Stranger in the Night (10 page)

Joshua hesitated. “I just wanted to know how he’s doing.”

“It’s okay, you can see him. Follow me.” She vanished behind a swinging door.

At the end of a long hall, they stepped into a large, open room
two stories high with several skylights. It was filled with small trees, fountains and green plants. A long row of cages held dogs of every imaginable breed, and the entrance of the two humans incited a round of loud greetings and much tail-wagging.

“Here’s Duke. Come on, sweetie.” The assistant knelt, opened a cage door, slipped a lead around the dog’s neck and urged him out. “I’m pretty sure he’s not ready to go home yet, but I’ll check with the doctor. You can spend time with him in our visiting area.”

She handed Joshua the short strip of nylon and pointed him in the direction of a small room. Aware that the Rudis were waiting in the car, he considered calling the woman back. But one look in the dog’s large brown eyes, and Joshua knew he couldn’t leave.

“So, Duke, nice digs you have here.” He led the limping dog into the small room and shut the door behind them. As Duke dropped to the floor, Joshua noticed the patch of shaved skin over his ribs.

“Sorry about that, boy.” He knelt and stroked the hair between and around the dog’s ears. “You were just doing your thing the other night. Me, too. I guess we have some kind of crazy instinct. They trained us, and now look. We’re both…both wounded…both messed up.”

Unable to continue, he propped his arms on his bent knees and pressed his face into the crook of his elbow. A cold, moist nose nudged his side. Then the dog edged closer and laid his head on Joshua’s lap. It was too much.

Tears came from nowhere. Joshua sank his fingers into the thick fur around Duke’s neck. The pain wouldn’t be held back.

“I didn’t mean it. Didn’t mean to hurt you,” he choked out. “God forgive me. I don’t know what happened out there…what’s wrong with me. It’s hard to feel okay. Hard to love myself after what I’ve done. Some of the stuff…”

He broke off, now burying his face in the dog’s neck. “I can’t sleep. Feels like my chest will explode. Cold sweats. Nightmares. I’d give everything I own to have one night of good sleep…a day without remembering pieces of something that happened. And it’s all pieces. Bits and pieces jumbled together.”

Again, he couldn’t go on. He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to say these things. But the dog was warm, his breathing a comfort. And it came again.

“Anyone who gets within ten feet of me, I size him up and analyze how to take him out.” Joshua heard his own words with a sense of disbelief. But they were true. “I’m always trying to figure out a plan of escape so I won’t get killed. That night in the street…I saw those guys. Something switched on inside me. I’m an IED. A bomb hidden inside a human body. A corpse waiting to explode.”

He clung to the dog, his mind crouching in the dark corner of a hideout, his Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle at his side. Or was it the M-40A3? He searched for the target, reached for the weapon.

Prepared to engage.

“Guess what! You can take him home!” The bright voice snapped through Joshua’s brain like a Taser. The words continued. “The vet told me Duke’s temp was normal at the last check, and she was just about to call you to come get him.”

Blinking, he looked up. “What?”

“Aw, your puppy’s going to be okay.” The receptionist dropped to her knees. “I love it when I see how much a man cares about his dog. Don’t be sad, okay? I’m Allie, by the way. Nice to meet you.”

He shook the outstretched hand. “Duff.”

The young woman’s face was open, eager. Allie? She had pretty blue eyes and long blond hair. With a coy tilt of her head, she touched the deep V neckline of her knit top. It was a signal
he recognized, but he didn’t have the energy to respond. She couldn’t be much older than eighteen.

“Well, then…” She shrugged and looked away. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll check Duke out. He needs to stay on his antibiotics, and the doctor wants to see him again in a week.”

Still dazed, Joshua followed her back down the hall. He hadn’t heard the door open. Hadn’t seen the receptionist walk into the little waiting room. Was he losing his mind?

“If you’ll sign right here, I’ll put the medicines in a bag.” She held out a clipboard and pen.

Joshua scanned the document. A record of the dog’s surgery and medications. A list of postop instructions. A bill.

He pulled out his wallet and thumbed off a few notes. Allie gave a little exclamation as he handed over the money.

“Cash?” she squeaked. “But we don’t have change for that denomination in the drawer.”

“It’s okay. Whatever’s left—use it to take care of the animals.”

He took the bag of medicines and the receipt. Feeling frayed and disoriented, he headed for the door.

