Slaying the Dragon (Deception Duet #2) (8 page)

In the pre-dawn hours on Saturday, I lay on the couch and continued to watch the news report. My brain was on overdrive, restless thoughts extinguishing any hope I had for sleep.

As footage played of the paramedics rolling the two gurneys down the driveway of the house I knew so well, the bodies of my former neighbor and her husband mutilated and destroyed beneath those crisp white sheets, something caught my eye.

Fumbling for the remote, I paused the television, backing up a few frames. I squinted at an out-of-focus man briskly walking through the crowd of concerned onlookers. I had seen the rhythm of that gait practically every day my freshman year of college. The brim of his cap was pulled down, obstructing his face, but I knew that strong jaw all too well. Wearing a pair of army fatigues, denoting the office of captain, he blended in. I wondered who he stole them from, and if the man was as unlucky as his other alleged victims. I surveyed the crowd, all eyes focused on the gurneys being loaded into the coroner’s van. No one realized the man accused of committing the crime was just inches from them.

I closed my eyes, leaning back onto the couch, and wrapped my arm around Meatball’s pudgy body. I didn’t want to believe Charlie had been responsible for such a brutal crime, but there he was at the place of a vicious attack attributed to him.

Since March, my life had slowly spiraled into a world I never imagined. Now, not only was I battling my feelings for the man who deceived me, I was faced with the reality that he may have been right about everything…about Charlie…about his motive…about my dad.

A loud chiming noise, foreign and unexpected, reverberated through the walls of my condo. I bolted up, blinking rapidly. Feeling breathless and dizzy, I stared down the narrow corridor to my bedroom, my eyes focused on a cell phone on my chest of drawers. It had only rung once before and, after the recent murders, the timing had me on edge.

Tiptoeing down the hallway, the wood cold on my bare feet, I entered my bedroom and stared at the phone as it began ringing once more. A blocked number flashed on the screen and my hand hovered over it. The rational part of me said to turn the phone off and avoid contact with Charlie at all costs. But that side was at odds with the small part of me that wanted to believe Charlie was a good person, that wanted to remember the gentle, caring man who doted on me, who treasured me…who
loved
me. I simply couldn’t forget about
that
Charlie.

Clutching the phone in my hand, the small object felt like it was burning my skin. The sound of my racing heart echoed against the gray walls as I held the small flip phone up to my ear, unsure of whether this was a smart move or incredibly stupid.

“Charlie?” I whispered.

“Kenzie,” he breathed, sounding relieved. “Thank god. I thought…” He stopped short, a heavy quiver in his normally even and tempered tone. “I thought they got to you.”

“Who’s they?” I asked, heading to the windows in my bedroom, the ocean illuminated by the mid-July moon. I didn’t know how much longer I could deal with his vague assertions that someone was setting him up.

“I don’t know. It could be a they. It could be a he. Hell, for all I know, it could be a she. I have–”

“Really, Charlie?” I interrupted him, my voice shrill. “It seems the only time I hear from you is when you’re being accused of committing another murder! That’s a whole lot of finger-pointing by one guy who keeps claiming his innocence!”

“Mack!” he exclaimed. “It wasn’t me! I’m–”

“I saw you!” I screeched. “You hid your face, but I’d recognize that walk and stature anywhere, Charlie! You were at my old house! You can’t deny it!”

“I’m
not
denying I was there,” he responded quickly.

“Why were you? What have you been doing this whole time that I haven’t heard from you? How many other bodies can I expect to learn about?”

“None, Mack! I swear to you. I’ve been looking for answers, but trying to stay hidden at the same time. I’m trying to find
something
that can clear my name…and your dad’s.”

“So you don’t think he’s guilty, do you?” I asked, no longer denying the truth of who I was.

“No. I don’t, but I have no concrete proof to back it up. All I know–”

“What do you remember about the embassy attack?” I asked, suddenly curious about Charlie’s side of the story.

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because maybe hearing what you went through will help me figure out what to believe.”

“Kenzie,” he countered, his voice distressed. “I haven’t talked about that day since I was released from the hospital and sent to live with my aunt and uncle.”

“Surely you had
someone
you could talk to.”

