And yes, it was easy for me to understand how, now that I’d met him. Even without the specifics of what lock and which guard and how so—I knew he wasn’t a man to be contained. He was a giant, and not even a hundred little men and all the rope in the world could keep him tethered to the ground.
My voice roughened. “Did you… Did you find him? After?”
After I was recovered.
These images were somehow just as bad as the ones of Hennessey injured had been. I imagined Carlos in handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit. I imagined him dead in a standoff that hadn’t ended well. Hennessey’s eyes were troubled. The glimmer in his expression clenched a cold fist around my heart. He was unshakeable, but here, now, at the thought of telling me this, he felt something. Gladness that the man he hunted had been caught?
“By the time we followed your tracks to the warehouse, it had been destroyed. We found blood and other…matter at the scene. They’re running the DNA at the lab, but we suspect it’s Laguardia.”
I’d been made of glass, I realized, solid but frail. And now the glass cracked down the middle, branching out into a thousand tiny shards. Carlos, dead or alive. I shouldn’t care. I didn’t. Either way, I would never see him again. Never get to ask the questions about why he’d taken me or what it all had meant.
They wouldn’t find only his DNA. Mine too. Mixed together and charred in an explosion. Who had set it? Didn’t matter. In-fighting, that was what Brody had said. Meaningless deaths.
I should be glad that Carlos was dead. Glad he’d never hurt me again. It was completely irrational to wish I could see him again, to imagine him tracking me down at the hospital or later. To wish he would abduct me again. Even now, I shook with fear and anticipation.
God, I was crazy. Imagining a bad guy, even when I knew he was dead.
Hennessey’s voice roughened. “I’m sorry we couldn’t catch him. Couldn’t…bring him to justice.”
Justice. “It’s okay.”
“Jesus, Samantha.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Three days…”
Three days, and with every passing hour, the chances of surviving had dwindled down to nothing. Like an integral equation, arcing low but never touching the baseline, racing toward zero into infinity. But I’d lived. Coincidence? Hennessey didn’t believe in coincidence, and strangely enough, neither did I.
In his steel eyes, I saw bleakness reflected. Had he searched the morgues for Jane Does? Had they run DNA tests on nameless, faceless corpses? I felt sick for him. Sick for myself. I should have been on the slab. Then everyone’s lives would be simpler. Just like my father should have murdered me along with all the other kids he hurt. Why did I always have to live?
Survivor’s guilt. The textbook hadn’t been far off the mark. And it sucked.
Tears slipped down my cheeks, and I clenched my hands.
Hennessey put his hand over my balled fist. “It will be okay. It will…get better.”
I shook my head. How could it get better? There would never be any closure, not with my father and not with Carlos. There’d never be any reasoning behind the actions of a psychopath. I should be happy to be safe again, to be in this buzzing, beeping, cold hospital room. I should be glad to have my partner at my side, when I wasn’t really even his partner anymore.
But I couldn’t be happy. An ineffable sadness weighed me down, heavy as lead, molten as lava.
A single tear slipped down my cheek, like a crack in my skin. A crack in my false composure, and I was lost. Sobs tore from my throat before I could hold them back. They racked my body, rattling the thin metal frame of the hospital bed. I cowered on the sheets, feeling exposed and miserable. Alone. For three stuttering, helpless cries I was alone. Then Hennessey scooped me up. He held me in his arms, sitting on the hospital bed while I spilled tears onto his T-shirt, while I breathed his musk and clutched at broad shoulders.
Should have died, should have died.
All I could think was that I wanted to die. But I already had. When Carlos had hurt me, when I’d realized I liked it after all, that even as an adult I still wanted the abuse—it had been a form of death. It felt like dying, but the part that really hurt the most was coming back to life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When I woke up a second time, the room was empty. I glanced around, suddenly alert. A rap came at the door, and I managed to croak a weak, “Come in.”
The door opened in shadows, and a small frame entered. A stab of disappointment lanced through me. Not Hennessey. But instead of a nurse coming to check on me, like I’d thought, a familiar face emerged.
“Mrs. Martinez,” I said in surprise.
She gave me a gently chiding look. “Call me Mia.”
I struggled to sit up, but a sharp pain stole my breath away.
Making a tsking sound, she rushed to my side. “Lie down, love. Don’t strain yourself. Here, let me help you.”