‘He wanted to protect you from himself,’ she murmured, understanding more than Marcus knew. ‘And himself from you.’
She knew she’d overstepped the moment the words came out of her mouth. Marcus pivoted so that their shoulders no longer nearly touched. It only widened the gap between them a few more inches, but it could have been a football field by the arctic look on his face.
‘Excuse me?’ Even his voice had grown coldly contemptuous. ‘You didn’t know him. You didn’t know us. We never would have hurt him. Never.’
‘I bet I know him better than you think,’ she said quietly, clearly visualizing the tortured man beating the tar out of a punching bag rather than taking out his inescapable fury on small children. ‘But you’re right. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it the way you took it. I’m sorry.’ Still in her pocket, her hand closed over her car keys, gripping them tightly. ‘I’ll leave now. You don’t have to show me out.’ She stepped to the side so that she could get by him without brushing against him. ‘Please be careful. And don’t hesitate to call me if you need me.’
He matched her step, blocking her path. ‘Scarlett, I . . .’ He shook his head, his expression no longer cold. No longer anything. He’d wiped the emotion from his features. ‘I apologize.’
She pulled on her most professional face. ‘No need. Now, if you’ll let me pass, I need to go. This was supposed to have been a quick stop. I’ve been keeping Agent Novak waiting.’
His feet didn’t budge, but his hand lifted to close gently over her shoulder, the movement slow and careful, as if he was afraid he’d spook her. ‘Don’t go,’ he murmured. ‘Not yet. Not like this. Tell me what you did mean.’
She could feel the warmth of his hand through the fabric of her jacket, and this time she gave in to the urge to lean into his touch, just a little. Then shivered when his thumb swept up the side of her neck, just once.
His exhale was ragged, his voice rough as he ran his hand down the length of her arm, lightly but briefly brushing his fingertips against the back of her hand. ‘I know he wanted to protect us from himself. I knew that even when I was a kid. But why would he need to protect himself from us? How could we have hurt him?’
She met his eyes, understood the guarded trepidation she saw there because she felt the same way. Now that she had a second to think, she wished she hadn’t said anything at all. Marcus O’Bannion was about as far from clueless as a man could get. Her answer would very likely expose her worst vulnerability.
But maybe he needed to see that. Fair warning and all that shit.
She thought of the framed copy of the Malaya on the wall behind her. ‘You said he was in the Philippines. In Bataan. He must have seen, experienced, terrible things.’
‘Then and later,’ Marcus murmured. ‘He was in the press corps in Korea.’
‘It changes you, seeing death and dying. People suffering. Knowing you can’t stop it or fix it. That you can only do so much. It damages you. Damages your soul. Pieces break off and shrivel up until they’re not recognizable as anything that had ever been good. But it sounds like your grandfather still had a fair bit left inside him that was good. That could feel. That cared and, importantly, could maintain reason. He was an adult with strong hands. You were a child and he was afraid he might truly hurt you. That he was able to separate himself before he raised his hand to you is commendable. A lot of people can’t do that, and they end up hurting the people they’re supposed to love the most. Sometimes physically and sometimes emotionally.’
His eyes were locked on hers, warmer now. Less remote. ‘We couldn’t have hurt him physically. He was Stone’s size and we were children. But we wouldn’t have hurt him emotionally either, even when we grew up.’
‘I know. I think he probably knew that too. But sometimes it doesn’t matter what you know. The fear goes far deeper than that, because that piece of our soul that we keep is the connection to what’s left of our humanity. If you allow yourself to open up, even to the people you love the most, and that good part somehow becomes damaged, too? What then?’
‘You have nothing,’ he murmured.
‘Exactly. The need to protect isn’t rational. It’s instinctive, the way you protect an injured part of your body when you’re in a fight. You want to be able to open the gate, to let people in, but only the people you love, who you can trust not to hurt you. Then you close the gate tight when you go back into the world. But sometimes it gets too hard to keep opening and closing the gate. You run out of strength.’
He finally broke eye contact, looking away. ‘Or the gate becomes rusty.’
‘True,’ she said quietly, wondering if either of them was still talking about his grandfather. ‘And sometimes you close the gate because you’re ashamed to let anyone in. To let anyone see. Because you keep seeing things you can’t unsee. And the damage spreads.’
‘Like a rot,’ he said flatly.
‘Yep.’ She drew a breath. ‘So you close the gate tight. Quarantine the rot. Make sure it doesn’t spread to anyone else.’
‘So why not quit before the rot consumes you?’ he asked, almost as if to himself.
‘I suppose only the individual can answer that question for himself.’
He met her eyes once more, his no longer guarded but sharp. ‘Or herself?’
She nodded soberly. ‘Or herself.’
‘So why, Scarlett? Why do you continue seeing things you can’t unsee?’
The question took her by surprise. ‘Because it’s all I know how to do,’ she answered honestly.
Anger flashed in those dark brown eyes. ‘Let someone else do it.’
She smiled up at him sadly. ‘And let the rot spread? That’s not the way I’m built.’ She cleared her throat. ‘And now I’m even later meeting Deacon. I need to go. Just email me the list when it’s done.’
‘It is done. It’s on the printer.’ He crossed back to his desk and picked up the single sheet of paper. ‘I’ll email it to you as well, in case you want to send it to Deacon.’
She took it and scanned the short list of names – only eight. Marcus had added the date of the threat, the exact wording, and a short summary of the article that had incited the person’s anger to begin with.
Carefully she folded the paper and slid it into her jacket pocket. ‘Thank you. And thank you for calling me this morning. I only wish I had gotten there a little sooner.’
‘I wish I had too. I might have gotten her out of there alive.’
Scarlett looked over her shoulder, her eyes drawn to the copy of the Malaya, and she realized that she still hadn’t told him about the baby. ‘I don’t think Tala would have left with you. Or with me, for that matter. She was going back to wherever she was being kept.’
He frowned down at her. ‘How do you know?’
‘Malaya wasn’t just her way of asking you to free her family. I think Malaya is the name of her child.’
Marcus paled under his tan, just as she’d feared he would. ‘Child? She had a child?’
‘Yes.’
‘How old?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘How old is the child?’
‘It’s hard to say exactly. The ME thought Tala might have given birth anywhere from one to three years ago. If I had to guess, I’d put the baby’s age closer to a year. We found a teething ring in Tala’s pocket and we know she was still nursing.’
His throat worked hard for a moment. ‘She was only seventeen, Scarlett.’
‘I know,’ she said gently.
‘That means she would have gotten pregnant when she was fifteen.’