Speechless (7 page)

“You have to put the gear down,” the controller would say
and Eva would look for the switch, flip it and nod to Stone.

“Check.”

Eva was amazed the controller could hear Stone—his voice
grew weaker with each exchange, the cloth he held against his wound redder.
Finally, the airfield appeared, with the flashing red lights of emergency
vehicles gathered at the end of the runway.

“The plane is going to come down heavily because of the
floats,” the disembodied voice said. And then they were coming down, too fast
Eva knew, but she didn’t have the strength or knowledge to correct it, or the
time to pull up and take another pass. Stone had passed out again and she felt
her own vision blurring, darkening. The plane hit the ground hard. Eva lurched
forward, her bad leg jostling, exploding in pain and her world went black.

Eva woke more slowly than usual, first to the sound of quiet
voices around her, louder ones farther away, three or four different kinds of
beeps from all directions, then to the awareness of her body in a strange
position, one leg heavy. The space around her felt cluttered, crowded, nothing
like the cabin should feel.

Stone?

No response.
Stone!

Still nothing. No feel of him anywhere around. He’d left
her. He was gone. Fear boiled up inside her, hot and searing and then the pain
hit. She opened her eyes with a gasp.

And there was her father, sitting close beside her and all
the accoutrements of a hospital room.

“Hi, little girl,” he said softly. “Lots of pain?”

Eva nodded and he handed her something, put her thumb on a
button. “Just push that whenever it’s too bad.”

She pushed. Whatever it was took effect fast, wiping out the
pain and she drifted back to sleep.

It took a while for her to figure out what had happened and
to decide what to tell her father and the doctors about where she’d been. She
knew she couldn’t say anything about Stone, no matter how much they or the
police pressed.

“The airport controller said there was a man working the
radio. He called for an ambulance, but no man was brought to the hospital. Who
was he?” An official-looking man stood at the foot of the bed, his graying hair
slicked back, pen to notebook. He’d flashed a badge, but Eva hadn’t been able
to see it.

Eva shook her head, typed quickly on the tablet her father
had replaced for her. ”I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember a man being with you?”

Another head shake. Claiming not to remember anything—not
Stone, not how he’d made her feel, not the way he’d touched her or the sound of
his voice or the command he’d had over her—was the only way to keep him safe.
If he was safe to begin with. If he wasn’t dead. She felt vulnerable, lost,
afraid without him near.

“What do you remember?” The man interrogating her paced,
fidgeted with the pencil in his hand.

Eva typed, “I remember reaching for a plant specimen down a
few feet from the trail I was on, then the ground giving way under me. After
that, nothing.”

The man huffed in frustration. Her father, sitting next to
her hospital bed, took her hand in his. “Eva, there’s strong evidence that you
were with someone, a man, for the time that you were missing.”

Sudden fear filled her and she knew it showed on her face,
because her father held her hand tighter. “There’s no sign that he hurt you.
Someone put a splint on your leg. The doctor said that it had been done well.
The worst of your scrapes were bandaged. And you weren’t dehydrated or
malnourished or anything when they brought you in. So whoever it was must have
taken adequate care of you.”

Adequate. She wanted to tell him not to worry, that Stone
had taken very good care of her, but of course she couldn’t. The next words
from the unidentified official chilled her.

“There was semen and vaginal discharge on the shorts you
were wearing. The DNA from the semen matches a man wanted by us for a whole
list of charges. Despite what the doctor says, we can’t guarantee that he
didn’t take advantage of you or somehow cause some of your injuries. He’s a
dangerous criminal and it’s important that we find him, before he hurts someone
else.”

All the air left Eva’s lungs. Had Stone lied to her? Of
course he had—about his name, his occupation. But he’d also as good as told her
that those were lies. She knew he hadn’t hurt her, knew he never would. Then
she understood and she had to fight to keep the relief off her face. This man
with the badge was one of the bad guys. And if he was looking for Stone that
meant that he was probably still alive and the bad guys hadn’t found him.

She fought to breathe, knew that Stone would be able to read
her like a billboard, that her father might notice the shift from fear to
relief, but that most likely this man would not. And her father wouldn’t say
anything. She typed.

