All Through the Night: A Troubleshooter Christmas

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “It’s probably just…” But she couldn’t think of who it might be. The mail carrier had already come, and they weren’t expecting any packages from FedEx.

  Flowers. It was entirely possible that Jules, an incredible romantic, would do something thoughtful like send Robin a huge bouquet of tulips, his favorite spring flowers, to provide at least a dash of color over these next few bound-to-be-dreary days.

  The bell rang again.

  Dolphina went into the foyer, pulled back the curtain that covered the window on the old-fashioned door, and…

  “Oh, Jesus,” Robin said.

  It was Joe Hirabayashi, standing out there—Yashi—who worked with Jules. As he met Dolphina’s eyes through the glass, her heart fell. Whatever he was here for, it wasn’t going to be good.

  Robin sat down heavily on the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Oh, fuck, please, no…”

  Dolphina opened the door, and Yashi, bless him, didn’t waste time with small talk. He just looked past her, directly at Robin. “I spoke to Jules twenty minutes ago,” the FBI agent reported, and Dolphina’s heart started beating again. She could only imagine the relief Robin was feeling at that news. But then Yashi went on. “And he was uninjured. He’s with Max and Deb Erlanger. The hotel where they were staying as well as Spec Op HQ have both been bombed, but they’re okay,” he repeated. “But more shit’s going down—the entire city’s under attack, and as of about fifteen minutes ago we lost both cell and satellite communications. The story of the bombing is about to hit the news. I didn’t want you to hear it there first.”

  Robin nodded, his face pale. “How bad is it?” he asked.

  Yashi didn’t lie. “It’s bad,” he admitted.

  Dear God. “Please come in,” Dolphina said.

  “I can’t,” Yashi told her. She’d met him a number of times, and he’d always been rather deadpan, as if his average pulse rate was around twenty beats per minute. But now he clearly had some adrenaline going. “I’m on my way to Logan. I gotta get to D.C. I really shouldn’t have stopped here, but…It was on my way, and I wanted you to know. He’s okay, you got that, Robin? We’re going to do everything we can to get him out.”

  “Yeah,” Robin said. “Thank you.”

  “And in the meantime,” Yashi was trying to reassure him, but there was definitely worry in the man’s eyes, “he’s with Max and Deb, and the three of them are the best field agents I’ve ever worked with.”

  “Right,” Robin said. “That’s good.”

  “Do yourselves a favor,” Yashi told them both. “Don’t watch the news. All they do is speculate, and you don’t need that. I’ll call you when I hear something.”

  Dolphina closed the door behind him, and turned to look at Robin.

  But he’d already gone into the living room.

  And turned on CNN.

  Will knew that there was never going to be a good time to do this.

  So he might as well do it now, while he had a sitter with Maggie. He’d do this, and then he’d stop at the grocery store and get the fixings for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Not that he’d ever cooked a turkey before.

  But there was a first time for everything, and God knows the past few days—hell, this entire year—had been chock full of firsts.

  Will rolled his neck and shoulders as he stood on Robin Chadwick’s front porch, trying to relieve some of his tension. But that wasn’t going to happen, so he finally just did it. He reached out his finger and rang the bell.

  He didn’t have to wait long before the curtain was pulled back and…The door opened to reveal Dolphina Patel, who was no doubt working extremely late.

  Damn. Another of his reasons for doing this now had to do with his reasoning that at least Dolphina wouldn’t be around to witness his groveling. At least he wouldn’t have to bear the sting of seeing scorn and disgust in her eyes.

  Yeah, so much for that hope.

  She was even more beautiful than he’d remembered, which was saying something. Just looking at her made his chest hurt.

  “You scared me.” She was furious, which was pretty much the way he’d left her, the last time he’d been here. “It’s all right,” she called back into the house. “It’s no one.”

  Ouch.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said. “Are Robin and Jules at home?”

  “Not for you, scumbag.” She closed the door in his face.

  Will sighed and rang the bell again.

