Page 63 of Thorn

Lynx had insisted that he be here. And he bet Lynx had seen in his eyes that this mission felt different to him.

That kind of pissed him off.

It made the situation dangerous. Emotions weredangerous.

When Thorn turned his gaze back on the screen, Lynx was hard focused on him. “I’ll be happy to debrief in private when you get home. You and me. And you can tell me all about how ticked off you are.”

Nutsbe scratched his head. “Our boy is a little moody. I’d say he needed to get laid but…” He stopped to make a show of looking at his watch. “It’s just over the twenty-four-hour mark.”

Lynx rolled her eyes.

“Moving on.” Thorn mouthed into the comms. “Lynx, I think it should be you who talks to her, a woman’s voice.”

“What language though? She’s speaking in Russian and that’s not one of my languages.”

“If you were here, you could see how agitated and twitchy she is. I don’t want to lose this window.”

“Nutsbe said that when Brigitte called through the door she was speaking in Arabic,” Lynx said. “If Juliette is Syrian, Arabic might be the most comfortable language for her, I’ll try that. Can you hold the computer, so I can read her face as I talk to her?”

Thorn tapped the phone call off and put his cell phone back in his pocket. He angled the computer and checked to make sure that Juliette’s face was on the screen.

“I probably need more light.” Lynx was still talking into the comms in his ear, and Juliette couldn’t hear her yet.

Thorn hesitated but turned on the overhead and was pleased to find it was a low wattage bulb. It didn’t rouse Juliette.

“If this is before the accident, she may not be Juliette yet,” Thorn said. “Don’t use a name.”

“Right, okay. Here we go.” The next time Lynx spoke, it was a soft encouraging voice in Arabic. Thorn thought her accent was west African, Moroccan maybe.

“I’m looking for you,” Lynx said. “Where are you?”

“Snow.” Juliette swiveled her head around as if she were looking at a panorama.

“Are you alone?”

“George.”

“Is it my friend George? What is George’s last name?”

“George Matthews.” Louder this time. Desperation. Pain. “I can’t…” Tears trickled past the veil of her lashes.

“Is George Matthews hurt?”

Juliette moaned and gripped at the sheets.

Lynx changed tacks. “I love whales. Are whales important to you?”

“CHAMP.”

Lynx repeated. “Champ.”

“CHAMP…stop CHAMP…stop ships…stop pain…” Her agitation increased. She kicked at her sheets and blanket, writhing around.

Thorn was worried that she’d pull out her IV. His phone buzzed. Balancing the computer in one hand, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket. An unknown number had texted. He used his thumb to swipe it open, only vaguely listening to Lynx trying to pry fever induced words from Juliette. He was looking at dark pictures of a car, trying to make sense of what they showed, wondering who had sent them.

“You’re safe here. You’re with friends. That’s over,” Lynx said.

The next picture that popped up on Thorn’s phone must have been to show him the street signs. That was one block down. The third picture focused on a car make and license.Who sent these?The next pictures turned his blood cold.

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