Page 64 of When You Are Mine

“Kris.” Martin rhythmically rubbed comfort into the tense muscles of Kristeene’s narrow back. “He’s not dead.”

“Hisfinger, Martin. They’ve cut off his finger. Oh, God, they’ll kill him. Just pay the damn ransom.”

“It’s exactly because of this that I’m not giving in to their ransom.”

Kerris watched Martin put enough distance between him and his ex-wife to look into her face so she could read the confidence in his.

“We can’t trust them to do what they say they will, Kris. We just can’t.”

Jo was weeping softly into Cam’s shoulder while he stood completely still, his eyes averted from the ghastly sight of the photo. Kerris leaned in closer, peering at the gruesome picture again, forcing the bile back down her throat long enough to concentrate all of her attention on the disembodied finger.

“That’s not his finger,” Kerris said, so softly no one acknowledged her comment for a moment.

When her words finally penetrated the chaos surrounding them, Martin Bennett looked at Kerris, sitting at the counter still as a corpse.

“What did you say?” Martin eyed the leather and wood bracelet, exactly like Walsh’s, wrapped around Kerris’s fragile wrist. “Who are you?”

To my son.

Though he left the words unspoken, Kerris heard them, even if no one else did.

“I…I’m Cam’s wife. And Walsh’s friend.” She tugged on the bracelet that had garnered his full attention. “I said that’s not Walsh’s finger.”

“Of course it is, Kerris.” Jo’s voice was weary and thick with tears. “You know that’s his stuff.”

“Yes, it’s his stuff.” Kerris nodded and then shook her head, equally adamant. “But that’s not his finger.”

She glanced at Martin Bennett’s hand still stroking Kristeene’s back in an ancient rhythm of consolation.

“Thoseare Walsh’s fingers.”

Martin looked over Kristeene’s shoulder at his hands, holding them out for inspection. Walsh had his hands, his fingers, and the finger in the photo was too dark, too short, too stubby.

“She’s right.” Martin’s stern mouth hitched, his only concession since he’d walked in the room. “They placed someone else’s finger with Walsh’s things.”

Kristeene turned back toward the photo, studying it more closely before closing her eyes, tears streaking down her sunken cheeks.

“Not his finger,” Kristine mumbled through trembling lips.

“They’re playing games, Kris.” Martin grabbed her chin and forced her to meet his eyes. To look into his eyes. “Nobody mind-fucks me. Certainly not these pieces of shit. Forget the government. They can’t even balance a budget, much less fly under the radar long enough to find my son. We’ll work through my contacts.”

“Just bring him home.” Kristeene leaned forward until her forehead flopped against Martin’s broad chest.

Kerris watched, fascinated and bewildered by Martin’s tenderness. His hand stroked the soft hair constrained at Kristeene’s neck. These two people, whom everyone considered combatants, genuinely cared deeply about each other. The potential for battle crackled between them at every turn, yes, but the intimacy they had fallen back into was like a favorite garment lost at the back of your closet, once rediscovered still fitting, still beloved. Comfortable. Right.

Kerris could almost see Martin galvanize himself, squeezing his ex-wife’s hand before scanning the faces turned to him with varying degrees of expectation and despondency. His eyes settled, inexplicably, on Kerris, seated at the counter, resting her hand on the photo of Walsh’s effects, like it was a conductor to his soul, sending her strength and resolve and hope to him.

“I’ll bring him back,” he said to the room, but looking directly into Kerris’s eyes, every inch the buccaneer, ready to impose the violence of his will on all who opposed him.

Kerris took heart and almost felt a pang of sympathy for Walsh’s captors.

Almost.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mange!”

The gruff voice was followed by a cracked bowl of beans and rice sliding across the floor to Walsh. He gulped back the nausea he had fought for the last two days. He assumed it had been two days. They’d taken his watch and there were no windows in this rank hole. It wasn’t the rats and roaches he could hear scurrying around him that caused his stomach to turn and his skin to crawl. They’d shot Paul, the missionary from the orphanage the foundation had considered funding. It was the stench of Paul’s corpse beside him that sickened him. In addition to the rot of early-stage decomposition, his body had expelled its final waste, and it puddled around him. The poor man had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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