Running Off Radar, page 26
Dev caught up with them, looking at the area Rose was scrutinizing. “He didn’t sell you out. Your friend. We got the rest of the intel last night. Sirko threatened his family. The money talk was just a cover.”
“Thank you, Dev,” Rose said. Then, as the full meaning sank in, she added, “That’s terrible.”
“Bravo, dude,” Maji said.
“Sorry. I was looking at it from the loyal friend upside,” Dev admitted. “Of course, everybody’s got a pressure point. Sirko uses that same trick over and over ’cause it keeps working.”
Rose strode away from them, down the bridge’s incline toward the public library with the best view in the country and to the conference center beyond it. Maji caught up with her but didn’t say anything.
“I hate that man,” Rose spat out. “If I could stop him myself, I would. I want to keep getting in his way. How do I do that?”
“You stay safe. That’s how.” Maji sounded angry herself, with an undertone of worry.
What did she think Rose would do, go out and hunt the man herself? No—but Maji would. She’d as good as promised Tina, hadn’t she? And what would she do if Rose was endangered again? Javi had capitulated for his family. Jack had flown to his death for Tina. Liv had flipped out when she thought Dee was still being held hostage. And Maji had come running down the dock the moment she was free, so focused on having Rose back that she ended up bruised and scraped and dunked in seawater. Exposed to God knew what on her still healing wounds from God knew where. Exposed.
Rose walked on in silence, her thoughts spiraling. A hundred yards from the conference center she slowed down, watching her colleagues chat casually together, the few persistent ones soaking in the weak rays of sun poking through the cloud cover. She felt Maji’s hand on her arm, heard her name.
Rose whirled and faced Maji. “You want me safe? Living a normal life?” The words tasted bad in her mouth. “Well, I don’t want to settle for normal. And I don’t want anyone else. But most of all, I don’t want to be the reason your life gets cut short. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Maji reached for her, but she backed away. “Rose?”
“Leave me alone. Get your bags and go. Don’t call me. Just stay away.” Rose turned and headed for the shelter of the conference.
* * *
Maji strained against Dev’s arms. “Don’t do it, dude,” he spoke into her ear. “Let her cool off.”
“I can’t just let her walk away. She’s scared.”
Dev relaxed his hold. “Of course she is. She’s a civilian in love with a soldier. And she’s new at this. Give her a few hours at least.”
“Will you talk to her?”
“If she wants to talk. But if you want my advice…I know how you feel about unsolicited advice.”
He did too. But she was feeling desperate now. “Go ahead.”
“As soon as she’s cooled down, propose.”
She squinted up at him. “Seriously? Did you not hear the go away part?”
“I did. But also the I don’t want to live without you part. Dude, give her a reason to believe you’ll be there for her.”
Well, that brought them back to square one. “How can I?” She thought of Bubbles’s miscarriage. Everyone was there for her, except Maji. “I don’t even know when I’ll be at home, and now she’s scared I won’t make it home.”
“Whatever. All I’m saying is, if she’s who you want to come home to, tell her like you mean it.”
Maji looked down. Did she mean that? Not that she hadn’t daydreamed about coming home to Rose, but would it work? Getting her head out of a mission took a while, and she usually took that time alone. Plus, she’d never done the day-to-day with anybody she was in love with. What if she sucked at it and Rose kicked her out, for good? But…she looked back up at him. “What if she says no?”
“She could opt out,” Dev admitted. “And you’d be where you are now. But why would she say yes if you don’t show her you’re all in?”
Convinced, Maji started to walk past him to go find Rose. Now.
“Whoa,” Dev said, stepping out ahead of her. “Go kill some time. I’ll text you later.” He gave her a gentle shove toward town.
Torn between the craving to go see, touch, and talk to Rose this very minute and the astounding realization that Dev actually knew something about relationships, Maji blew out a breath and gave him a nod. “You want me to pick up anything for Mira or the kids?”
