Sealed In Lies (23 page)

Jack hesitated and then figured it wouldn’t hurt to let Hutch in on why he needed to keep Caroline safe. “I tried to dump her, Hutch, but get this, she wouldn’t go. Warren is a true to life wife beater. He’s been knocking her around since they got married. She saw this as her chance to escape and I agreed to help her. Crazy, I know, but she needs someone. If she goes back now he’ll kill her. You know Warren as well as I do.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. It lasted so long Jack almost thought they’d been disconnected. Then he heard Hutch clear his throat and sigh. “Man, you’re crazier than a shit house rat, Jack. You’ve got enough trouble trying to stay away from the US Government and the Cortez family. You want Warren on your tail too? You’ve got his woman. You think he’s just going to sit back and let you take her.”

“
Trust me Hutch. He’s in something so deep that Caroline should be his last concern. You get those ID’s for me. Where do you want me to send the money?”

“
Awe, don’t worry ‘bout that. I’ll get it from you when I see you next. You’ll have the ID’s day after tomorrow.”

“
Thanks, Hutch. I owe you.”

Jack disconnected the call and sat down on the side of the bed. He tapped his chin with the phone. Hutch knew more than he was telling, but somehow Jack still felt he could trust him. It made sense that he would be involved, but Jack couldn’t make the pieces of the puzzle fit. The answer was in those damn encrypted files.

He really couldn’t afford to trust anyone, but he needed someone with the connections Hutch had. Jack was banking on the past. He knew Hutch hated both Warren Walters and Kent Larson for the way he was discharged from military duty. Hutch always believed that Warren and Kent conspired together to get him off the SEAL team and out of the NAVY. Hutch never forgave them or the US Government for that. Jack hoped that was reason enough to trust him.

“
Jack?”

He turned at the sound of Caroline’s voice. In no way was he prepared for the shock presented by the woman standing before him. Her long chestnut hair was now a short cap of platinum blond curls. Her eyes were still green, but the makeup she so artfully applied made her look years older. She was still pretty, but the layers of foundation and distinctively defined lines transformed her. If Jack passed her on the street there was no way he would have recognized her.

“
My God, Caroline. You look like you’ve aged ten years. Where did you learn to do makeup like that?”

She smiled, pleased that her look had the desired effect. “I took a theatrical make-up class when I was preparing for all those beauty pageants. Normally, I make myself look younger, but this time I decided to reverse the process. Do I pass inspection?” She twirled in front of him wearing the new jeans and the t-shirt he’d bought her.

Jack walked over and placed his hands on her shoulders. He looked her up and down from the top of her short blond curls to her painted pink toes. Her face flushed under his scrutiny. He reached out and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger. He turned her face to the right and then to the left. “I’ve got some cheek prosthetics in my bag that might add a couple of pounds to your face. With those, the makeup, and the hair, I don’t think a soul will know who you are.”

“
Cheek prosthetics?” She raised a quizzical brow.

“
Yep. Just the ticket, I think.” He winked and released her chin.

He walked over to his duffel bag and pulled out the thin pieces of flesh colored latex and a blond shaggy wig. He gave the rubber devices to her and she looked at them dubiously.

“
Have these been sterilized? I certainly don’t know where they’ve been.”

“
Brand new, straight out of the package.”

“
Uh Huh. What are you doing with that wig?”

“
Just wait.” He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

When he stepped out, Caroline laughed out loud. He'd covered his bald head with the mullet style cut. “Oh God,” she said gasping for air. “You look like a blond Billy Ray Cyrus.”

“
Well, Miss Louise, what say we go out for a bite to eat and test out our disguises?” His southern drawl was pure Nashville.

Caroline reverting back to her Georgia roots replied, “Why, sir, I’d be honored.”

Chapter 26

The mist swirled around him with every step. The wispy grayness snaked about his feet. At first Jack couldn’t tell where he was the fog was so thick. He squinted as he turned around in each direction, trying to get some bearing. It was like being lost at sea. What was that? Crying? It was muffled but unmistakable sobs were coming from somewhere close by. Jack moved slowly in the direction of the sound, shuffling his feet to avoid bumping into unseen objects.

He nearly ran straight into the metal double doors. They loomed up out of the mist, steel gray sentinels guarding the crying woman behind them. Jack hesitated before approaching the doors. He knew where he was now. He was outside the morgue. The Iraqi woman was crying. Her quiet sobs suddenly turned into desperate wails. Beads of sweat formed on Jacks forehead and rivers of it ran down his back. He lifted a clammy hand and touched the cold metal. Should he even go in?

He shivered in the cold mist. The temperature seemed to be dropping steadily. He knew it dropped ten degrees while he stood there. The wailing continued. Desperate, eerie cries that seemed to surround him and penetrate his brain. He wasn’t at all certain that this entire experience wasn’t all in his head. He needed to get a grip on these nightmares. There was a source and Jack needed to discover what it was so they would go away.

Wisps of breath clouded around Jack’s mouth and fogged up the window on the door. He leaned forward to wipe it off with his hand, with one swift swipe. Suddenly a face appeared on the other side of the glass, a terrifying horrible face that had Jack recoiling in horror. The hair hung from the scalp in thin stringy black strands. The eyes and mouth were so sunken, it looked as if all the air was sucked out of the face and skin hanging on bone was all that remained. Purplish black burn marks pocked the pale face and tiny thin veins connected the spots like dot-to-dot. The face was hideous, but what had Jack fighting back a scream were her eyes. Deep black orbs with no whites or colored irises stared directly at him. Jack swore he could see into the pits of hell through her eyes. What was strange was there were no tears. Her sunken cheeks were dry as dust. Her brows were drawn down in an accusatory stare. Her mouth opened into a round O that was as black as her eyes, and claw like hands scratched at the glass.