  The door opened almost immediately. “Stop that,” Dolphina whispered. “Go away. He doesn’t need this right now. Shoo.” She waved at him, like he was some kind of scumbag of the stray dog variety.

  He stood his ground. “This is important.”

  She laughed. “Oh, really?”

  “It is.”

  “If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.”

  “Who is it, Dolph?” That was Robin’s voice, coming into the foyer behind her.

  “Prepare to die, asshole,” Dolphina whispered to Will, and with a flourish, she opened the door wider.

  Robin actually laughed when he saw him standing there. “Wow,” he said. “You’ve got some balls.”

  Will held out the file he was clutching in his nearly frozen fingers. One of these days, preferably before winter ended, but probably not without the help of a support group, he was going to accept the fact that he was no longer living in tropical Indonesia, and get himself a pair of gloves.

  “I didn’t write the story that was in the Voice,” he talked fast, because he knew he was probably not going to get another chance to say this.

  “It had your by-line,” Dolphina pointed out.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t write it,” he said. “I wanted you to see the story I did write, the one for the Globe. They didn’t run it, because of the fucking National Voice. Excuse me,” he said to Dolphina. “But there’s no other word that describes it quite as accurately. My computer was hacked and my notes were stolen. I wrote a second story, today, about how it happened and who from the Voice was involved. It’s in here, too. It was supposed to run tomorrow, but it’s getting pushed off the page by a friend’s story about, well, more volatile world events. He’s in the thick of things, so…”

  Robin actually reached out and took the file. “Afghanistan,” he said.

  Damn, but the actor was exuding grim. Will hadn’t expected Robin to be friendly, but this was intense. He nodded. “In a nutshell.”

  “Your friend is actually over there?” Robin asked him.

  “He’s more like a frenemy,” Will admitted, “but yeah. Jack Lloyd. He’s in Kandahar, where the fighting’s going down. He’s been sending out e-mail updates to everyone at the Globe. It’s crazy, what’s happening.”

  “I’ve been watching the news,” Robin said.

  “They’re hours behind,” Will told him. “They’re good at breaking big events, but not so good on the details.”

  “No shit,” Robin said. “How’s he getting e-mail out? Jack.”

  “I have no idea,” Will said.

  Robin nodded. He tapped the file. “You want me to read this?”

  “That is why I brought it over here.” Will wasn’t looking for forgiveness as much as understanding. Of course there was also the little matter of the digital recording that he’d sold to TMZ, as an attempt to let the world see what Robin had actually said, in context. A check for the full amount of the sale—ten thousand dollars, in Robin’s name—was in the file, too. There was no way Will was going to keep that. He hadn’t sold the tape for profit, but rather in the name of truth.

  “Why don’t you come in,” Robin surprised him by saying.

  “Robin.” Dolphina’s voice held a warning. Will made the mistake of glancing at her. Her eyes were filled with concern, but then she turned to gaze at him. And he’d thought it was cold out here on the porch. After that look, it was possible that he was going to crumble into little shards of ice. “Don’t.”

  It wasn’t quite clear whether Dolphina
was speaking to Robin, or warning Will against coming inside.

  But Will did it. With one foot and then the other. And then Robin closed the door behind him and he was back inside Chadwick’s beautiful old house, standing in the very same foyer as Dolphina Patel—which was something of a shock to his system, even with the icicles dripping from her palpable hatred.

  But the surprise hits just kept on coming. “If you show me Jack’s e-mails,” Robin told Will, “if you hang out here tonight, and tell me when news comes in from him, I’ll read your file in the morning.”

  What was going on? Will looked at Dolphina, but she was shaking her head. “Robin, you’re not going to find out anything more than you already know.” She looked at Will. “Please just leave.”

  But Robin had hold of his arm. The man had one hell of a grip. “Do we have a deal?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Will said, and not just because he was suddenly aware that Robin’s muscles were not merely for show. “I just have to call my babysitter, make sure she can stay. If not, well…I don’t live that far away. It’ll only take me about thirty minutes to go pick up Maggie and get back here. I mean, if that’s okay. She could just crash on the sofa.”

