“You don’t even really know all that she’s done in any specific sense, so how could you forgive her? Give yourself a break and just chill for now.”

  She chuckled. “Right, wouldn’t that be nice?” She led the way into her small room.

  As Egan looked around, he noted, “I didn’t even realize how small this place is.”

  “It’s an overflow room,” she shared. “At least I think that’s how they look at it.”

  “And, in tight circumstances,” Egan guessed, “this would be quarters for two, if need be.”

  “It would be warmer for it,” she stated, with a groan.

  “Are you cold in here?”

  She shrugged. “It’s definitely not a warm room, but I sure as hell won’t complain because I do have my own space.”

  He frowned at that but nodded. “There is a chill to the air though.”

  “Sure is, but at least I’m not bunked in my sister’s room.”

  “Even while she is in the medical clinic?”

  “Yeah. That just doesn’t feel like my room anymore,” she stated, looking everywhere but at him. “That probably sounds foolish.”

  He waved a hand. “Forget about how anything sounds just now. It’s all about what you need. Just focus on what you need to do, no matter how it comes across.”

  She laughed. “That all sounds well and good but …”

  “It is good,” he declared firmly. He sat down on the side of the bed and rubbed his face, feeling a level of fatigue that he hadn’t really expected to feel.

  “How was your review?”

  He shrugged. “It’s a very strange situation because I handed in the work. Thankfully the aide backed me up, saying that he put it on the colonel’s desk. Unfortunately, because the colonel didn’t see it himself, he now feels that somebody took the information off his desk.”

  She stared at him. “Is that possible?” she asked, sitting down beside him. “Are people really stealing things from the brass now?”

  “It is possible. The colonel’s not there in his office all the time. He’s sometimes in the cafeteria, like the rest of us. Plus he’s been doing some survival training himself. He’s also under the gun in terms of his own responsibility in this base matter, so I think he’s been trying to step up a whole lot more, trying to figure out what’s going on. I’ve even seen him roaming the halls at all hours, like he’s investigating too. Which, as all this mess rests on his head, is very understandable.”

  He took a moment to add, “And the fact that this investigative information was there and is now not is a concern. Last I knew, they were actively searching for it, and I don’t know whether they found my original copy or not. It’s definitely a concern.”

  “Yeah, I would think so, especially when so much is going on. It isn’t so much about one thing going missing, but obviously all the things going on here added together are not to be taken lightly.”

  “Exactly. I just spent the last couple hours talking to Yegorahn’s friends, asking if anybody knew anything about making money on the side here. They were not surprised to hear that something illegal was going on, but none of them would open up as to what it was Yegorahn was supposedly talking about.”

  “Why not?” she asked, frustrated. “If people have information, why are they not offering it up? This is beyond my understanding now.”

  He looked over at her with a wry expression.

  “I know that my sister’s a prime example of it, but I just don’t understand that mind-set.”

  “It’s easy to be honest,” he noted. “You’re not guilty of anything. So, for you to open up and to tell what you know means nothing, and you want to be helpful, if you can. But, if you had something to hide, even unrelated, that’s a different story.”

  “Maybe.” Berry frowned. “It still feels wrong to withhold that information when people have died.”

  “Which is why another round of interviews are starting,” he shared, with a half smile. “I did get some done tonight because those particular guys of interest are always sitting there in the dining room. I can’t say they were particularly thrilled to hear that we’re still talking about all this, but now that Yegorahn’s words have come back up again, it’s a whole different story.”

  “What could they possibly be doing illegally here?” she asked. “We already had somebody trying to steal drugs, and we know that Yegorahn had drugs.”

  “So, maybe it was more about the drugs,” Egan noted, “but, if he was sourcing the drugs himself to give to Cherry, then Yegorahn would already know what was going on. Must be something more to that.”

  Berry swallowed, a fearful expression taking over her face. “Maybe.” She frowned and turned toward him. “How many women are on base?” she asked. “I think it’s five of us now, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “At least. Might be six,” he replied, studying her intently, sensing she may be clued in on the next logical thing.

  She shook her head. “I haven’t heard of any of them getting …” She spoke slowly, as if trying to work her way through this. “What are the chances that somebody has been using drugs for …” Then she stopped. “I don’t even want to think about that, much less put it into words.”

  He nodded slowly. “It has occurred to me too, but that will make for some fairly difficult questioning coming up.”

  She stared at him in horror. “Good God,” she uttered, with a somber face. “Surely it couldn’t happen here. Wouldn’t people know?”

  “How would they know?” he asked. “Particularly if it was happening while they’re sound asleep—drugged.”

  She swallowed and looked at him with such horror that he immediately pulled her into his arms and held her close. “Was I targeted then?” she asked questioningly.

  “I don’t know. Were you? Though you were always with your sister, correct?”

  “Sure, except for the times that I wasn’t because she was with Yegorahn.”