“No,” he said. I could hear the despondency in his voice. “I didn’t have anyone. My aunt and uncle considered me to be more of a burden and were counting down the days until I turned eighteen. When I wasn’t at school, I pretty much stayed locked in my room. If they knew my whereabouts, I’m fairly certain they’d have no problem turning me into the authorities.”

“Then talk to me, Charlie,” I urged. “I want to know what happened.” I leaned back onto the bed, throwing my duvet over my body. Rolling onto my side, I kept the phone glued to my ear in the darkened room, the sound of Charlie’s voice and breathing reminding me of all those years ago when we would fall asleep on the phone with each other.

“Every summer,” he began, nostalgia in his voice, “we would spend three or four months abroad. Mom was a legal aid attorney. Dad retired from the army and was a political science professor who specialized in African politics, mainly civil wars and international intervention. I thought it was completely normal to spend each summer vacation living in a small tent with my parents and sister, volunteering at whatever refugee or aid camp needed our help. My parents were the most selfless people I knew. The rest of my family always criticized them, saying if they stopped always trying to do for others and took care of their own family, they’d still be here. But that wasn’t who they were. They were only happy when they were helping others, hence why my mother worked in the legal aid office even after she had been offered a hefty six figure salary at one of the top law firms in Philadelphia. She didn’t care about money. Dad didn’t either, although teaching at Princeton was a good career.”

I got lost in his story, learning a side of Charlie I never knew…a side he hid from me the entire time we dated. Absorbing his words and listening to the torment in his voice made me wish he had shared this part of himself with me before. I found myself becoming upset he didn’t think he could trust me enough, but then I snapped out of it. I had done the same thing. It wasn’t intentional or malicious on his part, just like it wasn’t on mine.

Over the years, it simply becomes second nature to keep that part of yourself from everyone. One day, you wake up and forget what you’re trying to hide. You become a new person, almost a shell of the person you once were. You hide your pain, your heartache, everything. You find a routine and adhere to it because there’s less chance of a slip-up, but you never have that connection to another human. To have that, you’d have to share who you really are, and you don’t even know who that is. You never get to share your soul with someone else.

I thought I loved Charlie, but I now knew it wasn’t love. I had never opened my heart to him because of the secret I was guarding. But Tyler knew who I was and still loved me. That was why the pain of his betrayal hurt more than Charlie’s ever could.

“The civil war in Sierra Leone was winding down, but it was still dangerous,” Charlie continued, bringing me back from my thoughts. “We were working at a refugee camp in Liberia, trying to help the victims who had barely escaped with their lives. We were getting ready to head back to the states and were staying at the embassy before our departure. There were about a dozen or so families camping out there for the night, cleaning up and finally sleeping on something other than dirt. We were all gathered in a large ballroom, having dinner, when there was a sudden commotion. Embassy staff began running into where we were eating, then I heard a rapid percussive outburst. I had heard something similar to that noise in the movies, but nothing could have prepared me for the echo of nearly a dozen machine guns being fired simultaneously.

“There was screaming, crying, complete strangers holding onto one another. It was chaotic. I had no idea how I had gotten from the table I was sitting at to the center of the room. We were all huddled together, parents trying to hush the sound of their young children’s whimpers and cries. I remember being chilled to the core, my entire body trembling. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew I didn’t want to die. I was only sixteen. I hadn’t even gotten my driver’s license yet. I hadn’t asked a girl out to prom. Hell, I hadn’t even had sex. I hadn’t
lived
.”

“Charlie, I…,” I whispered, feeling his pain, his suffering, his overwhelming panic as if he were reliving that moment all over again.

“Yes?”

I let out a long breath, finally putting together the pieces of Charlie, wishing I had known all of this when we were together. Perhaps things would have ended differently.

“Why didn’t you say anything before? When we were together? Maybe–”

“I didn’t want to burden you with my past, Kenzie,” he explained. “I knew who you were and that you were trying to deal with your own past. The last thing I wanted to do was saddle you with the trauma I was still dealing with.”

“I remember you having nightmares.” My voice was barely above a whisper as my brain rewound to waking up to Charlie flailing in bed, screaming about being burned. I had always thought it was simply from his time with the army. I never would have guessed it was something bigger…something so much worse.

