Page 32 of So Insane

Maybe she wasn’t broken. Maybe she was just fed up with being stronger than everyone around her.

He sighed and said, “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She blinked in shock. She lowered her gaze and said softly, “It’s okay. I’m sorry I kept going. I just…”

She didn't finish that sentence, and Michael decided not to press her. "I don't think it's Tooley," he said instead. "He's a prick, that's for sure, but I buy that he didn't see anyone else up there."

“So do I,” Faith said. “It doesn’t fit with his profile. He’s all about profit. There’s no profit in dragging a hostage through the mountains.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Michael agreed. “We’re going to let him roast a bit and then see if he noticed anything we might find useful, but odds are, he’ll be on the next bus to Florence.”

“Good riddance,” she said viciously.

Michael averted his eyes and sipped his coffee. Faith looked out the window, resuming her pensive stare. Michael was less than a yard from her, but he might as well have been a thousand miles away.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Faith could see the compassion in Michael’s eyes. It stung her terribly and brought none of the relief she expected such an emotion to bring.

Because she would hurt him again. She would hurt all of them again. Because to her, nothing mattered more right now than bringing West to justice. She hoped that Michael would join her when they returned home, but if he didn’t, she would still go after him.

She had to.

Turk opened his eyes and blinked slowly. Faith looked down at him and noticed a healthy sprinkling of gray in his muzzle. Had that been there before?

She reached down and scratched him behind his ears. He closed his eyes and made a sound that reminded Faith a lot of a cat's purr, though she would never tell him that.

She smiled and said, “I’m so glad you came back to me, boy. I’m so glad you’re all right.”

He made another purring sound, and Faith chuckled. She dropped to her knees and hugged him tight for a moment. He leaned against her chest and looked up at her with the most beautiful brown eyes she’d ever seen. “I love you, boy.”

She held him and watched the sunrise through the window until the glare became too bright. Then she stood and poured herself another cup of coffee. She hadn’t slept in over two days, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could manage this pace.

As long as she had to. That was the answer. That was always the answer.

She looked at Turk and saw true compassion in his eyes, compassion not tainted with pity, which was really just contempt in disguise. “I just lost it up there, Turk,” she admitted quietly. “He was trying to hurt me, and I saw West and…” Even with Turk she hesitated before admitting the next part, “and I saw Trammell. I saw the Donkey Killer, and I just lost it. I can say that it was justified, and it was. He was going to kill me. But I can also say that it was an excessive use of force because the reality was I had him controlled after the first few blows. I could have just cuffed him then. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to hurt him first.”

Turk didn’t say anything, of course, but the love in his eyes was enough for Faith. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do, boy," she said. "What happens after we get West? I'm afraid…" she hesitated again. "I'm afraid that I've made stopping West so important to me that when I finally do stop him, I'll have nothing left."

She fell silent then and stared pensively out the window.

Turk stared at her. Faith didn’t meet his gaze, but she could feel his love. People had called dog’s humankind’s best friend for thousands of years, and they were right to do that. Turk had recovered completely from West’s torture because all Turk needed was Faith. He had her, so all was right with the world, and it didn’t matter to him that a man who had beaten and nearly killed him before kidnapping him and doing God knows what else to him was still out there somewhere. He was with Faith, and that was all that mattered.

Faith wished it was so simple for her.

The door to the breakroom opened, and Michael rushed in. "We got a call from the search party," he said. "They're waiting for us at the cave. They found Tyler Stone's body."

***

Tyler Stone's days of slacking off and disappointing his parents were over. He lay on the floor of a small cavern a half-mile or so into the cave network. He looked like a horror movie. One side of his face was missing the skin, and most of his left arm, along with part of his torso, had been picked to the bone. Faith would have believed that he died of dehydration or from falling down one of the shafts or tunnels if not for several deep wounds in his chest and abdomen that could only have come from a sharp object being thrust repeatedly into his body.

“Rats must have got him,” Jones opined. “They’re all over these caves.”

“How long has he been here?” Faith asked.

“Looks like he was left here last night,” Jones said. “CSIs followed a trail of blood down about a mile before they reached a dead end.”

“So where did he come from?” Michael asked.

---