“I’m sorry. I don’t remember anyone.” She paused, then
decided that it wouldn’t hurt to appear willing to help, to appear that she
believed him. “Do you have a picture of him? Maybe seeing him will bring things
back.”

He reached into his blazer pocket and pulled out a five by
seven photo and handed it to her. It showed Stone and another man in
conversation on a street corner in some Asian city, based on the characters on
the shop signs and curved roofs behind them. Neither one seemed to realize they
were being photographed.

“Which one is he?” she typed.

“The one on the left, with the light-brown hair.”

Eva took more time to study Stone’s face, to try to still
her heartbeat, then she shook her head and shrugged.

“Sorry. May I keep this?”

“Of course.”

Her father looked hard at her. “Eva, is that a good idea?”

“I need to learn his face, Dad. If he did something to me, I
want to be able to recognize him if he shows up again.”

Her father nodded. “All right.”

The doctor came in at that moment, chased the bad guy out
and tried to do the same to her father.

“Your daughter needs to rest, Mr. James.”

“I’ll just sit quietly,” her father insisted, not letting go
of Eva’s hand. “I’m not leaving her.”

Eva typed, “Let him stay. I need him here.”

The doctor conceded. “Very well. But no more conversation.”

Eva nodded, closed her eyes and tried to relax. The doctor
was right—she was tired. Her leg hurt and she hit the button for another
morphine dose. In the moment before falling asleep, she sent a thought out,
willing it to find its destination.

Stone, I’m safe. I’m okay. The bad guys are looking for
you. I haven’t told them anything. I miss you.

* * * * *

The man with the badge—Eva never did catch his name or who
he worked for—came back to the hospital twice more, to see if she had
remembered anything. But her “memory” remained stubborn and refused to offer up
anything helpful.

The last time he visited, he pressed his lips together in
frustration, then handed her a business card. “If you remember anything, get in
touch.”

Eva nodded and studied the card, curious to finally know his
name. “Adrian Smith”, it read and gave a phone number and e-mail address but no
organization name. She knew immediately it was a fake name—this man could never
be an Adrian, he was too much of a jock, with too little personality to be an
Adrian. He lingered for a moment, watching her as if he expected everything to
spill out of her any minute, then shrugged his shoulders and left. Eva breathed
a sigh of relief.

Her father got up from his chair next to the bed and paced
the small room. “I’m glad he’s gone. Guy gave me the creeps. I think I put more
trust in the ‘dangerous criminal’ who took care of you than in him.” He paused
and looked hard at Eva. Years of practice had made him adept at reading
her—almost as adept as Stone had immediately proven himself—and he saw
something on her face that made him stop short. “You remember everything, don’t
you? Eva, did he hurt you? If he hurt you…“ He leaned against the end of her
bed, stared hard at her, a father’s concern for his only daughter contorting
his face.

Eva shook her head quickly and typed. “No, Daddy. He didn’t
hurt me. He took good care of me.”

Her father relaxed, stepped back, but kept his eyes on her.
Then as quickly as he’d grown angry and concerned before, his face softened
now. “You have feelings for him. Eva, you fell for him.”

She nodded.

“Was that Smith guy right? Is he a criminal?”

She shook her head.

“That’s okay then. Where is he now? What’s his name?”

Eva shrugged, typed, “I don’t know where he is. And I can’t
tell you anything about him. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you he exists.”

“But he’s not a criminal?”

Eva shook her head sharply. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll
never see him again.”

“Oh, little girl, I’m sorry. If someone like Smith wants to
find him, then it’s better he stay hidden, but I hate to see you hurting.”

Eva shrugged. “I’ll be okay. Eventually.”

Her father barely left her side over the next few days and
they had long, half-silent conversations. Eva thought about her confession to
Stone about her guilt for her mother’s death and one quiet evening, the day
before she would be discharged from the hospital, she typed, biting her lip in
nervousness, “Do you blame me for Mom dying?”

He just stared at the words for a long time, then slowly
raised his head to meet her eyes.

“No matter how I go over it,” he said softly, “I cannot even
imagine how you could be to blame for Mom dying.”

