He stood there, hands shoved into his pockets, staring at the place where Rachel rested. Overhead the sun rose higher, beating relentlessly down on him. But he felt frozen.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "If I could take it all back I would. If I just had one more chance. I'd never let a day go by that I didn't show you how much I love you."
The knowledge that he'd never have another chance crippled him. The fact that he'd fucked up the best thing in his life . . . he didn't have the words to describe the agony.
Unable to stand it another minute, he turned away and walked stiffly back to his truck. The drive home was quiet. He blocked out everything but the road in front of him. Numbness he could deal with.
He walked back into his house, absorbing yet more quiet as he shut the door. The FedEx package lay to the side, but he walked by it, his only desire right now to get a shower and rid himself of the smell of stale booze.
Twenty minutes later, he sat on the edge of the bed and hung his head as he tried to settle his roiling stomach. The shower had helped. Some. But it hadn't rid him of the aching head and sick gut.
If it hadn't meant facing his mom, he'd have gone over to get some of her soup. She didn't deserve to see him hungover and looking like shit, though. It would upset her and make her and his dad worry more than they did already.
He flopped back onto the mattress and closed his eyes. Peace. He just wanted peace.
WHEN Ethan next cracked his eyes open, the room was dark. He sucked in a breath through his nose and tested the steadiness of his stomach. He didn't immediately suffer the urge to puke, so he counted that as a victory.
He glanced over at the window to see that night had fallen. Somehow he'd managed to sleep the entire afternoon. Not that he was complaining. It meant he was that much closer to putting June 16 behind him.
His muscles protested when he crawled out of bed. He stretched and rolled his shoulders as he padded into the kitchen. His stomach growled, another thing he took as a positive sign.
He threw together a sandwich, poured himself a glass of water and made his way into the living room. Not bothering to turn on the light, he sat on the couch and ate in the dark.
He briefly considered finishing off the liquor he'd purchased the day before, but it would mean he'd start all over tomorrow and eventually his family would get tired of his avoidance and they'd come for him.
He'd shoved the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth when his gaze found the FedEx envelope hanging halfway off the table in the small foyer. He frowned as he remembered the encounter with the delivery guy.
Setting his glass on the coffee table, he walked over to retrieve the heavy envelope. As he returned to the couch, he ripped at the seal. He reached over to flip on the lamp, then flopped onto the sofa and slid his hand inside the sturdy Tyvek envelope.
He dragged out a stack of papers in varying sizes and shapes. Some were legal-sized documents while others were half pieces of paper. There were charts and stuff that looked like satellite imagery and GPS coordinates.
Had he gotten KGI stuff by mistake? Surely his brothers wouldn't have made an error like that. No one they knew should even have his address, but this stuff looked official. It looked military.
There were photos. Several spilled over his lap and onto the couch. When he picked one up, his heart stuttered and all the breath left his chest in a painful rush.
It was a photo of a woman, obviously a prisoner in some shithole jungle camp. If Ethan had to guess, he'd place odds on South America or maybe Asia. Some fuckhole like Cambodia.
Two men flanked the woman in the photo and both carried guns. One had a grip on her arm, and she looked scared out of her mind.
That wasn't what blazed through his mind like a buzz saw.
The woman looked remarkably like Rachel. His wife Rachel. Rachel who was dead. Rachel who he'd just visited in the fucking cemetery.
What kind of twisted joke was this?
He rifled through the stack of paperwork looking for something that made sense. Maybe some haha note from some sick fuck looking for kicks.
When he came across the short handwritten note, he froze. All the blood left his face at the four simple words.
Your wife is alive.
It was a kick right to the balls. Rage surged through his veins like bubbling lava. He crumpled the note in his fist and threw it across the room. It skittered along the floor and landed under the television.
Who the hell would pull a stunt like this and why?
He snatched up the photo again and then another. He gathered them all, his hands shaking so bad the pictures scattered like a deck of cards.
Cursing, he got down on his knees to collect the photos from underneath the coffee table. Some had slid under the couch, and still more were wedged between the cushions.
Papers had also scattered everywhere. Charts, maps, a whole host of crap that made no sense to him.
Get a grip. Don't let this asshole get to you.
Even though he told himself it was all some morbid prank, he couldn't control the rush of anger. Hope. Fear. Rage. Helpless fury. Hope. Against his fucking will. Hope.
He curled his fingers around the papers, wrinkling them with the force of his grip. The pictures stared back at him, mocking him. They were Rachel. All were Rachel.
Thinner, haunted. Her hair was shorter, her eyes duller. But it was Rachel. A face and body he was intimately familiar with.
Who would do this? Why would someone set up such an elaborate hoax just to fuck with him on the one-year anniversary of her death? What could they possibly hope to gain?
He forced himself to look away from the scared, fragile woman in the picture because if he continued to stare and if he gave any thought to it being Rachel-his wife-he was going to vomit.
The other documents blurred in his vision, and he wiped angrily at his eyes so he could make sense of what he was holding. He forced calm he didn't feel. It took everything he had, but he switched off his emotions and studied the documents with the detached coldness necessary to remain objective.
He hastily spread everything out on the coffee table, positioning what he could fit, and then he lined the rest out on the couch.
The map pointed him to a remote area of Colombia about fifty miles from the Venezuelan border. The satellite photos showed dense jungle surrounding the tiny village-if you could call it a village. It was nothing more than a dozen huts constructed of bamboo and banana leaves.
Special attention was given to the guard towers and to the two areas where arms were stockpiled. What the hell would a shithole like that need with guard towers and enough ammo to support a small army?
Drug cartel.
He glanced again at the photo of the woman.
Rachel.
Her name floated insidiously through his mind.
It looked like her. Made sense it could be her. If it weren't for the fact that her remains had been shipped home along with her wedding rings.
No DNA testing had been done.
Nausea surged in his belly until he physically gagged.
No. No way in hell he'd blindly accepted his wife's death while she was being held, enduring God knows what by men who had no compunction about terrorizing an innocent woman.
She'd been identified only by the personal effects supposedly recovered with her remains. The fire had made even dental record identification a moot point. The explosion had incinerated everything in its path. Everything but the bent, misshapen rings and the charred remains of her suitcase. Half of a melted passport had been found in the wreckage. Her passport. It was the flight she'd taken and there had been no survivors. Ethan had never thought to question it.
Jesus, he hadn't questioned his wife's death.
He shook his head angrily. Boy was he getting carried away. There had to be some other explanation. Someone was messing with him. He didn't know why. He didn't care.
He scanned the rest of the papers. Guard post schedule. Drug drop schedule. What the hell? It certainly looked like someone wanted them to be able to waltz right in. It screamed setup.
GPS coordinates. Satellite photos. Topo maps. Whoever had sent it was thorough.
If this was for real, this information made these jokers sitting ducks. The Boy Scouts could mount an assault on the camp that would take it down inside of five minutes.
Your wife is alive.
He glanced at the shadow of the small, balled-up piece of paper lying underneath the television.
Four words. Just four simple words.
He hated the hope that sprung to life within him. His heart thumped like a jackhammer inside his chest. His pulse raced so fast he felt light-headed, almost like the night before when he'd obliterated any rational thoughts with really cheap liquor.