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Instead, he returned to the interrogation room and paced. Seven minutes left. Sierra’s whimpers had stilled to an occasional moan. Five minutes.
There was no need for him to pity her. She wasn’t an innocent little flower. This woman had lived with Lyle Nelson, a murderous bastard. She hung out with the Militia—heartless terrorists of the first order. Sierra couldn’t be entirely blameless. Two minutes left.
Damn it, he couldn’t wait any longer.
When he removed the earphones, she shuddered.
He pulled off the blindfold. Her dark eyes were wide, the pupils dilated. Her mouth twitched as if she couldn’t decide whether to smile or to spit in his face. The drug had taken effect. She was ready.
Gently, he removed the gloves and caressed her cold fingers, encouraging circulation. “How are you feeling, Sierra?”
“Dizzy.”
His first step was to get her talking, encourage her to open up. “But you’re okay, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly.
“Tell me about yourself,” he said. “Tell me about going to school in Brooklyn.”
“I was good at school,” she said. “All A’s and B’s, and I went to Brooklyn College for a year until I couldn’t afford it. Mom and Dad broke up for good, and I had to get my own apartment. New York is expensive.”
Though her cooperative attitude was drug-induced, Trevor enjoyed this moment of civilized communication. With a damp cloth, he stroked her forehead and wiped the tearstains from her cheeks. “What did you do after you left college?”
“Lied about my age and got a job. I worked for a law firm near the World Trade Center. That was before 9-11.”
“What kind of job?” He quickly directed her thoughts away from the tragedy of September eleventh. For now, he wanted her memories to be pleasant.
“Administrative assistant,” she said. “That’s a mouthful, huh?”
“Yes, it is.”
“First I was a receptionist, but I got promoted. I had a bank account and savings, and I was even thinking about going to law school myself.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Got bored,” she said with a mischievous smile. “On the day I turned twenty-five, I realized that the farthest I’d ever been from Brooklyn was a friend’s wedding in Philly. I wanted some adventure while I was still young. So I cashed in my savings, bought my Nissan and drove west.”
“All the way to Montana,” he said. “Long drive.”
“But not far enough. I meant to keep going until I hit the High Sierras, because of my name, but I kind of ran out of gas.” She tilted her head to one side and studied him. “You’re cute, Trevor. If I took you back to Brooklyn with me, all the other girls would be jealous.”
He smiled, enjoying her flirtation. The TD had loosened her inhibitions as well as her tongue. “When you stopped in Montana, you met—”
“Where are you from, Trevor?”
“A potato farm in Idaho.”
“No kidding! That’s so…rural. Where else have you lived?”
“I spent a year on the Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma.”
Her dark eyes widened. “You’re Cherokee?”
“Part Cherokee.”
“And I’ll bet that’s the part that doesn’t have amazing blue eyes.”
He couldn’t allow this line of conversation to continue. She was a subject. This was an interrogation. “Now I live here in Montana. Like you. This is where you met Lyle Nelson.”
Her sunny attitude faltered. “He was mean.”
“There must have been good times,” Trevor said encouragingly. “Tell me about the good times.”
“No.” Her lips pursed in an adorable pout. “Let’s talk about the Cherokee reservation.”
“Sierra.” He snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Concentrate.”
“I don’t want to talk about Lyle.”
And Trevor didn’t want to push her. But this was his job. Extracting information could be as painful as yanking a molar, but they would both feel better when it was over. “Lyle’s friends in the Militia. Tell me their names.”
“Everybody knows them,” she said, “from the newspapers.”
It was time for Trevor to change gears. Niceness wasn’t going to cut it with her. He held the blindfold so she could see it. “If you were blindfolded, you might be able to think more clearly.”
“No.” Her lower lip trembled. “Don’t put that thing on me again.”
“Talk, Sierra.”
“Lyle’s friends,” she said quickly. “The leader of the Militia is Boone Fowler. He’s a power-hungry creep. All of them are. Bad people. Lyle wasn’t like them. He came from money, you know. He wasn’t trash. But he gave all his money to Boone.”
“Tell me about the others.”
“The one I hated the most was Perry Johnson. He’s nothing but a sadist, pure and simple. I saw him gutting a deer they’d shot for venison, and he was freakishly happy. Perry loved being up to his elbows in blood.”
“Where were you when you saw him?”
“Perry’s cabin,” she said quickly.
That location was already known to the authorities. The cabin had been searched. “Where else? Where are they hiding now?”
“I don’t know.”
Trevor leaned closer, forcing her to concentrate on his face. “Did Lyle tell you any of his plans?”
“No. Nothing.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“After the prison break,” she said. “He came to my place. I rent half of a duplex on the outskirts of Ponderosa. I didn’t want him there, but he wouldn’t leave. He said he needed a safe house to lie low.”
