Out of Uniform

by Catherine Mann

  Dee ended the kiss with a brief tug on his bottom lip. “Guess I inherited that stiff-necked prideful nature from my parents, a part of why they had no reason to miss us when Blane dumped me in the middle of nowhere.”

  What would happen to Emily and Madison if the next time he flew into combat, he didn’t make it home? Chase hadn’t proven himself to be much in the way of support—emotional or otherwise. Jacob’s grip around Dee tightened. He couldn’t stand to think of his sister as vulnerable and alone as this woman.

  She snuggled closer and continued talking. “It still gives me chills to think of how easily I fell off the map. I’d quit my job to move away from Blane, so even my friends weren’t expecting to hear anything from me. I’d put all my furniture in storage and moved into a resort weekly rental condo while I lined up job interviews in nearby towns midyear—I’m a preschool teacher.”

  “That explains your obsession with hats.” And why she’d been so good with Emily and Madison.

  Jacob’s arms twitched protectively around Dee as his thoughts flew back to the previous night. Chase would spend another few hours in jail before his parents would be able to spring him. Jacob forced his breathing to level out and reminded himself he hadn’t had a choice.

  No one would hurt her again, not Chase, not her worthless son of a bitch ex-husband.

  Jacob thought of the uncharacteristic red dress. Another clue he’d missed. His instincts had all but clubbed him over the head that the clothes didn’t match the woman inside. “The red dress wasn’t yours?”

  She shuddered. “Not even close.”

  “Lambert?”

  “He tossed out my clothes when I was sleeping. I still can’t believe I even managed to fall asleep that night. I just remember lying down beside Evan to help him settle and I must have drifted off for a few minutes out of sheer exhaustion. When I woke, he’d undressed me, thrown out my clothes and had that red dress waiting. Just the style his mistress liked.” Shuddering, Dee tugged the blanket closer around herself. “Blane always did have a sick sense of humor. I could have died out there without warm clothes and he would have gotten away with Evan.”

  Jacob’s muscles contracted, and he forced himself not to hold her too tightly. He wanted to kill Lambert, with his hands, a gun, it didn’t matter.

  Dee squirmed in his arms, and Jacob loosened his hold. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She snuggled closer as rays of sunshine pushed through the clouds to glitter off the picture window glass.

  Their night together had ended.

  Dee stared at the computer screen in the police cubicle. Her picture stared right back from a god-awful driver’s license photo. Shoulder-length hair had been restrained with a headband. Her smile was overbright, her eyes wide as if the flash had caught her unawares.

  Little had she known how life would blindside her just as unexpectedly.

  Amazing how much younger she’d looked a mere three years ago, mistakenly thinking she had her world in order—marriage, son, job. All a sham. A false sense of security. She’d been too young and trusting. Not anymore. She owed Evan.

  She also owed Jacob for his faith when he’d had no reason to take her in. Steady and constant, he sat next to her, walking her through the process of telling her story—again.

  The detective nodded to the computer. “Okay now, Mrs. Lambert. You’re who you say you are.”

  Startled, Dee glanced up. “Of course I am.”

  “Well, ma’am.” The older man scratched a hand along his graying buzz cut. “No disrespect meant, but it wasn’t a given without some kind of confirmation. We have a saying around here. ‘In God we trust—’”

  “‘But everyone else is suspect,’” Jacob finished.

  Dee glanced from one to the other, both so confident, both with hundred-year-old cynical eyes. She needed to be more like them to survive. “What a way to live.”

  The detective clicked the keys and a new image emerged. “Your husband, ma’am?”

  Unable to scrounge enough spit to speak, Dee stared at the photo of Blane, blond, wiry and too handsome for words even in a mug shot.

  The corner of Jacob’s eye twitched. “Her ex-husband?”