  “Right, and that is a concern. So, the question would be, have you felt anything odd, unique, terrible, sore, different?” he asked, trying to tiptoe around the issue somewhat gently.

  She shook her head. “No, I haven’t. Even my cycle has been completely normal up here, and I’d expected that maybe the cold and the physical rigors would change it but apparently not,” she shared, followed by a nervous laugh.

  “That’s a good thing. That just means your body is healthy, right?”

  “Sure, though it would be nice if it would forget a cycle once in a while.”

  “Yeah, unless it was a time when you’re afraid you might have ended up in a different state.”

  “Right,” she agreed, “and pregnancy would be something else, wouldn’t it?”

  “If somebody up here was drugging women and raping them,” Egan began, “which is a godawful thought, would the women have noticed something the next day, even if just the loss of time or memories?”

  Berry paused and frowned. “I don’t know. I can’t imagine why anyone, especially Yegorahn would even say something about it to Cherry? If he did…”

  “Maybe he realized it must involve a date-rape drug, and maybe he wondered if somebody was being targeted. Maybe it appealed to him to go a few rounds with somebody who was knocked out. I don’t know.” Egan sighed. “Believe me. I will be checking with Sydney in the morning and having some delicate conversations with her about anybody who may have shown up in the medical clinic, not feeling quite right. But really, without us having any idea that these drugs or any drugs could be a possible problem, we can’t test anybody, not now. The drugs may not be present in the body anymore.”

  “Jesus,” Berry muttered. “I really don’t want to even contemplate such a thing happening here.”

  “You and me both,” Egan agreed. “Rape is already an ugliness that none of us want to look at, and yet it’s prevalent in the military, in all the services sadly.”

  “Really? How did I not know that? Though, I guess, it’s not something anybody would be shouting from the rooftops.”

  “We will get to the bottom of it,” Egan promised her. “I know that there is an awful lot of abuse, verbally and physically, of women everywhere.”

  “All we needed was one person to show up on this base, with that thought in mind, for all of it go bad.”

  “We also don’t know that just because maybe somebody had the drug on them, that they had a chance to use it.”

  She nodded slowly. “But to think that they came with it makes me sick.”

  “And we don’t know that for sure. Not yet. Remember. This is just a hypothesis.”

  “Right, but it’s also an ugly one,” she whispered. “Jesus.”

  “Right, but, outside of drugs, what other illegal activity could be going on here?”

  “Murder,” she stated. “What if there was a witness to Yegorahn’s death? Or maybe Yegorahn witnessed one of the other Russians’ deaths?”

  “Maybe,” Egan noted. “That would certainly put everybody on edge, if a witness to one of the previous murders was then killed by one of the other guys, or maybe Yegorahn knew about the other missing men going off into the wild on their own, placing crazy bets against Mother Nature on a dare. Maybe it was—”

  “Exactly,” she interrupted. “It could be anything.”

  “So, we’re going back through everything again. Unfortunately it’s frustrating for those getting questioned again, and everybody’s getting pissed about it.”

  “It goes back to the fact that, if my sister had spoken up in the beginning, regarding Yegorahn’s death, we might have known something.”

  “We also believe the other two Russians know more than they’re saying.”

  She nodded. “They sure won’t talk to me.”

  “Will they talk to your sister though?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that.” Berry shook her head. “However, the Russian team is losing members. They may not trust anybody here, even their own team members.”

  “That should make them want to help out, unless they think they’re being targeted, and that’s never a good thing. Though, with the unrest going on right now, anybody might feel targeted but especially them.”

  “What if you flip that around?” she asked, looking at him. “We always tend to think of the Russians as the bad guys, but what if that’s true? What if they’re the ones out there doing this and setting us up against each other?”

  “But what about two of their own men being killed?” he asked.

  “What if one of them wanted to target my sister? What if …” Then Berry stopped, sucked in her breath, and asked, “What if they wanted him to share Cherry, and, if he wasn’t willing to, would they do it anyway?”

  “Everybody wants to think that the Russians are the bad guys because nobody wants it closer to home.”

  “So, what if somebody is making it look like it’s them?” She raised her hands in frustration. “So how the hell do you ever figure it out?”

  He shook his head. “We’re working on it.”

  “Sure, but I can’t say that anything you’ve shared tonight makes me feel very good about sleeping. I would make a suggestion, in lieu of what we were thinking.” She looked at him in hope. “Do you want to bunk here with me?” she asked hopefully.

  “Ha.” He laughed. “That’s not quite what I was thinking. I was wondering if you wanted to go back to sharing with your sister?”

  “I would much rather you stayed here with me,” she stated immediately.

  “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  She waggled her eyebrows. ”Are you sure? I was hoping that we would get there before any of this happened anyway.” He stared at her, nonplussed, and she grinned. “Please tell me that I’m not completely out to lunch and that it’s something you’ve been thinking too.”

  When he still didn’t know what to say and just stared at her, she reached up and kissed him.

