FIVE #2
Then Monk’s hand shot up. “Wait! What is that?”
Everyone turned toward him.
“Separate the layers.”
Dante didn’t hesitate, fingers flying over the keys.
It took two tries, but a few seconds later, the recording split into only the voice.
Then only the background.
In two war rooms on opposite sides of the country, the sounds of a restaurant drifted through the speakers. Dishes. Conversation.
Then came a voice too familiar to ignore. Jolie.
“Stina, you got this. Approach slow. You do not want to touch a hot pan to the customer’s arm.”
Every person in the room froze, and then another voice answered—strong and confident, absolutely certain of herself in a way Rome had been hearing in his head for more hours than he cared to.
“I got this.”
“Fuck! It’s Stina and Jolie,” he grated out.
Across the table, Monk’s intense stare collided with his.
Cannon jerked a hand toward Monk. “Get them.”
Monk shot out of his chair and stormed out, bellowing. “Jolie! Stina! We need you in here—” He broke off and stared down at the floor.
Rome bit off a groan. When Jolie first arrived on base, they found her sitting outside the war room.
A lot. It didn’t shock him at all when she entered with Stina right behind her.
While Jolie had the grace to look a little guilty, Stina held her head high in a haughty, self-assured way that matched her tone on the recording.
Cannon scraped a hand down his face. “Dear god. Now we have two of them.”
Stina saw the screen with the Charlie team and her gaze darted around the room to land on Rome.
Stina’s eyes widened in defiance, but he saw the depths flash with that same fear he’d seen right before he pulled the hood over her head.
Her delicate throat worked as she swallowed hard.
Rome took a step toward her, instinct drawing him closer the instant uncertainty stole across her face.
“You need to listen to this.”
* * * * *
The audio played a second time, and Stina wished somebody would shut it off.
She gripped Jolie’s hand as the voice filled the room, low and distorted, the words scraped clean of anything human. It sounded as if the person had been dragged through a machine and spit out wrong.
Jolie turned her head and met Stina’s gaze. The horror in her friend’s eyes punched the breath from Stina’s lungs because she felt it too.
“You remember him,” Jolie whispered.
She nodded, the motion jerky and disconnected from the rest of her body. Her mouth opened once and closed again before anything came out. “That’s him. That’s the guy. He was one of my first tables after you started training me.”
Around her, the room carried the same tightly wound tension she used to feel before one of her ex-boyfriends snapped.
Archer caught Jolie’s hand and moved in close enough to shield her with his body. At the same time, Stina felt more than saw Rome doing the same.
The voice looped again, and Stina’s stomach rolled. Words began to spill out. “He came in alone. Jolie, was it a booth?”
“Yes. Corner booth near the back.”
“Yes. Right. Corner booth. He ordered pizza.” Stina pressed shaky fingers to her forehead, as if she could force the memory into a better order. “I dropped it on him.”
Heads snapped her direction, but she felt Rome’s stare most of all. “You dropped pizza on him?”
Despite the sick feeling in her gut, she shot him a dark look because she didn’t appreciate being judged for waitress crimes. “I heard that voice—and I jumped.”
Neither Blackout team said a word. After a long beat, the man at the head of the table glanced between her and Jolie.
“Enough,” Cannon said. “I need clean stories from each of you. I’m splitting you up. I don’t want either account shaped by the other. Rivers, you take Jolie. Question her.”
“Question?” Stina all but cried.
“Rome, you question Stina.”
Panic crashed over her. She looked to Jolie for reassurance, only to find her friend looked just as alarmed.
Rivers appeared beside Jolie and touched her elbow. She let him guide her away, but she kept looking back at Archer in a way that made Stina’s chest tighten.
When someone touched Stina’s arm, she jerked around to find Rome standing beside her. His fingers closed gently around her arm, nothing like the firm grip he’d used to guide her out of the helicopter.
Without a word, he led her into the adjoining room and quietly closed the door behind them.
She looked at her surroundings—concrete walls, a table and two hard, stiff chairs.
He watched her for a moment, probably assessing whether she was about to bolt or scream.
She lifted her chin. “I’m not going to break.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You looked it.”
“I looked like I was waiting.”
“For what?”
“For you to breathe.”
His words punched the air out of her.
