Dark Star (16 page)

“Of course not, but Nate’s an improviser. One
of the best I’ve ever seen. He’ll find a way.”

Tonya took comfort in that. Deringer probably
couldn’t be bothered to lie, at least not to her. “Okay, so what
about you?”

“What about me?” The wary look was back.

“How did you end up in this organization? How
did you meet Nate? I read people very well and something tells me
you come from money. Or at least class, which isn’t necessarily the
same thing. Your accent is pure upper East Side prep school.”

“Wow, you’re good. The Department would love
to have you.”

“I’ve heard enough about this Department to
scare the living hell out of me; they’re the last people I’d ever
work for, but I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you going to tell me? You’ll look funny
bald.”

Deringer put down the book with a sigh. “So
you’re going to relieve your boredom by cross-examining me?”

“Sure, why not? It beats burning my hair off.
I
know
I’d look funny bald.”

Deringer leaned back in his chair with a
put-upon sigh. “I’m third generation ‘our kind of people’.”

“So your folks vacation on the ‘the Vineyard’
and come from old money, huh?” He nodded. “So you
are
black.”

“What the hell? Of course I’m black,” he said
with a glare so menacing she moved back a couple of inches.

“Well I wasn’t sure. You definitely fall
under the racially ambiguous category.” She continued with a
dismissive wave of her hand. “How did someone like you wind up
doing stuff like this?”

“How does anyone end up doing stuff like
this? I was a stupid kid out to prove my blackness for all the
folks out there that thought my light skin and money meant I was
soft. I set out to be the baddest motherfucker on the block and
almost ended up in federal prison.”

Tonya winced. From his tone it was clear that
this was an old issue with him. She shouldn’t have been so
insensitive, especially since she’d taken quite a bit of heat over
the years over the same thing. Not the money, of course, but the
color issue resonated with her.

“My mama always says all the bad Negroes are
in jail or in hell.”

“Nate said your mama was a smart lady.
Anyway, I got caught up in some craziness and wound up in a world
of trouble. The Department made me an offer. At the time it sounded
better than groveling to my old man. Again.”

“What did they want with you? Do you have
special language skills too?”

“No. No. I had a brief flirtation with
radical Islam. “

“You’re Muslim?”

“Not anymore. I told you I was trying to find
myself. I never really got involved in anything serious, but the
Department is concerned about such groups being recruited as
domestic terrorists. Especially in prisons, so I was a good link,”
he leaned forward as he warmed up to the topic.

“Are y’all sure this Department of yours
isn’t a terrorist group? They sound more like Al Quaeda than any
government agency I’ve ever heard of.”

Deringer’s low chuckle was his only response
for a long time. Then he continued. “Well, you have to join them to
beat them, or at least use their methods. Anyway Nate saved my life
on an assignment. We work well together. He’s the only human being
I trust as I trust myself.”

“He said the same thing about you.”

Deringer nodded. “Have I entertained you
sufficiently now?” he asked raising the book he’d been reading from
his lap.

“No, you still haven’t told me what you think
of the plot? Have you read the others?”

Deringer flopped back in the chair. Groaning
he covered his face with the book. “Jesus, Nate what have you
gotten me into?”

* * * * *

A few days later Tonya was in the living room
working out to an exercise DVD. She wanted to go for a run on the
beach, but Deringer insisted on accompanying her and she preferred
to run alone. She’d just finished her last set of lunges when she
suddenly became aware that he had entered the room
from...somewhere. She was more than a bit annoyed at the man’s
proclivity for sneaking up on her and was about to make a snide
comment when she noticed that his face was rigid and pale.

“What is it? What’s wrong,” she asked through
lips that had gone numb with fear.

“We lost him. Nate’s dead,” Deringer said
sounding as though the words burned his mouth.

“What -- What are you talking about?” She
heard the words but simply couldn’t comprehend their meaning. Nate.
Dead. It was simply unfathomable. Tonya looked into the man’s
tear-filled eyes. It was strange to see such raw emotion on his
face when in the week since Nate left she’d come to see him as
almost stoic.

