Running on Empty (12 page)

What if she was telling the truth? What if Sabrina hadn’t betrayed him? What if this had been some elaborate hoax designed to get him to give up the secrets in his head? What if she was innocent? He told himself he should be happy that the woman he had loved hadn’t betrayed him. Unfortunately, there was no happiness or relief. Without his hatred, he had nothing…he was nothing. A cold, dead heart, a conscienceless bastard, an empty shell. That’s all he could ever be again.

Agony speared through his head. No, she was guilty. He knew she was. How the hell did she do that? Make him question what he knew to be the truth. She was screwing with his mind again. Maybe that was her new torture.

With an unnamed fear clutching at his gut and shards of agony zooming through his head, what else could he do but keep running until he could no longer breathe?

“Where could he have gone?”

“He’s a grown man. He can take care of himself.”

Standing at the window in Noah’s office, Sabrina shook her head at her boss’s words. The old Declan would’ve had no problem. This wasn’t the same man, and she cursed herself for not accepting that sooner. She had been treating him as if he was still the man she married. As if he could just flip a switch and be the same Declan Steele she’d fallen head over heels for years ago. As if he could forget about all the hell he’d been through. And she still didn’t know what he had endured. He had said that hating her was the only thing that kept him alive. If that were true, then she thanked God for his hatred. Whatever he’d had to do, she was just glad he had survived.

The LCR doctor who had examined him had called, asking to meet with her. Though she wanted to go and discuss the doctor’s findings, she hadn’t wanted to leave yet. Not until she knew Declan was safe. What if he didn’t come back? What if he just disappeared from her life again?

She gave herself a mental ass-kick. She was a trained operative—an expert in finding missing people. He wouldn’t disappear from her life. Now that she knew he was alive, she would hunt to the ends of the earth. But she prayed she wouldn’t have to—that he would come back on his own.

“I shouldn’t have tried to treat him as if nothing had changed. Everything has changed.” She threw a pleading look over her shoulder. “That man in the conference room—that wasn’t Declan.”

“I know that, Sabrina. I shouldn’t have brought him into the meeting. We haven’t had a new lead on the Tyndall case in so long, my enthusiasm got the better of me.”

“What new lead?”

Noah motioned her over to his desk. She had missed the rest of the briefing about Tyndall. After Declan had walked out, she had stayed close to the door, hoping he would just turn around and come back. A useless hope. 

Tearing her gaze away from the window, she made herself go to Noah’s desk, where he had an open file and notes, maps, and photos spread across the entire surface. 

“After Mrs. Tyndall came to LCR to request our help, we delved deeper into his life. Cole Mathison was the lead on this op and uncovered some inconsistencies in Mr. Tyndall’s life.”

“Like what?”

“He’s supposed to be a mid-level manager in a large consulting firm, and the people who work there back up his claim. However, his travel dossier reads like a Robert Ludlum novel. In the last ten years, he’s been in every political hot spot.”

Sabrina looked at the world map with at least a dozen red circles of every volatile location from Russia to Syria. “Why would a middle-management consulting firm employee need to travel to these places?”

“Exactly. When Cole pressed Tyndall’s company for answers, he received a visit from two suits who encouraged him to stop asking questions.”

She almost smiled. She had worked with Cole Mathison on a couple of missions before she’d changed over to the Elite team. For any LCR operative, being told to back off was the equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull. To Cole, who was one of the most tenacious investigators she’d ever known, he’d probably viewed the warning as an invitation.

“So is mild-mannered Mr. Tyndall a secret government spy or something else?”

“We think he’s a courier for an as-yet-unnamed government agency, but we have no proof. What information we’ve been able to obtain was shut down completely when we started digging deeper.”

“So whoever he was working for is just going to pretend he never existed.”

“Exactly.”

Fury washed through her. That was an all-too-common occurrence. EDJE had the same philosophy—one she wholeheartedly disliked. Yet she didn’t for a moment believe they had known about Declan’s captivity. If they had, the Agency would have done something. Not necessarily a rescue. They might have tried one, but if it hadn’t been possible, they’d have found a way to kill him. Declan knew too much to allow him to stay alive. 

