Page 28 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)

She Has a Name For You

Cobra

It was a brisk day, and I was in a mood.

The television over the diner’s counter played at a low volume.

It was a news segment about disappearances across the country.

Most were immigrants. Many had green cards, several were in the process of naturalizing, and others were undocumented.

Families wept on the screen, unsure about the fate of their loved ones.

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,” Beaufort mused, spearing into his meat loaf. “Or in this case, the state of our Union.”

I swallowed. “President Lau is going to lose the election, isn’t he?”

Was I just getting old? I remembered when my mother retired, and she had nothing but the news to keep her company. The way she saw the world warped, the more she consumed until she was convinced the world was a dangerous place, and we were all going to hell in a handbasket.

Things felt bleak. Like everything was getting darker by the day. Strange disappearances, higher crime rates, and hate disguised as political rhetoric was everywhere, becoming more visceral by the day.

Or was my lens colored by the darkness Teri was going through?

She had slept in my arms last night. That part was brilliant.

As I stroked her back, I glanced down. The firelight danced on her golden skin.

Then I saw a scar. It was slight, but deep.

It was clean, but not like a surgery scar.

It was a long, clean slice of skin that had healed and marked down her side from her rib to her hip.

Curious, I searched her body more carefully.

Her forearm had a bump on the outer side.

It felt like a fracture callus, as if it had been broken and healed wrong.

I found a similar anomaly on her second, third, and fourth metacarpal, as if someone had taken a blunt object and slammed it down on the back of her hand.

Having interrogated numerous bastards in my life, I’d inflicted that injury before. I’d had it done to me. But I’d had the bones reset. On hers? It was as if she’d just wrapped it.

The sweetness of having her in my embrace mixed with the bitterness of seeing the physical marks of her pain. I’d lain awake, ticking off every injury I could find, swearing to pay her abuser back tenfold.

Who needed to re-build an old farm house in their retirement years when there were so many people left to kill?

I met Beaufort at the corner Mourningkill diner. It was one of those old roadside types, with a metal, flat roof, and 1950’s metal exterior with big windows and teal panels running along the side. The walls were covered in old Americana advertisements that sold Coca-Cola and the American dream.

This had been Beaufort’s choice. He probably enjoyed the irony of that dream only existing in a one minute commercial that sold instant coffee and hoop skirts.

But the milkshakes were solid. Ten out of ten. I wondered if I should bring Teri here. She used to love cheap diner food…

Beaufort chowed down on his meatloaf while I dragged my knife along my medium-rare steak and eggs. We were halfway through our meal before we said anything of any real significance. You couldn’t pressure a man like Beaufort to talk unless he wanted to. The man was a vault.

“Did she tell you anything else about her medical history?” Like a baby through a birth canal, Beaufort just came right out with it.

“Not a thing,” I said. She’d told me more and revealed more about her state of mind, but nothing about her physical being. “But I saw a few scars, and healed breaks.”

She dreads the darkness as much as she dreads tomorrow …

“I figured.” Beaufort leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, steepling his fingers. “I’ll be frank with you, I’m wading through the ethics of telling you more.”

“Well, Frank,” I said sarcastically, “let me do the decidedly un-Spook-like thing and lay my cards out on the table.”

I put my hands out in a sweeping gesture, as if I was laying out literal cards for his inspection.

“I love her.” It was stupid to deny it now.

I’d stayed up all night, not wanting to miss a moment of her.

This morning, I’d had to rip myself from her side because all I wanted to do was watch her.

All I wanted to do was to know she was breathing and safe.

“Someone abused her. Tortured her. Probably for years. I don’t need you to dig into her or her past. I need you to give me a name. ”

Beaufort narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that someone abused her? She could have been mugged, or been in a car accident—”

“She flinches if I move too fast,” I said quickly, my fists clenched. “She flinches if I raise my voice. She’s scared someone’s going to hurt our daughter. She says someone’s going to hurt Trinity if she doesn’t protect her.”

“Trinity, the former Green Beret, and now a bounty hunter?” Beaufort scoffed. “Didn’t the last guy who tried that end up with a stiletto in the eye?”

“I think she got him in the temple.”

For a moment, Beaufort and I just smiled at each other. There was nothing quite as satisfying as a violent end for those with violent delights.

“If you find out who this guy is…” Beaufort asked, picking up his steak knife. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’ll kill him.”

“Kill him?” Beaufort said, not at all surprised.

“Eventually.”

“Eventually?”

“Yeah. Eventually.”

He’d die, but it wouldn’t be quick or merciful. I gave no mercy to those who had none for others.

“Call it my good deed for the day. I’m restoring balance to the world by giving him as good as he gave her.” I felt the conviction through my limbs, into my fingers and toes.

Beaufort stared at me like he was doing mental calculations based on the millimeter tilt of my head, or the wrinkle of my eye. I let him look. There was nothing written on my face that I did not mean with my entire being.

“Ten years ago,” Beaufort wiped his lips. “She found herself in the hospital again. Her injuries were… different that time. Worse.”

He pulled another envelope out of the inner pocket of his suede jacket, and tapped it against the table.

“Full disclosure, I ran into a few dead ends. I ran into some blockages that I needed help from–”

“Government.” I finished it for him. “You called someone from the Company?”

“Yeah. In exchange, she wanted an introduction.”

“With whom?” I asked, lifting my brow.

“With you.”

“Interesting.”

“Her name is Sonia Norkus. Have you heard of her?”

“Yes. Twice now, since I’ve retired. That’s more times than I’d heard of here while I was a spy.” I’d heard of Sonia Norkus once, and it was to coordinate an intricate mission that involved finding the plans for a nuclear weapon traveling through Morocco.

Spies are notorious gossips, and the things murmured around the watercooler about her were not great. The only thing they didn’t criticize was her extreme competence as an agent. It was the other stuff that had me worried.

“The information you’ll find here will be worth the introduction.” Beaufort slid the papers across the table. “And she has a name for you.”