Rescue Me (28 page)

Despite the need to wretch again, she
straightened and threw his hand off her. She couldn't stand the
touch of this man, not anymore. Not ever again. She thought his
rejection a year ago had destroyed her, but it was nothing compared
to his betrayal.

Eyes burning, rage and unbelievable pain
consuming her, she charged at him, both fists swinging. She even
got one good punch off before he seized both her wrists.

“Kathryn, please let me explain.”

“You son of a bitch! How could you do that to
me?” She broke one of her hands free and threw another punch. But,
alas, it missed.

“Baby, please. I had no choice.” He easily
had her detained and tightened his grip the more she struggled.

She pushed him away and looked at him, seeing
him in a new light. “Bullshit! You did have a choice, Spencer! You
did! And you chose wrong.”

He spoke in a soft voice that hurt to hear.
“I had to make the choice between you and my job. It was the
hardest decision I'd ever had to make.”

“Congratulations, Spencer. You no longer have
to make that choice. I'm choosing for you. This is something I
should have done a long time ago.” She wished she had something of
his to throw at him to really drive home her point. “We are
done.”

“Kathryn, please. Don't do this.”

“You let me believe—” she choked on a sob.
“How could you do that to me?” When he didn't answer, she shook her
head at the stranger standing before her. “I don't even know
you.”

“Yes, you do. I'm still the same man.”

She nodded numbly. “Yeah, I guess you
are.”

“Kathryn, don't do this. You don't know the
whole story.”

“And I don't want to know.”

“Kathryn—”

“Just stop!” She put her hands up like a
traffic cop. “We. Are. Done.”

“No!” He grabbed her by the arms.

She threw his hands off her. “Don't ever
touch me again.” She threw the receiver at him and walked over to
her vehicle, got in, turned the engine over, and drove away from
the search, numb.

And, once again, Spencer didn't stop her. He
didn't even making the fucking effort to walk toward her vehicle.
Obviously, he never did commit to them the way she had. Past tense.
She'd never commit to him again.
Screw me once, shame on you.
Screw me twice, shame on me.

Well, the shame was definitely on her this
time. She'd made the same mistake of falling in love with a man
incapable of returning that love. Again.

Apparently, he really was the same man.

Kat couldn't see through the tears blurring
her vision as she drove home. She drove slowly, not because snow
had started to fall again, but because she didn't trust herself to
drive any faster.

Her cell rang so many times since she left
the search she finally turned it off. Damn Spencer Allen for what
he'd done. He shattered her heart into a million tiny pieces, and
she felt each one. She hurt more than she could have possibly
imagined. Her head hurt. Her body hurt. Even her soul hurt, all due
to that lying bastard.

“Damn!” She muttered as another round of
humiliating tears fell. She hated him and hated herself for falling
in love with him again. Even her beloved
American Idol
CDs
didn't help. She turned off the music and drove the rest of the way
in silence.

She pulled into her covered parking spot and
shut of the motor. Her apartment felt so lonely. It took every
ounce of effort she had to drag herself up the stairs.

This was her home, not Spencer's house. The
thought brought another painful beat to her already aching heart.
She would never forgive him for this. She'd suffered an entire year
because she thought her actions had killed that man. She'd had to
take medication to sleep after that search. Living with the guilt
had nearly consumed her.

And Spencer knew. Damn it, he knew the truth
and never told her. No wonder he let her go.

She threw her keys on the floor and didn't
bother turning on any lights. She knew her way around the sparse
furniture. Into the kitchen she went, straight to the vodka she
kept on top of the fridge for special occasions.

Well, Kathryn Louise, this is as special
as it gets.
She unscrewed the top and took a large swallow,
then another and another, until she'd emptied half the bottle. The
taste made her shudder as it numbed her tongue. She winced as it
burned her throat. After replacing the bottle above the fridge, she
shuffled to her room. Falling on the bed, she closed her eyes and
cried until the vodka hit her full force.

Then she passed out.