  “That’s fine with me.” Robin was already leading the way into the front room where Dolphina kept her desk. “Here. You can use Dolph’s computer. If you e-mail him, do you think he’ll respond?”

  He was talking about Jack again. “If he’s online,” Will said. “Sure.” Jack would certainly be up for some heavy-duty gloating over the fact that he was in the right place at the right time for the story of the year.

  “You have a daughter?” Dolphina followed them. She asked her question in the same tone that she might’ve used to inquire about a roach population explosion in his apartment.

  “She’s my sister’s kid,” Will explained. “She’s twelve.” He wasn’t sure why he’d told her that. What difference did it make if Mags was twelve versus any other age?

  “You live with a twelve-year-old.” Dolphina snickered. Her tone had probably been snarky disbelief, but Will preferred thinking she was bemused.

  Because it was a bemusing concept—his sharing an apartment with a twelve-year-old girl.

  And with that thought, he knew why he’d told Dolphina that Mags was twelve. Because Maggie was the reason he’d crashed that wedding shower. Maggie was the reason he did everything these days. He wanted Dolphina Patel to know that, and to fully understand what happened with those fuckers from the National Voice, and even to forgive him.

  And okay, honestly? He wanted her to fall into his arms and, yes, into his bed, which ironically was not going to happen even if a multitude of miracles occurred—because as of two months ago, Will had a twelve-year-old living with him.

  Truth be told, he’d come here tonight not just because he wanted to set things right between himself and Robin and Jules. He’d come because a significant chunk of him hoped that Robin, or probably more likely Jules, would do more than understand—and somehow, some way talk Dolphina into giving Will a chance.

  Damn, he was a fool.

  He was still hoping that Jules Cassidy would help him pledge his freaking troth.

  “Where is Jules tonight?” he asked as he used Dolphina’s laptop to sign online.

  Neither of them answered right away, and he glanced up over his shoulder at Robin.

  “He’s in Kandahar,” Robin finally told him.

  And suddenly, with a chill that came from neither the north wind nor Dolphina’s eyes, Will understood exactly what was happening here.

  Max’s wife, Gina, called at nine o’clock—about an hour after Will had arrived. “Unlock your front door,” she told Robin. “We’re in your driveway. I didn’t want to ring the bell.”

  “We” was not just Gina and her toddler daughter, Emma, but also a woman Robin had never met before, who introduced herself as Joan DaCosta.

  “We’re the East Coast contingent,” Joan told Robin breezily as she enveloped him in a hug. She was tall and big-boned, and it wasn’t until he hugged her back that he realized she wasn’t queen-sized, she was pregnant. “We’re on point, as the froggish types like to say. The West Coasties’ll take a bit longer to arrive—and you are totally confused, aren’t you?”

  She had a pretty face, with lively dark eyes and a warm smile. Robin liked her already, but he still had no clue who she was.

  “I’m Mike Muldoon’s wife,” she explained, although it didn’t help that much. “Lieutenant Muldoon?” She tried again. “He’s the officer who’s leading the SEAL team that’s going in there to get Jules out. Not try to get him out—get him out. Next time that Yashi guy uses the word try, you have my permission to smack him upside the head. Mike doesn’t try, he gets the job done. He’ll bring Jules home.”

  “And Max and Deb. Let’s bring them home, too, please,” Gina said, coming down the stairs after she’d tucked her daughter into one of the guest-room beds on the second floor. She looked exhausted, her beautiful face drawn with her own worry, but still she managed to smile at Robin. “You hanging in, Boy Wonder?”

  Robin nodded, managing a smile, too. Sam Starrett’s nickname for him had clearly made the rounds.

  “Robin’s already got some friends over,” Joan told Gina, giving Robin another squeeze. “It doesn’t surprise me that Jules would find himself a smart one.”

  “You know Jules?” he asked.

  “Honey,” Joan said. “Everyone knows Jules. And usually he’s the one saving everyone else’s butts.”

  “I’m going to make some tea,” Gina announced. “Do you mind if I…?”