The room blurred for a second, and suddenly the past two days rolled over her.
The dead agent. The crash.
The “friendly” drone, as if it were only flying over to take photos of cute puppies.
The hood. The base. The audio.
That voice.
Her hand moved before she thought better of it.
She reached for Rome.
Her fingers caught the edge of his shirt, curling around his hard bicep because she needed something solid to hold on to.
For half a second, she thought he’d pull away.
He didn’t.
Rome shifted closer, and his hand clamped around hers—big, warm and steady enough to make her hate how much she needed it.
He settled her in a chair and sat across from her. She immediately shot out a hand and he took it.
“Start with where you were standing.” His voice was pitched low, almost soothing.
She focused on the shape of his fingers around hers. On the command that didn’t feel like an order this time.
She told him about the corner booth, the pizza, the voice, the way the man had looked at her after she dropped the tray.
“Tell me about the modulated voice.”
She nodded. “When he ordered, he didn’t sound that way. He never looked up when Jolie and I walked over, and when he spoke again…” She swallowed. “It came out like one of those horror-movie voices. The same wrong, creepy, inhuman thing. It’s why I still remember him.”
Rome watched her carefully. “And you’re certain that voice on the recording is the same?”
“Absolutely.”
The answer came fast enough to surprise even her.
Stina’s fingers were starting to sweat, but Rome didn’t let go. His touch anchored her as the memory opened wider in her mind.
Suddenly she could smell pizza dough and marinara sauce. Could hear customers talking over one another. The sensation of the weight of the tray balanced on her hand was so strong, she rubbed her free hand over her borrowed jeans.
“I jumped when I heard the voice.” She met Rome’s stare again.
His dark gray eyes could be as cold as steel, but right now…they were something else.
She pulled in a deep breath. “He scared the crap out of me, and I dropped the pizza.”
Rome’s expression didn’t change. “What else can you remember? Was there anything on the table in front of him? Equipment of any kind?”
“I-I think he had his phone out. But everyone uses their phone, especially when they’re eating alone.”
He nodded. “Tell me about dropping the pizza.”
“The pizza slid right off the tray.” She made a helpless gesture. “The whole thing. It landed on his hand and arm.”
“Burn him?”
She nodded. “Those things are blistering when they come fresh out of the oven. He jumped up and started freaking out, waving his arms. I thought he was going to hit me.”
Rome locked his angular jaw.
She groaned and covered her face. “My manager was furious. It was only my second day on the floor. I thought I was getting fired right there. The restaurant offered to cover everything,” she continued.
“Medical bills. Dry cleaning. Whatever he needed. We gave him paperwork and told him to bring us the receipts.”
“Did he?”
“No.” She shook her head. “That’s the weird part. He stormed out, but he never came back. Never called. Never sent bills. Never even told us where to send compensation, and no lawyers ever contacted the restaurant.”
By the time she finished, her throat ached from holding back emotion. Hearing that voice was…
She shuddered, and Rome tightened his hold on her hand. His stare fixed on her, like he decided at that moment, he was her anchor.
“My manager put me on probation for longer than normal. Like probation-plus.”
Rome huffed out what might have been the closest thing he’d ever come to a laugh. “Probation-plus?”
“I think he invented it just for me.”
“You do have that effect on people.”
The corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
Then the smile faded as the memory settled back over her. She told him everything she remembered about the way the customer sounded, how he loomed over her and how when he screamed in her face, it wasn’t the robotic voice.
Her words tangled, and Rome’s thumb gently grazed over the back of her hand. It probably was nothing—an accident. But her body latched on to the comfort, and she reached for his other hand.
He stared at her open palm, but he didn’t move to take it.
In a sudden move, he released her and pushed away from the table. Before her mind could catch up, he strode to the door.
“Stay here. I need to debrief with Cannon.”
He walked out, leaving her to stare at his back.
That was it?
He’d let her borrow his strength long enough to get through the telling of an ugly moment she’d never expected to relive. Then, the second the mission no longer required it, he put the distance back between them?
She didn’t know what she’d even say, assuming he gave her a chance to say it.
Don’t go. Stay. Thanks.
You’re a jerk.
Any of those might have worked.
Stina sat alone in the cold little room with her hand still half-curled around the place where his had been.
Somehow, she felt worse than before.