Master (An Impossible Novel) (Impossible #6) (20 page)

“Thanks for looking into it, Dex.  I appreciate it.”

He gave me a stiff nod.  The restrained fury in the gesture made my heart twist.  Tears stung at the corners of my eyes.  I hated what was happening between us.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said quietly.  I turned to walk away, to escape before I could break down and uselessly beg for his forgiveness.

Iron fingers closed around my wrist, halting my retreat.  I turned surprised eyes on him.  I hadn’t expected violence from him – not against me – but he could easily break my arm if he wanted to.  I almost would have welcomed it.  At least the physical pain would be some form of penance for the pain I was causing him.

He ground his teeth, saying nothing for a long moment while his pale blue eyes burned into me like the hottest flame.

“I won’t let him hurt you, Sparrow,” he finally forced the words out through his clenched teeth.  “No matter how I feel….  No matter what’s happening between-”  His fingers tightened around my wrist incrementally.  “Nothing else matters but keeping you away from The Mentor.  I would never let anything happen to you.  You have to know that.”

I realized his anger wasn’t only directed at me.  It was for The Mentor as well. 
And for himself.

“Thank you,” I barely managed to get the words past the lump in my throat.  “I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

His expression turned impossibly fiercer.  “It’s not enough.  I want you to go to a safe house, but Frank won’t agree.  He says you’re our only chance at catching The Mentor.”

My hand found the one that wasn’t grasping my wrist, and I squeezed gently. 
“Frank’s right, Dex.  I’m his weakness.  The more he threatens me, the more he reveals about himself.  I’m being careful.  I won’t go anywhere by myself.”

Dex’s touch left me instantly, and his face twisted in a mask of pain.  “I know you won’t,” he bit out just before he stalked away.

A fissure crackled across my heart as I watched his stiff retreat.  I almost jumped when a strong arm closed around my shoulders in a show of comfort.  I breathed in his rich scent, recognizing him instantly.

Reed.
 
I turned a small, sad smile on the man who was the source of my joy and Dex’s misery.

I barely saw Dex over the next week and a half, and a selfish little part of me was glad of that.  Facing him was just too painful.  The few times we spoke in the office to compare notes, he barely looked me in the eye, and I couldn’t seem to quite meet his, either.  I found solace in Reed’s arms, even as it brought me a trace of guilt.

In that time, our relationship had deepened.  That easy companionship I had found with him became the norm.  I cherished the hours I spent talking and laughing with him; I felt more free than I had since my father’s death.  Everything about the new relationship was wonderful.  Except carrying out our horrifying task of hunting The Mentor.

I hadn’t received any more threats while Reed stayed by my side.  We only ever left the hotel to go to the field office. 
And to get coffee, of course.  Reed actually had me drinking the vile stuff.  Only, it wasn’t so vile, after all.  Especially not when it was accompanied by him feeding me bits of pastries to ease the bitter edge of the dark drink.  I didn’t mind this part at all.

“Open.”  My lips parted at his dramatically stern order, and he placed the coffee cake on my tongue.  His touch lingered on my lips, tracing the line of them before he pulled away.  He licked the excess sugar off his fingers with a wicked half-smile.  I barely remembered to swallow.

“Now drink.”  He pressed the warm cup of black coffee into my hands.  I tipped it back, and the hot liquid washed over the sweetness on my tongue.  It was rich and delicious and dark, just like him.

I gave him a wide grin.  “I can really detect the caramel undertones in this blend,” I said with an edge of mocking.  He took my coffee education so seriously.

He plucked the cup from my hand with an exaggerated frown.

“Hey!”  I protested, reaching for it.  “I was enjoying that!”

“If you’re going to make fun of the process, you don’t get your rewards.”

“
Shhh,” I shushed him and blushed bright red.  We were alone in the break room, but that didn’t mean his voice wouldn’t carry out into the office.

He took a step toward me, closing the distance between us so that his body was an inch from mine.  He lowered his voice.  “Are you sorry?”  His eyes sparkled.  He was enjoying the edge of danger that accompanied flirting in the middle of the field office.

“Reed!”  I hissed, pressing against his chest.  “Anyone could walk in here!”

“Are you sorry?”  He asked again, holding the coffee cup out of my reach.

“Yes!  Yes, I’m sorry.”  I pushed at him harder.  I might as well have been shoving against a rock.

His lips twisted up in a roguish grin.  “Try again.”

My entire body heated with my embarrassment, but I was getting caught up in the erotic danger of his little game.  “I’m sorry, Sir,” I whispered.

“Good girl,” he murmured against my lips just before stepping away.  My chest rose and fell more rapidly than usual, but he appeared nothing more than coolly amused.  His grin was still in place when he handed the coffee cup back to me.  He picked up the coffee cake.

“Now, let’s try that again.”

An hour later, m
y body still burned from our teasing game, and the smirks Reed kept shooting my way let me know he was still thinking of it, too.  But as we neared the debriefing room, his usual easy joy deflated.  He was practically grim by the time we reached our destination.  Just before we entered the room, he schooled his features into a gentle but professional expression.  I struggled to match it.

Sitting alone on the couch in the middle of the room, the woman seemed smaller than her five foot five frame should appear.  There was a frailty about her that was undeniably haunting.  Her auburn hair was streaked with brittle white strands, and there was something…
off
about her deep green eyes.  Like an essential piece of her soul had been gouged out.

Kathleen White Parker was still pretty in her own way, but her fine-lined, delicate features only added to her sense of fragility.  She was one of the few women we had identified who had been found alive after her abduction and
rape.  She had been kidnapped back in 1978, but her case file described being held in horrific circumstances and raped repeatedly by a madman.  It was the closest we had come to a lead in weeks.