“My dad saw how scared I was,” he said, clearing his throat. “How scared we both were.”

“You and your sister?”

“Yeah,” he choked out. “Brooke… She was two years younger than I was. She… She didn’t make it.”

“But you did,” I said, trying to encourage him to finish his story.

“I remember my dad wrapping me in his coat, shielding me as a liquid was poured over everyone. A man with a deep, throaty voice was shouting about trust. How without trust, we would all be left burned, scarred…the bond incinerated. I felt a heat unlike anything I had before. It was an inferno, a distinct smell surrounding me, and I knew… That liquid poured over us was gasoline. This sick bastard was burning us alive.”

I gasped. Although Tyler had told me bits and pieces about what happened, hearing someone relive it was so much more intense than I could imagine.
 

“I don’t know how, but I remember being pushed from the flames and crawling under the cover of heavy wool or tweed or something. I was fighting for clean air, choking on smoke, my lungs on fire. I remember craving water, something to put out the inferno raging inside me. My vision grew blurry, my legs weak, and I collapsed, praying my death would be quick and painless. Suddenly, an arm grabbed onto mine and I looked up, unable to focus on the face. For years, I searched my memory trying to recreate that face but I couldn’t.”

“But…,” I prodded, able to sense there was more.

“After college, I enlisted and eventually got reassigned to Cryptology. It didn’t take me long to realize nothing is what it seems. When a friend of a friend started asking about a girl named Serafina Galloway, I looked up the file. I was hesitant to go any further once I realized who Serafina Galloway really was. The daughter of the man responsible for my family’s death… The dragon. Of course, it wasn’t public knowledge, but it was fairly well-known within the intelligence community that Colonel Galloway was responsible for orchestrating hundreds of arms deals and the attack on the embassy.

“As I scanned through photo after photo in his file, I noticed something…a black onyx ring on his right hand. I
remembered
that ring. I had clutched onto that hand as I was pulled from the smoke. It was such a unique piece, I knew he had to be the person who rescued me from the fire. I pulled up all the files pertaining to the investigation into Galloway after the embassy attack, then reached out to the agent in charge. He indicated he had the same concerns but his hands were tied. He was told to close the case and keep his findings classified. Apparently, the army didn’t want a black mark on its face and wanted to keep Galloway’s alleged activities buried. They were all convinced he had died in the attack anyway.

“I contacted other people named in the investigation, but they all gave me the same response…almost to the word. This didn’t sit right with me, but I had exhausted all my resources. Then I realized there may be someone else who could help answer some of my questions.”

“And who’s that?”

He sighed. “Your mother. I went to talk to her.”

I closed my eyes, remaining mute.

“It was a few weeks later that she…” He trailed off. “I am
so
sorry, Mackenzie. I can’t help but think if I didn’t… Someone may have been tipped off that I was looking into Galloway, and maybe they followed me to her. I don’t know. It wasn’t until the night I was taken away that I realized I was being set up and someone was tasked with silencing your mother, too.”

Listening to him speak about those last few weeks reopened old wounds I never allowed to fully heal. But as much as I wanted to blame Charlie for it, like I had done for years, I just couldn’t. Not anymore. “What did you talk to her about?” I swallowed hard, trying to hide my unsteady tone.

“The time leading up to the attack on the embassy. Your father. It was during this conversation I realized he was still alive.”

“How? I didn’t even know he–”

“It was the way she spoke of him,” he interrupted. “I’ve studied human behavior and responses. People respond a certain way when speaking of someone who’s no longer with us. Your mother displayed none of those characteristics when speaking of your father. She responded as one may when talking about someone they see on a somewhat routine basis. She spoke of him in the present tense. That usually only happens when someone
just
died. However, at this point, he had allegedly been dead for eight years. Surely, she would have been speaking of him in the past tense. I pushed her to disclose his location and she denied he was alive, just as you did. A few days later, she called, asking me to meet her at a location several hours out of town. It was the same day I was taken away. The same day she…” His voice grew quiet. “All I can think is someone knew about us and was trying to keep us from helping each other figure out the truth of what really happened all those years ago.”