Should
he visit the VA office? Were these incidents going to get worse? After past deployments, he had transitioned all right. It took a few weeks, maybe months.

Afghanistan…In the beginning, it had been easier than Iraq. But this past stint was rough. Not only the door-to-door hunts for insurgents in Kabul and Kandahar. He had spent months high in the Hindu Kush. Seen overturned cars and buses rusting at the bottom of the Khyber Pass. Searched caves along the border with Pakistan. Scrambled over rocky terrain at an altitude where he could hardly breathe.

“You have brought the dog?” Stephen Rudi flung himself out of the car. With an expression of alarm, he focused on Duke. “But where can it sit?”

Joshua rubbed his forehead. “The back.”

“With my wife? Oh, sir, this will not be good. Please put the dog in the front. I shall stay with Mary.”

“Whatever suits you.” Joshua helped Duke into the passenger’s side. But the moment the animal was seated on the floor, his ears perked up and a guttural growl rumbled from his throat.

“What’s the matter, boy?” Joshua tugged the leash, trying to draw the animal’s attention from the small woman in the rear. “Settle down. I’m taking you for a short ride. Back to Haven.”

Now Duke was struggling to rise, eyes pinned to Mary Rudi. His neck ruff bristled as the low, chest-deep snarl began again. Joshua laid his hand on the animal’s head, smoothing fur and stroking ears.

“Come on, Duke. Everything’s fine. Down. Sit down.” He started to shut the passenger door, but the dog barked.

That’s all it took. Mary Rudi screamed and fled the car. Stephen ran after her. Down the sidewalk they dashed, and this time she was definitely in the lead. Joshua shook his head.

“Well, you did it now, buster. Scared the living daylights out of them.” He closed the door on the animal, rounded the car and slid into the driver’s seat. Duke had slumped, his head low and his breathing labored.

“I’m chauffeuring a dog while my refugees run for their lives through the streets of St. Louis.” He switched on the ignition. Wonder what Liz would think of that?

Liz took out her scrapbook and laid it open on the spread. One-thirty in the morning. Memories and questions filled her head. Three hours of lying in bed unable to sleep had finally left her pacing the apartment floor and debating the merits of various over-the-counter sleep aids. None worked well.

Standing, she studied the first page of photographs in her well-thumbed album. The KLM jet through the terminal window. Faces of church team members who had gone with her on the
journey to Congo. A brief stopover in Amsterdam with a visit to the Anne Frank house and museum. Genocide in another century.

She flipped through a few more pages. Now she saw the Congolese people—mothers with babies on their backs, a man proudly showing off his scrawny goat, a little boy with a bad burn on his stomach. Children playing soccer, their ball made of plastic bags they had salvaged from a dump and wound with twine. A girl staring at the camera, her eyes forlorn, her dusty cheeks streaked with tears.

Liz studied the face, saw the emptiness and need. What could she have done to address that child’s hunger, illiteracy, hopelessness? Nothing while on the mission trip. Everyone in the group had understood there was no way to meet all the needs in the village. A few dollars, some bags of rice, penicillin capsules, even a newly built medical clinic. None of the donated aid made much of a difference.

Abandoning the scrapbook, Liz crossed to her small galley kitchen and filled a glass with water. If she had been able to do so little before, could she expect to do anything
more
now? She still didn’t speak Swahili well enough to be considered fluent. She had no health care training. No teaching certificate. Nothing but the desire to help.

She took a sip of water and let the cool liquid slide slowly down her throat. Then she returned like some windup toy to the photo album. She studied one page and then the next. On leaving the DRC, she had been so certain of her mission in life. She must return to Africa. God wanted her to go back and do something significant.

But what could she really accomplish? Process paperwork for refugees in a camp somewhere? Try to find a way to send them to America or some other haven? And then what?

A melody suddenly rang out in the empty apartment. Liz coughed and swallowed the last sip of water. She recognized
the music as her phone’s ringtone. Where had she left her purse? Who would be calling at this hour?

Spotting her purse on the sofa, she dug out the phone and studied the caller ID.

Joshua Duff.

That afternoon she had answered a call from the same number. Stephen Rudi had told her he was using Joshua’s phone. He needed to discuss certain matters with her. Matters of great significance. They had been cut off midsentence. Though Liz had tried Joshua’s number several times, she got no reply. Unwilling to decipher her motive, she had entered the man’s name and number into her own phone.

