Chapter 19
Deacon drank his coffee and listened to some guy called Oscar telling him all about what a brilliant teacher Rafe was and how his class of five-year-olds was the most challenging of all.
“Anyway, I don’t know how he does it.”
Deacon had a reply ready, but was distracted when the main door opened and Mac strode in, followed by a guy in a suit.
“Deacon!” he called, and Deacon made his way over quickly, with sudden fear in his chest. He glanced around for Rafe, but there was no sign of him. He should be back by now.
Mac pulled him aside. “Felix is alive,” he said in a low voice.
Deacon reared back, tried to pull away. “I need to find Rafe.”
But Mac was shaking him. “It’s too late. Felix has Rafe.”
Deacon tore himself from Mac’s grip. “What? Where?”
“We had Felix in our sights – we didn’t know he’d use a baby,” Suit said in a whiny, nasal way.
“What?”
Mac moved to stand between Deacon and Suit, holding up a hand. “Feds decided to use Rafe as bait, but they lost Felix.”
Deacon acted on pure instinct, bypassing Mac with a smooth move and slamming Suit back against the wall, circling his throat. “What?” he shouted right in the guy’s face.
“It was the only way,” the man shouted back, and Deacon tightened his grip.
“You knew Felix was here, and you let him get Rafe?”
Mac was at his side. “Let him go, D.”
“Fuck that. Where is he?”
“We had the situation u–u–nder control,” Suit said, and gurgled and gasped as Deacon decided whether he should just snap the man’s neck.
“There’s kids here,” Mac pointed out, and at that Deacon dropped his hold, Suit falling to the floor.
“I’ll have your badge, your life. I’ll have you hauled over every single board…” Deacon stopped as he realized he was losing all control and none of this was finding Rafe.
“We had the south exit covered.” Suit looked like he was five seconds away from losing his breakfast.
“The tracker – he was wearing Sam’s jacket,” Deacon snapped. “Let’s go.”
“The baby is missing,” Suit said from the floor, then picked himself up. “As soon as we saw that, we aborted the mission, but it was too late.”
“What? Shit, you fuckers.”
“We didn’t know he was here.”
Deacon rounded on the man but said nothing. What was he going to say? What was the point in standing there talking and accusing when Rafe was out there with a fucking psychopath?
“Get in the car, D,” Mac insisted. “We have his tracker live and moving.”
Deacon’s relief was so strong he nearly keeled over with the power of it. He’d never thought they’d be relying on the tracker, because he’d promised he’d keep Rafe safe.
Mac drove at speed as soon as he was out of the town, tailed by a cop car and Evie close behind.
“Ops say the tracker is stationary,” Mac said, worry in his tone.
Please don’t tell me that. Please don’t tell me that Rafe is dead.
In ten minutes flat, they were at the site of the tracker. But there was no Rafe.
Just his jacket, with the tracker in the pocket. Along with a woman and her baby. Anna and Chloe. The baby was wrapped tightly in Rafe’s coat, and the woman was covered in blood but alive. For a few seconds, Deacon stared at them, listening to Suit call in paramedics, watching Mac help them up and into Suit’s car, and then he realized that what he was looking for wasn’t there. Rafe.
“I’ll backstop you here,” Evie said. “Stay in this area, with the woman and baby.”
Deacon nodded mutely. “Tell me there was some other tracker on Rafe. Please.”
Mac backed away from him, talking into his earpiece, and Deacon followed, catching some of the words. “…anything… silver Mazda… find it.”
“Talk to me,” Deacon said, and grabbed at Mac’s jacket.
“Tracker has been at this point thirteen minutes. They’ll find him,” Mac reassured him, and got back in his car, Deacon following. “You armed?”
“Of course I’m not.”
Mac reached over and unlocked the gun safe with his thumbprint. “There,” he said without added explanation.
Deacon took out the Sig and checked the chamber, then sat back and tried to center himself. “Where are we heading?”
Mac cursed. “Fuck knows.”
“What were you even doing in town?”
“Gut instinct,” was all Mac said as they peeled away from the spot where Anna and her baby had been left to die. Somehow Mac knew his way, being guided by whoever was talking to him. This nebulous Sanctuary that he worked for. “Then forensics came back. Inconclusive, and camera footage showed a man heading away from the car as it exploded. He was caught in the blast but vanished in the chaos.”
“Why didn’t you call and tell me?”
Mac shot him a sideways glance. “I was already here. I didn’t like this whole situation and I wanted to be here. The news only came in an hour ago.”
Deacon shook his head to clear the panic, and instead drew on all his reserves so that he wasn’t acting on blind panic but icy resolve.
“Ops lost him here,” Mac said, and pulled over to the side of the road. “No satellite coverage cams, nothing, but he’s not gone out the other side of the mountain on this road. He’s in there somewhere.”
Deacon looked up at the peaks, imagined the hundreds of places that Rafe could be with Felix. If he was still alive. Pain knifed through him at the thought. They’d taken years to finally get together, and he wasn’t ready to lose Rafe now.
