Page 12 of Deep Cover

She said nothing.

He finished taping the ice pack in place and checked the cut on her palm one more time before he stepped back.

She slid off the table without waiting for him to say she could and landed lightly despite the knee. She walked out without a backward glance.

The door swung shut behind her, leaving him alone in the infirmary with a silence that held everything he wanted…and gave him none of it.

He was so fucking bereft he didn’t trust himself to move for a full minute.

* * * * *

Six years of grief didn’t just switch off because the man who caused it turned out to be alive.

She wanted to run and hide, but the maze of corridors wasn’t cooperating. She turned another corner and nearly collided with a man whose shoulders seemed to span the entire passage. Another equally massive man stood beside him, the two discussing a storm rolling in and the roads being impassable by morning.

When he saw her, he trailed off, giving her a once-over that was more curious than rude. She wished she didn’t feel so tired, emotionally spent and grubby from her travels because her appearance was as much her armor as the bulletproof vest in her bag.

Her bags. She guessed someone brought them into the base, but her chance of finding them in this labyrinthine place seemed as likely as escaping Reid.

She met the man’s gaze. “I’m looking for the other women here. Jolie, Stina?”

She knew their names from the files. Both former waitresses at Antonio’s Ristorante. Both targeted. Both in protective custody here.

He pointed her down the corridor, and she followed it, footsteps quiet on the concrete. She reached an opening in the wall that opened into what appeared to be a recreation room.

She gave the room a sweeping look.

She’d been to bases in her career, but this definitely was not government issue. Those places had fluorescent lighting and metal folding chairs.

This space had lamps throwing warm circles of light on leather sofas and throw pillows that definitely weren’t military green or the color of an old filing cabinet.

Shelves of books and magazines added to the lived-in look. Some of the magazine covers looked old and yellowed. One shelf was piled with board games, and a chess board was set up in the middle of a card table, abandoned as if the players had rushed away and forgotten to return.

At her appearance, the two women from the kitchen looked up.

One of the things that made Caryssa a great agent was her ability to read faces, and their expressions were complicated. Friendly and wary at the same time.

She prayed they didn’t ask questions about what happened between her and Reid in the dining room.

She took a step over the threshold. “Where is this base located?” she asked without pleasantries.

Stina’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “We’re not allowed to say.”

“We don’t know everything,” Jolie amended.

She looked between them. Both pretty, one with loose brown hair and the other with curly black. Even stranger and more confusing, they wore odd clothes that matched the sixties vibe going on in the room,.

“How did you two get here?” she asked.

Stina directed her gaze to the floor as if the pattern of the thick Persian rug over concrete was the most interesting thing in the world. Jolie picked at a thread on a cushion. Neither responded to her question.

She didn’t have the bandwidth for this. She was too tired—too heartsick—to circle around what she needed.

Caryssa looked at Stina. “What scared you most about the men who kidnapped you?”

Stina’s eyes flicked up, quick and involuntary, before dropping back to the rug.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” Caryssa said, watching Stina’s hands go still in her lap. “I only need what stuck with you. A voice. A word. The way one of them moved. Anything that felt wrong.”