Playing Dead_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [154]
Four more agents ran to the site. Meg gave the orders. “You two, secure the property. You, get the first-aid kit and blankets, stat. You, get the status of the ambulance.”
Mitch smoothed Claire’s hair away from her face. “Claire. Claire, come on, wake up. Please, Claire.”
“She’s lost a lot of blood,” Hans said. He focused on removing the bandage. “The bleeding has mostly stopped, but we need to get the wound washed out and antibiotics administered ASAP.”
“Claire, honey, please.” Mitch swallowed thickly. He couldn’t lose her. Dammit, he could not lose her like this. He would rather have her throw him out of her house in a rage than have her die in his arms. “Dammit, Claire. Yell at me. Hit me. Blame me. Just don’t die on me. Don’t do it.” He pulled her into his arms, cradling her, taking comfort that her heart still beat, that her lungs still breathed.
He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “Claire,” he whispered, “I need you. I need you back. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me like this. I love you.”
Sirens pierced the night. Thank God. “Claire, we’re getting you help. You’re going to be okay.”
Mitch looked up. He’d forgotten that Hans and Meg were kneeling with him. He turned away from their inquisitive expressions. He didn’t want to explain, but he said, “I love her. Go ahead, fire me.”
Meg said, “I already figured that out.” She took a deep breath. “I must have been a real bitch these last couple years if you think I’d fire you for falling in love.”
Mitch stared at her. “What—”
“As far as I’m concerned, what you do on your own time is your business.” She reached out, touched him. “You’re a great agent, Mitch, flaws and all. I’m glad you’re on my team.”
Mitch nodded and stroked Claire’s hair.
“She’s going to be okay,” Meg said. “She’s a strong woman. I like her a lot.”
FORTY-FOUR
Mitch stood to the side of the property with Meg and Hans. It was Sunday morning, dawn, and the evidence response team was getting to work on a grisly project. It reminded the three of their shared past. Only, this was somehow worse.
They had already identified seventeen possible grave sites. They excavated the most recent: The girl, sixteen or so, had been dead only a couple days. She had dark hair and fair skin.
Like Claire.
“It’s come full circle, hasn’t it?” Meg whispered. “Our first case together.”
“Kosovo,” Hans and Mitch said simultaneously. Thirteen years had passed since their horrifying weeks in Kosovo unearthing mass graves to identify human remains after the brutal civil war tore apart Yugoslavia. It still haunted all three of them.
“What do I say to her?” Mitch asked quietly. They had been upstairs and had put together what Bruce Langstrom had done. The young girl’s room where evidence of a struggle told them Claire had been inside. The worn bear, her name on the door, the photo of a young Claire and her friend on the wall—it didn’t take a rocket scientist to surmise the room was a replica of Claire’s childhood room.
The blood in the hallway where he’d shot her in the leg to prevent her from escaping. Her cut clothes in the bathroom, which matched up with the marks on her body when Mitch found her.
But it was the disk playing in a loop in the bedroom that had Mitch and even the seasoned, unflappable Hans Vigo speechless.
That bastard had been watching her for years. Filming her in the privacy of her own bedroom. Mitch wanted to kill him again—with his bare hands—for putting Claire through hell. For forcing her to watch her most intimate and private moments. Why? Some sick mind game? To demoralize her?
“Tell her you love her,” Hans said.
“It’s not going to be that easy.”
“Nothing worth having is easy.”
“How is she going to live knowing that he—”
“She will because she’s a fighter,” Hans said.
“And,” Meg added, “she has you.”
Mitch watched their evidence