“Kathleen,” I began, using her first name to facilitate familiarity.

“Kathy,” she corrected me.

All the blood drained from my face as my eyes roved over her again. 
Reddish hair; green eyes; pale skin. 
Kathy.

I shared those physical markers.  And Katherine and Kathleen could both be shortened to Kathy.  Certainty settled in my gut.  This was
his
Kathy.  This was who he wanted me to be.  The one woman who had gotten away from The Mentor.

But I had to be sure.

“Kathy,” the name almost stuck in my throat, but I managed to get it out.  “I need to ask you some questions about your abduction.  I know it was a long time ago, but it will help us with a current case.  Would you be willing to talk to us?”

Her eyes flashed with the first true show of emotion I had detected in them.  “I…”  She hesitated, and for a moment I feared she would refuse.  “Yes.  I’ll talk about it.  What do you want to know?”

I hesitated.  Truthfully, I didn’t want to know.  I didn’t want to hear the horrors she had been through.  Reed covered my silence.

“We’ve read your file, Kathy,” he said smoothly.  “But we need to hear some things again.  Can you tell me what happened when you were taken?  How did he do it?”

“He…  I was leaving the library at Notre Dame that night.  I never saw him come at me, but he covered my mouth and nose with a rag he had soaked in something.  I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was There.”  She said
There
as though it was an official place, an important landmark.  I supposed it was one of the most significant places she had ever been in her entire life.  Terribly significant.

“Where was ‘There’?”  Reed asked, picking up on the weight of the word.

She closed her eyes.  Unlike Lydia’s detached expression when she recalled her abuse, Kathy’s was strangely serene.  “I think it was a basement.  There were no windows, and the only door was up a flight of stairs.  The floor and walls were concrete.  There was only a bed in the room.”

“Were there any other defining characteristics?”  Reed pressed. 
“Anything that might indicate where you were?  Do you think you were in the city?  Suburbs?”

Her eyes remained closed as she mentally stayed in that place.  I wondered at how she could stand thinking about it without any outward sign of distress.  Years of therapy must have helped her cope.  Our records showed that she was married.  Maybe love had healed her just as it had Lydia.

“I’m not sure,” she answered.  “He told me no one would hear me scream, and no one ever did.  He smelled like salt and earth, like maybe He worked outdoors, so I’ve always guessed it was somewhere rural.  That’s as far as I’ve gotten in figuring it out.  I never saw anything outside the basement, and even that I didn’t see often.”

“You didn’t see it often?  What do you mean?”  I asked.  I had a feeling I knew exactly what she meant, and it filled me with dread.

“He always kept me blindfolded if He wasn’t with me.  And He kept me restrained to the bed so I couldn’t take it off or even touch anything while He wasn’t there.  The world didn’t exist when He wasn’t there.”  Her voice turned quiet, and I noticed how every time she said
He
, the word was spoken with special significance.

“You didn’t know his name,” Reed drew the same conclusion I did.

She shook her head.  Her eyes remained shuttered.  “He made me call Him Master.  That’s all I ever knew Him as.”

The way her face remained so calm disturbed me on the deepest level.  There was something inherently wrong with the lack of tension in her body.

“You’ll come to love me,”
The Mentor had told me.  Is that what had happened to Kathy?  Had he twisted her that thoroughly? 
Stockholm Syndrome,
I recognized.  That didn’t make it any easier to look at her almost beatific expression.

“This is how I’ll keep you. 
Restrained, blind.” 
Kathy’s description of how The Mentor had kept her blindfolded and tethered to the bed matched how he had held me down when he attacked me in my hotel room.

“Can you describe his demeanor?”  I heard myself ask, my voice strangely detached.

“He was harsh, unyielding.  Brutal.”  Kathy maintained her calm.  “But He could be tender, too.  He would hold me and tell me I was beautiful.  He told me I made Him happy.”

“You’re very brave.  That makes me… happy.” 
I remembered the surprise and pleasure in the word.

The Mentor isn’t fascinated with me because I’m the one hunting him,
I realized. 
He wants me because I remind him of her.

“How did you get away?”  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Reed watching me with concern, but I pressed on with my questioning.  I had to know more.

The lines around her closed eyes deepened.  “He drugged me one day, and then I woke up on my sister’s front lawn.  I didn’t escape; He sent me away.”

“Why?  Why would he do that?”

“A man came looking for Him, and he found me in the basement.  The man tried to rape me, but He saved me.  He killed the man.  After that, I told Him I loved Him.  That’s why He let me go,” she finished on a whisper.  Her eyes snapped open.  “I…  I’ve never told anyone that before.”  She sounded almost surprised.

“We appreciate your honesty,” Reed stepped in when I didn’t speak.  I couldn’t have opened my mouth without being sick.

“He’s still out there, isn’t He?”  She asked.  “You’re trying to find Him.”  It wasn’t a question.  She knew.

“Yes,” Reed said.  “He’s still hurting women.  One recently escaped, but you’re the only other victim we’ve found alive.”

She flinched, and her face fell with grief.  “Oh.”  She seemed at a loss for anything else.

“We have a sketch that was worked up in 1978 based on your description.  We’ll be able to enhance that for age.  This is very helpful, Kathy,” Reed encouraged.

“That sketch isn’t accurate.  I…  I couldn’t get it to come out right.  I never could describe Him properly.  After He let me go, my brain started to block it all out.  I could just remember a few things; wheat blond hair, amber eyes.  He was handsome, I remember that much.”  She shook her head slightly.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.  I’m sorry other women were hurt.”  Sadness gave way to determination.  “I’ll do anything I can to help you find Him.”

“Thank you,” Reed’s voice remained smooth and warm.  “This has been very helpful, Kathy.”

Kathy.

“I told Him I loved Him.”