Holding it to her ear now, she steeled herself to what Joshua might want to say. “Hello?”

“I have your friend’s phone.”

The voice did not belong to Joshua Duff. Or to Stephen Rudi.

“Oh,” she managed.

“My boys were following the car,” he continued. A husky timbre, male, slightly slurred. “One of ’em picked it up. Your friend want it back?”

Her heart lurching, Liz sat down on the end of her bed and curled her knees up to her chin. Who was using Joshua’s phone? Why would this man call her? What did he mean that his boys had been following the car? Was someone stalking her—or Joshua?

“You still there?” the man asked.

“Yes.” She swallowed. “I’m sure my friend wants the phone.”

“Good. Tell her to meet one of my people at Podunk’s. You know Podunk’s?”

Liz recalled the Cajun restaurant a block from Haven. “I know where it is.”

“Tomorrow. Six o’clock straight up.”

The connection clicked off. Liz stared at her phone. The
number on the caller ID was definitely Joshua’s. But the man had told Liz to give the message about Podunk’s to
her.

Who was
her?

No one could possibly mistake Joshua for a woman.

For a moment Liz considered calling back. But the voice on the other end had confused and frightened her. On the way to work in the morning, she would stop in at Haven.

Joshua Duff. An image of the man flooded her mind, pressing out thoughts of crying Congolese babies and frightened Pagandan refugees.

She would get little sleep on this night.

“N
inety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred.” Joshua set the barbell down and stared up at the ceiling of the weight room.

He would conquer this.

Sleepless nights. Terrifying dreams. Fight or flight. Adrenaline surging through him. Pumping iron helped a little.

Slices of sunrise slanted through the blinds as Joshua sat up from the weight bench. On the wall, a large mirror reflected his image. He didn’t like what he saw. Bare-chested and glistening with sweat, he should be as fit, tough and healthy as he had been at the height of his military career. The body had changed little…but the face?

Joshua could see strain etched around his eyes. Weariness in the set of his jaw. Uncertainty in the line of his mouth.

With a grunt of frustration, he stood and stepped onto a treadmill. He switched on the motor and began a slow jog. Within moments, he had ratcheted it up to a near sprint.

The morning ahead would bring a trip to the neighborhood elementary school to enroll the two Rudi children. Neither
spoke English well, and Joshua knew they would struggle. Pastor Stephen told him Charity had attended classes in the refugee camp. Her age made her a second grader. Virtue would start kindergarten.

After settling the kids, Joshua and Stephen would collect Mary from her job. The past two nights, she had joined a crew cleaning a large office complex not far from Haven. The three of them would drive to several apartment buildings that offered subsidized units for rent. Pastor Stephen did not want his family to live in such a dangerous part of the city, but for the time being, he had no other choice. They would select an affordable apartment and Joshua would provide money for essential furnishings.

That afternoon, while Stephen worked at the fast-food restaurant and Mary slept, Joshua would help with the after-school programs at Haven. A local gym, he learned, had equipped a weight room that summer. But with no one to monitor its use, Sam and Terell had been forced to keep the door locked. Joshua would settle the Rudis by week’s end, but until then, he could make the weight room accessible to youngsters and teach them some lifting basics.

He would not think about Afghanistan and the men in his battalion who were continuing to serve without him. He would not think about his father or the office job waiting. He certainly would not think about Liz Wallace…the woman who…who even now was watching him in the mirror.

What?

Chills rushing over him, Joshua peered back at the apparition as he ran on the treadmill. An uncanny optical illusion of reality stood in the doorway of the weight room, her face beautiful and pale. Curls tumbled to her shoulders, gleaming in the light of dawn.

This was it, then. The psychosis he feared had finally settled in. He had tried so hard not to think about Liz Wallace that he was actually hallucinating her at this moment.

He notched down the machine, jogging, then walking, and finally standing. Gazing into the mirror, he stared at the figment of his imagination. His mind was gone. There she stood, looking as real as life. And he was totally insane.

“Excuse me, Joshua?”

He gripped the treadmill’s handrails. Visual hallucinations. Auditory, too—he had actually heard her speak. He would have to tell Hawke. Get himself to the VA. They would check his records. Evaluate him again. Probably hospitalize him—rightly so.