She gestured for him to return the tablet, but he held on to
it. “For the longest time, I blamed myself. It was icy that night and she
wanted me to drive, but I said no, I needed to finish the charter books. I
always wondered if you blamed me.” Eva stared at him, shocked at the
suggestion, shook her head vigorously.

No. No no no no. I was the one who couldn’t get help.

“There’s no one to blame, Eva. It was a tragic, fluke
accident.”

Give me the damn tablet!
Eva shouted in her head,
frustrated at his refusing to allow her to speak.

But her father just blinked and stared. Then he said softly,
“I don’t think you need it.”

Eva froze mid-grab, arm still outstretched toward her
father.
You heard me?

He nodded. “You have a beautiful voice. I’ve waited so long
to hear it.”

Oh Daddy…
And that was all she could think of to say.
After all these years of wishing she could talk to her father she couldn’t
think of anything to say.

Eva watched the monitor that showed train departure times.
She still had fifteen minutes before her train left, which meant five minutes
before they even announced which track it would be on—plenty of time to get to
the bathroom and back. Still, she hesitated. She hated the bathrooms in Boston’s
North Station, they were so far from the waiting area that it always made her
nervous about who might be skulking in the long corridor, past the Celtics and
Bruins gift shop and ticket windows. It wouldn’t bother her if she were
catching her usual rush hour train, but it was late, thanks to a long faculty
meeting and an invitation out to dinner with her assistant. She would never
make it all the way home to Salem without going and the bathroom on the train
was always a challenge to get to—at the far end of the train—and to use.

So she walked as quickly as her leg would let her, only
recently freed from its cast, kept her eyes open for anyone who looked
suspicious and stuck her hand in the pocket where she kept her key ring with
its piercingly loud panic button. But all she saw was a businessman, briefcase
in hand, tie loosened, heading back from his own trip to the restroom and two
teens sitting on the floor, surrounded by piles of backpacks and duffels and
sleeping bags. She bumped into another member of the party in the restroom.

Shaking her hands dry—she hated those air blowers—she
trekked back to the main waiting area, listening for the announcement for the
Rockport train, the one that would take her home. The teens were gone, but the
businessman had positioned himself in the middle of the hallway. Eva angled to
avoid him, but he stepped to the side, blocking her way. He was a big man, with
short cropped hair, the type of man that one looked at and immediately knew
that he had played football in high school and college and had probably been
pretty good at it.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I’m looking for someone. Maybe you
can help me.”

Eva shook her head, not wanting to linger anywhere near this
man, especially in such isolation. She shrugged and gave him an apologetic look
before moving on. Again he blocked her way. She glared at him, but he didn’t
seem to notice her irritation or her discomfort.

“His name is Leo Ambasa,” he said. “He’s a little shorter
than me, with light-brown hair and a scar right here.” He traced a line on the
side of his face and Eva realized he was talking about Stone. She remembered,
then, that “ambasa” meant “lion” in some African language. It was another
pseudonym, Stone Stone was the same person as Lion Lion.

She shook her head again, putting to use all the practice at
lying she’d had over the past months.

“What’s the matter? You deaf or something?” the big man
asked.

Eva shook her head yet again and reached automatically for
the card she kept in her pocket that explained, “I cannot speak. I can hear
perfectly. I’m of above average intelligence. Please be patient while I write
my responses to you.” It was the same pocket that held the panic-button key
chain.

“Hey, hey. Keep your hands out of your pockets. I know you
know where Leo is. Just tell me and I’ll let you catch your train.” As if to
underline his promise, a voice on the loudspeaker announced the Rockport train,
boarding on track 2.

Eva shrugged expansively. She didn’t know anyone by the name
Leo, she tried to communicate with her expression and hands. And even if he’d
asked for Stone, she couldn’t tell him where he was.

And then suddenly, she could. He was in the building, she
knew it with every fiber of her being. He’d just come into North Station. All
her rising fear immediately dissipated, but her heart didn’t slow.

Stone. There’s a man here asking about you. In the
hallway to the restrooms, near the ticket windows. What should I do?

Then, wonder of wonders, not only did she see him coming
toward her from the end of the hall by the donut stand, she heard his voice in
her head.
Keep him occupied. Distract him as best you can. I’m coming.

