Even in the light of the setting sun she could tell he was a shade paler.
Cambry stepped forward. “Lassiter?”
“Nothing. Reinforcement,” Lassiter said unevenly. “I should have been expecting it.” He thrust the phone at Cambry. “Juan Salva chose well.”
He turned and strode down the deck to the bridge.
Cambry looked down at the message and inhaled sharply. “Oh shit.” He strode after Lassiter and joined him on the bridge.
Margaret gazed after them in bewilderment.
Dear God, Lassiter’s expression. The pain, all mockery gone, just that agony that was tearing him apart.
That was tearing her apart.
No, back away.
It was probably nothing she could help.
Nothing that wouldn’t bring her back to the nightmare that had haunted her all these years.
It was his problem, not hers. Everyone had problems, and she couldn’t let herself try to solve this one.
Not this one.
She tried to turn and gaze out at the sunset instead of at Lassiter.
She couldn’t move.
She watched Lassiter half-shrug and then take his phone back and turn away from Neal Cambry. The shocked rawness was gone from his expression, but the pain was still there.
It isn’t easy to hide an emotion that strong, she thought. She knew from experience that you had to burrow your feelings down to some deep place far away and then let them heal.
“Sorry.” Cambry was coming back toward her. “Not a great text.”
“I’d have to be blind not to be able to see that.”
“No questions?”
“Not my business.”
“No?” He tilted his head. “Then why does your expression remind me a little of Lassiter’s?”
“I have no idea.” She still couldn’t take her gaze off Lassiter. “He probably needs you. You’re his friend, aren’t you? Why don’t you go back to him?”
“Because I wouldn’t be welcome. Lassiter has trouble sharing. Probably because he’s been alone so much in his life.”
As Margaret had been alone.
Don’t compare. Don’t identify.
Don’t keep looking at him.
Don’t wonder what would cause a man as tough as Lassiter to look as if he were being burned alive.
Tough. Cling to that word, that concept. He didn’t need her. No matter what she thought, he was strong enough to stand alone.
“What are you thinking?” Cambry asked curiously.
She finally managed to turn away from Lassiter to look back at the sunset. “Every day is a new day. I’m thinking you should forget about past experiences and go up there and try to help him,” she said jerkily.
He shook his head. “If he needs me, he knows where I am.” He hesitated. “Stay away from him right now, Margaret. He might not be very civilized for a little while.”
“Don’t worry, I have no reason to go anywhere near him.”
Not where the pain was, not where she might forget, not where she might make his agony her own.
She heard Cambry walk away from her, but her gaze never left the flame-streaked clouds of the horizon.
Don’t look at him.
Let him be nothing to you.
Oh God, don’t feel his pain.
*
The sun was down and it was almost dark when Margaret left the rail and strode up to the bridge.
“Lassiter.” She held his gaze as she climbed up the three steps and came to face him. “I want to see that text.”
“No, you don’t.” He was suddenly wary. “Has Cambry been talking?”
“No, you have him well trained. He wouldn’t violate your friendship.” She added jerkily, “And I made sure I didn’t ask him to do it. I was hoping to avoid this. Do you think I want it?”
“You’re angry.” He was looking at her appraisingly. “And I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I’m angry,” she said fiercely. “You’re strong, dammit. You shouldn’t be hurting like this. I shouldn’t have to deal with it. I stayed down there fighting it for almost a half hour and it didn’t do any good. I knew it wasn’t going to do any good.” She gazed up at him, her hands closing into fists. “Most of the time it doesn’t. Not when the pain is so bad. But I thought this time, when it could hurt me, too, that I had a chance.”
“Go away, Margaret,” he said wearily. “I’m not up to figuring out what you’re talking about right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said through clenched teeth. “You’ve seen to that. I have to stay until this over.” She was shaking. “You want to dangle me in front of Nicos? Go ahead. It might work. If I don’t think it will, I’ll think of something else.”
“What are you talking about?” His eyes were narrowed on her face. “My God, you’re shaking as if you have malaria. What’s happening to you?”
“I’m just telling you that you’ve won. Show me that text.”
He slowly held out the phone.
Margaret looked down at the screen. Not a written text. A photo of a man with a shock of gray hair chained to a wall. Whip strokes all over his legs and torso. His shirt pulled aside to display burn marks all over his chest. She stared at it for a moment, trying to overcome the waves of horror. “He looks like he’s a walking skeleton. Starvation as well as torture?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Eighteen months.”
“You care about him?”
He didn’t answer.
“Tell me,” she said through her teeth. “I have to hear it. Though I already know.”
“Yes.”
“Nicos?”
“Who else?”
“No one.” She couldn’t look at the photo any longer. It was tearing her apart. She handed the phone back to him. “That’s all I can take right now. I’ll ask you more questions when I’m able to function. Later.” She turned and headed toward the steps leading down to the deck. “You’ll get what you want. But it’s not going to be all your way, Lassiter. I won’t be a puppet. Not Nicos’s, not yours.”
“Margaret,” he called after her. “What the hell happened here?”
“I lost. You won.”
“How?” he asked roughly.
She didn’t answer. “You would have won a long time ago if you’d learned as much about me as you thought you had.” She jerked open the door and started to run downstairs to her cabin. Escape. Sanctuary. “You found out a lot, you guessed a lot more, but you never took that step farther down the road. You should have done that, Lassiter.…”
3:35 A.M.
Lassiter’s knock on her door was soft but firm. “May we talk now? I don’t believe either one of us has been sleeping. I thought I’d give you time to calm down a bit, but I have to know.”
“Come in.” She turned on the bedside lamp. “You’re right: I wasn’t sleeping. We might as well start.”
“Start what?”