  She nodded. Part of her wanted to tell them all this wasn’t happening, deny she’d even met that traitorous toad. She would simply ditch her Deirdre Lambert self. Except she’d already learned the past couldn’t simply be ignored. The past had happened, as she remembered clearly now. Her child’s father would have a criminal record.

  What a heritage for her son to carry.

  She grieved for Evan that she hadn’t chosen more wisely. Yet without Blane, she wouldn’t have Evan.

  The chair creaked as the cop leaned back. “We’re monitoring his accounts, tracking for any credit card activity, keeping a watch on his cell phone account and his girlfriend’s telephone. If he’s found over the border, a Canadian arrest warrant will have to be issued, along with a request for extradition.”

  Jacob nodded through the steps, but Dee’s head was reeling. “Even if we find Blane, I’ll have to wait for a bunch of diplomatic mumbo jumbo to clear before they can arrest him.”

  “Ma’am, I know it sounds—”

  “It sounds like he’ll have enough warning to run with my son again—” She forced her breathing to even out. “Sorry. I just want him back.”

  “Of course you do.” The older officer clicked through a series of codes and the screen changed again. “This came through just before you arrived.”

  A child’s face appeared. Evan’s face. She bit back a cry.

  Jacob braced a hand low on her back. “Other than the hair color, he looks just like you.”

  She nodded, unable to speak without letting loose a flood of tears.

  The detective pivoted back to the screen, the chair squeaking a low keen. “He will be logged into the data base for the NCMEC—National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.”

  She twisted her hands together, but they still shook. Her child was on his way to appearing on a milk carton.

  Her hand gravitated toward the computer screen as if she could somehow touch Evan. The silky blond hair. The gap between his front teeth that showed when he smiled, which he did often. Her shy but happy child.

  “He’s so little, only three—” She pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth. “No wait. He had his fourth birthday a week ago, and I missed it.” Anger kicked through her, steeling her spine. “Damn Blane for taking that away from me, too—”

  She stopped short as two police officers with snow on their shoulders approached the cubicle, both with sober expressions.

  Anxiety gripped her stomach. The cops both looked at Jacob, who promptly slid a bracing arm around her shoulders.

  Her spine stiffened. “Don’t try to break the news gently. I want to know what’s going on.”

  The older of the two policemen stepped closer, his expression shifting to one of total sympathy. “Ma’am, we checked the highway location you gave the officer last night and we found the spot where you struggled with your husband. The road was clear enough for us to see tread marks. So we blocked off the lane and swept away the rest of the snow.”

  Tread marks? What was the worry over some leftover rubber? She stifled hysterical laughter. “He sped away. Of course he skidded for a moment.”

  “Ma’am, the tread marks lead into the river.”

  Jacob’s arm tightened around her even as he remained silent.

  She blinked fast, unable to process what she was hearing. “I saw him leave. I saw it.”

  The policeman fidgeted with his hat in his hands. “They’ve already uncovered the vehicle—” he paused, then gentled his voice further “—and a man’s body.”

  She shook her head, gasping gulps of air. Pain blinded her, stabbed through her whole body into a great gaping hole in her heart. “No. No, no, no, I saw them drive away. My memory is clear now.”

  Nausea swamped her at even the possibility they suggested. But i
t couldn’t be true.

  It. Was. Not. True.

  My God, hadn’t she seen the Suburban leave?

  The detective behind the desk rolled his chair closer, his elbows on his knees. “You need to prepare yourself and consider that you could be remembering what you wanted to see. You suffered a head injury. Your brain could still be trying to protect you from what you saw.”

  No. The mind couldn’t be so deceitful. Still, uncertainty nipped her.

  If the officers were right, that meant her child was…dead. An unbearable thought.

  Unbearable enough to make her lose her mind completely after all?

  Chapter 14

  H e hated being confined this way, in a tiny room with nothing much more than a too-small bed and a couple of dreary windows. But he had to keep a low profile now more than ever.

  At least he could be grateful the police hadn’t uncovered anything more about him. Beyond the incident with Dee, which could be easily explained away, they had nothing on him. He intended to keep it that way so he could start his new life, free of past mistakes.