Eva held up a finger to say “wait a minute” to her accoster,
then worked to turn her pocket with the stash of cards inside out. He watched
her intently and she pretended to fumble, spilling cards all over the floor.
Instinctively, the man bent to pick them up and Stone moved swiftly and
silently.

Step back.

Eva did and before she could blink, Stone had a knife
pressed to the man’s throat. Stone whispered harshly into the man’s ear.

“Don’t move and just listen. When I tell you to, you will
stand up, turn around and walk slowly toward the donuts. Two men will intercept
you and take you into custody. All three of us will have you in our sights and
if you make the slightest move to escape, even if it’s just looking at the
door, all three of us will shoot. Your partner is already in our custody. Nod
if you understand.”

The man nodded.

“Good. Stand up and keep your hands away from your sides.
Ma’am, I’m sorry this man bothered you. If you would, remove the gun from the
holster under his jacket.”

Eva just stared for a moment, Stone’s official-sounding
voice and formal address keeping his request from registering.

“Ma’am, please. His gun.”

She shook herself, then reached out gingerly and hefted the
pistol awkwardly from the man’s shoulder holster.

“Thank you. Now check his ankles for guns and knives. Buddy,
you better say something now, if there’s anything down there that’s going to
hurt her, or I might just slip with this knife. I hear bleeding to death is a
bad way to go.”

“No, there’s nothing.” The man’s voice was strained and a
bit higher than it had been when he first spoke to Eva.

“Good. Go ahead, ma’am, but be careful.”

Eva knelt down and felt around his ankles. On one, she found
a small holster and another pistol, on the other a sheathed throwing knife had
been strapped on. She shuddered at the ripping sound of the Velcro fasteners.

“Put them in his briefcase and hand it to me.”

Eva followed Stone’s orders as calmly and surely as if he
were telling her how to make scrambled eggs. Their fingers brushed when she
handed the briefcase over and he granted her a small smile and a nod.

“OK. Now, turn and walk.” Stone kept his knife to the man’s
throat and stayed behind him as he turned. “And don’t look back.”

Stone and Eva stood together as the man walked slowly away
from them, his hands out to his sides in a “look, I’m not armed,” posture. They
said nothing, but Stone’s hand found hers and clasped it. He’d slipped his
knife back where it had come from without her seeing him do it. Only when two
men emerged from their hidden positions behind pillars and around corners,
flashed badges at the man and cuffed him, did they turn to look at each other.

Are you all right?

They spoke at the same time, then stood in silence, each
waiting for the other to speak.

“You first,” Stone said.

I’m fine. Thank you.
She pointed to her leg.
Whole
again. The doctor says it will probably ache for a while, but I can live with
that. What about you? Where have you been all this time? Are you all right?

“I’m fine. We can talk about it in the car.”

It never occurred to her to question that she was going with
him rather than taking the train, now long gone anyway, home to Salem. All she
asked was,
Where are we going?

“Someplace safe.”

Eva smiled.
No fears.

He squeezed her hand and led her to the bank of elevators
that connected to the underground parking garage.

As they waited for an elevator car to respond to their
summons, Eva asked,
Why didn’t you just cuff him and take him down to those
other men yourself?

“I didn’t want to leave you alone and you need to not be
able to recognize those two men. They’re undercover agents.”

What about everyone else in the station? And the
surveillance cameras?
The elevator binged and one of the pairs of doors
slid open. They got on and Stone pushed the button for the top floor of the
garage.

“Almost no one is here to see and those who did will never
see those two men again and didn’t get a good enough look to identify them.
Eyewitnesses are among the least reliable, you know. You would have seen and
remembered them, though. The camera footage will be mysteriously lost.”

Were you following him or me?

“Both. He was following you and we were following him.”

Eva shivered. She’d suspected over the last couple months
that Smith or one of his colleagues had been keeping track of her—men in suits
following her around campus, even to the door of her lab on occasion, the
feeling of eyes on her when she got off the train in Salem. She’d pretended not
to notice, knowing that she wouldn’t—couldn’t—give away the information they
were after. Tonight, she supposed, they had decided to try the more direct
approach.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the bare
cement-gray of the parking garage. Eva hung back a half step, allowing Stone to
lead the way through the maze of pillars and a few remaining cars to a black
European all-wheel-drive. The doors unlocked with a soft chirp and a flash of
the taillights and Eva slid into the passenger seat.

