Hard Beat(101)
“It was right then I knew something was going on between you two. She denied it fiercely, but I knew her well enough to know she was lying. I got her to admit in a roundabout way that there was something between you, but she told me that you guys weren’t telling anyone, that you’d honor the promise because the integrity of your work was so important to you and so if push came to shove, her cover would hold…” His voice fades off, allowing me to absorb what he’s said to this point, and while I still feel like I’m drinking the information from a firehose, at least I have information to drown in. And heartache. There’s definitely no escaping the weariness that assails me from finding this all out too late. Everything is just too late.
“The IED,” Dane says, pulling me from the riot in my head and heart. “Both Rosco’s and Sarge’s reports stated that they thought they heard someone call Beaux’s name. We intercepted radio chatter congratulating over a takeout. We couldn’t be positive they meant Beaux, so we immediately went into protective mode, because if someone called her name, that meant she might have had eyes on her, a bounty on her head for playing both sides.”
“So if her caring husband shows up at Landstuhl, makes a scene —”
“And she goes home with him and has a domesticated life in a house that they suddenly moved into and a fake background to reinforce it, then there’s no way she could be a spy. Eyes and ears everywhere, making sure that —”
“Jesus f*cking Christ!” I say to no one as something dawns on me. “You guys were f*cking listening to us that day?” The look on his face tells me what I don’t want to know, and now it’s my turn to pace the floor. The one last memory I have of her, the bittersweet and intimate moments between us were documented by who knows what kind of devices and the perverted f*cks on the other end of them.
“They were turned off when we realized what was happening,” he murmurs, but the admission does nothing to stop the anger that eats at me. “She wanted to run after you, you know…”
“No, I don’t know!” I yell, at him, at her, at everyone because I feel so f*cking in the dark right now, and while I don’t want to know another thing, I need to know everything. Then I can leave here and try to comprehend so that I can mourn the loss of her even though I still can’t believe she’s gone.
“She wanted to run after you,” he repeats, but this time with more compassion, “but we couldn’t let her. We were afraid for your safety too. Afraid that if your source was the one who ratted her out, they’d think you were spying too. So we had eyes on your house from the moment you got home.”
“William’s black Suburban blocking my view…” I say more to myself than to him. The believability factor of this whole situation has become almost too far-fetched, cloak and daggerish for my own liking. So much so that if I weren’t living it, I’d say it was a bogus story.
He murmurs in agreement. “You left the house in Kansas, and she was beside herself because she knew how much she was hurting you. I made her promise just a few more weeks to make sure everything was kosher before she could come to you, that the intercepts still weren’t clean of chatter yet. If you two had seen each other again, then she’d have been putting you in danger. She said you were going to come back, that you don’t give up without a fight,” he says, followed by an audible sigh, my own heart swelling despite the pain to hear this and know she was as tormented as I was. A misery loves company sort of thing.
And then I remember she’s dead. And now it was all for nothing.
“She filed a restraining order, called Rafe to warn you so you wouldn’t come back and be at risk… She just wanted you safe because she loved you. In all the years we worked together, I’d never seen her like this, Tanner. You have to know that. She really did love you.” He rests his shoulders against the wall and leans his head to look up at the ceiling. “She was going on a quick mission to the embassy to deliver some information and confirm a few things for a source we have there. She told me her return flight was going to be to San Diego so that she could tell you everything, beg for your forgiveness, and have a real life for the first time…”
I wince at the words, cringe at the realization of what will never be. He walks up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes it momentarily while my eyes look down at my shoes. I know I should apologize for punching him, since he lost his partner and probably feels much like I did when I lost Stella, but I can’t bring myself to say anything at all. Absolutely nothing because every single thing ricochets around in the numbed void inside me. I just can’t believe it all yet.
“I’m so sorry, Tanner. For everything… I couldn’t let you leave without your knowing the truth.”
I just nod my head ever so subtly, my eyes still focused on the floor. And I stay like this long after Dane leaves the room, reality slipping through my fingers like sand as I try to hold on to it.
At some point the walls feel like they are closing in on me, suffocating me with the memories I have to hold on to but don’t deserve, the love I feel that can no longer be returned, and a connection with a woman I’ll never be able to touch again. I have to orient myself in the fog of disbelief, and once I do, I grab my bag and soon I’m all but clawing my way out of the private room followed by the meeting room in search of fresh air.