  He just had to figure out what to do about the kid, then he could move forward. He shifted on the crummy mattress, dreaming of the day when he would have a new place of his own with first-class bedsprings and a big-ass television. Not much longer and he would have everything he required—the money—to make his move. He simply needed to be patient.

  If only patience didn’t involve confinement to a lone room when he wanted to be outside, on the move. Free.

  And it was all Dee’s fault, damn her.

  Yeah, he wanted a clean break. But he also craved revenge.

  He wondered which urge would win.

  The biting wind slapped Dee’s face as she walked with Jacob down the cement steps, stirring smaller memories of her son, how he needed his ears covered. Evan succumbed to infections so easily.

  What a ridiculous thought when he really could be dead. The full import of the possibility hadn’t hit her. This wasn’t denial, damn it, because she refused to believe it was true in the first place.

  She simply followed Jacob, numb, climbing into his truck. A few miles later—how many she wasn’t sure—she blinked through her fog enough to look around and realize…“Jacob, you turned the wrong way.”

  His eyes stayed forward with unwavering focus. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To base.”

  “Base? I know you’d planned that originally, but things have—” she swallowed hard “—things have changed given what the police found in the river.” Maybe he was taking her to the military doctor again. Perhaps he thought she’d totally lost it.

  His hands stayed steady on the steering wheel as the truck charged ahead. “You told me you saw your ex drive off with your son.”

  “But the skid marks…”

  “There must be some other explanation,” he said with unshakable conviction.

  Hope teased at her insides. “How can you be sure?”

  He glanced in her direction, his strong jaw as set as his voice. “I heard it in your voice. You know what you saw.”

  He believed her, even when she could barely believe in herself. The notion rocked her hard at a time when she already wasn’t feeling too steady. But if Jacob thought there was a chance Evan wasn’t in that river, she would grasp on to that possibility with both hands.

  She wouldn’t give up on her child as long as there was any chance to find him. “Your friend Spike?”

  “If I ask him to keep looking for information on your ex, he will search.”

  Hope fanned stronger, hotter, burning away the fog of grief clouding her mind. “They’re even coming in on a weekend.”

  “They’re already waiting. It’s not that I don’t trust the police. I just believe the more people we have working on this, the better.” He passed her his cell phone. “While we’re driving, you should check your voice mail on the phone at your new place and on your cell.”

  She should have thought of that herself. Thank goodness Jacob covered all possibilities, even if this was a long shot. The police hadn’t tracked any calls from Blane’s cell. Still, she might find something else and right now any tiny lead felt vital to her sanity and to her son’s safety.

  Phone gripped in her hand, she started punching in the access code she now remembered. How wonderful to have such a basic part of her life back.

  And most wonderful of all, Jacob believed her.

  He hadn’t given up. He’d navigated the necessary official channels, and now they would strike out on their own. After so long of depending only on herself, this felt surreal. Wonderful. Almost too much.

  Too easily she could grow accustomed to this sort of support, then how would she survive on her own again?

  Jacob walked with security through the multiple doors closing off the OSI offices from even the protected confines of a military base. If there were answers to be found, he trusted they would surface here.

  He would have liked to come here first, but recognized the need to go through official steps beforehand. The police needed as much information as possible. And the time he and Dee had spent speaking with them gave his friends a chance to follow up on their own leads.

  Dee’s calls to check her messages hadn’t netted anything but a few telemarketing hang ups and two job offers. Pretty much what he’d expected. But he’d thought giving her something to do would help her feel more in control.

  The last door hissed open as the vault door seal released. Inside waited Special Agent Max Keagan, along with a couple of crew friends—Bronco and Crusty. The two pilots, both family men, appeared solemn faced. No doubt envisioning the hell of this happening to one of their children. Jacob hadn’t spent much time with Madison, but the little angel had a way of wrapping her fingers tightly around a person’s heart.

