Untraceable by Lindsay Delagair Read Free Book Online

than
lying.”
    “ Yeah, who would have
guessed a year after you brought me here as your target that we
would be sitting here tonight, expecting our first baby, and
discussing truth.”
    “ Not me,” he admitted. “I
haven’t felt the first mosquito. How about a bonfire?” he asked
with a chuckle.
    A little while later, I was sitting
beside a large fire and he was coming out the kitchen door with two
big boxes. His only request was that I didn’t open the
folders.
    “ It’s bad enough,” he
remarked, “that their faces are etched in my memory. I don’t want
them in yours.”
    He kept everything so well organized,
a series of numbers at the top of each file and each file in
numerical order that I had to ask. “You aren’t a little
anal-retentive are you?”
    “ I am very
anal-retentive,” he admitted as he burned them in order.
    “ Well, here is to change,”
I stated softly, taking the lid off the second box and pulling out
a handful.
    “ Wait!” he said grabbing
the stack before I could get it close to the fire. “I want
something out of one of those.”
    “ What?” I couldn’t imagine
that he’d want a memento.
    He opened a thin folder and reached
inside, unstapled a photo and promptly placed it in his pocket. “I
can’t let her picture burn,” he said with a small choke.
    “ Whose?” I asked,
wondering if it was the boss’s young wife. “Let me see,” I
begged.
    “ You don’t have to know
everything, Annalisa.”
    “ Ah… What happened to
honesty?”
    “ I’m not being dishonest.
It’s just special, that’s all.”
    “ Why can’t I see it?” I
whined.
    “ At the end, baby. Let’s
empty these boxes.”
    I didn’t consider myself as spoiled,
but at that moment I wanted to see the picture in his pocket so
badly I could have tossed a tantrum. I bit my pouty, protruding lip
and continued to put files on the fire. The only thing that paused
my aggravation over not seeing the picture was that I suddenly
realized how many files we were burning. Micah had been the
instrument to end the lives of these people and there were
hundreds. I thought about the fact that his eyes had watched each
of these draw their last breaths on this earth, and, for the first
time in a very long time, I felt a shiver of fear to be in his
presence.
    We finally reached the bottom of the
boxes and he tore the cardboard into sections and burned it as
well. “I don’t want anything left,” he stated.
    My hand reached up to his shirt
pocket, “But something is left.”
    His eyes filled with tears, “But she
started it all.”
    I had my answer; it was the first one.
I took my hand away from his pocket. As much as I wanted to see her
face, I couldn’t press him simply over my curiosity.
    He was reaching into his pocket, but I
placed my hand on his and told him it was okay. “I don’t have to
see it.”
    “ Yes, you do,” he
whispered, “because without her I wouldn’t have you. Her name was,”
he took a breath as he pulled it out, but kept it shielded from my
sight, “Annalisa McKinnis,” he breathed, opening his hand to reveal
my school picture. “And if it hadn’t been for her, we never would
have met.”
    “ Oh, Micah, I’m sorry—I
thought—I just assumed it was—”
    “ You, Annalisa,” he
hoarsely whispered, “are the only memory out of all of this worth
keeping.” He leaned over and very slowly brought his lips to mine
as his hand came up and moved into my hair. “We smell like smoke,”
he whispered. “How about a little time in my shower and then that
French lesson I promised you?”
    “ Is the pool heater
on?”
    “ I think so,” he said with
a questioning look as he rose up and went to feel the water. His
back was turned to me as he put his hand in the pool. “It’s warm,
about 85, I’m guessing, but—” He turned and was silent.
    I had already removed my top and bra,
and I was undoing my shorts. “You tried to get me naked outdoors
once today, that and the fact that the