“It is my child,” he stated firmly, with absolutely zero uncertainty.
“How can you be so sure?” she cried out. “For all you know, whatever they did to me didn’t take right away, and they did it twice or three different times,” she noted bitterly.
Understanding filled his gaze, as he nodded. “And I could say the same thing.”
She didn’t want to accept that but knew he was right. “Okay, so it’s possible that we’re both victims,” she agreed, with difficulty. “As much as I don’t even want to think about being a victim, I’m not sure that any other explanation is applicable at this point in time.”
“So, if we’ll agree that it’s quite possible that we’re both victims,” Terk began, “then it would be nice if you would give me that leeway and accept that I didn’t do anything to you.”
She took a deep breath. “Maybe. You can bet that everybody here has been singing your praises since I first showed up. What the hell is that all about?”
Chapter 2
“Well, first, I was really hoping that you could help explain everything to me,” Terk noted, with no humor in his countenance.
She shook her head. “I really can’t because I honestly don’t know what happened. When I woke up, I was already strapped up with C-4. … I was dropped off on this country road and told to walk up to this house or else. No, I didn’t know the men, and they wore full head masks. It was a white van, but that’s all I know. Ice will confirm the state I was in when I arrived.”
“What was the first thing you remember?”
She frowned. “Ice has been asking me that, but I just have this big blank in my head from before.”
“It’s important, so we can track your movements. That’s why I came over here, to meet with you and to solve this mystery.”
“And to protect the compound?”
“I wouldn’t insult Levi and Ice like that,” he said. “They do very well here, and they’re real pros. I know they’ve got everything under control.”
Her gaze widened. “Is it that simple to you?”
He looked at her. “I don’t know that anything is simple, but that part is fairly simple, yes.”
She shook her head. “They’ll be under attack. Don’t you want to help?”
“Of course, if I’m here, I would like—scratch that—I would love to help.” He laughed. “But, at the same time, in order for this attack to either never take place or to be the last one, we need to deal with this.”
“Right,” she murmured. Then she took a deep breath. “Sorry, I … Your presence appears to have upset me.”
“You knew I was coming?” he asked, with that intense gaze directed at her.
“Of course I did,” she stated, “but I figured that, once you saw me, you wouldn’t recognize me and would then understand that I wasn’t carrying your child. I thought it would be a simple case of mistaken identity.”
“It isn’t. So?”
At that, she burst out laughing. “Oh, good God, I honestly appreciate the fact that you are so prosaic about it because I’ve been going around in circles on it. I’ve answered as many questions as I possibly could all this time, but I’ve yet to get any answers.”
“We’ll get them,” he stated, his voice calm and reassuring, “but I do need to track your history, as much as we can.”
“I’m sure that Ice has already done that and handed it off to you.”
“And yet none of that is the same as hearing it firsthand.”
She glared at him. “You know that this is not terribly easy to talk about.”
“No, it definitely isn’t.” He showed his palms. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of it. Remember. If we’re both victims, then we both need to figure out what’s happening.”
She took a deep breath. “Fine.”
He motioned her to sit beside him at the dining table. “So, let’s talk.”
“Great. We have an audience.”
“No, that’s just my brother, Merk, plus Levi and Ice,” Terk said calmly. “Maybe not even all of them need to stay for this. However, they already know the details, as much as anyone.”
“How can anybody know them?” she asked, shivering.
“I get it,” he stated, his voice firm. “But you have the information in your head, and we need to know as much of it as we can.” There was a certainty in his voice that she knew something, and he wouldn’t leave her alone until she told him what it was that he wanted to know.
“You do realize,” she replied, “that I might not know anything, right? That I might have just been a random person picked up off the street or something?”
“That’s possible,” Terk admitted, “but I don’t really live in a world that is random like that. There is always a pattern and a reason for everything.”
She stared at him in shock. “Seriously?”
He nodded. “Seriously.”
She grew more nervous by the second. “I don’t really think I need that kind of mind-set right now.”
“Too bad. We need answers. And that means we need to discuss what’s going on.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” she argued, showing her palms. “I don’t know anything.”
“Then it won’t matter. Now come on. Let’s sit down and go over this.”
She reached up to touch her forehead, her hand shaking involuntary.
He immediately stopped. “Did you have a ring on your finger?”
She looked down at her fingers, frowning hard. “What are you talking about?”
“There’s a faded mark.”
“Yes,” she replied. “It is a faded mark and a faded marriage too. That happens sometimes.”
“Did it end peaceably?”
“It was right after school and lasted less than a year. So does any divorce end peaceably?” she asked him.
But there was absolutely no give in his voice … or in the look on his face.
“Fine, so it didn’t end peaceably. It was ugly and brutal. I do my best to forget about it.”
“Was having children part of it?”
She stared at him in shock, and an ugly sinking feeling in her stomach set in. “Yes, I wanted a family, and he didn’t.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes, I went to a fertility specialist, but that was a very long time ago.”
“Did you ever freeze your eggs?”
At that, she stared at him. She had a feeling this was going somewhere, and she finally settled with the idea that he was damn serious about this and that they needed to get to the bottom of it. She walked back to the dining room, shaking her head. “No, I never froze eggs. At least, I didn’t knowingly freeze any eggs.”
“Good, because there is a difference.”
“Not so much in my world,” she said bitterly. “In my world people are nice.”
“In your world people were nice,” he corrected, “but your world has butted up against mine.”