Not Another Soldier

by Holt, Samantha

  Then I spy the anxious expression on her face. “What’s up?” I ask as I approach.

  “There’s a car out there I don’t recognize.”

  I peer out but I don’t really know the cars that park round here so I don’t spot anything unusual.

  “I think I’m probably being paranoid.” She laughs lightly but there’s tension in it.

  “Maybe,” I agree, not willing to scare her.

  These guys have been watching her, no doubt about it. How else would they have known when she left for work or when she went to the shops? For all I know, that car could be theirs.

  “Which car is it?”

  “That one. The dark blue sedan.”

  I debate it for a moment. The urge to go down and smash my fist through the window is pretty strong but I have no idea if it is even these guys.

  “Come away from the window,” I tug Sienna’s arm, “and get dressed. We’ll call that detective in a minute and see what he says.”

  She nods vaguely and doesn’t protest when I take the coffee from her hands and usher her into the bedroom. I put the coffee cup in the sink and stop and think for a moment. Damn these assholes. Sienna should be moving on with her life, not dealing with this kind of shit. If it wasn’t for this, I don’t doubt we’d have ended up back in bed this morning and she wouldn’t look so haunted. I should never have kept this stuff from her. I guess I thought I was being honorable, not telling her the truth about her husband. But now it’s one big fucking mess and I’m pretty sure I can take the blame for a lot of it.

  But whatever happens, I’m going to get her out of this mess. One way or another. Making a snap decision, I push away from the sink and head out the apartment. I try to look casual as I step out the door and glance around but I don’t care if they spot me. I want them know that I stand between them and Sienna. If they want her, they’re going to have to go through me.

  I cross the road and stroll up past the car. The windows are slightly tinted so it’s difficult to see in but someone is sitting in it. I knock on the window.

  The window rolls down and a red-headed guy glares at me.

  It’s not the skinhead who attacked her, which is good news for him. Otherwise I might have dragged him out and left a few fingerprints and bruises on him to return the favor. I stuff my hand in my pockets and grin. “Can I help?”

  “What?” He looks incredulous.

  “Well, you’ve been sitting here…” I glance down at the discarded cigarette butts on the sidewalk, “for quite a while, I’m guessing. I just wondered if you were lost.”

  “What’s it to do with you, buddy?”

  “Well, if you’re not lost or visiting, why don’t you get moving? There’s been some trouble here recently and the cops are on the lookout for suspicious lookin’ people. Wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a criminal, would you?”

  His eyes narrow and his jaw tenses. I don’t know how big the guy is, but I think I could take him. He’s older than me too with slightly pockmarked skin. But although he might not be a threat on his own, I don’t doubt this Johnson guy could be.

  “You don’t know who you’re messing with.” With that, he winds up the window and starts the car.

  I make a mental note of the license plate and wait until he’s gone, kinda pleased but kinda nervous. I’m not sure if I’ve just made things worse. At least before we knew where the bad guys were. However, now I know Sienna’s not paranoid. The woman is in danger.

  I turn back to the apartment, moving briskly. I don’t want Sienna seeing I’m gone. Glad I can still remember the code to her building, I pause to pick up her mail in case she has already finished getting dressed. I’m still a little pumped when I return to her apartment so I take a few moments to calm myself before hunting her down in her bedroom. She’s just pulling on a pale yellow top and I regret missing the floor show.

  “Did you go out?” she asks as she pulls her hair from her top.

  “Yeah, just picked up your mail.” I put the letters on the dresser and sit on the bed to watch her brush her hair and do her make-up. I catch her bemused expression in the mirror but don’t make any excuses. I love watching her.

  When she’s done, she thumbs through the mail and scowls.

  “What’s up?”

  Sienna waves a letter at me. “This company… I recognize the name. I noticed a monthly payment to them going out from our—mine and Rob’s—account the other day, but I forgot to call and find out what it was.” She tears it open and her scowl deepens. “It’s for a storage locker. I didn’t know we had a stor—Shit. You don’t think…?”