Deringer wiped a hand over his face, pressed
his lips together then shook his head as though making a decision.
“We have a contact. We know that Nate went into the Rooster’s
compound, but he hasn’t come out. We’ve -- ” he closed his eyes for
a couple of heartbeats and when he opened them again the pale gray
orbs were swimming in tears. “We picked up some chatter that he’s
been executed.”

Tonya dropped down onto the sofa as it felt
as though the floor had fallen away beneath her feet leaving her
without footing. “Oh my God.” Her eyes burned. Her breath caught in
her throat, but she couldn’t cry. She felt disoriented as though
the world had turned on its axis leaving her floating in space. She
stared at Deringer until she couldn’t see him anymore. All she
could see was Nate’s cheeky grin as he walked out the door. A week.
Seven days. One hundred and sixty eight hours. One week and her
whole life had changed. Again.

“Deringer?” she whispered through vocal
chords that didn’t want to work.

“Yes?”

“Will you take me home? I need -- I need my
mama,” she finally choked out.

“I promised Nate I’d take care of you. Of
course I’ll take you home.”

Chapter Nine

Returning to normalcy had taxed every bit of
will Tonya had. It was desperately hard to deal with her old
routine when all she wanted to do was climb in bed and stay there
indefinitely. That wasn’t possible. Her disappearance had received
an unprecedented amount of publicity. Free publicity. And her
publicist was determined to exploit it for all it was worth.

Before she left the island, Tonya called her
mother and Callie. Both were waiting for her at the airport after
the long flight. She simply collapsed into their arms and let them
care for her from that point forward. She was surprised when
Deringer stayed with them. She had assumed he would drop her off
and leave; instead he followed them to luggage pick-up, forcing her
to introduce him to her mother and friend.

“Uh, Mr. Deringer -- ” her mother began.
Tonya was too drained by grief to interfere though she knew her
mother was bound to say something inappropriate.

“Just Deringer is fine ma’am.”

“May I ask who you are and what you’re doing
with my daughter?” That snapped Tonya right out of her daze.

“Mama! It’s a long story. I’ll explain later.
Are you staying with us?” she directed her question to him.

“I think that might be a good idea. I’m
pretty sure everything is okay now, or I wouldn’t have brought you
here. But you never know. Do you have a spare bedroom?” Deringer
said.

“What? Why can’t you go to a hotel?” her
mother asked.

“Mama -- ”

“Well didn’t he kidnap you in the first
place? How do we know he’s safe?”

“Yes, he works -- worked with the kidnappers.
But they had a good reason for kidnapping me. He can stay with me.
He can have Callie’s old room. “

Anita rolled her eyes at him, but said
nothing more.

For Tonya it was suddenly too much and she
burst into tears. She had tried to sleep through the long flight
but hadn’t been able to. Now she was too exhausted and
grief-stricken to deal with anything more. Her mother immediately
took her into her arms. That comforting embrace, her mother’s scent
and the overwhelming love was just what she needed and Tonya let
go.

The rest of that day and several others were
more or less a blur. She struggled not to think about Nate, but the
harder she tried the more insistent the memories became. Now she,
her mother and Callie sat at the kitchen table of her mother’s home
while Tonya finally shared the details of what had happened to her.
The kitchen’s goose-covered (or were they ducks?) eighties décor
was oddly comforting and Tonya sipped her morning coffee at the
well-loved kitchen table. It was odd that her mother was always so
on point with fashion, but for some reason she’d never updated this
room. Of course, she’d never been much of a cook so maybe she
simply had no interest in the kitchen. Anita sat across from her,
immaculate as usual, wearing a bright pink sundress that would
probably look casual on anyone else. Callie, who was even more
enormously pregnant, still glowed, but there were lines of worry
around her eyes that hadn’t been there before. More than anything
Tonya regretted frightening her loved ones.

“Nate? Nate Randolph? Your old boyfriend? Why
on earth would he kidnap you?” her mother asked.

Tonya recited a very bare bones story,
leaving out crucial details. Essentially she made it sound as
though Nate was in regular law enforcement and the whole kidnapping
was a legitimate police tactic.

