Page 59 of Danger Close
As I stroked her back, I glanced down. The firelight danced on her golden skin. Then I saw a scar. It was slight, but deep. It was clean, but not like a surgery scar. It was a long, clean slice of skin that had healed and marked down her side from her rib to her hip. Curious, I searched her body more carefully. Her forearm had a bump on the outer side. It felt like a fracture callus, as if it had been broken and healed wrong. I found a similar anomaly on her second, third, and fourth metacarpal, as if someone had taken a blunt object and slammed it down on the back of her hand.
Having interrogated numerous bastards in my life, I’d inflicted that injury before. I’d had it done to me. But I’d had the bones reset. On hers? It was as if she’d just wrapped it.
The sweetness of having her in my embrace mixed with the bitterness of seeing the physical marks of her pain. I’d lainawake, ticking off every injury I could find, swearing to pay her abuser back tenfold.
Who needed to re-build an old farm house in their retirement years when there were so many people left to kill?
I met Beaufort at the corner Mourningkill diner. It was one of those old roadside types, with a metal, flat roof, and 1950’s metal exterior with big windows and teal panels running along the side. The walls were covered in old Americana advertisements that sold Coca-Cola and the American dream.
This had been Beaufort’s choice. He probably enjoyed the irony of that dream only existing in a one minute commercial that sold instant coffee and hoop skirts.
But the milkshakes were solid. Ten out of ten. I wondered if I should bring Teri here. She used to love cheap diner food…
Beaufort chowed down on his meatloaf while I dragged my knife along my medium-rare steak and eggs. We were halfway through our meal before we said anything of any real significance. You couldn’t pressure a man like Beaufort to talk unless he wanted to. The man was a vault.
“Did she tell you anything else about her medical history?” Like a baby through a birth canal, Beaufort just came right out with it.
“Not a thing,” I said. She’d told me more and revealed more about her state of mind, but nothing about her physical being. “But I saw a few scars, and healed breaks.”
She dreads the darkness as much as she dreads tomorrow…
“I figured.” Beaufort leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. “I’ll be frank with you, I’m wading through the ethics of telling you more.”
“Well, Frank,” I said sarcastically, “let me do the decidedly un-Spook-like thing and lay my cards out on the table.”
I put my hands out in a sweeping gesture, as if I was laying out literal cards for his inspection.
“I love her.” It was stupid to deny it now. I’d stayed up all night, not wanting to miss a moment of her. This morning, I’d had to rip myself from her side because all I wanted to do was watch her. All I wanted to do was to know she was breathing and safe. “Someone abused her. Tortured her. Probably for years. I don’t need you to dig into her or her past. I need you to give me a name.”
Beaufort narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that someone abused her? She could have been mugged, or been in a car accident—”
“She flinches if I move too fast,” I said quickly, my fists clenched. “She flinches if I raise my voice. She’s scared someone’s going to hurt our daughter. She says someone’s going to hurt Trinity if she doesn’t protect her.”
“Trinity, the former Green Beret, and now a bounty hunter?” Beaufort scoffed. “Didn’t the last guy who tried that end up with a stiletto in the eye?”
“I think she got him in the temple.”
For a moment, Beaufort and I just smiled at each other. There was nothing quite as satisfying as a violent end for those with violent delights.
“If you find out who this guy is…” Beaufort asked, picking up his steak knife. “What are you going to do about it?”
“I’ll kill him.”
“Kill him?” Beaufort said, not at all surprised.
“Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“Yeah. Eventually.”
He’d die, but it wouldn’t be quick or merciful. I gave no mercy to those who had none for others.
“Call it my good deed for the day. I’m restoring balance to the world by giving him as good as he gave her.” I felt the conviction through my limbs, into my fingers and toes.
Beaufort stared at me like he was doing mental calculations based on the millimeter tilt of my head, or the wrinkle of my eye. I let him look. There was nothing written on my face that I did not mean with my entire being.
“Ten years ago,” Beaufort wiped his lips. “She found herself in the hospital again. Her injuries were…differentthat time. Worse.”
