She gave a soft laugh. “I was a newlywed.”
“Starry-eyed.”
She conceded that with a nod. “In love with a man whopassionately wanted to help people in oppressed areas where each day presented a challenge to their very survival.”
“He was an idealist.”
“You can call him that if you like, but he wasn’t quixotic. He was also a realist. He saw a desperate need and genuinely wanted to fill it. That’s why I fell in love with him.”
“You never entertained second thoughts about committing yourself to spending a year in a potentially hostile environment?”
“Not really.”
It was a qualified denial, and Mitch didn’t believe it anyway.
She must have sensed his skepticism, because she came back defensively. “We were sent to a very remote village in a region where there hadn’t been any political unrest. We were warmly welcomed by the villagers. Their homes were hovels. The school was a hut on the brink of collapse. Our mission was to build a proper one. We worked diligently. The school was almost finished.” She stopped and her expression turned bleak.
“And then?”
She took a deep breath. “There was a coup in the capital city. The president was executed in a public square. Sides formed. Rebels, contra rebels, vigilante gangs who were completely lawless and indiscriminately preyed on all factions.
“George tried to remain neutral, but it was inevitable that being a norteamericano he would come under suspicion, as would the villagers who’d come to idolize him. One night, one of the most infamous gangs raided the village. Two of the young men who were helping George build the school were murdered. Brutally, in front of their families.
“During the exchange of gunfire, George was shot in the thigh. One of the gang members was also killed. The attackersretreated into the jungle but not before vowing reprisal for the death of their compatriot.
“George insisted that I return to the United States immediately. Not without him, I said. But he refused to leave until the school was finished. He had promised the villagers, and himself, that he wouldn’t abandon the project until it was completed.
“He insisted that his leg wound wasn’t that serious. No severed artery, no broken bone. We had a limited supply of penicillin he could inject into himself to stave off infection. He could walk with the help of a walking stick stout enough to use on mountain trails. He would be fine, he said. It was barely a scratch. And so forth.”
She gave him a meaningful look before continuing. “He would be right behind me, he said. Another week, two at the most, the school would be finished. I pleaded with him to come with me then, but…” She reached for her water bottle, uncapped it, and took a drink.
“The following day tension was high. Everyone was fearful the vigilantes would return. When darkness fell, one of the brave young men of the village drove me through the jungle to a landing strip still operated by the country’s military, which by then was ragtag at best.
“The welfare organization had sent a small plane to fly George and me out. The pilot was shocked to learn that he wasn’t with me. He warned me that he might not be able to return for George and gave me only minutes to decide whether to stay or go.”
She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “Obviously, I boarded the plane. I was flown to San José, Costa Rica. From there, I took a commercial flight to Dallas.”
After taking another sip of water, she continued. “When welanded, the captain came on over the speaker and instructed everyone to remain seated while a passenger was escorted off. I was led by a flight attendant to the jetway where I was met by emissaries from the US state department.
“They escorted me to a room. Of course I knew then that George was dead, but they made it official. He’d been killed by ‘hostiles.’ The unfinished school had been set on fire. George and roughly half of the villagers were either shot or hacked to death with machetes.”
The silence that followed was interrupted by the drip-drip of the faucet. Mitch waited a full minute before saying anything. “Dylan, you can’t blame yourself for leaving when you did.”
She raised her head from the study of her hands tightly clasped on the tabletop. “I don’t. I made the only choice I could. I was pregnant.”
Mitch’s stomach dropped.
“I’d been back in the States for only a week when I miscarried,” she said. “I gather from your stunned reaction that that was one of the missing pieces you didn’t know.”
He ran his fingers through his hair. “No, I didn’t know. Did George?”
Smiling ruefully, she shook her head. “I knew if I told him, it would only strengthen his insistence that I leave. But… but if I had told him, if he had known that he was going to be a father, maybe he would have left with me. I’m haunted by my decision not to tell him.”
It was that decision that kept her inside the bell jar. And Mitch understood her need for that self-defense mechanism all too well.
He got up, cleared the table, and rinsed out everything he’d used before turning back to her. “I told you that the night I lostAngela, John and I were working late. Tough case, and we were getting nowhere. We decided to shut down and pick up in the morning. As we left headquarters together, I suggested we stop and get a beer. I’d already told Angela I was going to be late. What were a few more minutes?”
Dylan covered her mouth with her hand. She knew what was coming.