“Sam opened the front door and let me in.” The phantom image drifted into the weight room. “He needed to stay and unlock the office downstairs, so I came on up. I hope I’m not bothering you. I just have to talk to you for a minute.”

Goose bumps sliding down his arms and legs, Joshua turned slowly toward the vision. She moved closer. She wore a pretty blue dress. Low black heels clicked on the tile floor. Her hair swayed as she neared.

“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look…odd.”

He stepped off the treadmill.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“Liz?” He dared the word.

“Yes?”

“Can I touch you?”

Her eyelids fluttered as she looked away, cheeks flushing pink. “Well…what do you mean?”

Reaching out, he laid his hand on her arm. Warm silken skin met his fingertips. He traced the arm from shoulder to elbow. Cupped it. Brought her near. The scent of gardenias enveloped him.

“Liz,” he breathed out.
“Thank God.”

She was real. The actual woman. Not a dream. He closed his eyes as he wove his fingers through hers and squeezed her hand.

“Joshua, you’re scaring me.”

“Don’t be afraid. Not of me.” Relief palpable, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest.

But her sudden gasp told him what he had done.

“Whoa, I’m sorry.” He backed away, hands up. “Forgive me—I’m sweaty and you’re…you’re dressed for work. I apologize, Liz. I didn’t mean to”

“It’s okay.” Her fingertips covered his mouth. “You didn’t expect me here. I startled you.”

“No, no.” Shaking his head, he turned away. “It’s me. My fault. I’m losing it.”

“Why would you say that?” She followed him, circling until they were face-to-face again. “Joshua, please look at me. You’re not losing it. You’re fine.”

“I didn’t know you were real,” he admitted. “The mirror. The light in this room. I thought I was seeing something.”

“I’m real. And so are you.”

“I frighten you.”

“A little.” She glanced at his chest. When she looked up, a smile tugged at her lips. “You’re pretty fearsome with all those tattoos.”

He tried to force a grin as he rubbed a hand over the blue markings inked into his flesh. “The things an eighteen-year-old will do to be cool.”

“Aren’t you going to ask why I came here this morning?”

“It doesn’t matter
why.
I’m just glad you’re an actual human being. I’ve been conjuring you up so often that…” He stopped himself. “Okay, why are you here?”

“Someone used your phone last night to call me. It wasn’t you.”

He thought for a moment. “I lost the phone. Rather, my Pagandan friend dropped it on a sidewalk somewhere.”

“Stephen Rudi lost your phone?” She followed him to the rack where he had hung a white towel. “You shouldn’t have let
him use it. Never let the people borrow your phone, Joshua. It’s in the Refugee Hope handbook I gave you the other day, remember? Didn’t you read it? They all want to call home, and the costs are astronomical. You have to teach them how to purchase an international calling card.”

He hooked the towel around his neck and studied her for a moment. “Are you always this beautiful in the morning?”

Her brows drew together. “Is that some kind of a line? I’m not here to flirt with you, Joshua. I came to tell you that some guy has your phone, and he called me in the middle of the night, and he wants you to meet him at Podunk’s at six this evening. Only he thinks you’re a woman.”

“A woman?”

“Yes. He said, ‘
Tell her to meet one of my people at Podunk’s’
—to return the phone, you know. Tell
her
. But the phone was yours. I know it was, because Stephen said you’d let him borrow it while you were in the vet’s office. I was trying to tell him that he was not to use his volunteer’s phone when we got cut off. I called back but I didn’t get an answer.”

“Because at that moment, my phone was lying on the sidewalk. See, I was putting Duke into the car when Mary Rudi got spooked and took off running with Stephen right behind her. He had my phone in his hand. When I caught up to them, they were all right but the phone was gone.”

“The man I talked to last night told me one of his people had picked it up. He must have redialed the last call, and it was my number. Joshua, he told me they had been following you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, and I’m worried they’re stalking me, too.”

“Stalking.” At the word, his brain snapped to attention—instant analysis of the situation required.

Someone had been tracking him. Tracing the movements of his car, his person. They had watched him leave the vehicle and
enter the veterinary clinic. Seen him return with the dog. Observed as Stephen and Mary Rudi fled. When Stephen dropped the phone, the tail had been right there. Snatched it up, took it to the man in charge.