“So now Nate is dead?” Callie asked a faint
tremor in her voice. Nate had been her friend too. Tonya knew all
of this had come as something of a shock, and she wished she had
some way to shield her friend.

Tonya nodded, struggling to keep her grief
off her face. She could tell she’d only partially succeeded as both
women continued to look concerned.

“I still don’t understand why this criminal
dragged you into it,” Anita said.

“I told you Mama, he wanted to use me as a
lure.”

“You must have been terrified,” Callie
said.

“I was at first, but not so much once I
realized who was in my room.”

“I can’t believe after all these years Nate
came back -- ” Anita stopped talking as Tonya suddenly choked
up.

“Can we talk about something else? What’s
been going on while I was gone?”

“Well your disappearance caused quite an
uproar. They’re saying you did it for publicity,” Callie said.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“It stirred up a ball of confusion, that’s
for sure. Apparently your sales are through the roof. There’s a
crazy internet rumor that there are clues to your whereabouts in
the book,” Callie said.

“Seriously? I was hardly a household name
before this. I can’t believe anyone cared.”

“Well you certainly are now. You even made
the nightly news. It’s been insane around here,” Anita said. “In a
way it was a good thing. All the reporters were such a distraction
I didn’t have time to be afraid, so I could just focus on getting
you back.”

Not long after that Callie left to get back
to her babies, besides this late in her pregnancy she tired easily
and needed to conserve her energy. Tonya stood to refill their
coffee cups. Being alone with her mother for the first time since
her return was a bit unnerving, but she resumed her seat at the
kitchen table anyway.

“I know you don’t want to talk about Nate --
” Tonya shook her head forcefully at her mother’s words. “But I
know how much you loved that man and you must be grieving.”

“Mama -- ”

“I know you. You’re a strong woman, but you
love deep and he was it for you, like your father was it for
me.”

Tonya stared at her mother in astonishment.
“You never talk about him.”

“I know, and that isn’t fair to you, but it
hurts too much.”

“I don’t really remember him,” Tonya choked
out. Her emotions were all on the surface lately and it took very
little to move her to tears.

“You were only five when he died, it would be
surprising if you remembered him. When he died there were times
when I wished I’d died with him, but I had you. I’ve never loved
another man, though.”

“What? Then what have you been doing with
Reuben all these years?” Tonya said, struggling to keep the rancor
out of her tone.

“Reuben is...I guess you could say he’s my
security blanket. I think you forget that I was very young when
your daddy had that heart attack. He was almost twenty years older
than me. It was quite a scandal, the high-faluting doctor and the
lowly nurse’s assistant. He pulled me up from the gutter, sent me
to nursing school, taught me pretty much everything I knew. When he
died, I was totally and absolutely lost. I was terrified.”

“You?”

“Shocking isn’t it? But I was. I was all
alone with a little girl, and had no idea what to do next. Reuben
was a family friend and I leaned on him. I know you think he’s
using me; the truth is I used him. Don’t get me wrong; I love him
for being there for me. For supporting me all these years, but I
don’t love him like I loved your daddy. The way you love Nate.”

“Loved.”

“No baby. Love doesn’t die just because the
person you love dies. I’m a living testament to that. Love is
eternal. Even so, you’re still a young woman, and I hope you will
find someone else. You’re my only child. I’m still hoping for
grandchildren, but you will always have Nate in your heart.”

Tonya leaned her head on her mother’s
shoulder as the tears ran down her cheeks. “Why haven’t we ever had
this conversation?”

“Because every time Reuben’s name is
mentioned you bristle up like a feral cat, but I wanted you to know
I understand how you feel.”

The tears were coming faster now, and Tonya
wanted to moan out loud as the pain welled up in her chest. “But
what do I do now Mama? How do I get over it?”

Her mother wrapped her arms around her in a
close embrace. She kissed the top of Tonya’s head then said in a
choked whisper, “You don’t get over it, baby. It gets better and
you go on, but you don’t get over it.”