“
Hey Jack!” she shouted. “Take a picture. It will last longer!”

Jack stumbled back away from the door and turned to run. As he ran, he could hear her cackle behind him. The harder he ran, the faster it seemed to close in on him until the sound enveloped him like a blanket.

“
Jacky, Jack.” The voice was a singsong. “Oh, Jacky, Jack?”

Terror seized him. He clutched at his chest. Time was running out.

“
Jack!” Caroline shouted his name for the third time as she shook his shoulder hard.

His head thrashed from side to side on the pillow, as he mumbled, “No. No.”

“
Jack, listen to me. It’s me Caroline.”

His head continued to whip from side to side but his eyes were now open.

“
Focus, Jack. You were having a nightmare. Wake up it’s Caroline. I’m here with you. It’s okay.” She rubbed her hands up and down his arms as she leaned over him. She was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt she had on the previous day and her shirt was wrinkled from laying in it all night. They returned from their late dinner and fell straight into bed.

Her new blond tresses were in a short disheveled mess around her head. At least she looked better than Jack. His black t-shirt was soaked and clinging to his chest like a second skin. His jeans were stained dark in spots where the denim absorbed the sweat from his lower body. He looked as if he’d been caught in a rainstorm. His arms were ice cold and clammy as she rubbed them to warm him. The room was a comfortable 70 degrees but his arms felt as if he’d been lying out in the snow that covered the ground outside.

Jack suddenly came fully awake, and sat bolt upright in bed, sending Caroline tumbling to the floor. Her butt hit the carpet with a dull thud.

“
Hey,” she said indignantly.

“
What?” Jack’s brain was still fuzzy from the remnants of the nightmare. He looked around familiarizing himself with his surroundings. He saw a small motel room with drab brown wallpaper. There was one king-size bed in the center of the wall opposite the door. Under the window, that was covered by heavy maroon draperies, sat a wood veneer table with two chairs. The upholstery on the chairs was the same maroon brocade as the drapes. Jack’s eyes continued to circle the room before they came to rest on Caroline, who picked herself up and was seated on the bed next to him.

“
You must have been having one hell of a nightmare, Jack.”

“
Oh,” he hesitated a moment as his eyes focused on her beautiful face. His muscles relaxed and he sighed. “Yeah, I guess I was. Sorry if I knocked you out of the bed. Did I hurt you?”

Caroline smiled down at him. “Just my pride.” She rubbed her hip.

“
Sorry.” He rubbed his hands over his bald head and down his face, which were both prickly with two day’s of hair growth. “What time is it?”

“
Around two in the afternoon. We slept most of the day away.”

He glanced at her and saw the bandage he placed on her arm, after removing the chip, only hours before. “How’s your arm? Does it hurt much?”

“
A little, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I slept some.” She left the bed and went into the bathroom. He heard water running and she returned, carrying a damp washcloth. Without thinking, Caroline took the cool cloth and began to dab at his face. Jack closed his eyes and let her minister to him. Her soft hands playing over his face with the cool cloth felt so good. He reached up, trapped her hand in his and opened his eyes. Her soft green eyes stared down at him her face full of concern.

“
Are you okay?” Her eyes searched his.

He nodded and continued to hold her hand. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, his voice still trapped in sleep. “I’m okay. Just a shitty nightmare that comes back to haunt me from time to time. I haven’t had them in years and now, all of a sudden, they decide to return. It’s weird.”

“
What are you dreaming about?” She placed the cloth on the bedside table and sat cross-legged on the bed next to him.

He noticed that she didn’t make an effort to pull her hand from his gentle grasp. It surprised him that she could feel any type of concern for him after what he put her through. He dragged her away from her home, into this living nightmare, and dug into her arm with a scalpel and no anesthesia. He would hate his guts, but she seemed genuinely concerned that he was okay. It was sweet. His heart clinched in a way he’d never felt before. No other woman had seemed to spur any emotion in him except for lust. This woman was so different.

“
You don’t want to know,” he said.

She laid her other hand timidly on his arm. “Try me.”

Jack sighed. He was embarrassed, but he knew he needed to share this with someone. He needed to be reassured that he wasn’t losing his mind. “They are all jumbled up but they have one central theme. There is an Iraqi woman who thinks I betrayed her. Let her down some how. I always see her in the morgue, where she is supposed to be dead, but she rises up and accuses me of abandoning her. She thinks I was the one who left her to die. She looks terrible. She is thin and her skin is gray. Her hair is all stringy and hangs around her face like tiny black snakes. Sort of like Medusa, you know?”

Caroline nodded, urging him to go on.

“
Well, the worst part is her eyes. They are just black. No iris or pupil, no whites, just completely black. Like something you would see on some Stephen King horror flick. Her face is sunken in and her hands are like claws. Really attractive let me tell you.” He tried a small smile.

Caroline smiled back. “Sounds like it.”

“
In the past she would just lay on the morgue table and not say anything. Just stare at me with those horrible eyes. It’s like they can see straight through me. Now, though, she has begun to talk. I had one a few days ago where she was screaming at me, wanting to know why I had let them kill her. This time she popped up in the window of the morgue door and told me to take a picture it would last longer. Very strange.”

The embarrassment that Jack feared, melted away, as he told Caroline about the dreams. He thought she would make him feel like a sissy for being scared of a stupid dream, that it would be a blow to his manly pride and strength, but for some reason it wasn’t. She watched him intently and listened to every word he said. He never had anyone do that before. Once he tried to tell Lucy about the dreams, when they first started and she had listened but dismissed them, saying it was post traumatic stress syndrome from the bomb blast.