  He could only imagine what Dee was going through.

  Dee looked around. “I don’t even know how to say thank you. You’ve all gone above and beyond.”

  Bronco lumbered up from his chair and offered it to her. “This is what we do for each other. If you’re with Jacob, that makes you one of ours, remember? We take care of our own.”

  Special Agent Keagan scrubbed a hand over his spiked blond hair as he clicked through computer keys. He held up a hand in greeting but stayed silent.

  Crusty produced a box of doughnuts. “He’s been tapping into some connections at border patrol.”

  “In case they went to Canada.” She shook her head as a no-thank-you to the food.

  Crusty scooped up a jelly-filled pastry. “Right. There’s camera footage at those stations and satellite photos. We’re still looking into the possibility he hopped a ferry.” He downed half the doughnut in one bite. “Spike’s got all sorts of superspy tricks up his sleeve for narrowing the search.”

  Keagan’s fingers slowed. Without turning away from his computer, he waved over his shoulder. “When was the lipstick-on-the-mirror incident? Exact date.”

  Jacob rattled off the information then asked, “Why? We thought that was Chase causing more trouble.”

  Keagan snagged a gulp from his bottled water before returning to the keyboard. “Maybe, maybe not. I’ll check around and see if Lambert’s crossing back and forth over the border. So far, though, there’s not even a peep from him. He’s not at work. No credit card activity.”

  Dee started shaking again. “They’re not dead. They can’t be.”

  Keagan patted the air in a calm-down motion. “I’m not saying they are. There are plenty of ways to pay for things without credit cards. Until I have definitive proof to the contrary, we’re going to keep looking for your boy. My wife and I have a son, too.” His gaze fell briefly to the photo of a newborn in blue grinning as he held a toy dolphin. “I’ll search for your child as if he were my own.”

  Her hand shook as she reached to stroke a finger along the edge of the gold frame on the agent’s desk. “Thank you.”

  Jacob hoped
like hell that Dee was right about her ex driving off. “Would he really risk coming back here just to torment her? Why not make a clean run with Evan?”

  “That would be the logical choice, but…” Keagan trailed off.

  Dee’s face turned paler. “He’s not logical anymore. Or rather, he’s even more unbalanced than before, especially if he somehow found out I didn’t die that night.”

  Jacob leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Maybe he’s buying time while he sets up a new identity. He wouldn’t have had much warning that Dee was on to him.”

  Dee’s eyes widened before blinking faster, darting from side to side. He couldn’t imagine what it must be costing her to climb inside the mind of her crooked, cruel ex-husband.

  Basically all the options here stunk.

  Her ex and son could be dead. Or the criminal was on the road somewhere far away with her child.

  Or Lambert was close by, determined to succeed in killing Dee this time.

  Dee fidgeted with her seat belt as she watched Jacob charge up the steps back into the Lodge. He was closing the place—indefinitely. He planned to hide out with Dee in visitor’s quarters on base, while sending Emily and Madison to stay with Grace and her family. Grace was already inside Emily’s room helping her pack for the baby before they would leave together.

  Meanwhile, Special Agent Keagan was still working his secret ops magic to pick up her ex-husband’s trail.

  She refused to consider the body in the river was Blane’s. He’d simply ditched the vehicle. He was trying to cover his tracks.

  And the dead body? She said a prayer for whoever had died, because she had to believe dental records would prove it wasn’t Blane.

  Everything was happening so fast. She’d known Jacob to be a man of action, yet his lightning-fast preparations left her head spinning. In his typical Jacob manner, he never seemed to hurry, yet arrangements had been made before she could blink.

  Dee tucked her toes under the dash and soaked up the heater’s blast, anything to keep her occupied. She’d already packed her meager gear earlier and brought it with her to the police station so she could be mobile if they found Evan. Now Jacob insisted she wait here for him while he finished a couple of last-minute details.