“Yeah. Get some touristy Russian stuff for the girls, you know—those painted dolls or whatever. And some kind of Native art for Mira. You know what she likes.”
Maji let him go find Rose indoors and turned herself toward town. At the traffic light, she looked left and right, rudderless. The scent of frying food beckoned from the left, and she let her growling stomach pull her down the shop-lined street. Art and clothing, jewelry, and sports gear called out from the storefronts. The Russian Orthodox cathedral sat oddly between lanes, like an island in the middle of a river. A slow-moving river with little traffic. Maji’s brain wandered to Heather and the impending flood of cruise-boat tourists arriving in May. And then the smell of pancit, adobo, and lumpia drew her into a tiny Filipino café.
The scent and taste of her lunch took Maji back to Luzon, to her last mission and the scrapes and bruises still healing on her back and legs. Rose had seemed so calmly compassionate—maybe she’d underestimated how much having the evidence of Maji’s work in her face bothered her. She exchanged a few words in Tagalog with the server and wondered if Rose were there whether she would have stuck with English. Because if she used another language not on the short list Rose already knew she spoke, would she want to explain why she’d learned it, how much she’d needed to get by? How many times could she say she couldn’t talk about things before Rose felt shut out? If she did propose, and Rose said yes, she could go to Fort Bragg and have family orientation. Would that make her worry more or less?
Maji wandered into the Russian keepsakes store, cruising the aisles like a real tourist, listening to the normal people talk to each other. It was boring, the mundane bickering over where to eat out and the blithe chatter about weather and sightseeing. Why did it never feel boring with Rose? Was it just their newness? If they saw each other for months at a time, would they still treasure those moments like she had these last few days? She took her bag of tchotchkes for the kids and crossed to the little independent bookstore.
In the children’s section, Maji found the beautifully illustrated books of Raven stories, the ones by that presenter at Rose’s conference. Rose had exclaimed over the sample copies there. Since Dev hadn’t texted her yet, Maji sat in a cushy armchair and read all three: Raven Brings Us Fire, Origins of Rivers and Streams, and Raven and the Box of Daylight. Seemed like Raven liked to stir up trouble, but things ended up well for others when he did.
Had Taira called her Raven just because she’d clearly been covert, like a shape-shifter? But Rose had insisted Maji was a Raven too. Maji wanted so much to curl up on a couch and hold Rose and have her explain in her insightful way what the hell all that meant. With Rose, the complicated and messy all got so simple, somehow. Except when she wouldn’t let it and pushed Rose away. Like Rose was doing now. She bought the three books and added them to her bag. Rose should have some good memories of this trip.
Chapter Twenty-three
Rejoining the conference felt surreal. Rose had missed only a few sessions, but it felt like she’d left this little world, traveled to a hostile planet, and landed back on earth again—without anyone here noticing. And Lt. Green had asked her, in the hospital room while Maji was zonked out, to act like nothing had happened. That was surprisingly easy when everyone around her assumed she’d taken a break to sightsee. But inside, the dissonance between her public face and her private thoughts kept her off balance. Was that how Maji felt when she came home from…wherever it was they sent her? Was it lonely being part of two worlds, one secret and one normal?
Rose accepted an invitation to dinner, insisting Dev join her and her two Scandinavian colleagues. Before meeting up with them, Dev escorted her back to the hotel and checked them into a junior suite. Rose settled herself into the bedroom, not bothering to object to Dev’s plan to take the couch, a foot too short for his tall frame. She unpacked only what she needed for the night and leaned on the support of the doorway, surprised to find Dev seated on the couch meditating. Perhaps that’s what he did to bring himself back to the normal world. Or just to get through a day without nearly enough sleep.
Rose yawned, and he opened his eyes at the sound. “Sorry.”
“All is well,” he said. “If you’re too tired, we could order room service. But not on my account.”
“No.” She yawned again. “It’s my last chance to see these two in person. I just need enough brain to hold a conversation.”
