“Will the hospital staff freak if we do?”
“It’s a small hospital. They call me to do surgeries and consultations, so the answer’s no. Come on, Pepper.” Melia removed the kitten from Gomer’s back and set him on one of the padded chairs.
She glanced at Johnny as she did so. He was digging into her salad with gusto and walking circles around the kitchen.
Absolutely no man should look as good as he did in faded jeans and a loose black tee. His hair hung down past his collar and probably hadn’t seen a brush since early that morning. He’d forgotten to shave for at least four days, and all the scrape on his cheekbone did was give him a vaguely piratical air—which he’d love to hear and she had no intention of mentioning to him.
She refused to look at his mouth or his eyes as they walked outside. She climbed into his truck while Johnny tied Gomer in the back and watched the breeze ruffle his ears. After getting in, Johnny asked, “Is this small town shit really what you want, Mel? The people here like you, and that’s great, but you knowing their business and them knowing yours has to suck.”
“It’s a soap opera some days,” she agreed. “But small towns are, or can be, lost worlds. I wanted to be lost. You would, too, if you thought you’d done what I thought I did.”
“It’s easier to be anonymous in a city.”
“Cities like Istanbul?” She checked on Gomer as he pulled out of the yard. “McCabe doesn’t think you got lost enough, and Istanbul’s an enormous city. Sounds to me like someone’s been watching you ever since you left the U.S.”
“Someone has been. I never expected Satyr to back off all the way, in that way. There had to be something significant about that hotel break-in, some clue I left there that told them the breakup between us was a sham. I still can’t figure out what it was.”
“Well, they didn’t get any clues from me, even if they’ve been watching me, which I assume they have been to some degree.”
“Satyr would have kept tabs on your movements,” Johnny said. “He wouldn’t have had anyone actually tracking you, though. Not until recently. Staying on my ass would have been more enjoyable because he’d have assumed there’d be an element of pain involved. Remember, I’m the one he’s determined to torture.”
“Right.” Lowering the window, Melia let in the hot afternoon breeze. “You’re the real victim in all this. I’m only the person who gets to die.”
Johnny regarded her with the faintest trace of steel. “I won’t let him kill you, Mel. Not a chance. Five of Satyr’s men already know that. At some point, Satyr will, too.”
Frustration gnawed at her. The landscape passed in a swampy blur. “And then what?” she wanted to know. “If you kill Satyr, do you expect it’ll end there? You don’t think Mockerie might take up the torch? My guess is he’s ten times scarier than Ben Satyr.”
A humorless smile played on Johnny’s lips. “I’ll deal with him if and when. Do you see anyone behind us?”
“No, and I’ve been looking.” She considered for a moment, while the Beatles sang about their own long and winding road. “Johnny, would Satyr target someone I care about out of spite? Someone like Gert, for example? We’ve been leaving her alone at my place. Is it possible he’d send a man in to kill her so he could make both of us suffer?”
“I don’t think so. I told you before, Satyr is target specific. Collateral damage isn’t important to him, but he’s not looking to cause you particular pain. You’re a means to an end in his eyes. Nothing more.”
Curiosity—an old foe, and one she hadn’t quite succeeded in conquering—kindled once again. “What happened in Iraq, Johnny? You never went into detail about your time there, how you met Satyr, etcetera. I know he wasn’t in the U.S. military. How did you end up in prison with him?”
She saw Johnny’s eyes flick to a road sign that stated it was now only twenty-five miles to Bellwater.
“Nice try,” she said. “But we have plenty of time to chat. Now spill.” She imagined him wishing for a cigarette while he hesitated. “Come on, First Lieutenant Hunt. Talk to me.”
He regarded the landscape ahead. “Maybe it’s only fair,” he said softly. “Okay, Satyr was a gunrunner who got greedy. He tried to hold his buyers hostage for a higher price when he saw how badly they needed the weapons. Sometimes that tactic works, sometimes it doesn’t. In this case, it didn’t. Satyr’s men, six of them, not as well concealed as they should have been, were shot and killed. The Iraqis threw Satyr in prison, possibly to make a point. I was never entirely sure of their intent. For us, it was a military capture. We were involved in a skirmish. Morris and I didn’t get out fast enough. Most of our company did, so there was that. But they caught us and dumped us in with Satyr.”
“And you were together for, what, two months?”
“Almost three.”
He spoke like a man who was emotionally dead, but Melia recognized the defense mechanism and, in this case, respected it.
“So, it was hell,” she assumed. “My guess is you and Morris, being trained, managed better than a civilian.”
Johnny nodded. “But Satyr had his own strategy in that area.” He glanced at her, then at the rearview mirror, and went on. “He crawled into himself. He watched the guards come and go. He listened to them. He spoke enough of the language to figure out what they were saying to one another. Money seemed to be a problem for one of the men who’d been doing nights right outside our cell. Satyr started having conversations with him. He must have convinced the man he could pay him off big time, because before long, our civilian weapons dealer was dialed right in again.”
“Did this plan of his require your help?”
“Let’s say it required backup, and we were all he had. He knew I was a sniper and Morris was a master at jujitsu. Both were usable weapons to Satyr.”
Melia glimpsed the next sign. They were getting closer to Bellwater. But she was far more interested in reading Johnny’s profile than she was in their proximity to the town. “Obviously, the escape didn’t go well for him. What went wrong?”
“He got captured.”
Melia sighed. “Yes, I gathered that much. Why? And why did he hold you and Morris responsible?”
“Hell broke loose, Mel. It was inevitable. The guard supplied Satyr with guns. Crap ones, but guns that shot bullets. One of those bullets hit the guard who’d gotten us out. Satyr froze. Just for a moment, but he stopped moving. He didn’t run when I told him to. I shot three Iraqi soldiers and shouted at Satyr again. Morris took out two more, back-to-back. Finally, Satyr came out of his trance. But it was too late. When he ran he got tangled in some loose barb wire and that was the end of it. They had him. They damn near had us. Fortunately, we were faster, and even a crap gun can kill a man if the bullet catches him between the eyes. ”
Although she felt mildly sick from the image he’d planted in her head, Melia asked, “How long did they hold him in prison?”
“I’m not really sure, but at least eighteen months.”
It wasn’t what he said, but how he said it that made her realize there was more. She waited in silence for him to continue.
Finally, he said, “I told you that Satyr loved a woman named Julie, didn’t I?”