Sometimes you have to start at the beginning, O thought as he jogged through the forest.
About three hundred yards from where he'd parked the truck, the trees gave way to a flat meadow. He stopped while still hidden among the pines.
Across the white blanket of snow was the farmhouse where he had first found his wife, and in the fading light of day her home was all Norman Rockwell, Hallmark-card, Middle America perfect. The only thing that was missing was some smoke coming out of the redbrick chimney.
He took out his binocs and scanned the area, then focused on the house. All the tire tracks in the driveway and Page 105
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the footprints to the door made him worry that the place had changed hands and movers had come. But there was still furniture inside, furniture he recognized from when he'd been in there with her.
He dropped the binocs, letting them hang around his neck, and crouched down. He would wait for her here. If she was alive, either she would go to her house or whoever was taking care of her would come for some of her things. If she was dead, someone would start moving her shit out.
At least, he hoped something like that would happen. He had nothing else to go on, didn't know her name or her family's whereabouts. Couldn't guess where else she might be. His only other option was to go out and question civilians about her. As no other female had been abducted lately, surely she'd have been a topic of conversation within her race. Trouble was, that route could take weeks... months. And information from persuasive techniques wasn't always solid.
No, watching her house was more likely to get him results. He would sit and wait until someone tipped a hand and led him back to her. Maybe his job would get even easier and that scarred brother would be the one who showed.
That would be just about perfect.
O settled back on his heels, ignoring the cold wind.
God... he hoped she was alive.
Chapter Nineteen
John kept his head down and tried to pull it together. The locker room was filled with steam and voices and the snapping of wet towels on bare butts. The trainees had ditched their sweaty jis and were showering before they took a food break and then hit the classroom part of the session.
It was all standard guy stuff, except John so did not want to get naked. Even though they were all his size, this was straight out of every high school nightmare he'd ridden out until he'd quit the system when he was sixteen.
And right now he was just too flat-out exhausted to deal with the scene.
He figured it was about midnight by now, but he felt as though it were four A.M... like, the day after tomorrow. Training had been grueling for him. None of the other guys was strong, but all of them could keep up with the stances Phury and then Tohr introduced. Hell, a few were even naturals. John was a mess. His feet were slow, his hands were always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he had no physical coordination.
Man, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't find his balance. His body was like a shifting, lurching bag of water; if he moved in one direction, the whole thing flopped over on him.
"You'd better hurry," Blaylock said. "We've only got eight more minutes."
John eyed the shower's doorway. The jets were still on but there was no one in it as far as he could see. He stripped out of the ji and the jockstrap and walked quickly into the-Shit. Lash was in the corner. Like he'd been waiting.
"Hey, big man," the guy drawled. "Really showed us a thing or two out-"
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Lash stopped talking and just stared at John's chest.
"You little kiss-ass," he snapped. And then stormed out of the shower.
John looked down at the circular mark over his left pectoral, the one he'd been born with... the one that Tohr had told him members of the Brotherhood received on their initiations.
Terrific. Now he could add that birthmark to the growing list of stuff he didn't want to hear about from his classmates.
When he came out of the shower with a towel around his waist, all the guys, even Blaylock, were standing together. While they looked him over as a solid, silent unit, he wondered