Chapter 12
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T ucker turned the phone and hit the icon on the screen. The video started to run.
As they moved through the store, he heard his voice with that hint of Mississippi droning on about the gear. Jesus…did he really sound like that? But at least he was getting the information across to her. She’d been true to her word. There wasn’t a single frame with his face in it.
But there was something else he noticed in the background. A man behind them, following them through the store from a distance. He looked about five eight or nine with straight dark hair and olive skin, but he kept his head turned just enough to make it impossible to get a good glimpse of his face. Tucker couldn’t tell if he was following them because he was curious about what they were doing or because he was interested in Brynn.
But then…what man wouldn’t be?
As they neared the check-out counter at the end of their shopping expedition, he caught a clearer glimpse of the guy looking straight at them and paused the video to study him. But even when he froze the image, the man was in motion, and his features were still blurred. Still, there was something familiar about him.
If he called her attention to the guy, how would she react?
The guy could have just been interested in what they were doing, or he may have recognized Brynn from her podcast. There was nothing threatening in his demeanor; otherwise, he’d have approached them.
“When do you plan to upload the video?” he asked.
“Later tonight if you’re okay with it.”
“I’m okay.” He took up his fork again to finish his cheesecake, then set it down again. He needed to know she was cautious. “When you’re on a photo shoot like the one where we met, do you ever hire an assistant to go with you?”
“I have a friend who lives down the hall from me. She acts as my assistant on the weekends and in the afternoons when she doesn’t have class. Her name is Jessica Wilder. She repacks my cameras and lenses, replaces batteries, and switches out SD cards. And she guards my equipment when there’s no one else to look out for it.”
He was relieved she didn’t work alone all the time. “Have you ever had equipment stolen from a shoot?”
“Yes. Only once.” Something in her expression shifted, and she looked away. “It was recovered later, and the memory card was used as evidence of a crime.”
“The guy took pictures after he stole the camera?”
“Yes. Incriminating photos.”
“Not too bright, was he?”
For the first time, she looked at him, and there was a touch of steel in her voice when she said, “No, he wasn’t.”
“Did you get the camera back?”
“Yes. Eventually. But I haven’t used it since. It just felt like…it carried bad karma, so I packed it away in my room at my parent’s house and left it behind when I moved out.”
He could understand that.
“I have to go, Tucker.”
He’d expected it. He was getting too close again. He laid a hand atop hers. “Stay and watch a movie with me.”
Her dark sherry brown eyes moved over his face and some of the tension went out of hers. “Chick Flick, Romantic Comedy, Action Adventure, Horror, Drama, Suspense, or Family?”
He laughed. “Lady’s choice.”
“Chick flicks aren’t my thing. And horror isn’t much on my list either. They’re all gore and not scary most of the time.”
“That leaves Action Adventure, Drama, Suspense, Romantic Comedy, or Family. Let’s go see what’s available on my movie stations.”
They settled on a movie that was both dramatic and suspenseful. Tucker kicked off his shoes and propped his bare feet on the coffee table. When Brynn did the same, he smiled. Her feet were as slender and lean as the rest of her, and her toe nails were painted pale pink, a feminine touch he found a little fascinating.
“Do you always paint your toenails?”
“No. Martin paints my toenails.”
Martin? Who the hell was Martin? A streak of jealousy hit him, and he pushed it back. “I’m up for competition if that’s what Martin is.”
“He’s my next-door neighbor and works for the magazine.”
“Why would Martin paint your toenails?”
Her eyes lit with the amusement reflected in her slight smile. “He finds it relaxing. He’s used to being around women. He was a model when he was younger, and he likes to give me fashion pointers and insists painting my toenails is one of those fashion statements all women should pay attention to.”
“And is Martin gay?” he asked.
She grinned. “Completely.”
He hadn’t realized how tense he was until she murmured that one-word answer. “You’ll have to introduce me to him sometime.”
“Why?”
“Because you two are obviously close, and I want to be close to you, too. Maybe he can give me some pointers.”
Her surprised expression morphed into laughter. “You’re good.”
“You have no idea.”
It had been a while since he’d had an opportunity to flirt. He was thrilled to see color rise in her cheeks.
Try as he might to concentrate on the movie, Tucker found himself watching Brynn instead. Her restless movements when the hero and heroine faced off against the bad guys had him smiling.
As the ending credits ran across the screen, he murmured close to her ear, “That race against time element just does it for me every time.”
“It does it for me, too.” She turned her head to look at him, and their faces were close. “Is it the same when you’re on a mission?”
“Sometimes.”
She bit her bottom lip. “You’ll text or call if you get the call?”
He nodded. “Of course.” He nuzzled her neck, and she shivered.
“I have to go, Tucker.”
“Are you afraid of what might happen if you stay?”
“I leaped into something once, and it didn’t end well.”
He got that more than she knew. Would it set her mind at ease if he told her about his own experience? “I did some leaping myself. She said she was divorced, and I believed her until her husband showed up.”
“Oh my God!”
“Yeah. I felt like an idiot for trusting her and guilty as hell. He was a Marine, so the guilt was tripled because I felt like I’d betrayed a brother and the code.”
“What happened?”
“I slipped out of the house without him seeing me. Not one of my better moments. She called me the next day and wanted to hook up. I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t take what I said too well, called me a bastard, and hung up. Luckily, I haven’t heard from her since.”
“How long had you been seeing her?”
“About a month.” He raked his hand through his hair. “I’m still angry as hell. And I feel sorry for the guy. I thought about going by the house and telling him what she was up to, but I was deployed a week later.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Eight months ago.” He turned toward her. “I should’ve found a way to tell him.”
“That might’ve been a dangerous move, Tucker.”
