“Don’t you mean the woman who dumped you when you joined the marines?” Dax says, his voice taking on a harsh tone.
Shit. Maybe I have a little more…baggage surrounding Joey than I thought if that’s what he remembers from our conversations about her. “Well, sort of. I mean…no.” Swallowing hard over the lump in my throat, I start to pace again. “Her sister called me. No one’s heard from Joey in ten days. She was working for Doctors Without Borders in Turkmenistan, and the whole group’s just…gone.”
“Shit. Turkmenistan’s a war zone, Ford. If she got caught between a couple of the local factions, she’s not missing. She’s in a shallow grave somewhere.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” I snap.
Dax flinches and throws his hands up in surrender as I clutch the bottle so hard, I worry it’s going to crack. “Sorry. Is the CIA involved? Any demands for ransom?”
Anger turns to pure, unadulterated rage as I recount my call with one of Trevor’s contacts two hours ago. “The CIA won’t investigate. Something about not wanting to upset the fragile peace in the region. Total bullshit. And Doctors Without Borders doesn’t even know where the group was before they went missing. They were in some remote region where their SAT phone didn’t work properly. Their last known location was somewhere outside of Sayat, but they were heading to Turkmenabat.”
Sinking back down into the leather chair, I lean forward, my elbows on my knees. “I can’t just leave her out there, Dax. I owe her that much.”
“You don’t owe her anything. She couldn’t handle dating a marine on active duty and she bailed.”
The sound escaping my throat is more like a growl than a sigh, and I roll my eyes. “No. She didn’t. She stayed with me for almost a year. I proposed before I left for my first oversees assignment. We wrote letters, even talked on the phone a couple of times. But…then I got three days leave. Back home in San Diego. And I didn’t call her.”
Dax arches his brow. “So, let me guess. You were out with the guys, drinking until you were shit-faced, wearing your whites to impress the ladies, and she just happens to walk into the bar with her girlfriends to find you with a pretty little thing on your lap.”
Bristling because he’s both right and wrong, I roll my head to try to relieve some of the tension. “I wasn’t shit-faced. That came later,” I say quietly. “Never touched another woman. Never even looked. All my mates were trying to hook up with anything that moved. Me? I just sat at the bar. Nursing a drink. For three fucking hours.”
“Why?” Something flashes over Dax’s face. Longing. Pain. Frustration. But he takes a sip of his beer and waits for me to continue.
Staring up at the ceiling, I send myself back twenty years to that damn bar the night I lost everything. “It was war, Dax. We were dropped in country after only six weeks of basic. The day before we got the news they were rotating us home…I killed six hostiles. One of them used a couple of kids as a human shield. The day before, we were a few blocks away when a suicide bomber took out a public market. Kids. Babies. Innocents. Joey didn’t deserve thirty-six hours of me crying and asking her why.”
“And did you tell her that?”
“Nope. I fucked up. And it cost her…more than I can explain. Because of me, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and…shit. It was bad, Dax.” I can’t tell him what happened to her. It’s not my place. “She tried to reach out…after…but I was on mission for almost six weeks, and I didn’t get her message until it was over. By then…it was too late. I wrote her letters trying to explain, apologizing, begging her to talk to me, but she returned every damn one of them. Unopened. Eventually…I stopped.”
After Dax takes a long sip of beer, he asks, “What are you going to do?”
“I have a contact in Uzbekistan—Nomar—who’s trying to slip unnoticed into Turkmenistan. If so—or if he can get in touch with some of his contacts there—he’ll check out their last known location, retrace the route they were supposed to follow. He’ll contact me tomorrow.”
“And then?”
As if he has to ask. “If there’s a chance she’s alive…I’m going to find her.” Setting my bottle down on the coffee table harder than I intend, I blow out a breath. “But that means I need you to find someone else to take over the Archer case. Or…at least run point on it with me until I hear back from Nomar.”
Dax squeezes his eyes shut and presses the cold bottle of beer to his temple. “There isn’t anyone else. Ella’s tied up on that embezzlement case. Trevor can handle the basic surveillance on days, and Vasquez at night with Ronan as backup, but Clive messaged me right before I left the office. His mom’s about to have open-heart surgery.”
“Fuck.”
With a sigh, he shakes his head. “First thing in the morning, read me in with what you have so far. If you need to leave, take Trevor, and I’ll run point with Wren until Clive returns.”
We finish our beers in silence, and when he walks me to the door, I clear my throat. If I’m going to go dark on him—and abandon a client—I have to come clean. “I never stopped loving her, Dax.”
“Then you’ll get her back.” He grabs my forearm, squeezes once, and gives me a final nod. “But until we know more, don’t tell Evianna I’m involved with her case. No need to worry her until we know there’s something to worry about.”
What the hell is he so concerned about? I’m about to ask when a sudden flash of memory—Joey in my bed, looking up at me with such love in her eyes—distracts me. “Whatever you say. I’ll see you in the morning.” Halfway down the hall, I turn. “Thank you.”
Joey
For what feels like an hour, I’ve been shaking, rocking back and forth as loud footsteps thunder over my head. Angry voices shout, and something heavy crashes to the ground.
Hamid has brought me two meals since they took Ivy and Mia. Two days. All alone in this dingy, stuffy basement. And yet, I don’t know if I should wish I were with them. My heart breaks for what they might be going through. They’re young. Pretty. Just the type to be sold for a premium price. Me…? At forty-two, maybe I don’t rate so high. But then…why did they take me? Why not just kill me?
Pulling the paperclip from my pocket, I scrap it across my inner arm, hard enough to draw blood.
I tried to resist. Tried to keep the pressure light. But it’s either cut myself again or let the fear drown me. I’ve been treading water for days, and I’m so tired.