“Here’s the reason I brought your husband into the meeting.” He pointed to a map of the Republic of Congo. “Here’s Dolisie, which is the area your husband said he was held captive. Though Tyndall’s last known location was in London, a man fitting his description was seen in Sibiti, the region’s capital, about four months after he disappeared.”

“I’m assuming an LCR crew went to Sibiti?”

“Yes. We scoured the area. Concluded Tyndall had been there but not any longer. Dolisie and Sibiti aren’t next door to each other by any means. I know it’s a long shot, but Steele said there were other prisoners where he was held. If there’s a chance Tyndall is in the same prison, we need to check it out.”

“I haven’t been able to get him to talk about his imprisonment. Did he see any other prisoners?”

“I don’t know,” Noah said. “I managed to get him to tell me he heard other prisoners. When I asked for more information, he shut down. I had hoped if we brought him in and treated him as a member of the team, he might be more cooperative.”

“By handcuffing him to the table?”

Noah raised his brow. “Wouldn’t have done that except when Thorne went in to get him, your husband decked him.”

She winced. No wonder Aidan had looked so pissed earlier. “Declan needs help. We can’t keep treating him as if nothing has happened to him.”

Noah nodded. “That’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about. Since we might have a lead on Tyndall, Cole’s headed this way. I’d like for him to spend some time with your husband.”

“Why?”

“A few years back, Cole had something similar happen to him. We thought he was dead. Turns out, he’d been abducted, drugged daily, and tortured. He went through hell, and though it took him awhile, he came out of it even stronger than before.”

The only things Sabrina knew about Cole’s personal life were that he had twin daughters and a one-year-old son. He and his family lived in East Tennessee, close to an LCR branch office.

“Talking to a man who’s gone through a similar experience might help.” Her eyes went back to the window. “If Declan comes back,” she murmured.

“You’re all he’s got. He’ll come back.”

Declan sat on a park bench in the shade, enjoying a vanilla ice cream cone he’d purchased from a street vendor. For the first time in forever, he felt almost normal. Laughter and the occasional excited scream surrounded him as kids played in the little playground. Moms and dads sat on benches and watched over them. Birds twittered and tweeted, butterflies fluttered, bumblebees buzzed. Dogs barked in the distance. All so peaceful, all so normal. Sounds he had once taken for granted and knew he never would again. 

Africa could have been a lifetime away—a nightmare that had never materialized.

But it had been real. It wasn’t a nightmare he’d dreamed in the safety of a comfortable bed. He had lived through that hell. Adapting to surviving was harder than he’d anticipated.

“Want a cracker?”

Declan glanced at the man beside him. He was dressed in a loose-fitting T-shirt and khakis, both of which had seen better days. With a full beard, wire-rimmed glasses and three front teeth missing, he had the appearance of a down-on-his-luck street bum. There was a kind twinkle in his eyes and a tilt to his lips that said he hadn’t lost his sense of humor, no matter his circumstances.

“How’s that?” Declan asked.

The man shoved a paper towel filled with saltine crackers toward him. “The shelter throws these out after a few days ’cause they’re stale, but the pigeons, they don’t mind.”

Declan looked at the pigeons surrounding the bench. They were looking expectantly up at the man beside him.

“I come here every day and feed them.” He shoved a cracker toward Declan. “Go ahead. They won’t bite.”

It’d been years, maybe decades, since he’d done something as simple as feeding pigeons in a park. Taking one of the proffered crackers, Declan pinched off a bit and threw it toward the birds. A couple of them dipped their heads for it, ate quickly, and then stared up at him with the same expectant look. Declan threw another crumb.

“There’s something so elemental about animals, don’t you think?”

“In what way?” Declan asked.

The man lifted a boney shoulder in a shrug. “They don’t look for hidden agendas. And though they’re wary of strangers, once you earn their trust, they rarely go back to distrusting you, no matter what happens.” Another shrug. “People, on the other hand, seems like you have to keep earning their trust, over and over.”

“That’s because everyone’s out for their own selfish interest.”