“Yeah, but it chaps my…” He caught himself. “She got away with cheating on him, and lied to me and tricked me into being a party to it. And what was worse, she wasn’t sorry about it.”
“If it hadn’t been you, it would have been someone else. You were just collateral damage, someone she used to fill something missing inside herself.”
Whoa! Did she get that idea through experience?
She continued. “Cheating is a form of abuse, especially when it’s done as a way to hurt the partner, and that’s what it sounds like she was after. Skipping out like you did before her husband got there to witness it, messed up her plans. You at least spared him that.”
That was one way of looking at it. Was all this coming from first-hand experience?
“Cheaters use their infidelity to tear down their partner’s self-esteem and as a form of manipulation. They even play the blame game. They’ll claim they only did it because their partner drove them to it.”
“Are you speaking from experience, Brynn?”
She shook her head slightly. “It’s just an observation.”
She was silent for a moment, studying her bare feet as though they were fascinating. He sensed she was as far away as she could get and still be in the room. She rose to slip on her shoes.
He stood and fought the urge to try and hold her. In her current mood, that might not be what she needed or wanted. She looked up at him and rested a hand against his chest. There was a practiced casualness in her tone. “The next meal will be on me.”
“Okay.”
“I need to warn you. It probably won’t be anywhere near as good as yours.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
She finally smiled. “Will Friday at six be a good time?”
“Yeah.”
“Have your phone handy?”
“Always.” He retrieved it from the kitchen island.
He opened it for her, and she found her number, then typed in her address. “If something should happen…” she said as she handed it back to him.
“I’ll call or text.”
She rose on tip-toe to brush his cheek with a kiss. “See you Friday.”
He walked her out to her car and watched her drive away. He’d known quite a few women but had never met one nearly as complicated as Brynn. He needed to know what had happened to her. If her heart hadn’t been broken by some cheating asshole, it had to be something worse. Something bad enough she’d traveled twenty-nine hundred miles to get away from it.
He had to know. There was some kind of trauma in her background that made it difficult for her to trust. He had to know what it was so he could combat it.
He entered the house and moved down the hall to his bedroom, where he’d used one corner to set up a home office, which consisted of a desk that held his laptop and a small printer.
The two desk drawers stored his personal files and some copy paper. The shelving unit above it on the wall held memorabilia from his scuba diving adventures and his SEAL career.
He couldn’t trace Brynn through social media since he had no pages himself, but he could do a broader search, and he might find something.
He pulled out the rolling office chair, sat down, and flipped open his laptop. The device came up, and he keyed in his password. He typed in Brynn’s name, and immediately, all the sites he’d already visited displaying her professional information came up.
He began to click on other links and fine-tuned his queries to include the area of Saranac, New York. He scanned local news for several pages, then typed in news, Saranac, New York, with the date four years prior, and her name. After he scrolled through several pages of links, a graphic headline popped up. Local Woman Beaten, Choked, and Left for Dead. Boyfriend arrested.
Tucker clicked on the link, and immediately, a picture of a younger Brynn popped up. “Jesus!” he breathed as shock drove him to his feet. He’d expected something bad, but nothing like this. He paced the length of the room and back again to calm down. The pacing did nothing to ease the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was used to dealing with violence and carnage, but knowing she’d been the target of something like that…
He returned to his seat and opened the story.
Brynn Barrington drove up to Ampersand Mountain for the weekend to take photographs. She checked into the lodge at one in the afternoon on Saturday, October 9th. She left the lodge at two p.m. to hike the trail and take photos. She had almost reached the summit when Chad Gillespie, twenty-eight, her estranged boyfriend, caught up to and confronted her on the path. Gillespie had been served a restraining order a few days before for stalking, terroristic threatening, and abuse and had slipped the ankle monitor the police had tagged him with.
He attacked Brynn on the trail, beat her, choked her with her camera strap, and, believing her dead, tossed her body off the side of the trail onto a ledge.
Driven to his feet again by rage and a feeling of helplessness, Tucker rose to pace again. She’d hate that he’d snooped, that he’d read even that much. He raked his fingers through his hair and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.
He’d answer violence with violence against people trying to kill him, his teammates, or innocent bystanders. He had a few scars from injuries during his deployments. But knowing she’d faced all that turned his stomach.
He sat back down in front of the computer, closed out the story, and instead typed in the Chad Gillespie trial. The guy had to have gone to jail. He clicked through several pages of news stories about the trial. Twenty-five years to life, without the possibility of parole.
“Fuck!” Tucker breathed in frustration and rage.
She’d survived because she was strong. Stronger than she probably realized.
He wished he hadn’t felt compelled to go snooping. He should have waited to let her tell him when she was ready.
She was a private person probably because her privacy had been invaded by news people during the investigation and the court proceedings.
And now, he knew why she’d moved twenty-nine hundred miles to the other side of the country. He also understood why she did the podcast and challenged people to step outside their comfort zone. She was testing herself. Trying to build back part of what she’d lost.
What had she been like before that fucker had attacked her? He’d never know because there was no way for her to wipe away what had happened.
He, too, had things he’d witnessed and experienced that had affected him, but he’d learned to compartmentalize and lock the memories away. Brynn would never be able to do that.
He massaged his temples with his fingertips. She had PTS. Who wouldn’t after that? He’d suspected it all along. So, what could he do to help her without being obvious?
If she found out that he knew before she was ready to tell him, would she walk away?
Probably.
But could he act like he didn’t know anything about what had happened to her?
There were possibilities here for them both. The chemistry was there, the shared drives. And God, she was beautiful, and he wanted her. The way she responded to him…she wanted him.
Maybe they could just ride it out. And maybe with enough time…
But did he want to take all this on? He massaged his temples.
He had forty-eight hours to make a decision.