The ringing of her land line jolted her
awake. Head pounding, she squinted at the caller ID. Even that
hurt. Eight in the morning? She'd slept almost eighteen hours? It
took her a minute to focus enough to read the number.

“Hey, Rand.” She swallowed hard and rolled
onto her back. Dear God, it felt like she'd been run over by the
Com Van. This was why she never drank vodka, especially on an empty
stomach. She made a promise to herself to only stick to wine from
here on out and then closed her eyes as she cursed herself for
bargaining about which alcohol to drown her sorrows in.

“If you'll pardon my French, boss. But what
the fuck?”

“Care to elaborate on that?”
God, am I
slurring?

“Have you been drinking?” He didn't sound
happy to even ask that question.

“Rand, call back later.”

“You sound like you're a bit on the pissed
side and your cell is off. What's going on? You left the Green
search yesterday without a word to anyone. Travis got back to an
empty Com Van and you not answering your cell. And then he started
calling me, so then I started calling you. Do you have any idea how
close I was to a bloody stroke? I don't like not being able to find
you.”

“I went home. So?”

“Your boyfriend spent an hour bending my ear
about it. I don't much appreciate him thinking I care about your
reaction to whatever shit storm he's brought down on himself.”

“He's not my boyfriend anymore.” Her heart
hurt worse than her head at admitting that aloud.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“When have I ever wanted to talk about it?”
She rested a hand over her eyes in an attempt to ward off some of
the blinding pain behind them. It was like a hyper two-year-old on
a brand new drum set inside her brain.

“So,” he started, and then stopped in typical
dithering fashion. He started and stopped several times before
finally speaking. “This thing between you and Spence isn't going to
stop K-SAR from taking callouts from TREX, is it?”

She shook her head and hissed from the pain.
“Don't worry about it, Rand. K-SAR will be fine without them.”

“So, you are going to sever all ties with the
agency?” He did not sound happy.

“We don't need their business.”

“Kat, listen to me. Don't let your thing with
Spence stop you from working with TREX.”

She thought about giving in to bitter
laughter but decided against it. It would cause too much pain.
“It's a bit more than a
thing
.”

“Well, whatever it is, don't let it kill
K-SAR. TREX is our biggest contract. You cut them off and we are
back to eating scraps for dinner. I know how you love your boxes of
frozen pasta but I prefer real food.”

She couldn't even think about food right now.
Her stomach protested and flipped, threatening to reject whatever
she had in there. “Anything else, Rand?”

“All right. I'm not going to get through to
you right now in the state you're in. It must have been one hell of
a party.”

“You know it.”

“Before you decide about TREX, think about
it. Okay?”

“I'll think about it.” And then she'd break
ties with anything involving TREX, including Spencer Allen. Kat
hung up and dropped her phone on the bed. To hell with it. She shut
off the ringer and grabbed her cell phone, switching it back on. It
was going to be a long day.

Her cell phone rang right in her ear and she
practically cried from the noise. Grabbing it, she answered, “Rand,
I'm going to kill you for calling my cell after just talking to
me.”

“Kathryn? It's me, Spence.”

She tried to ignore the painful skip in her
heart. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to make sure you were all
right.”

“It's a little late for that. You could have
checked on me last year, when I needed you. You would have seen I
wasn't all right. You could have changed that.”

“It isn't too late,” he said softly,
tenderly. It hurt her heart to hear it.

She refused to buy his bullshit. Not this
time. “Yes, Spencer, it is.”

“Sweetheart, listen. I tried to tell
you.”

“Yesterday,” she pointed out and, despite the
pain, jerked to a sitting position. “You had an entire year to tell
me, yet you waited until yesterday. Even then I had to hear it as I
eavesdropped on your radio traffic. Do you have any idea how
humiliating that is?”

He sighed through the line. “Please, baby.
Let me talk to you now.”

She lowered her eyes as another hurt invaded
her body, this one an inferno of emotions that burned clear to her
soul. “Like I said, it's too late.”

