With Terk out of the room for a bit, Damon walked over and sat down on the side of Tasha’s bed. When she stiffened, he said, “It’s just me. Terk’s taking a shower. Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m not okay,” she replied through her tears.
He pulled her upright, picked her up into his arms, and just held her gently while she bawled. When she finally slowed down the tears, she looked up at him, her huge eyes glistening, as she whispered, “Mera didn’t do anything. She was already hurt. She was unprotected, and it wasn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t fair,” he agreed, “and, after you have a nap, you can get busy tracking who and what may have been there.”
She looked over at the computers, and he shook his head. “I’ll get it started,” he said, “but, if and when we come up with something, you can step in and go deeper.”
She nodded. “Fine. Honest to God, I am really tired.”
She pulled out of his arms without another word and curled up on the bed. He grabbed the blanket and laid it over her shoulders, tucking her in, so at least she’d be warm while she slept. After taking several long slow deep breaths, she crashed.
Chapter 13
When Tasha woke, she felt a heart-heaviness rising from the deep dark depths. She hadn’t realized how tired she was; adding that to the emotional exhaustion resulted in everything hurting, inside and out. As she lay here, she realized her body also felt this burden. She needed a good workout, something to relieve some of this stress. She heard a conversation going on around her, and it took a moment for her to register that something exciting was happening. She propped herself up on her elbow to see Damon at a computer, pounding away on the keys. “What’s going on?” she asked, bolting to her feet.
“Tracking somebody from the visual software that you’ve got up at Mera’s place.”
“You mean, her killer?” Tasha asked in a hard voice.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “quite possibly.”
She walked over and said, “Let me.” He hesitated, but she added, “Go, and I need food.” She stated it in almost a preemptive manner, and he burst out laughing.
“Only because I know you’re better at this than me,” he noted, “and I’m damn good.”
“Yeah, but you’re not me,” she replied quietly, as she sat down and started, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “Interesting,” she muttered.
“What’s interesting?”
“You’re tracking it, but I don’t think it’s a real set of tracks.”
“What do you mean?” Now both Terk and Damon crowded around behind her.
“I think we have somebody planting information in the software to throw us off. That’s what that damn hacker was doing earlier.”
“How the hell did you see that?”
She pointed to the IP addresses in the code running after it. “We’ve got fake avatars here.”
“I don’t understand that at all,” Terk said. “Why would they do that?”
“Because they know we’re hunting them, and, if they give us somebody, and then he turns up dead, we’ll stop looking, won’t we?”
“Maybe, do you think this guy now is dead?” Damon asked, frowning at Terk.
“No, not yet, but I think that he’s next on the list. If you can get to him ahead of them, then it’s a whole different story. We might actually prevent that hit, and we could get some answers.”
She shook her head. “No guarantee that this guy will give us answers though,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like they want to talk much.”
“Well, maybe if they see the bodies of the other henchmen.”
“That’s a different story maybe,” she agreed. “Yet seems like a long shot. I don’t know.”
“You got an address?”
“Address, no. … I do have coordinates though.” She handed them off to Damon. She looked over at him and added, “But I want to come along.”
“You can’t be in two places at once,” he stated. “Besides, it’s probably a recovery mission.”
She winced. “Great. Maybe you can get Merk to go take a look.”
“I don’t know where he’s at now—but maybe.”
Terk immediately picked up his phone and walked a distance away and asked, “Bro, where are you?” As he listened to the response, he turned back to them. “He’s about a mile away from the location.”
“Then maybe have him carefully go in,” she suggested, “realizing it could be a trap, and he could be leading somebody back to his home base just by being there.”
“We got it,” Terk replied. “Merk does say thanks for being worried though.”
She rolled her eyes at that. “How could I not be? We’ve already lost so many. I don’t know him, but they’ve got Celia, so … and see if you can find a different name for her,” she asked. “Because I can’t track her with just that.”
As Terk put his phone away, he looked at her. “Have you been trying?”
“Of course I’ve been trying,” she replied in exasperation. “We need to know how this connects to everything.”
“Yeah, I really would appreciate it if you could find something on her,” he added quietly. “I suspect that she’s as much a victim as I am in this, but I don’t know that for sure.”
“No, but, until then, we’ll look at it that way,” she stated, “because I think it’s one hell of a shitty deal. For the mother and the baby.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not feeling too great about it either,” he confirmed.
She turned to look at Damon, only he wasn’t in the room. She bolted to her feet and raced to the next room, but he was gone. “Shit,” she almost yelled. “He took off again without the tracker online.”
“I know,” Terk admitted quietly. “He’ll go meet Merk, and he doesn’t want anybody to track either of them to their home bases.”
“Well, what’s the point of having trackers if you don’t use them?” She glared at Terk, mad that he let Damon leave like that.
Terk gave her a half smile. “Surely you haven’t forgotten how much Damon’s always hated having trackers.”
“Since when is it optional?” she snarled at him.
“Hey, it just shows how much you care, so I thank you for that.”
She shook her head. “Caring for you guys is a nightmare. Why would anybody want to?” she asked. “You take chances. You get yourself into dangerous scenarios, where nobody can help you, and you all will get your asses kicked, if not killed,” she growled, as she sat back down at her computer.
“Why don’t you try some food?” Terk suggested. “You sound hungry.”
She stood and glared at him. He immediately pointed to the sideboard where all the leftovers were. She walked over and, still in a fury, built herself a huge plate and sat again at her computer.
“I’ll just leave you alone for a while,” he offered gently.