Chapter Nineteen
An hour later Ren was calling himself every foul name he could think of. He’d expected Natalie’s anger. For her to fume, scream, throw a few punches at him.
He would’ve gladly taken them over her blankness.
He hadn’t been making it up when he’d told the press they’d needed a thorough examination by the medics.
The doctor had winced at the ugly sight of the stitches in his shoulder, but had declared that they would do the job.
It would just mean that Ren would always have a scar there, much more pronounced than it would’ve been if he’d been stitched by a professional in the hospital.
Ren had a feeling he was going to have much more than just this one scar by the time this mission was over.
The doctor had given him an antibiotic shot to help fight off any remaining infection and declared him in fairly good health, all things considered.
Ren had demanded to see Natalie immediately. He needed to talk to her. To explain.
As if she hadn’t figured it out already by herself.
Panic had him entering the room where she was being examined immediately after knocking. Like him, Natalie had been given a new set of clothes. She was facing the opposite direction, pulling a sweater down over her back.
A back covered in bruises.
“What the hell is wrong with your back?” he growled.
Natalie pulled the sweater the rest of the way down, spinning toward him.
“I realize you’re in charge of this operation, Agent McClement,” the Omega medic said. “But please wait for permission to enter an examination room in the future.”
Ren ignored the doctor. “What’s wrong with your back?” he asked Natalie.
Her eyes just stared at him. No anger. Just blankness. Totally withdrawn. She sat down in a chair and began putting on tennis shoes that had been provided for her.
She obviously wasn’t going to answer so he turned to the medic. “What happened?”
He didn’t look like he was going to answer, either, so Ren took a quiet step forward. “You can either tell me now, or I can read your report in an hour, which will be your last here before you start looking for a new job. If she’s injured I need to know about it for this operation.”
And because how the hell had he not known she was hurt?
“Ms. Anderson has extensive bruising on her back, shoulders and hips from repeated contact with the ground. Painful, but nothing that won’t heal in the next few days.”
Ren turned to Natalie. “How did you come in constant contact with the ground enough to bruise that much?”
She didn’t answer, just kept messing with her shoelaces like they contained the answer to every mystery in the universe, although she still hadn’t tied them.
He turned back to the medic.
“Evidently it took concerted effort to get you from the frozen river, back to the cabin. Ms. Anderson didn’t have the strength to get you there on her own, so she used momentum and gravity to move you forward.
Unfortunately that meant throwing herself onto the ground over and over. So...extensive bruising.”
Ren ran a hand over his face. “Thank you.”
He moved to crouch down in front of Natalie, who was still messing with her shoelaces. Gently brushing her fingers aside, he tied her shoes for her, then placed his hands on her ankles until she finally looked at him.
What rested behind those blue eyes was just as bruised as her back and hips, if not more so. He had known it wouldn’t be easy to explain what he’d done, why they needed her help to catch her ex.
But he never dreamed it would put this look in her eyes. Haunted. Empty.
Bruised.
“Peaches...”
She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was hoarse as if she’d screamed until it had broken. “Don’t you dare call me that.”
Ren turned back to look at the medic. “Are you done here? Can she and I talk alone?”
The man nodded and walked out. Ren stepped back and leaned against the table.
“I work for—”
“Omega Sector. Yeah, I figured that part out already.”
“How?”
She looked at him before turning to study the wall. “I saw that couple, Brandon and Andrea, who were at the Santa Barbara house last week, during the press conference. I saw the guy who hit on me on the train there, too, so I’m assuming it was all a setup. No real train accident.”
He nodded. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“I suppose I should be glad nobody died. Although I’ve been so caught up getting laid that it wasn’t like I really cared, anyway.”
Ren gripped the table forcefully. “Don’t you dare talk about yourself—what we shared—that way. You thought you were surviving. There was no shame in what you did or how you reacted.”
“I’m sure you see it that way,” she whispered, looking away.
“I mean it. You want to be mad at me for what I did, how I deceived you, that’s fine. You have every right. But you did nothing wrong.”
He wished she would get mad at him. Anything would be better than this blankness. A shell of the woman he knew.