“Kathryn, please.”

“You may call me Kat. It's what all of my
colleagues call me.”

“I'm more than a colleague to you.” The
softness in his tone pulled at her heart.

“I wish you weren't even that,” she bit off
and cringed at the acid in her tone.

“I know you're angry at me right now.”

Her eyes burned and she jumped to her feet.
Oh, God.
That hurt. She swallowed her stomach back down.
“Angry? Is that all you think I am? I wish I were
only
angry
with you. Anger is something I can get over, something that will
pass in time. Anger doesn't even begin to describe how I feel
toward you.” She gnawed on her remaining nails. When that didn't
help, she resorted to pacing as she tried to come up with something
to make him hurt as much as he'd hurt her. “I hate you, Spencer
Allen. Do you hear me? I. Hate. You.”

“You don't mean that.” Raw agony passed
through the line in his voice.

“Oh, I promise you. I do.”

“Kathryn.”

“Kat,” she corrected.

“I'm sorry I hurt you. But this, right here,
is why I never said anything. Your goddamn silver tongue isn't
helping. We are stronger than this. What we have his stronger than
this. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“But it did.” And he never once tried to make
it right until it was too late.

“And neither of us can change that!” he
roared. “It's in the past.”

“Then I have to change how it affects my
future. Goodbye, Spencer.”

* * * *

Her landline was ringing as Kat opened her
apartment door. She set her groceries down and grabbed the receiver
on the third ring.

“Hello?”

“Kathryn, please don't hang up.”

Click
. She really needed to start
checking the caller ID. Her phone immediately rang again. She
turned it off and dropped it back on its base. Humming her favorite
tune from her
American Idol
of the week, she went about the
task of putting the groceries away.

After finishing with the groceries and
filling up on a tasteless box of microwaved pasta, she grabbed her
glass of wine and headed for the living room to look through the
notes she'd been able to jot down over the past few days.

Martin Miller had the power to shift the
balance within
the Order
. Why? Why would that matter? That
part still puzzled her. Those bastards—Salazar in particular—used a
six-year-old child as leverage. For what? For Miller to continue to
deny them what they wanted. In turn, Salazar had given the order to
kill an innocent little boy.

She grabbed the papers and glanced through
them after flipping on the TV to an old rerun of
Friends
for
background noise. What she wouldn't give to be able to bounce ideas
off someone. Spencer was out. Rand? No. She didn't want to talk to
anyone else about Martin Miller's involvement in
the
Order
.

Only one other person came to mind. Her
partner-in-crime. Grabbing her phone, she dialed his number and
listened to the rings.

“Please tell me there isn't another search
already,” Travis grumbled. “I'm still pissed at you for the Green
search.”

“I'm sorry.”

“And that's supposed to make it all
better?”

“It's all you're going to get,” she fired
back, ready to hang up on him for starting a fight with her when
she just wanted someone to talk to.

“You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know
that? It's a good thing I'm in love with you.” He spoke in a light
tone, but Kat tensed as her memory settled on that day in the
market. Just how true was that statement?

She decided she didn't want to go there right
now. She just wanted someone to talk to. “I need to tell you
something but you have to promise me you'll not tell anyone
else.”

“Oh, I already love it. Deal. Tell me.”
Travis sounded just like an excited teen, about to receive the
juiciest gossip of the year.

She drew in a deep breath. If she started the
story, she wouldn't be able to take it back. Jumping in with both
feet, she started. “It's about the subject we found.”

“You're going to have to narrow that one down
for me.”

“Sam Green. He said he's part of this group
called
the Order
, along with Damon Salazar. Have you ever
heard of it?”

Travis paused. “Wait. I'm confused. Salazar
and Green? They weren't even part of the same search.”

“Back to
the Order
. Have you ever
heard of it?” She tried to cover the annoyance in her voice. She
really didn't want to have to explain it all to him and hoped he'd
pick up enough to play along.