He gave her a sympathetic look. “Anything you want to talk to me about?”
“I don’t think you’re allowed to tell me the kinds of things I want to know.” She spotted the coffee maker on the counter and, missing the full kitchenette of their old suite, took the carafe to the bathroom to fill. “Coffee or tea?”
“Tea, please.” He stayed quiet while she puttered with drink making. When she brought him the steaming mug, he said, “I can’t tell you what it’s like to be on your side of things, the civilian side. But I have been married to someone who is.”
Rose took the far end of the couch, not sure she had the energy for anything that involved feelings. But it was so generous of him to offer. “You really do want Ri to be happy, don’t you?”
“She’s a better teammate that way,” he quipped. “But seriously? She deserves somebody special. Be a pity if you were the one that got away.”
Rose felt herself flush. Praise from a man who never praised anyone. She wondered what he was like at home, with the ones he loved. “How is it that you have a family and did…the same kind of work?”
He shrugged. “Lots of us do. And I won’t lie—it’s hard on the wives. They take care of everything when you’re gone and have to put up with you when you’re home. And even when we’re home, you know, there’s a piece of us that isn’t. Can’t be.”
“But is your family in any actual danger because of you?”
Dev shook his head. “We take steps to keep who we are and what we do quiet. Even within the military community. Otherwise, they could become targets. What Angelo did was completely off book, and I guess it just shows why we do what we do the way we do it.”
Rose nearly smiled. Next thing they knew, he’d be talking about their thing, like the Mafia men did. But that reminded her of the reality TV show and how Sirko had used it as a way to track her family, to exploit the prurient interest America had in the Mafia. “Do you think the criminals Ang hurt will keep coming after us?”
“There’s no guarantees, but of all of them—and there were a lot—only Sirko really has any resources left to be a threat.”
“And do you think he’s the only one who knows about Ri and me?”
“That she loves you, you mean?”
Rose nodded. That thought should give her such joy. But right now all she could see was the wreath on Tina’s door, the mysterious Navy people driving away after paying respects along with acceptable lies. “That she has a weak spot.”
Dev smiled, damn him. “Says who?” When she didn’t answer his ridiculous question, he pressed the point. “You think she did anything she wasn’t supposed to, wasn’t allowed to, or wasn’t safe to do, because of you?”
“Well, obviously, I don’t know what she was doing with the Navy and the Coast Guard while we were tied up—literally. But I did see her go in the water.”
“So you don’t ever want her to fall down. She can’t slip and fall, because she’s some superwoman?”
“Of course not. I just don’t want to be the reason she gets hurt.”
Dev looked skeptical. “That would drive Mira crazy too. But she knows that the slimmest chance of making it back home to her has kept me alive more than a few times.”
“I hate that any of you are in that kind of danger,” Rose admitted, looking past him to the gray clouds moving in on the horizon. “And I hate that I don’t want you to stop. Ri isn’t ever going to stop, is she? Even when she leaves the Army.”
“Nah, I can’t picture that. You want somebody who looks the other way when there’s trouble, she’s not the one for you.”
* * *
Maji walked into the forest and read the stories posted by a few of the totem poles. It was fascinating history and a neat way of storytelling, but she couldn’t keep her focus. So she looped back toward the Visitor Center, not sure where she was headed. Everything ached, but the heaviness that made her want to just curl up somewhere also meant she should keep moving. Along the paved path for tourists staying close to the main building were plantings with signs giving their common names and Tlingit names, with information on food and medicinal uses. Deerheart, salmonberry, Indian celery, beach strawberry…Maji stopped reading. Rose would love this. Last summer when she had broken up with Rose to protect her, she was sure it was the right thing to do. Now that the tables were turned, she understood just how bad it felt. She wanted to be mad, but all she could tap was hollowness. When Maji had finally come to her senses, Rose took her back and wouldn’t even take an apology. And if Rose could bring herself to give them a chance—again—Maji wouldn’t expect one either. She’d just say yes. Whatever Rose wanted—yes.
