“Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?” Brantley prompted.
“Like what?” Reese hadn’t realized he’d been looking at him like anything.
“Like I’m leavin’ your fallen comrade behind to fend for himself. I would never do that, Reese. But Deck’s not givin’ us much to go on. I’m starting to think that was his plan.”
Reese exhaled heavily, unwilling to admit he’d thought the same thing. More than once.
Instead, he glanced down at Tesha, who was snoozing by his feet, waiting for them to finish. “Mind if we head for the park? I’d like to give Tesha some downtime.”
“Sure.”
While Brantley paid the tab, Reese took Tesha out of the restaurant, waiting on the sidewalk. This street was lined with cars on both sides while more weaved down the center. People lingered at the corner while a few walked in one direction or another. At least they had a destination in mind.
Reese glanced around at all the concrete, his thoughts drifting to a much darker time.
The sun was setting, the cool air drifting in through the window. Reese wasn’t looking forward to another night in this concrete box. It was difficult to look forward to much of anything anymore. Sometimes, he wished the freezing temperatures would put an end to everything. That he would go to sleep and not wake up. Not have to endure another day in this hole built for one.
However, the sun seemed to come up each day, bringing light to the hell he was living in.
No one was coming for him.
Was his country even bothering to look? Or had they already declared him dead? Was his family worried? Had they been told he was missing? Were they trying to find him?
The what-ifs were all he had to go on anymore.
At least his captors had stopped trying to torture information out of him. It wasn’t like he’d had any information to give. He’d tried to convince them to demand a ransom. At the very least, someone would know he was still alive. He knew the US didn’t negotiate with terrorists, so his life was as good as over, but it was the only ray of light he could see in his bleak existence.
But they weren’t even doing that.
So what were they waiting for? Why were they bothering to keep him alive?
“Ready?” Brantley asked when he joined him a few minutes later.
Reese shook himself out of the memory, nodding and leading the way to Central Park. It was several blocks northeast of their current location, but he’d found that walking in New York beat sitting in their rented SUV or a cab going nowhere.
“What do you think happened to Deck?” Reese heard himself ask, although he hadn’t meant to voice the question.
“Honestly? I think he’s workin’ on somethin’.”
“For Sniper 1?”
“No.”
They stopped at an intersection and waited for thewalklight to change.
“He might act like an idiot, but Decker’s not stupid.”
No, he wasn’t. Reese got the impression Decker liked to keep to himself, and he wasn’t much of a team player, but his record with Sniper 1 Security was clean, save for a couple of hiccups when he’d gone off the grid. In those instances, no one had gotten hurt, and Deck had come back with one excuse or another. Personal shit, his file proclaimed. Other than that, he went on the jobs he was assigned, performed his duty, and returned. He’d been working for them for years.
Knowing that Decker had done this before made it difficult for Reese not to see Brantley’s point. There was a good chance Decker was going to resurface in Dallas at any moment, and here they were, wasting precious man-hours looking for him.
“What do you know about him?” Brantley prompted as the walk sign flashed.
Reese moved forward, Tesha keeping pace at his side.
“Not much. Only what his employment file gave me. He grew up in Dallas. Didn’t go to college. He was a bouncer at a few nightclubs before he went to work for Sniper 1.”
“Why’d he want to work on the task force?” Brantley asked. “When I interviewed him, I thought maybe he was lookin’ for a change of scenery, but I never saw him make an effort to fit in.”
