Free Flee the Night by Susan May Warren Page B

fact, there was so little Micah knew about this woman that the questions suddenly felt alive, burrowing through his chest. Like, why, exactly, did the NSA think she had murdered someone? Why had her daughter been traveling under a different name? Or even, why had it taken her seven years to call him?
    Actually he could answer that last question. Pride. Hurt. Betrayal. Only whose betrayal? Hers or his?
    He stood at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep, her head lolled to one side. His lucky penny. Her red hair was tangled, matted against the pillow, and in the darkness, she looked so peaceful. So unlike the woman he’d seen in Kazakhstan, blood dripping from her hands. Her voice rushed back to him as it had so many times, and he remembered the way she grabbed him by the shirt, eyes ferocious on his. “Help John.”
    But it had been too late. John’s aorta had been severed. His life flooded on the floor, his blue eyes glassy. Micah nearly lost ten years of composure right there in the middle of the gutted warehouse.
    He’d held together long enough to scoop Lacey into his arms and race through the Almaty streets toward the hospital. Long enough for her to moan, her hands curled around her body, “Oh, it’s all my fault. My fault. I killed him.”
    He stared at her now, his throat thick, those words pinging in his head, and for the first time he wondered if maybe he should have stuck around long enough to decipher the meaning of those words.
    Maybe there were a lot of things he should have stuck around to do. He trudged to the window, scraped a hand over his hair, and stared out into the darkness. Regrets seemed to line every conversation he had with Lacey over the years.
    “Micah?” Her voice, soft, full of hope, made him wince.
    He heard her shift, then a quick intake of breath as she sat up.
    He turned, stared at his feet. He couldn’t look into those gray eyes. “Lacey, I … we found her trail and followed it.” He closed his eyes, feeling sick. “We lost it. I don’t know. We have a dog and he just lost it. I’m so sorry.”
    She stayed silent. No moan. No mourning cry. Nothing. Then again, Lacey was a spy … or had been. She could mask the truth like a Shakespearean actor. Although her eyes were hard and still, the way she swallowed once, then twice, sparked something deep in his gut.
    “You’re not … very surprised by this information.”
    When she looked away from him, the feeling in his gut blazed to an inferno. Oh no, what if … “Lacey … they haven’t … found her, have they?” The idea of Lacey’s—John’s—daughter down in the hospital morgue made him reach out for the back of the chair.
    She shook her head.
    “She’s not dead?” he asked in a thin voice.
    Lacey closed her eyes, as if the answer pained her.
    He sat down, emptied. He heard only the thumping of his heart and the soft swish of rain outside the window. “Lacey, what is it?”
    “Micah, I have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry, but I have to … handle this on my own.”
    “What’s going on?” He heard the rush of anger in his voice, shocked that he could race from sympathy to fury so quickly. Lacey had always had the uncanny ability to light a match under his emotions. Still, he’d douse them to cinders before he let them get out of hand. He hadn’t earned the nickname Iceman because of his propensity to let himself unravel.
    “She’s … I think she’s okay. For now.” Lacey was fisting the covers in her hand, her slung arm clutched tightly to her body.
    He noticed her wrist, a reddened mark where the cuffs had been. “Thank you for coming to help me.” She didn’t look at him, but he heard the tremor in her voice. “I … appreciate it.”
    “Appreciate it?” His voice rose and he fought to stifle it. “I haul my body across two states and spend part of the day and night tromping about the forest and you appreciate it? What do you think I am, the cavalry? The local national guard? Honey, you’re