Lights danced in front of Mortimer’s eyes. He tasted blood, his cheek having caught on some teeth.
Terry flipped a page on the clipboard, then another page, reading ahead. “Oh, dear. Looks like we’re in for a long day.”
Mortimer assumed the dungeon had not been installed as part of the CNN Center’s original design. He hung from a damp stone wall, held there with manacles and heavy chains.
Terry hadn’t enjoyed a moment of the interrogation, but he was very conscientious about his job, had even taken twenty minutes to find a hand-rolled cigarette among the troops so he could burn Mortimer’s forearm as the clipboard instructed. There had been more slaps and punches in between predictable questions.
Mortimer told him everything he could without giving away the show, sticking as close to the truth as possible. Yes, he was a Platinum member. Yes, he’d recently been to the Armageddon’s on Lookout Mountain. Yes, he’d busted out of jail and escaped south. Had he been part of the recent disturbance at Stone Mountain? Huh? Who? What are you talking about?
Mortimer answered question after question, many seemingly irrelevant. But Mortimer had his chance too, made sure Terry knew that Mortimer had valuable information and was looking to trade. He’d talk only to the Red Czar himself.
So they’d put him in the dungeon.
He hung there, shoulders aching.
Waited.
He was half asleep, in a daze, when he heard the dungeon door creak open. He didn’t open his eyes right away. If they were coming to dump more punishment on him, maybe they’d leave him alone if they thought he’d passed out.
He heard movement, somebody close to him. He felt a soft hand on his face, a cool, wet rag dabbing at the corners of his mouth. He felt something being applied to the cigarette burns on his forearm, a salve of some kind. Instant relief.
Mortimer chanced opening one eye, looked down at the top of a woman’s head, rich brown hair with three thin strips of gray radiating from her part down the center. She stooped over a bucket, wrung out a rag in clean water.
He was so thirsty.
“Who are you?” His voice so hoarse and dry.
“How disappointing. You don’t recognize your own wife,” Anne said. “It’s only been nine years.”
XLVII
“Anne?” Mortimer blinked, looked into her pale blue eyes. She smiled. The gray in her hair told the years, a few more laugh lines at the eyes. But her tan face glowed smooth and young like on their wedding day, lips full, posture firm and athletic. She wore a heavy brown robe, looked like a medieval monk. She was okay. She looked good and she was okay. He’d come so far. She was okay.
He started to cry.
Anne’s smile fell. “What are you doing? Don’t do that.”
The tears came hot and fast, sobs wracking his body, rattling the chains. He tried to talk, tried to tell her everything he felt upon seeing her, the love and regret and fear and so many things mixed together that not even he understood fully. He couldn’t speak, could only gulp for breath between great heaving sobs, snot running over his lips.
Anne wiped at a tear in the corner of her own eye, wiped the snot off Mortimer’s face with the rag. “You were always a sentimental jerk.”
“S-sorry.”
“What are you doing here anyway?”
She really didn’t know? “I came for you.”
“Me? Are you crazy?”
“You’re my wife.”
“That was
“I never signed the divorce papers.”
She snorted laughter. “Really? Divorce papers? Filed in what court? Do you think legal paperwork matters anymore? Do you think our mortgage matters, our life insurance policy? Where do you think you’re going to cash the savings bonds your uncle gave us?”
“I never agreed.”
“You don’t have to agree. I agreed for both of us.” She shook her head, went on, her voice softer. “This isn’t really about our marriage, is it? It’s been so long. You haven’t really been thinking of me as your wife. Not after all this time.”
No. Not really. He couldn’t imagine anything could really be between them, not anymore, after so much had happened. “I had to see you. Just to know. After the way we left it. I felt I owed you. I wanted…I wanted to feel right about it.”
“You did sort of leave me high and dry,” Anne said. She continued to wipe his face as she spoke. “I didn’t care