Stone?

“Yes?” He put the briefcase he’d confiscated on the backseat
of the car before buckling his seat belt.

Am I allowed to think about you now?

He looked at her questioningly.

Ever since I woke up in the hospital, I’ve been trying
not to think about you. No more than I could help. And if when this is all over
you’re going to tell me the same thing about not looking for you, not admitting
to knowing you, then I’ll continue to not think about you.

His mouth twitched in a hint of a sad smile. “I think it’s
okay for us to think about each other. What did you tell people about what
happened?”

I was unconscious when we got to the hospital—shock or
pain or something, I don’t know—so I pretended I couldn’t remember anything
since stepping off the trail onto that loose rock. Naturally, I was frightened
by how long I’d been missing and what might have happened during that time—they
found traces of your…of you on my clothes—and the whole idea of the plane
crash. The doctor said I might never recover those memories. But everything
seems to have come back to me.

Stone smiled outright. “And you’re all right? No lasting
damage? Every now and then, I would get this sense that you were okay and safe,
but it was just a feeling.” He rolled his window down to pass his parking
receipt to the attendant and the yellow gate went up, releasing them onto the
streets of Boston.

Those were the times I couldn’t help thinking about you.
I kept talking to you, even though I was sure you were too far away. Late at
night, mostly. Thinking you might hear me, that you might care, kept the fear
at a manageable level.

“I did hear, echoes at least and I did care.”

The notorious Boston traffic was almost absent this late at
night and it was a matter of only a few minutes until they were on Route 128
headed north. Stone was a good driver, Eva noted, but he kept their speed
closer to 85 than to 65. Still, they weren’t the fastest car on the road.

What happened to you after we landed?

“Some…allies of mine were monitoring the radio frequencies
so they knew we were coming in. They intercepted one of the ambulances and took
me to a safe house.”

And your bullet wound?

“Healed.”

Stone.
He glanced over at her and she gave him a look
demanding more explanation. She knew it had not been the “flesh wound” macho
guys in movies always claimed when they got shot.

“I was lucky. It missed all my vital organs. It nicked a
kidney and there was surgery, but I’m fine. We have a long drive ahead of us.
Why don’t you get some sleep?” He took an exit and headed west on a smaller
highway. Eva leaned her head against the headrest, but kept her eyes on Stone.
He seemed different somehow. Maybe the command and threat of violence she’d
witnessed in him had changed how she looked at him. Maybe it was the
environment, the situation. Maybe it was just that they’d been apart so long
and her memory didn’t match reality. She wasn’t sure she liked this man as much
as the Stone she remembered. Even when he’d been trying to keep his distance
from her he’d felt more approachable than he did now.

How long have you known where I was?

Stone glanced over at her, but didn’t speak for a moment, as
if deciding what to say.

Don’t lie to me, Stone.

“Eva, you know I couldn’t come to you. Even if things hadn’t
turned out the way they did, even if Smith and his bosses and others like him
hadn’t known about our connection.”

Just answer my question.

“Almost from the beginning. The first thing I said when I
woke up after the surgery was ‘Where’s Eva?’ They’d been keeping an eye on you
and they told me you were in the hospital with your father and that Smith kept
showing up to ask you about me.”

So you only came to me tonight because…?

“Because you were in danger.” The road turned rough, the
paving showing its age with tarred seams at regular intervals adding a ka-thump
ka-thump rhythm to the strained conversation. Eva found herself twisting the
strap of her satchel. “Eva, you were being watched and followed. If I’d come to
you, if you’d even seen me from a distance, I would have been dead.”

Who are these people? Smith acted like he was some sort
of government official.

“He is a government official. He was my boss. They are all
part of the agency I used to work for.”

CIA or something?

“Not exactly, but close enough. We specialized in
infiltrating large-scale organized crime. Arms dealers, information brokers,
international slavers.”