Chapter 11 #2
“We ran it like a kidnapping. We had everything set up at the house. We got the call from his man in Chicago, Zero they called him. He said he had a message from Delilah. The next voice on the line was Delilah’s,” he paused, remembered, heard her baby voice.
He forced himself on. “She was saying ‘daddy’ through tears. Zero was wild, yelling at her. I was enraged, I yelled back.” He pushed himself into the comfort of distance and behind the iron wall where no feeling could penetrate.
Until Shana spoke. “Dane I’m so ...”
“Don’t,” he snapped. His distance vanished. The gut-twisting pain sharpened.
“I demanded—then begged—to meet him and give him whatever he wanted. Zero laughed.” Dane stared off into the distance, past the stricken faces of his friends and took a deep breath, preparing himself as best he could, knowing it wouldn’t be enough, and continued.
“The next thing I heard was the cries and the blood-curdling screams of my baby. Then bashing sounds like someone was beating a pinata. Except it wasn’t a pinata.
” His words were rushed now and his voice tight and he ignored the horror on his friends’ faces and Shana’s clench of his arm and Madeline’s involuntary cry of pain as she clamped her hand over her mouth.
He pushed on, now compulsively, not able to stop, like the rush of words would ward off the pain.
“The line stayed live long enough for us to track the call and race there. It was a deserted warehouse. Zero was long gone, although they ended up picking him up at the airport. They—my unit—wouldn’t let me near him for my own good.
They didn’t want to see me put away for murder.
But they didn’t put him in solitary right away.
And they did spread some pictures around.
“The pictures were of Delilah taken when we found her—what was left of her small body and smashed skull. Her face had been preserved as if they wanted to make sure I knew it was her for sure. I’d rushed into the warehouse and smelled the death and saw the stream of blood before I saw her body.
And the pipe next to it covered in blood and brain matter. ”
He heard a strangled cry and turned to Shana then and saw the tears streaming down her face.
Dane told the story for everyone—Peter, Madeline, Joe—but it was meant mostly for her.
And they all cried as he kept a stone face.
He put his cup down on the coffee table and stood, almost surprised his body was mechanically sound.
He was not wracked with the strangling pain that had been creeping in on him—not yet anyway.
He waited for it, backing up a step, away from them.
He was finished telling them his story and he needed to be gone—to be alone when the pain shut him down.
But for this moment he felt like he had that night—like a cold force had suddenly turned him into a petrified hulk.
*****
Shana reached out to him when he stood and felt him retreating and couldn’t stand it.
When he backed away she stood up and hugged his unrelenting solidness, felt his stony reserve.
She held on because she felt a tremor, a small one underneath the reserve and knew he would crack.
She pulled him from the room insisting that she—they—needed some air. No one questioned her.
By the time she got him outside, she was the strong solid one with the stony determination. And he dissolved.
He collapsed onto the cold cement patio and dragged her with him and cried in her hair until it was soaked with his tears and he begged her forgiveness—when he was really begging the forgiveness of Delilah.
She held onto him and spoke soft reassuring utterances—not even words except she said love more than once in sorrow and pain and wanted to rip her heart out and give it to him right then to replace his broken one.
His heart had been torn to pieces all those years ago and she’d made him relive it as if it were yesterday.
She cried with him and held onto him fiercely for an eternity—everything suspended—trying to send her healing energy to him through sheer force of will.
She wasn’t one to be into New Age voodoo, but she hoped to heaven whatever strength she had she could give to this man.
Right here and now. After minutes that seemed like forever, as she stroked the hair from his face, his pained, handsome, legendary face, and her chest squeezed one more time, he pulled back.
His sobs let up. She still held on. When he met her eyes, thoughts flooded her mind.
Shana didn’t want to ask what happened to the baby’s mother but, damn her, she burned to know.
Was she a jealous competitive woman even at this moment?
But Dane had been more in love with the baby than the mother, he’d made it clear—or it could have been, in retrospect, how he wanted to remember it.