  I stand and take the letter from her. I recognize the company name as one of the storage places in the city. And I realize what she’s thinking. What if that was where Rob kept the drugs? It’s got to be safer than keeping it around the house if he didn’t want to risk Sienna finding them.

  “Yeah, I do think.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I don’t know, babe. I guess we should check it out. There’s no point in calling the cops if there’s nothing there.”

  “But I don’t have a key or anything. And look,” she jabs the letter, “it’s in his name. I doubt they’ll let me look in it.”

  “They might if you take his death certificate and your ID. I don’t know how it works if it’s not willed to you.”

  “Damn.” She chews her lip. “I wonder…” Before I can say anything, she presses past me.

  I follow her as she strides into the living room and starts digging through that damned box in the corner. I’ve been fighting the urge to throw it out the window. It’s been hanging around like a bad smell, reminding us of her marriage to Rob. But I knew I had to let her deal with it in her own way, so I haven’t pressed the matter. I must admit, any loyalty to Rob, no matter how buried it was, has completely gone now I know he hurt Sienna. Just the thought sickens me and I can’t believe she kept it a secret.

  At least I don’t feel in the slightest bit guilty about falling in love with my best friend’s wife now. When this shit is all over, I’m going to show her how a real man treats a woman.

  She tosses the wedding album aside, followed by some old army photos. In spite of myself, I kneel beside her and study one. I can’t help wonder what went wrong with Rob. The photo is before we met Sienna, real early on in our careers. We were both full of ourselves and convinced we were undefeatable. We couldn’t wait to go to war. And at that point, we really were best friends. I wonder if I could have done something to stop Rob getting so messed up but part of me thinks he was built that way. He never lost that feeling of being invincible, but I did the moment I got caught in a fire fight and shrapnel tore through my calf. Seeing your brothers die around you is enough to put your life in perspective. It’s what makes me so determined to keep hold of Sienna.

  “Look!” Sienna declares suddenly, drawing me out of my thoughts. She’s holding up a bunch of keys. “I remember seeing these before and thinking I ought to return them to base as they must be for the house.” She begins to search through them. “I don’t recognize this one though. Or that one.”

  “It could be a storage key, I suppose. If it had a tag, Rob might have taken it off.”

  Picking up the letter she’s discarded next to the box, she glances over it. “Well, we know the locker number so we might as well try.”

  I spot the excitement in her eyes and it scares me. She’s seeing this as an end to all this, but personally it feels like it’s just the beginning. What if we do find the drugs? Then what? I get the feeling these guys aren’t going to roll over and play dead if we hand them over to the cops.

  “Come on. Let’s go check this out.” I grab my car keys off the kitchen counter and wait while she grabs her handbag and stuffs the keys in them. “I’ll drive.”

  “Nick…” She puts her hands to her hips and I know I’m in trouble. “You should be resting.”

  “I’m fine. I’ve got a hard head.”

  “I can go o
n my own.” That cute chin thrusts forward.

  “Nuh-uh. No way in hell.”

  Sienna huffs but doesn’t argue anymore which surprises me. Maybe she’s getting better at letting me take care of her. Good. Maybe it will make it easier to persuade her to marry me.

  Chapter Eight

  Sienna

  I’m smiling as we drive into the city. I shouldn’t be. It’s not over yet but it’s like a big weight has come off my shoulders and now I can focus on… on Nick. I glance at him. He doesn’t look so happy. His jaw is tense and there’s a slight scowl on his face.

  I love him. Oh my God, I can’t believe I said it last night. But I’ll admit it felt good.

  Maybe I’ve loved Nick for so long that I’ve just been dying to tell him. I don’t know. I always thought it might be only friendship and insane attraction, but perhaps I never wanted to admit I’d fallen for my husband’s best friend.

  I’m a little giddy really. A little high on love. I want to remind myself to be wary, to recall some of that cautiousness, but I can’t summon any. It’s like Nick’s erased all those doubts. I’m waiting for them to come rushing back but it’s not happening. How the hell I can be so happy when life is still so up in the air, I’ve no idea.

