Lost and Found (Masters & Mercenaries: The Forgotten #2)(113)

A gasp escaped from her throat and she turned to face him. Her eyes shone in the moonlight that streamed in from the window. “She killed them because you wouldn’t turn them over?”

“She killed them even though I did.” He let the words sit between them, the silence lengthening like a chasm. She stared at him as though she couldn’t quite understand what he was telling her. “I lied to my whole team. I don’t know the hows and whys. I can’t remember that, but I know I did it. They tell me I refused to turn over the baby, but how can they really know? Maybe I screwed that part up.”

It was his fear, that they were all being kind or they’d misunderstood his intentions and he’d been willing to turn that child over.

“We didn’t lie to you,” Robert insisted. “You wouldn’t turn the baby over. You made sure the baby stayed with Kayla.”

Sure he had. They couldn’t know what was in his heart that day.

“She took your family? Hope McDonald took your family?” Becca asked, though he’d already told her. It was like she was attempting to make sense of the words.

“Yes. Again, I don’t know the hows. I know Mum and Hannah lived in Scotland and I was in England. I left them alone. I was in a position where someone could use them against me and I didn’t protect them. I don’t even remember if I loved them. All I feel is guilt. I look at their pictures and all I feel is despair, and I’m glad they aren’t around because I’m pretty sure those women in the pictures wouldn’t have been proud to call me kin.”

She was still for a moment and then finally she spoke, her words coming out thin and tortured. “Do you hate me for that?”

“What?”

Tears began to slip from her eyes. “I was scared. I ran and I didn’t do what I should have done. Owen, I was so scared. I didn’t even understand what truly happened until tonight. I believe I was given a dose of the time dilation drug by Steven. He wanted me to leave because he thought Dr. McDonald was going to choose me over him. He didn’t want to lose his place at her side.”

His breath caught in his throat at the thought. He knew what that fucking drug did. He’d read everything he could, every report available. “What did he put you through?”

She went quiet. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m not even certain what happened.”

“Depending on how he used it, what the dosage was and some other factors, it could have felt like a dream state,” Ariel explained.

“A nightmare,” Becca said, and he thought she was saying it more to herself than anyone else. She seemed to shake it off. “I’m sorry I don’t know where the package is. I don’t remember getting anything from her. If I had, I would have studied the material. This was right before I came to Canada?”

“Yes.” He didn’t want to talk about the mission. He wanted to drag her onto his lap and keep her talking. He wanted to assure her that he didn’t blame her for anything, but she wasn’t ready to listen. She might never be. “From what we’ve discovered, Dr. McDonald sent a package to you roughly two weeks before the raid on her compound in France.”

“I believe she knew Taggart was closing in on her.” Ariel’s voice had gone professional again as if she understood they couldn’t handle any more emotion. “She might have sent you that material in order to try to protect it.”

“Or it might be complete crap and we’ve done all of this for nothing,” Robert said with a long sigh.

“It wasn’t for nothing.” He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he couldn’t hold it in. “Green would have come after Becca at some point. He believes there’s something in the package, and he would have figured out that Becca has knowledge he can use. If we hadn’t been here, he would have taken her one way or another.”

“But she didn’t send anything to me,” Becca insisted and then she took a long breath. “Wait. How would she have sent anything to me? She didn’t have my address at the time.”

“It was before you moved here. You were living in Boston,” he explained. “Wasn’t that your address when you worked at Kronberg? They would have known your address.”

She nodded, clearly thinking it through. “But Gary and I split up right after I got back from Germany. He had his affair while I was there and I found out when I came home unexpectedly. I moved out that day. Yes, Kronberg had that address, but Gary lived there at the time. Not me. He lived there up until a few months ago. Oh, shit. I know where it is. It’s at my apartment. About three months ago, he sent me two big boxes of stuff I’d left behind. He’d put it up in the attic but I never made time to go get it. He and Britney decided to sell the house, and I asked him to mail me the boxes. I put them aside. I was busy and I honestly didn’t want to look at anything that would remind me of that time. They’re sitting in my guest room closet. It’s got to be in there.”

He hated what he had to tell her next. “It’s not there.”

She shook her head. “If Gary got mail for me that I didn’t pick up, he would have put it in the box he sent. He even said something about having some packages I never came to get. Britney said she wanted my shit out of the place before she called a real estate agent. I would have told him to throw it all away, but he’d already shipped it. It’s got to be there. I never opened the second box.”