His eyes held hers with an intensity that made her feel like it was her in all that pain. The pain was so raw...
Then she realized he’d never let it out before. The stream of her tears trickled to a stop. She forced herself to speak. Her voice felt and sounded raspy, like rock scraping against rock.
“You—what did you do—when you saw her?” She gritted her teeth and steeled herself to go through the catharsis with him.
He didn’t speak. One tick and then two, then three went by and she felt her heart beat harder and louder, insisting in a visceral way that he speak, that he go through this all the way to the end.
She squeezed his shoulders, gripping hard, digging in her fingers and saying nothing, but willing him to continue from a level too deep inside to give voice to. Until now.
He cleared his throat as though he’d emerged from a smoke-filled dungeon and she saw some spark in his eyes along with the anguish. He spoke in a rusty, stricken voice.
“When I saw her...” He bowed his head and she grasped his chin with one hand and pulled it up to force him to look at her, still saying nothing.
“I stopped short. I just stopped. It was like I turned to stone. Once I saw her face. It was like I turned into a hunk of stone and had not one shred of humanity in me from that moment.” He stopped and put his hand over hers and she slipped it off his face with reluctance.
But he didn’t look away. Tears streamed from his eyes again but she doubted he noticed it.
It almost killed her to watch, but she forced herself not to react.
Except her chest tightened so that she could hardly breathe, so she forced herself to breathe deeper, trying not to be obvious.
He’d stopped talking for a couple of beats so she gave him a raised brow to prompt him along. He responded.
“At some point, I unfroze, though I still felt like a hunk of stone—or a robot. I approached her very slowly like if I didn’t step carefully the whole world would crack under my feet and I’d be swallowed up.
I made it to her side—her eyes were open.
” He lowered his head, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed.
Shana leaned in and hugged her arms around him with a terrible fierceness while she gritted her teeth and made a futile effort to keep her own tears at bay. The horror gripped her gut and twisted so she held him tighter and let the feel of him in her arms and against her chest console her.
Shana was almost surprised when he pushed away, tears still streaming, and continued.
“I remember bending down and closing her beautiful baby blue eyes. And then she looked peaceful—like she’d always looked when she slept.
And that was the last I saw her. I didn’t go to the funeral.
I left town.” He rubbed his hands across his face and then his sleeve and blinked away the last tear until when he looked back at her he was a semblance of the hardass he’d always been.
The hardass with the stricken lost boy under the layers of toughness.
The essence of Dane Blaise, the legend, that kept her by his side.
“Didn’t they make you see a shrink after that?” She needed to know. “What happened to you?”
“I self-medicated for a long while. And I hardened—yes, even harder than I had been before, which was damn tough.”
She prompted with her eyebrow raise again.
“And I decided I was never, ever, ever going to have children of my own. Ever.”
She decided to let that issue lie. It wasn’t of any consequence to her, was it?
“What finally got you out of your... funk?”
She watched a contrite look of boyish vulnerability pass over his face and he said, “My mother.”
She nodded.
He said, “But not how you think.”
“I think your mother felt guilty as hell and you knew you had to get your act together to help her get rid of her guilt.”
Dane stared at her with that look he gave her sometimes—as if she were Wonder Woman.
He said, “It was easier that she never knew... Delilah.” He still choked on the baby’s name and Shana thought instantly of Paulette.
He continued. “Never knew the gory details, never saw the pictures. No one ever saw the pictures outside of our unit—except a few prison guards and prisoners.” He gave her an evil, satisfied smile that was not a smile.
“Not her mother.” Shana knew the answer. He nodded. She once again resisted asking what happened to Delilah’s mother. “And you vowed you would never take a baby case. Ever.”
He nodded. “This is not the first baby case I’ve refused. It’s my Achilles’ heel.”
Then he swiped at his face and said, “Every legend has an Achilles’ heel, don’t they?” He gave her that smile and her own tears subsided and he pulled her in for another hug.