I completely lost myself. I was the perfect shell.
Tendrils of memories flowed through his mind. Words she’d said while he was in and out of the fever.
“Natalie, Omega Sector is a powerful law enforcement agency. The best of the very best. We’re going to protect you.”
She just shook her head.
“Three weeks ago your ex-husband was part of a plan that would’ve killed tens of thousands of people if Omega hadn’t stopped him.
Freihof has also been responsible for the killing or wounding of multiple agents and civilians over the last few months.
When we discovered you were alive we thought we might be able to obtain a clue about his whereabouts. ”
Now she looked at him. “I don’t know where he is. I’ve spent the last six years hiding from him in case he figured out I was alive.”
“I know that now, but I didn’t at the time. You were staying in a million-dollar beach house, going to work in fancy office buildings each day. It looked like maybe you were either working with Freihof or providing for him in some way.”
“I wasn’t,” she whispered.
“I know,” Ren repeated. He could feel his heart ripping in two.
“And we were going to follow you, talk to you, see what happened and how you might possibly help us catch him. Then we discovered that Damien had obtained biological weapons. We were out of time. We needed to use any and all means necessary to find him.”
“Including this elaborate plan involving me.”
“Especially you. He’s always been obsessed with you. His attacks on Omega Sector, killing agents and their loved ones, were in direct retaliation for what he thought Omega SWAT did to you at that bank six years ago. They were the ones who came in to fight against the robbers.”
Her fingers covered her eyes. “That SWAT team saved my life by nicking me in the head. I have no doubt I’d be dead right now at Damien’s hand if not for what happened.”
It was time to tell her everything.
“Andrea and Brandon came to see you, to ascertain if you knew anything, or if you’d be willing to help. They still weren’t sure if you had ties to your ex when they left. But mostly we put them in play to get you to run. To shake you up.”
She laughed, the sound hollow. “You certainly did that.”
“We set up the crash to see if you would call Freihof when there was an emergency. When you were sure there wasn’t anybody following.”
“Except you.”
He nodded. “Except me. I was hoping I’d come across as a nice enough guy that you wouldn’t worry that I was law enforcement.”
“That I would accept that you were just a Montana sheep farmer.” She laughed again, hysteria lacing the sound. “God, I’m the biggest idiot on the planet.”
Ren crouched down at her feet again. “No. My parents do have a sheep farm in Montana. I don’t work there, but—”
“Is your name even Ren?”
“Ren McClement. Just Ren, not Warren. Although many people assume it’s a shortened name. Thompson is my mother’s maiden name.” He touched her ankles again, then let them go when she flinched. “It didn’t take me long to figure out that you had nothing to do with Freihof or his actions.”
“And once you did that? Then what was your grand plan?”
He strung his fingers through his hair. “First, I wanted to make sure you didn’t know anything—details—subconsciously. So I just tried to talk to you.”
“While I was painting.”
“Yes. Then—I swear, Natalie—I was taking you out to show you that river so you could see something beautiful, a place I would always remember and wanted you to remember, too. Wanted you to paint, before I told you what we needed you to do back here with the press. But then that damned mountain lion and the fever...”
“You should’ve told me, Ren,” she whispered. “Once you woke up. You should’ve told me.”
“I know. I wanted to. But we were out of time. I had been unconscious much longer than I’d thought. Homeland Security was sending agents out to detain you as a hostile subject. They would’ve thrown you in a cell.”
“But I have nothing to do with Damien!”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, not to them—they would’ve detained you indefinitely.
There were three agents already at the cabin when we left.
They should be getting rescued from the woodshed where I tied them up right about now.
I couldn’t let them take you. And then I had to get you here in front of the cameras so they couldn’t arrest you, because now the plan is already in play. ”
She just shook her head and looked over to the side. Ren stayed where he was, crouched down in front of her, unable to bear to put distance between them, afraid they’d never be close again.
Not that he could blame her.
“I would’ve told you, Natalie. I promise. I just ran out of time. We needed your help. Freihof has to be stopped before he can use those biological weapons.”
“And the lovemaking? Where did that fall in your great scheme? Since it seems like you planned everything down to the letter.”