Page 71 of Deadly Sights

“Nadira?” Julian’s concerned voice pulls me from my recent episode. His gaze warms me, his undeniable love shining through his golden irises. When I cup his face, he kisses my palm.

“How long was I out?”

“A day. How do you feel?”

My automatic response is to say okay, but I listen to my body this time. The last time I didn’t I passed out. “I could sleep longer, but I’m okay. Wait!” I sit up quickly and stagger under a wave of dizziness.

Julian helps to settle me against the headboard and Leaper jumps into my lap to comfort me.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself. You’ll ruin my hard work to get that bullet out of you.” I push at his shoulder until he sits beside me. When he does, I peel away the bandage and gently probe the area, there’s no abnormal discoloration or unusual swelling.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks, blocking my attempts to feel his forehead for signs his fever returned.

My stomach growls, and his mouth turns down in a stern frown.

“Stay here.” He disappears before I can protest.

Leaper looks from me to him, undecided where her loyalties should be.

I tickle under her chin. “Girl, I’m team Julian too. I hope you know you’re the only female I’ll share him with.” I pat her rump, and she leaps into action, going to look after our man.

Despite his order, I stumble into the adjoining bathroom, weak from days of worrying without eating. I sniff myself and wonder how Julian could stand to be near me. Under the spray, distorted images from my dreams flash before my eyes. I try to make sense of them but to no avail. After a shower, I recover some of my energy.

Julian returns with a plate of chicken and broccoli and scolds me until I sit in bed to eat. While I chew, I go over the parts of my dream I can recall. Most of my memory centers on watching Julian walk away and the heartache I still feel from losing the one person I had a connection so deep he marked my soul.

“I dreamt about the day they took you away from me,” I say.

Julian’s jaw clenches, but he remains silent. That day ranks as one of the worst for him, and now that I remember it, for me too. Then other parts of the dream come back to me, and my eyes widen.

“What?” Julian stands, immediately alarmed by my expression.

“The trap!” I pull at his arm with an urgency I haven’t shown him before. “We need to go back to the orphanage. That day…I buried something with your father’s watch.” I rub my forehead but I can’t get a clear image. “I can’t remember, but I feel in my gut that it has something to do with what your organization wants to keep secret.”

I set aside the plate and jump out of bed in search of my shoes. “We should go now. It will take forever to shovel our way out, not that you’ll be lifting a finger. Not to mention when we get there, we’ll have to be careful because snow will have covered the signs telling us where the traps are.”

Julian intercepts me when I’m about to rush out by grabbing my arm and swinging me around. “First, a plow came while you were sleeping. We can leave whenever you’re ready. And second, we don’t have to go to the orphanage. The treasure box is at my place.”

“Then you opened it?”

He averts his gaze. “I… No, I never did.” At my inquiring look, he says, “I could only torture myself so much with the evidence of your absence.”

I cradle his face until he meets my eyes gleaming with pent-up excitement. “I’m almost one hundred percent certain the answer we’re looking for is in your treasure box, so let’s get out of here.”

Julian doesn’t argue with me. We pack up what we came with and I leave some money for the owners. Unbeknownst to them, they saved our lives.

The drive home is slow but steady, the normal two-hour trek taking three hours because road conditions in the small towns along the way aren’t as clear as the main thoroughfare.

When we arrive, Alastair greets us at the door. “Everything you asked for is in the basement.” His clipped words can’t hide his worry.

“We’re fine,” Julian says, patting him on the shoulder.

Downstairs, I bounce on the pads of my feet while I wait for Julian to transfer the data from the memory cards. To distract myself, I poke through the rings inside the tin box, while an idea coalesces in my mind. When the first file loads onto his server, I redirect my attention and access it from a tablet to peruse the information.

“These are photos of newspaper articles.” I swipe to another image. Each one is another article.

“Let me see.” Julian pulls up a file on his screen. “Why would you collect obituaries? Were these people they sent you to observe or kill?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t say. I wish I could be like a computer and have every memory transferred to me at one time.” I shrug and go back to reading the articles I photographed. There must be a reason I thought they were important.

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