  But hopefully we’ll find these wretched drugs and I can move on with my life. And figure out exactly where things are going between me and Nick.

  My feet are twitching by the time we reach the storage place. Nick still looks anxious. I see the tension in his arms, the veins standing out and I’m convinced he keeps checking his rearview mirror more than necessary. Did that strange car put him on edge? When we left, it had gone so I’m pretty sure I was just being paranoid.

  We park up and I climb out before Nick has the chance to come round and open the door. Not that I’m trying to be stubborn but as much as I’m beginning to enjoy his gentlemanly behavior, I’m not going to wait around. I need to see what’s inside this locker. Somehow, I just know this is it. This is going to unravel everything. The full truth about Rob’s secret life is about to come out and I’m hoping—praying—this will not only ensure my safety, but bring me closure.

  Maybe then I can take a close look at what’s happening with Nick.

  He locks the car and takes my hand. I have to try real hard not to simper like an idiot. I can’t remember the last time I held Rob’s hand. Shortly after our wedding day, perhaps? No, he would hold it sometimes when we went to events. In a sort of possessive way. A ‘look what I’ve got’ way.

  But that’s not how Nick holds my hand. It’s a strong enough grip but it’s reassuring and comforting, and still somehow sexy. Geez, I have it bad, don’t I? Since when is holding hands sexy?

  “Have you got the letter?” he asks.

  I pull it out of my shorts pocket with my free hand and study the header. “Yep, this is the place.”

  I haven’t been to a storage place before but I’ve driven past this one to get to work when traffic has been bad. The lockers are huge—big enough to hold a car. Part of me wonders if we’re going to find millions of dollars’ worth of drugs… why did he need a locker so damned big? My stomach twists into a tight knot.

  We approach the gates, still hand in hand and find them open. No one’s around, apart from a security guard in his little box at one end. He glances up and I wave the keys at him. This seems to satisfy him and he turns his attention back to his newspaper. Nick pauses and we take a moment to check out the locker numbers.

  “This way.” He tugs me forward, down the wide road separating two rows of lockers. “2664, wasn’t it?”

  I double check the letter. “Yeah. It must be up here somewhere. Look, 2653.” I point to one on my left. If my stomach was knotted before, it’s practically cramping now. Why am I so nervous? Maybe because what happens next in my life all hinges on this.

  We turn a corner and I count the lockers under my breath. “2661… 2662… 2663… Here it is.” I whisper the last part but we both stop. Pulling the bunch of keys out of my pocket, I find the first one I didn’t recognize and draw in a breath.

  “You want me to do it?”

  I shake my head. Fingers wrapped around the padlock, I try the key, one way, then the other, but it doesn’t work. I pick out the other one, slip it in and close my eyes. Please work, please work. If this doesn’t, I’m going to be gutted.

  The lock clicks open and I think we both blow out breaths. Now my hands are trembling as I draw out the padlock and hand it to Nick. Both of us slide the door up and stand back.

  I blink. I was expecting loads of packets of white stuff or something but not this…

  “Shit…”

  I glance at Nick. Shit is about right. Apparently drugs weren’t the only thing Rob was hiding from me. The locker is jammed full of stuff. Pricey stuff. A motorbike to one side, paint gleaming and obviously new. State of the art TV, a Bang and Olufsen stereo… Essentially enough goodies to furnish a very expensive house. There’s a ton of boxes at the back too. God knows what they have in them.

  “Do you think it’s stolen?” It’s the first thing that comes into my head.

  “I don’t know. It might be stuff he bought with the drug money. You guys never owned anything that expensive, did you? So maybe this is where the money went.”

  He’s right. We lived okay, considering we were both earning and his pay wasn’t too bad because of his rank, but we were never rolling in it. I guess I didn’t really wonder what he’d spent his drug money on. Women and nights out, I would have assumed, but perhaps not.

  “Why though? What’s the point if it’s all in storage?”