  “Make yourself at home.” Robin was still trying to make sense of his sudden houseguests. “So, you flew all the way up from D.C.?” He followed Gina into the kitchen, leaving Joan with Dolphina. Will was still in the front parlor, glued to the computer. There’d been no word yet from Jack.

  “We wanted to be with you,” Gina said simply as she rummaged through his cabinets, looking for tea bags.

  “Mugs are to the right of the microwave,” he told her as she came up with a box of vanilla chai—Jules’s favorite. His heart clenched. Please God, keep him safe…

  “Thanks,” Gina said.

  “Joan doesn’t even know me,” he pointed out.

  She crossed the kitchen and filled the tea kettle with water from the bubbler. “Yeah, but she knows what it’s like to be in our shoes. She’s married to a SEAL. She’s white-knuckled it through reports of downed helicopters and…She knows that it’s easier with a hand to hold.”

  “Easier,” Robin repeated.

  Gina forced a smile. “Marginally.” She paused, and then said, “Jules asked me to do this, you know. Especially for your first time. He was concerned and…He understands how excruciating the waiting can be—for news, for results. He asked me to organize a support group if something like this ever happened—if he was out there and communications went down. He asked me to remind you that he’s very good at taking care of himself. He also wanted you to remember how much he loves you. And if there’s ever a time that he doesn’t come home…” Her voice faltered. She had to be thinking about her Max, who was out there, too, but she still managed to finish, “it’s not because he didn’t desperately want to.”

  And fuck, Robin had been keeping it together—just barely—right up to now. He’d always been mortified by crying in front of other people, but Gina apparently didn’t have that problem because she burst into tears. She just suddenly lost it, right there in his kitchen, which in contrast made him look as if he weren’t crying at all.

  Which, come to think of it, was probably why she’d let go.

  Robin grabbed her and hugged her—to comfort her, yeah right. And there they stood, clinging to each other. And it was weird, but on some level, he did take comfort in knowing that Jules was with Max right now.

  And Deb, too. FBI Agent Deb Erlanger was one tough operator.

  Gina murmured a reassurance that Robin knew was as much fo
r herself as for him. “They’re going to be all right.” Her voice was muffled because he was holding her so tightly.

  “Yeah,” he said. Please God, let Gina be right…

  “Yashi’s been updating you, right?” Gina asked from his armpit, where he’d smooshed her.

  “They’ve narrowed down the sector of the city where they think Jules, Max and Deb are, but they still haven’t pinpointed their location,” Robin repeated the info Yashi had last given him, releasing her slightly.

  She pulled back even farther to look at him, the little makeup she wore smudging her face. Her nose was red, too. She was not one of those women who cried beautifully, but she clearly didn’t give a crap about that, and he liked her even more for it. “They’ll find them,” she said.

  “Here’s something you might not know,” Robin told her. “There’s a reporter somewhere in Kandahar who managed to send out e-mail communications as recently as six o’clock, our time. Yashi thinks this guy—Jack Lloyd—has access to some kind of landline that still works. Or at least it was working a few hours ago. No one’s been able to contact him since. Will—he’s here, in the front office, with Dolphina—did you meet him?”

  She shook her head, no.

  “He’s a reporter, so watch what you say in front of him,” Robin warned her. “But he’s frenemies—his word—with this Jack guy, so…Hopefully Jack will e-mail him back.”

  “That’s great,” Gina said. “It is. But…you need to know that the people they’ve got looking for Jules and Max? They’re very good at what they do. We don’t need to help find them. Really, Robin. We just need to wait, which sometimes seems like it’s the hardest job of all.”

  No kidding.

  “My mother once asked me, didn’t I wish Max was just, like, a postal worker,” Gina told him. “And you know what I told her?”

  Robin nodded. Like her, he was laughing and still crying a little, too. What a mess.

  “Same answer you would give,” Gina said. “Right?”

  Robin nodded again. Like Gina, he’d fallen in love with a man who ran toward, instead of away from, danger. Although he had to admit, at times like this, the postal worker thing sounded freaking tempting.