Page 79 of Casualties of War
Chapter Seventeen
He got up and followed her back through the tight crevasse to the narrow outer cavern. She didn’t linger there, for the sound might carry back to the others. She pushed on through the mouth of the cave, out into the gully.
The nearest sentry saluted. She acknowledged with a nod, then looked around. The nearest trees were all spindly things with bush low to the ground. A singlecypress stood twenty yards away. She took out her handgun and thumbed the safety off. “Over by the big tree,” she told Adán.
They climbed up to the cypress. She stepped over the emerging roots, moved around the base of the giant and stopped on the other side from the cave. For a moment, she scanned the surrounding land, fixing the pattern in her mind. She would notice if something changed.
While she scouted with her gaze, Adán settled against the tree with a tired sigh. For a moment, she had forgotten he was injured. She must remember to make allowances she wouldn’t normally make with her men.
She let her gun hang from her hand rather than re-holstering it. “I brought you out here, because no one in my unit has been read in on this. They’re not cleared for it. You called the hospitalthing a bombing. It was a boiler blowing up.”
“That’s what your government wants everyone to believe. I was there, Parris. I know different.”
“Because you know what a bomb going off sounds like?” she asked sweetly.
“Because the Insurrectos were there,” Adán replied.
Her gut tightened. She remembered to breathe. “Tell me about it,” she coaxed.
Adán studied her. “You’re the first intelligenceofficer to not laugh in my face when I said I thought the Insurrectos were responsible.”
“I’m not—”
He lifted a hand. “Okay,” he said, cutting off her denial. “You’re the first person who hasn’t rolled their eyes at me. How’s that?”
“Tell me what you know.”
“Serrano’s wife was at the Foundation fundraiser.”
“Did no one see her there?”
“I don’t think they care.”
“She’s a beautiful woman,”Parris pointed out. “Former model and all that…someone must have spotted her.”
Adán shrugged. “Not even when she kissed me.”
For two heart beats, something hot roiled in Parris’ chest and stole her breath. Rage gripped her throat. Unwelcome images of Adán with his arms around a stunning brunette flashed into her mind.
Adán’s eyes narrowed. “On thecheek, Parris,” he said. “She kissed me onthe cheek while her photographer grabbed the shot. Don’t you get the Internet out here? It was all over Facebook and Twitter.”
It felt as if her neck was prickling with heat rash. Parris fought to breathe, to shut down her response. What the fuck was wrong with her? She had never reacted to someone kissing Adán before. Hell, she’d sat through his graphic love scenes in the Silva movies with asteady pulse, more than once.
Only, Adán wasn’t exactly the man she remembered, anymore. She still wasn’t certain what had changed, yetsomethinghad.
“Tell me from the beginning,” she said. Her voice was harsh with control. Better that than letting him hear it tremble.
“All I can tell you is what I saw and heard. What I was told was cover up lies.”
“Tell me anyway,” she said.
Adán collectedhis thoughts, then spoke. She watched his face and the way his voice changed whenever he was repeating what someone said. He was a good story-teller. He remembered what people said, word for word, as he had spent his adult life memorizing lines.
He painted a picture of typical government two-facing which, even though he detected the lies, still puzzled him because he couldn’t see the big picture.
It didn’t puzzle Parris. From where she was standing, she could see everything far too clearly.
She was glad she had brought him out of hearing range of the others. They were all smart. They would all figure out something big was blooming, too.
