“So how does that connect you to that wall?”
“I wasn’t finding anything. It was like Mindy had disappeared into thin air. Anyway, her parents live in California, and they wanted to do something to help find her. About a month after Mindy went missing, her parents came back here and posted a bunch of fliers all over the city and suburbs. I thought it was a waste of time. I mean, this is the digital age, what good would paper fliers do?
“I was wrong. A while after they were posted, Dina, Mindy’s mom, received a call from a woman who said her young kids liked to play in the woods behind their house. She said they played near a landing strip, and one day they said they saw a woman being carried onto a plane. Dina called and asked me to look for the landing strip. She was told it was near Highway 1 and Eastways Road. That was the day I drove up here. I had the address of the mansion, but after I couldn’t get in or even get any good pictures, I drove around for over an hour trying to find the landing strip. I couldn’t find it. After today, I know why. It was because of all the gates.
“At the time I assumed if there were a landing strip, there’d be an access road. I never imagined it would be gated.”
Jacob scooted against the tree. When I looked up, he was staring at me. In his eyes I saw something I didn’t recall having seen before.
“Why are you looking at me funny?” I asked.
He lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I’m not looking at you funny. I’m looking at you with utter amazement. You are a kick-ass investigative journalist. I can’t believe they assigned me—an FBI agent—a wife with so much knowledge on The Light.”
I grinned. “I’m pretty sure they don’t know about you.”
He shook his head. “No. If they did, that would’ve been me in the front of the temple.”
I closed my eyes. “Please don’t say that. Don’t even joke about that.” A tear ran down my cheek, and Jacob gently wiped it away with his thumb.
“I’m not joking. We’re getting out. I just need a burner phone so I don’t alert The Light by using my phone. It’s been more than twenty-four hours. They should have enough manpower in Anchorage very soon.”
“What happened to the phone you had in Fairbanks?”
“I had to destroy it. I couldn’t risk having it on me when we went back. I wasn’t sure we’d get away with what we did, getting you back into the Northern Light.” With our hands still united, he laid his head against the tree and sighed.
“What now?” I asked.
“I remembered something else. Before service, Father Gabriel asked me about Fairbanks. Before I went there, I called Brother Daniel and told him that Whitefish was low on supplies so I was going to Fairbanks. There would be record of me being there, and I needed to justify it.”
“What did Father Gabriel ask?”
“Just how the weather was in Fairbanks this time of year.”
My pulse increased. “That’s weird. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, but then he asked me for an envelope someone gave me after my delivery. For the life of me, I don’t remember what I did with it.”
I didn’t ask about the envelope. If I did, I knew Jacob would tell me—he’d promised. I also knew there was still so much about The Light I didn’t know, but at this moment my curiosity was waning. I knew too much. That’s why I was here, with my make-believe husband, sitting on the cool ground in the shadows of tall trees, within the compound of a man I believed to be mad, one who’d authorized the killing of two people in front of more than a hundred witnesses.
When I turned toward my make-believe husband, his eyes were closed, and his breathing steady.
How much sleep had he gotten in the past seventy-two hours?
It was hard to comprehend that I’d only left the Northern Light on Friday morning, and now it was Sunday. So much had happened.
Releasing his hand, I gently traced his jaw with my knuckles and enjoyed the abrasion of the stubble against my skin. My cheeks rose as I remembered how I’d traced his face before the bandages were removed from my eyes. When I’d done that, I’d been trying to see him, to envision the man in my bed. He wasn’t the man I’d envisioned.
Now I knew he was so much more.
As I began to stand, Jacob reached for my hand and pulled me back.
“No,” he said, as I landed on his lap.
“I thought you were asleep. I was going to look around.” Not that I could be looking around now, not with the vise grip he had on me.
“You’re not allowed out of my sight.”
“Allowed?” I asked with more than a bit of rebellion.
“We’re still in The Light, so yes, allowed.”
I shook my head and kissed his cheek. “You were sleeping. I wasn’t in your sight.”
The light brown staring intently back at me sparkled with the flickers of sunlight raining through the leaves.