“But I have you, Shana, girlie. I have you, don’t I?” He whispered it into her ear with an edge of desperation under the charm.
“Yes, damn it. You have me.”
He laughed. Then he unfolded himself from the heap and stood and held a hand to her.
“What now?” she said.
“We...” he collected himself and almost gulped before finishing, “we protect Paulette until we hand her over to the FBI.”
Shana turned away. She didn’t want him to see her tears now. They were tears of disappointment.
She walked back inside with Dane a few steps behind her and wasn’t surprised to see Joe, Peter, and Madeline still there, still drinking coffee.
“I’ll have more of that coffee,” she said. She wouldn’t sleep this night anyway.
“Make that two coffees,” Dane said from behind her. “We’ll be turning Paulette and this case over to the FBI tomorrow, but the night isn’t over yet.”
*****
Shana whipped around. Peter stood and they all converged around the coffee pot. Dane felt drained and energized at the same time, but he knew from experience it was the adrenaline talking and it wouldn’t last. He’d have to make it last long enough.
“What do you have in mind?” Peter asked.
“I have in mind a visit to my old friend. I believe he lives in the area—I keep track of old friends like him,” Dane said.
Joe nodded. “If you mean ex-KGB Colonel Anatoly Ivanov—or Colonel in the new Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, depending what year it is and who’s asking.
He’s listed in the file and his address is 32 Willow Park, Chestnut Hill.
Nice address. His granddaughter is a student at Boston College. ”
“That’s why he lives in the area. To protect her? Or did he get sentimental in his old age?” Shana asked.
“We’ll ask him,” Dane said. Her stomach did a flip and the rush of pleasure made her knees wobble like a twelve-year-old getting her first kiss. Dane had said we—he’d included her. They were still partners.
“Granddaughter’s relation to Spartak’s?” Dane asked Joe, avoiding her smile.
“She’s his cousin,” Joe said.
Dane looked speculative and said, “There’s more to this story than we’ve uncovered. I have a feeling we’re missing something big here. It doesn’t add up somehow.”
Shana nodded agreement, then ducked out to the ladies’ room. He watched her until she disappeared from sight and Peter caught his attention.
“Keep your phone on—we’ll be tracking you and waiting for a backup call if you need us,” Peter said. “I’ll call David. He’ll join us for coffee.” Peter smiled.
Joe said, “I’ll get you some ... provisions.”
Dane nodded. Joe might be quiet, but he had a quick, practical mind, especially for details.
He clapped Joe on the back as the man walked by.
Their eyes met in mutual understanding and respect.
Dane felt that deep-down certainty that he and Shana would be backed up no matter what.
No matter if the FBI gave them hell for messing up their operation.
*****
Shana turned and gave the group a last look before going through the door in Dane’s wake. He let go of her arm, but that was only because his magnetic hold on her had taken over once again. She felt its irresistible pull. And knew he was damn well aware of it.
Now that she had her investigator’s thinking cap back on, the distraction of worrying about Dane was pushed aside for the moment.
She’d been troubled ever since Marian described the girl with Mr. Cool as a dark-eyed Latina type.
Father Donahue’s description of one of the possible mothers was a dark Latina type too.
But Paulette’s coloring was lighter and she had blue eyes.
Father Donahue had dark eyes. And the priest wasn’t sure who the mother was.
Could they be looking for the wrong woman?
Dane picked up a paper with the address written on it, took Shana by the arm again, and headed toward the car. Today, this moment, she didn’t mind Dane’s hold on her. It felt comforting and right. He seemed to need to hold onto her. As much as she needed to be held onto.
Joe was busy loading the car up with some things—provisions from the pantry, whatever that meant—and Shana knew there was a gun or two included. She was already armed, but extras never hurt.
“You might need these.” Joe closed the backdoor of the car and tossed them a set of keys. Dane caught them with his hand like he’d been playing first base all his life.