  “Maybe…” He scrapes a hand through his hair. “I hate to say it, Sienna, but maybe he was planning on setting up house somewhere else.”

  “Without me,” I say softly, wrapping my arms about myself. It’s ridiculous. Why should I care if he was planning to leave me? I was going to leave him anyway. But the idea that I was the one going had given me a little boost. Like I was being strong for once. This just adds yet another layer to the farce that was our marriage.

  God, in spite of everything, I actually thought he still wanted to be married to me. Even if it was only because I was some weird trophy wife type thing. My battered ego is about to shrivel up and die. Apparently I was no good at that either.

  Nick wraps an arm around my shoulder. “Hey, you don’t know that. He might have hoped you’d go with him, you know? Rob was pretty possessive over you. I can’t see him wanting to let you go that easily.”

  I snort. “Possessive? I don’t get it, Nick. I really don’t. Even if he saw me as a possession, why didn’t he want anything to do with me? You don’t treat a prized possession like he treated me.”

  “Sienna, if I understood what went on in Rob’s head, then perhaps it never would have come to this. Maybe I could have talked him out of all this crazy shit.” He tugs me closer, into his side, and peers down at me, a thoughtful look on his face. “Didn’t you ever own anything just because it was beautiful?”

  “Yeah, those damned red shoes.”

  “I guess he thought of you like that. His perfect, beautiful wife. He obviously went to great lengths to keep things from you. I suspect Rob knew you were the only thing he ever did right and wanted to keep the bad side of himself from you. Maybe… hell, maybe he thought he was protecting you from himself.”

  He holds me tight so I can’t leave his side. “You’re defending him now?”

  “No. I’ll never defend the way he treated you.” Nick turns to face me, hands braced around my waist. “But I don’t want you thinking you were worthless to him. I suspect—in spite of it all—you were probably the most valuable thing in his life.”

  I mull over his words. Is he right? Was that what I was? I tried so very hard to be the perfect wife. And maybe he saw me that way and attempted to shield me from himself. Did Rob actually understand how messed up he was? My mind is whirling. I don’t know what to think. I’ve swung from feeling sorry for him, to feelin
g angry, to regretting never understanding my husband properly.

  But I think I finally no longer blame myself.

  Nick drops a kiss to my lips, a brief one, and releases me. “Just so you know, you’ll always be the most valuable thing in my life. And I do want to possess you, I can’t deny that. But first and foremost, I want to love you.”

  I gape, probably like a goldfish. Where Rob possessing me was kind of scary, the idea of Nick possessing me isn’t at all. Maybe because he knows and respects me. I’m not sure Rob ever understood me. Perhaps if he did, he wouldn’t have seen me as the perfect wife who needed to be kept locked away—looked at but never touched.

  “Come on, let’s see if we can find these drugs.” He steps into the locker, leaving me still gaping.

  While I shake myself from my thoughts, he wheels the bike out so we can get to the boxes at the back. I slide in, fighting my need to sneeze as dust swirls in the air. Nick lifts the top boxes down and passes them to me so I can dump them outside the locker. When we have half a dozen on the ground, I can’t wait any longer so I peel back the lids. My heart sinks.

  Paperwork.

  Stack and stacks of paperwork.

  What was a soldier doing with so much paperwork?

  I kneel and leaf through it briefly. It looks like real estate stuff. Something to do with his plans to leave?

  “Uh… Sienna?”

  Jumping up, I go back into the locker and peer over his shoulder. “Holy shit.”

  Hidden carefully under more papers is what I’m guessing must be coke. It’s white anyway. Which is about all I know about cocaine.

  “Do you think all these boxes have drugs in?”

  Nick nods. “I expect so. I can’t see why else he’d have all these file boxes.”

  “No wonder those guys wants it so bad. It must be worth thousands.”

  “If not more…”

  “Shit.”

  He turns, places his hands on my shoulders and gives me a grave look. “What do you want to do now, Sienna?”

  I scowl. “What do you mean?”

  “Are we calling the police? Or…?”