The sound of chipper voices pulled her back to the overcast day. They were coming from a little building behind the Visitor Center. It had a roof supported by sturdy beams, and half walls on three sides.
At the open front, two gray-haired women talked about the carver working inside as if he couldn’t hear them. “I heard they could go on the ocean with those.”
“Can you imagine? No, I don’t think so. Are you sure?”
“Well, let’s go ask the ranger. I want to see the gift shop.”
They meandered toward the main building, leaving the man in the red bandana still bent over his work, shaving out the inside of a sizable log. That would be quite some canoe when it was finished. Maji realized the carver was Nate and wondered if he missed the music and lighting of his home studio. Not that the sound of gulls and ravens in the fresh air was a bad tradeoff.
“I heard they could go on the ocean with those,” she said to him, mimicking the nasal Midwestern tones of the tourists.
“Can you imagine?” he answered. Straightening up and wiping his hands, Nate gave her a thorough looking over. “You in one piece, then?”
Little swirling pieces. “I hurt all over, but nothing that won’t heal.” Hopefully.
He cocked his head. “Most you can ask for, sometimes. Enough to keep going on.”
Her grief was not the only grief, Maji remembered, thinking how recently he had lost his brother, and Dee her best friend. And then there was Javi, and Jack. So much loss—for what? “Thanks for getting me into that hospital under the radar. Hope it didn’t get you in any trouble.”
He shrugged. “An honest mistake, ennit? Didn’t hurt anybody.”
“Dee stopped in to see me.” Maji considered telling him about her and Liv, but realized she didn’t know what was between them, plus it wasn’t her story to tell. And besides, in this community he probably knew more already than she did. “She seemed okay, considering. Worth keeping an eye on though.”
“Dee’s been through worse,” Nate said, in a quiet way that made Maji aware he too would tell no tales that weren’t his to share. “Said having Rose there made all the difference, though. And that you got the guys that killed Charlie. That so?”
Maji sighed and watched his hands keep moving expertly over the wood, creating shape and form. “You’ll never see it in the news. But whatever Dee says, I’d take that as the truth.”
He nodded silently as he picked his tools back up. “How’s Rose doing, then?”
“Not so good, I think. She’s been through a lot, losing family and having assholes with guns after her.” Maji hesitated before saying the unthinkable out loud. “She broke up with me.”
“Mm.” He didn’t sound sympathetic, but she knew he was letting that sink in. Well, so was she. After a few minutes of him working and her watching the boats out on the Sound, he said, “You know Raven had a wife, yeah?”
The mythology stuff never quite clicked for Maji, no matter whose culture the tale came from. How could a bird marry a woman? “Was she a human?”
“So they say. Line between the animal people and the two-legged people wasn’t so bright back then. And of course, figures like Raven and Bear are something all their own anyway, something more. But you’re sidetracking me there.”
“Sorry. Where you headed then?”
“Only that Raven was a tough one to live with, always getting up to something, often making the others they had to live with mad.” Nate paused and looked up just long enough to make sure Maji was listening. “But Raven’s a hero to us too.”
“Why?”
“Well, Raven was kind of a hot mess, yeah? Often hungry, kinda foolish. Easy to relate to unless you happen to be perfect. But Raven managed to make things better for everyone, even while being a pain in the ass. Stealing the sun’s admirable, ennit? After all, it was wrong of the man up the Nass river to keep the sun in a box and make everyone live in the dark.”
Maji recalled that Raven changed shape twice, took on a false identity, and made a daring escape in order to steal the sun. Foolish maybe, but effective. “So you could admire that sort of chutzpah, but not want to live with it.”
“Only takes one to want to, though. And love can make you put up with a lot of bull.” He stopped and stretched, reaching for a shop towel. “Want to get some sushi?”