“Okay,” Mac said, tapping his ear. “Yeah, I see it. Deacon, get back in the car.”
“What do you have?”
“Nothing, maybe, or something.”
Deacon subsided and let Mac drive, off the main road and up into the mountains. The directions made little sense, but somehow Mac knew. Deacon didn’t ask questions; he just let Mac drive.
“Ops say there is something up here, one of two places. We could be lucky.”
Or Rafe could be dead already. He didn’t want to think that, but…
“What the hell were the Feds thinking?”
“Felix is a serial killer,” Mac said quietly as they followed a straight road at a steep incline. Had Rafe come this way? “You know they’ll do anything to get him out of circulation.”
“Even putting a civilian’s life in danger? If they’ve got Rafe killed…”
“It’s up here,” Mac said after more silence. “Ditching the car.”
Deacon followed Mac out of the car, and together they sprinted up the remainder of the hill and ducked into the trees. All Deacon could see was a shack, a broken-down building with nothing to show anyone was inside, and then he saw it – the glint of silver. Cautiously but with speed, they made their way to a car. Mac nodded, and Deacon knew it was the right car. Gun high, he indicated he would go around the back of the shack, Mac to the front. Jumping fallen branches and trying to get there as fast as he could, he thought he heard someone scream, and his steps became faster. He skidded to a halt at the back of the shack, the entire wall missing, and for a second he knew he’d fucked up. There was no cover here – nothing except him, trees, and Rafe’s broken body held up with chains.
And there, laughing hysterically, with a gun to Rafe’s head, was Felix.
“This gets better and better,” he said, and grinned. Deacon didn’t even think about what he was doing, but he wasn’t listening to a fucking monologue or Felix spouting some shit. He shot him. A bullet right in the center of Felix’s brain, and he was dead before he hit the floor.
He didn’t care about Felix, it was Rafe he was transfixed by, limp and bloody, and Mac helped with the chains until they had Rafe down on the ground.
“Help’s on its way,” a voice said from the door. Suit, looking at the blood and the chains in shock. “We need to… Jesus… We need help, there’s bodies out there.”
All Deacon could do was cradle Rafe and try to keep him up off the ground. His breathing was shallow, his back a mess of wounds, his face bloodied, his eyes swollen, and he was unconscious.
“We should take him somewhere.”
“EMTs are five out,” Mac reassured him.
“We’ll want to question him,” Suit said. “Is he alive?”
Deacon looked right at Mac. He was going to kill Suit, literally tear him apart with his bare hands. Mac just narrowed his eyes and shook his head subtly.
This isn’t the time.
Rafe said nothing. When the paramedic scooped Rafe up and deposited him in the ambulance, he simply climbed in, Mac as well, and then he sat and held Rafe’s hand, willing him to wake up.
He didn’t know where they were going, where he was being taken. The clinic they arrived at didn’t look like a hospital; in fact the paramedic didn’t look like any he’d ever seen before, and he finally realized this was the same guy who’d checked Rafe out before. Kieran or something? Some weird name. Kayden, that was it. There was a rough edge to Kayden, but he knew what he was doing. There were no backboards, and if Deacon hadn’t known better he would have thought Kayden was carrying out field surgery as he attended to Rafe’s wounds.
Mac sat with him, waiting in the hallway outside the closed room, and when Kayden came out he didn’t beat around the bush.
“He’ll live. Nothing bleeding internally, but you know he’ll need watching. Did you get the guy who did this?”
“Yeah,” Mac answered for him.
“Good.”
“What can I do?” Deacon asked helplessly.
Kayden appeared to consider the question, then with great insight he said, “Understand that he’ll have scars.”
Mental and physical. And Deacon would be there for him through all of it.
Because all Deacon could think was that scars didn’t matter if Rafe was alive.
The first time Rafe opened his eyes, Deacon wasn’t there to see it. Kayden found him, told him that Rafe was awake and asking for him.
Deacon was in the room in an instant.
“Anna? The baby?” Rafe’s voice was scratchy, and his eyes wouldn’t stay open for long. Deacon wanted to go to him, to touch him, reassure himself that Rafe was alive, but he was rooted to the spot.
“Good, all good,” he managed. “Anna has a fractured jaw, the baby is completely fine. Anna asked after you. The whole town is asking after you. We kept you out of the papers, but they’re reaching for reasons, who you are.”
God, stop talking. Why am I still talking? Rafe doesn’t need to know all this.
Rafe moved his head and groaned, then muttered something that sounded like Deacon’s name.
Deacon moved closer, grasped his hand, held it gently but knowing he didn’t ever want to let go. “Do you need something?”
“Say…sorry…need to…for everyone…you.”
Deacon’s chest tightened. He was trying to apologize to everyone for what? For becoming the target of a man who had killed so many people? There was nothing for Rafe to be sorry about.
“Everything’s okay, Rafe.”
“It’s not,” Rafe murmured, and tears slid down his face. He closed his eyes. “It will never be okay.”
And all Deacon could do was hold his hand tight until the tears stopped and Rafe was asleep.