Lucky wondered if she was talking to him or herself. Didn’t matter. If there was one thing he’d learned over the years, it was that there was a reason for everything, whether it was a chemical reaction or two subatomic particles colliding. Cause and effect ruled his universe. “And I don’t believe in coincidence.”

She turned back to him, the full weight of her gaze on him as if she depended on him to provide the answers she needed. “You think we met for a reason? Like God knew we needed each other?”

After last month, Lucky wasn’t certain if he believed in God anymore. But one thing he was certain of, he couldn’t have made it this far without Vinnie. 

“I know I need you,” he told her. “Isn’t that enough?”

She worried her lower lip with her teeth for a moment, then surprised him by reaching over and framing his face with her hands. When she lowered her lips onto his it wasn’t with the animal passion of last night, but something quieter, more intimate. As if she were baring her soul to Lucky.

He stopped thinking and pulled her closer. As the embrace deepened, Lucky forgot about The Preacher, his plans to kill thousands, the men with guns trying to kill them. 

His entire universe consisted of the woman in his arms, the woman who was quickly burrowing her way into his heart. For the first time in a long while, he felt something stir his soul, breaking through the wall of ice that had enshrouded him.

CHAPTER 21

Vinnie woke with Lucky in her arms. He laid sideways, his face cradled between her breasts, his breath coming in soft, snuffling snores. They hadn’t made love, had merely talked themselves into an exhausted slumber.

She shifted her weight, her leg was falling asleep, and he made a small noise like a child. She wasn’t surprised that he craved the security of another warm body. He’d told her what The Preacher had done to him—well some of it, she filled in a lot of the blanks herself. 

She understood what he’d gone through afterward, it was very similar to her own nightmare after Michael had been shot. Understood all too well, maybe.

Vinnie remembered her own feelings of denial and numbness, as if she could stave off the outside world from ever breaching her defenses again. Even two years later, she preferred the peace and quiet of her cabin most of the time, although she was slowly beginning to forge new bonds with the world beyond Lost River.