This was a new piece of information. After the prison break, the Militia seemed to disappear. Apparently, they had dispersed. “When Lyle showed up, why didn’t you call the sheriff?”
“Lyle would have killed me.” Her complexion paled. “And he would have killed the sheriff, too. I always wanted to think that Lyle was better than those other terrible men. But I was wrong.”
Her voice cracked and her eyes welled up with tears.
“Sierra,” Trevor called to her. “Concentrate. How long did Lyle stay at your house?”
“He came late at night, sneaked in through the window. He tried to seduce me, but I wouldn’t let him get close. Then he locked me in the closet. I guess I was lucky that he didn’t hit me.”
“Did he hit you before? When you were his girlfriend?”
“Twice.” The tears spilled down her cheeks. “After the first time, he apologized and seemed so sincere. He was under all this stress with the Militia. I forgave him. I was stupid. So damn stupid.”
Her shoulders heaved and her breathing was ragged. Sierra’s tough facade washed away in a tidal wave of tears.
Trevor felt himself melting toward her. How could he push her further? But he had to keep going. She had information she was holding back. Even through the tears, he could feel her resistance. “What is it, Sierra? What do you want to tell me?”
“I can’t,” she said. “It’s too much. Leave me alone. Please.”
He returned to the earlier topic. “After he locked you in the closet, what happened?”
“The next morning, I told him I had to go to work. I have two part-time jobs, and I can’t call in sick.”
“Did he let you leave?”
She shook her head. “I told him that if he wanted me to keep quiet, he’d have to kill me.”
A gutsy move on her part. Trevor was impressed. “What happened?”
“He said he’d go. But before he did, he tore my place apart. He found my nest egg, the money I’d been saving so I could move back to Brooklyn. And he took all of it.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No.”
“Did you follow him?”
“No.”
She was still holding something back. He could feel her resistance. Harshly, he snapped, “You’re not telling me everything.”
“No.” Her eyes squeezed shut. She didn’t want to divulge this secret.
“Why?” he demanded.
Helplessly, she shook her head from side to side.
“I don’t get it, Sierra. You’re a strong woman. You don’t let people push you around. Why did you protect Lyle Nelson? Why did you stay with him?”
“Because he was the father of my child.”
There was a hollow ring to her voice; she was speaking from the depths of unbearable sorrow.
Abruptly, she stopped crying. Her eyes opened wide, revealing her unassuageable pain. “I miscarried. After Lyle was arrested. I lost my baby. My son.”
The color drained from her face. In a matter-of-fact voice, she said, “I wanted to die.”
Her miscarriage was the secret she’d been hiding from him, and Trevor had forced the words from her. My God, what had he done?
She’d been right to call him a monster.
Chapter Three
Though Trevor’s interrogation of Sierra Collins was complete, he did not unfasten her restraints. Not yet. If he released her while she was still under the influence of the mind-numbing truth drug, she’d be disoriented and confused, possibly even delusional. A few hours of recovery time was necessary.
He leaned over the chair and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Hush now, Sierra. You can sleep.”
“Don’t want to.” She gave a halfhearted tug at the restraints. “Let me out of here.”
“Not yet.”
“I’ve got things to do.”
“Relax, Sierra. Relax.” He keyed his voice to a soothing cadence. “You’re tired, aren’t you? Bone tired. Think about it. Feel how tired you are.”
Though she made an effort to resist, her eyelids drooped. Sierra was in a highly suggestible state. Her defenses were gone, shattered by his interrogation. When she looked up at him, her deep brown eyes reflected a vulnerability that touched his heart and made him feel guilty. He had no right to strip away her dignity and pry into her life. Still, he asked, “Why did you stay here after Lyle was arrested? Why didn’t you go home to your family, where they could take care of you?”
“Too tired.” The words fell slowly from her full lips. “After my son died, I holed up in my house. Didn’t work. Didn’t do anything. Maxed out my credit cards. I was too miserable to live, and too scared to die.”
It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out that she’d been severely depressed. “Then what?”
“I don’t know.” She frowned. “One morning I got up and decided it was time for me to get a job. I’ve been working ever since. It’s time for me to go back to Brooklyn, to forget about Montana.”
Trevor would do what he could to spare her from the sorrow of her memories. Hypnotic suggestion would make her reawakening easier.
Gently, he said, “Breathe deeply.”
Her chest rose and fell.
“That’s good, Sierra. Inhale. Exhale. Feel the pain and stress flowing away from you. Listen to my voice.”
Though she had no reason to trust him, Trevor had a natural talent for projecting his will. One of his instructors at Special Forces counterintelligence called it charisma. He offered her reassurance. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you. Okay?”
“I suppose.”
“I want you to think about a beautiful place. The mountains. Or the ocean. Maybe a tropical island.”