Who would follow him? He scanned the mental list of possibilities. Insurgents. Members of an al-Qaeda cell. Sunnis. Shiites. Pashtuns.

He knew things, sure. Techniques, methods, skills, weaponry, even plans. Things the enemy might want.

The phone itself would do them no good. It would be a puzzle to anyone. He had coded his address list in such a way that no civilian could decipher the thing. For that matter, his closest buddies would have been at a loss to understand it. In fact, there was no identifying data on the phone. The only way to make contact would be to press the redial—and that had led them to Liz.

“No telling who’s been trying to call you,” she said. “That guy has probably freaked out all your friends. He sure gave me the creeps.”

“My father,” Joshua said. “My dad would have called several times since Stephen dropped the phone.”

“God does work in mysterious ways, you know. Maybe the phone thief and your father had a nice conversation. Maybe he can go to Texas in your place, while you stay here to help refugees.”

“Yeah, and watch you fly away to Africa?” He touched her cheek. “No thanks.”

She looked down for a moment. “I’m late for work. I should go. So, you got the message—Podunk’s at six this evening. But, Joshua, be careful. This business about the guy’s people following you. I didn’t like the way that sounded.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Her eyes crackled as she met his gaze. “Like the other night? Do you want to end up in jail? Or dead?”

“Relax. I’m not going to—” He let out a breath. “You think I’m a loose cannon.”

“Yes, I do. I hope this thing you’re going through is temporary, but until it passes, please lie low.”

She started for the door, and he kept pace. “I’m not ignoring it, Liz. The PTSD. They tell us to talk, and I am. I did.”

“You did?” Halting, she turned. “Who did you talk to?”

He couldn’t exactly admit his therapist had been a dog. A dog who didn’t understand and couldn’t respond. Still, it had helped him to speak aloud about the pain. Though he had rejected that method of healing, he knew the experts were right. Friends had been discharged from the Corps with PTSD or traumatic brain injury, and in letters or phone calls they had told Joshua the facts. Those who faced the problem, who talked to their loved ones and experts, who admitted the truth and worked on healing—they got better. Those who numbed it with alcohol or released it in fits of rage began to come apart.

“Never mind,” she said. Holding out a hand to block him, she hurried down the steps. “Don’t say another word. I came to tell you how to get your phone back. That’s all. I’m going to work.”

“Wait—when can I see you again? Liz?” He caught her wrist. “Look, I understand I’m different with the brain triggers and the trauma stuff. I can see how a woman might consider it a problem to spend much time around me. I know what you think of me, Liz.”

“Please. You have no idea.”

“Then what? What do you think of me?”

“Does it matter? No. It might matter if our paths were to keep crossing, but they won’t. And now you have someone to talk to, so you definitely don’t need me.” She pulled her arm away and crossed the open gym area to the front door.

“But I do need you,” he called.

His voice sounded weak. Childlike. He hated that, yet what
he’d said was true. He needed Liz Wallace—in more ways than he could begin to count. Something about the woman drew him. He had tried not to think about her—working with the Rudi family, spending hours with Sam and Terell and their women, working out in the gym until his muscles ached. None of it had erased Liz from his thoughts.

Trying to think how to reach her, he lagged a couple of paces behind as she headed for the door. Volunteers who had come to work at Haven’s newly opened day care center were beginning to filter into the building. Children, too. Teenage mothers knelt to kiss their toddlers goodbye. A girl who looked about fourteen handed her baby to a grandma-type with cottony hair and a delighted smile.

“Shauntay?” Liz paused near a young woman whose two little ones clung to her legs. “You’re back. I’m glad to see you again.”

The smoky gaze assessed Liz, then slid over her shoulder to the man behind. “You still with him?” Shauntay asked, her lip curling. “Me, I don’t need no man. Raydell says I set him up. Told everybody I’m a Hypes queen. He don’t know nothin’. I don’t belong to no gang. I got me a job now.”

“A job—that’s wonderful.”

A flicker of satisfaction crossed the young woman’s face. “T-Rex said I could bring my babies here, even though I’m off Duke duty because of what happened. Him and Uncle Sam let Raydell stay on the door, but they took me off the dog. How is that fair, yo? They trust him more than they trust me.”

“What happened the other night, Shauntay?” Joshua asked. “You were in charge of Duke, and Raydell was on the door. How come the two of you left your posts?”