  Day 7, Nighttime

  Berry hadn’t meant for it to come out that way, but, as soon as she pulled back, he tightened his arms around her, flattened her on the bed, and returned the kiss, sending her senses into overdrive. When he finally lifted his head, they were both panting.

  “And no,” she said, “I wasn’t thinking about that because of what you were saying earlier.”

  He grinned. “Glad to hear that,” he muttered. “I just … After talking about the various ideas of what was going on, I was thinking more about keeping you safe.”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear that,” she whispered, “because this whole thing sucks.”

  “I know.” He leaned over and kissed her gently, this time on the lips and then once on the nose. And then, as if unable to help himself, he left a trail down to her ear.

  She shivered in his arms. “Still, I was hoping this would come to pass,” she muttered. “My sister’s innuendoes were not helping earlier though, and I felt … I don’t know. Dirty, cheap, all of the above,” she muttered, “but mostly because of her actions in the past. And it sucks because I don’t want that to tarnish our relationship.”

  “Your sister has nothing to do with this,” Egan declared, with a smile. “This is all about us, you and me. She’s definitely doing some damage, but the reputation she is tarnishing is her own, not yours.”

  “I know,” Berry agreed, “and I keep hoping she’s done with these shocking revelations, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  “You think she’s still withholding information? Could there be more?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, “but, at this point, I wouldn’t put it past her. Despite what she’s told us, I don’t have any faith that she’s come fully clean now.”

  He smiled at her. “That position is probably smart on your part. But, for now, why don’t we put your sister out of this conversation and out of this room. It’s awesome that you have your own private room,” he noted, with a smile, “and that we’re turning this conversation back to us, right?”

  “Oh, is there an actual us?” she asked, looping her arms around his neck.

  “Initially I was hoping that we would figure out if we were both interested, during the time that we’re here. Then, if so, start seeing each other when we got sent back stateside,” he shared. “But knowing now that it’ll be a trick to get things all settled enough here for anyone to leave, I honestly don’t want to wait that long. I already know without a doubt that you are very special, and I am very much interested in seeing where we can take it.”

  “We may be here for some time, and I am perfectly happy to work on a relationship while we’re here, if that’s what you’re saying.” She smiled. He gently rubbed his nose against hers. “So, let’s stop worrying about it then,” she muttered. “I’m not trying to hide anything, and, if this is something we wanted enough to actually go for, I would very much prefer to have it be a relationship that is public.”

  “Good,” he agreed. “I wouldn’t want to hide it in a place like this anyway.”

  “No, it doesn’t even work,” she noted. “I don’t know how long my sister would have managed to keep hers hidden to the extent that it was, and I don’t even know why she cared.”

  “I think because the Russians were under a mandate to finish whatever training they had here and to get home. So I presume that Yegorahn didn’t think it would be something they were allowed to pursue. Or—” He hesitated, and she nodded.

  “Yegorahn didn’t really care for her. Cherry was available and why not, right?” she suggested, with a groan. “I already came to that potential conclusion myself.”

  “Again, can we maybe take her out of the conversation and not go there now? Especially when we are in bed together, I surely don’t want to add Cherry to the mix.”

  “Sure, and, besides, I have much better things to do.” Berry unbuttoned the top button of his heavy shirt. “It takes quite a while to get ready for bed, with so many layers on.”

  “Yeah, believe me. I can shuck layers pretty damn fast, if there’s a good reason.”

  “What more reason do you need?” she asked, batting her eyelashes at him, with mock humor.

  He grinned. “I think you’re doing a great job of giving me that reason.” Egan chuckled, as he shifted and looked down at her. “But you’re the one wearing long johns.”

  “Of course I am. It’s always freezing in here.”

  He laughed, as he stood, and within moments was completely nude in front of her.

  She whistled. “Damn, you did that like a pro.”

  “Are you kidding? You learn to get dressed and undressed in lightning speed in these temperatures,” he shared, as he curled into the bed beside her, pulling her up close. “But you are still wearing way too many clothes.” But he took care of that almost as fast as he’d handled his only clothes.

  “If that’s the case, you’ll need to heat me up to the point that I’m okay losing a layer or two.” He laughed. She was almost immediately surrounded by the furnace of his body. “Oh my gosh, you’re just so warm,” she murmured.

  “Always. I’m definitely on the hot-body register.”

  “God, sleeping with you must be like sleeping with a huge thermal weighted blanket.” She paused, staring at him intently. “I know we just discussed how we would leave my sister out of our bedroom, until such time as we decide differently.”

  Egan frowned. “But? Did you remember something?”

  Berry nodded. “Unfortunately it’s always been really tough to keep her out of my life. She came between me and the one major boyfriend I had in my life. I don’t even talk about that really, and it was way back when I was in college and was young and stupid,” she muttered. “I had a hard time rebuilding my relationship with her after that, but I did, and I’ve been really grateful for having her in my life all these years since.”

  “I don’t even know that I want to ask, but what did Cherry do?”