“I’d say these pigeons are out for their own selfish interest, too.”

“Yeah, but they don’t stab each other in the back to get a bite.”

The man nodded. “Yep, there’s the difference. It’s a sad fact of life, but these here pigeons…they miss something only humans can enjoy.”

“What’s that?”

“They’ll never have more than this. Survival is their only motivation.”

“Isn’t that what we all try to do, especially humans? Survive?”

“Maybe, but they’ll never know the depths of despair nor the peaks of happiness.”

Now it was Declan’s turn to shrug. “Seems like a more peaceful way to live.”

“Somebody’s hurt you, son.”

Getting into a philosophical discussion with a stranger was one thing—he enjoyed the sharing of ideas. Spilling his guts was another.

Declan stood. “Nice chatting with you.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

“That’s no problem. Need to get going.”

“One thing you might want to remember. Those despairing moments of life sometimes make those highs even greater.”

Since he didn’t anticipate ever experiencing any kind of high again, Declan nodded vaguely and took a few steps away. He stopped abruptly and, for no reason whatsoever, called out, “What’s your name?”

“Jack.”

Declan nodded. “Nice talking to you, Jack. Thanks for sharing your crackers.”

“Anytime.”

Turning away, Declan headed back the way he’d come. He still had no clear path, but putting off the inevitable was pointless. He and Sabrina needed to talk. Hiding behind his bitterness was getting him nowhere. 

Sabrina sat across the desk from Dr. Anson Lamar. The tall, lanky physician had laugh lines bracketing his mouth and light green eyes brimming with intelligence. Though not an official LCR physician, Dr. Lamar offered his services to the organization gratis. Years ago, his wife and son had been kidnapped. LCR rescued the doctor’s family, returning them unharmed. Now retired, the doctor gave back as much as he could to the organization that had saved his loved ones.

“I wanted to talk with you before releasing the medical profile I developed on your husband.”

Declan had yet to return to the LCR office, but Noah had promised to call her the instant he did. She prayed fervently that he would come back. Perhaps talking with Dr. Lamar would provide her with some answers or guidance on how to deal with him when he did return.

“Has your husband talked with you about what happened to him while he was in captivity?”

“He hasn’t said much of anything. I know he was tortured. I don’t know how or why. And I know he thinks I’m responsible.”

“Have you seen his body?”

Dread swept through her, followed by a quick rush of nausea. “No.”

“I wanted to talk with you, to prepare you. He has scarring over most of his body. His back took the most abuse. Some of the worst I’ve seen.”

Steely, hard discipline was the only thing that kept her from springing from her chair and running out of the doctor’s office to find Declan. She had known he’d been tortured but had forced herself not to think about just how badly. Not one who usually buried her head in the sand, she had been uncharacteristically reticent in learning everything she could about Declan’s ordeal.

“Did he tell you anything?” Sabrina barely recognized the shaky, weak voice as hers.

“No. He was silent during the entire exam.”

She nodded numbly. If she got in Declan’s face and demanded answers, would she be treated to the same stony silence?

“I know little of his background—only what you provided when he arrived. And even though I don’t know the details of his experiences, the ordeal he’s endured would have broken most men.”

“He’s trained to endure and survive extensive torture.”

“I’ve seen many people survive hideous things, but beneath the surface, they’re never the same.”

Odd and incredibly sad that EDJE taught their agents to endure and survive hell, but there had been few discussions on how to deal with the other side. Once you’ve gone through it, how do you come out on the other side and be a functional human being, much less the same person you were before?

“What can I do to help?”

“Based on Declan’s resistance—something I’ve seen all too many times in dealing with LCR operatives—suggesting counseling won’t go over well.”

She agreed with him. Even before this, the old Declan would have refused treatment. Not because he didn’t believe in it, but because spilling his guts went against his very nature. 

“And without his cooperation,” the doctor continued, “it would be pointless to even try.”

“Noah mentioned that Cole Mathison had gone through something similar. He’s hoping Declan might open up to him.”

“That’s an excellent idea. Much of Cole’s ordeal involved mental torture, and I have a feeling Declan could relate to Mathison quite well.”