Back to You

by Jessica Scott

  “Got it in one. The prosecution at division wants a guilty plea, but I didn’t accept it.” Patrick slid a second manila folder across the desk. “You’re in a world of shit, Trent, but we’ve got a good chance at beating this thing.”

  Trent snorted and shook his head quietly. “What makes you say that?”

  “The witnesses against you are crap, for starters. Your former lieutenant Randall has very limited credibility, no matter who his daddy is, especially since he married his subordinate.”

  “Speak English?”

  “Your lieutenant says you harassed one of your soldiers. That soldier is corroborating his story but since they got married, it looks like they’re just backing up each other’s stories instead of independently testifying to true events.”

  Trent frowned. “So the fact that my lieutenant was sleeping with one of his subordinates ruins his credibility?”

  “More or less.” Patrick sighed. “Ready for the heavy lifting? I need to go over what you’re being charged with.”

  Trent braced himself. Then nodded once.

  “I’ll read through the specific violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice first. We can go into the specifics of each charge after that.” He flipped over the first sheet. “In that, on or about Fifteen October 2007, you were derelict in your duties to wit—”

  Patrick’s voice faded as the memory reached up and took hold, sucking him down into a swirling vortex.

  “Sir, I don’t understand.”

  “You’re under investigation, Trent.” Colonel Richter, the brigade commander himself, had broken the news to Trent. He was a man Trent had admired since they’d first rolled into combat together, six years prior. A man he looked up to.

  “Am I being relieved, sir?”

  “I’m sorry, son.”

  A man who was relieving him from command. Taking the responsibility, the honor of being a company commander away from him.

  “Sir?”

  “You’re missing sensitive items that no one can account for. Your company funds have come up short on their audit. You’ve lost control of your officers and your soldiers. And your parts clerk Adorno has made an allegation of inappropriate conduct against you.” Colonel Richter shook his head slowly.

  “Adorno, sir? I rarely even see her. She works in the motor pool.”

  “She was recently pulled up to the company ops?” Colonel Richter asked.

  “Yes, because she was having problems in the motor pool.”

  “And she worked long hours, alone in the company ops with just you.”

  Trent closed his eyes, seeing how neatly the trap had been sprung around him. He’d never even looked at that soldier funny and yet, simply because he’d been alone with her, the allegations were enough. “Sir—”

  “I can’t leave you in the job. I’ve lost faith in your ability to command.”

  “Sir, this is all bullshit. I accept responsibility for the missing items but you can’t take me out of command in the middle of the fight. With Garrison and Carponti being wounded, I’ve lost two key leaders in my company. Give me time to build the new team. Please, sir. Don’t do this.”

  Colonel Richter held up one hand. “I’ve made up my decision. You’re restricted from any unsecure communications while the investigation is ongoing. Do not attempt to contact Adorno. Do not attempt to contact Lieutenant Randall. Let the investigation run its course.”

  Panic. Fear. Humiliation.

  All of it rose up again now, circling like vultures over the kill as Patrick finished listing the charges against him. He’d waited months for the investigation to be complete.

  He’d done what he was told. He hadn’t called anyone—not even his wife. He’d let the investigation run its course. But he’d had no idea that in doing so, he’d nailed the coffin of his marriage shut. The letter had come from Laura a few weeks later, ripping out his soul and smashing it into the dusty, dried up desert earth. He’d lost everything in ninety-seven days.

  “Are you listening to me?” Patrick asked.

  Trent looked up. “Yeah. Sorry. What?”

  “I said the only thing they have that has any legs is the inappropriate conduct allegation. Everything else, I’ve already got enough to rip their case to shreds.”

  Trent flipped through the documents Patrick handed him. “If the case against me is so flimsy, why are they going to all of this effort? What’s the point?”

  “You want my honest opinion?”

  Patrick leaned forward and rubbed his hands over his face. His blue eyes were sharp and weary. “You’re the sacrificial lamb.”

  “Meaning what?” Trent pushed his glasses to the top of his head.

  “Lieutenant Randall is one very well-connected lieutenant. His father is connected to every powerful four-star general officer in the army. If you take the fall for this, Randall gets to continue the family name.”

  The bitterness roared back and this time, it brought its friends anger and hatred. Oh, but he hated that selfish, lying bastard lieutenant. Trent had been working round the clock to try and keep his boys safe and Randall? Randall had been getting blow jobs in the motor pool from Adorno instead of doing his fucking job.

  And yet, Adorno had accused Trent of inappropriate conduct when nothing, nothing, even remotely close to inappropriate had happened. Oh the irony; it galled.

  “Lieutenant Randall stole weapons and traded them for cash. That was his crime and his alone. Your crime was your failure as a commander to be aware of your subordinate’s actions,” Patrick said quietly. “The accusations against you are very serious. And unless we can prove that Randall and his wife are lying—that you didn’t know about what he was doing, and weren’t a part of it—he’s intent on taking you down to lessen his punishment. He pleas down his punishment to testify against you. As the commander, you’re a bigger fish.”

  “So then the inappropriate conduct allegations against me are just icing on the cake?”

  “It’s an attack on your character. Do you have any proof that Randall and Adorno were already involved during the deployment?”

  “Sure. I’ve got YouTube videos of him and Adorno doing the nasty in a Porta Pottie.” He swore viciously and tossed his glasses on the table. “Of course not.”

  “YouTube videos would probably help. At this point, a grainy cell phone photo might do the trick.”

  “I don’t see how we can fix this,” Trent muttered, rubbing his eyes.

  “You should have more faith in me than that.”

  “Yeah, well, my faith is in short supply these days.”

  Trent scrubbed his hands over his face in frustration. From the moment his commander had called him into the office and told him he was being investigated for dereliction of duty, maltreatment of subordinates, sexual misconduct, and a litany of other really bad things that Trent would have never dreamed of, let alone done, his faith in the very military he’d devoted his life to at the expense of all others had been shaken to the core.

  The endless deployments, the constant strain to be everything a leader was supposed to be to his men, seemed somehow empty. Futile.

  Pointless.

  Patrick leaned forward, his mouth set in a grim line. He slid a business card across the table. “I have a plan.”

  Trent pushed his glasses on and read the card. “Captain Emily Lindberg. Licensed Clinical Psychiatrist.” He looked up at Patrick. “What the hell is this?”

  “Tomorrow, you’re going to call Emily and schedule an appointment. She’s expecting your call.”

  Trent tossed the card onto the table. It floated a bit before it settled next to the folder. “For what?” The words stuck in his throat, dry and harsh as the desert against his skin.

  “You didn’t hear the part about the wronged hero to your stressed out villain? I need a doc—an army doc—to give you a clean bill of health before we go to this Article 32 hearing. No unexplained anger. No urge to kick puppies. None of that.”

  Trent folded his
arms across his chest. “So I got a little stressed as a commander. Someone told me once if you’re swimming as fast as you can and you’re barely keeping your head above water, you’re probably contributing to the organization.”

  Patrick shook his head slowly. “Not in this case. We need to show that you were busy commanding your formation and your lieutenant took advantage of that busyness. Not your poor stress management techniques.”

  Trent frowned. “What exactly are you getting at?”

  “Nothing more than what I’ve said.” Patrick looked away, suddenly fascinated by the folders in front of him. “Call her. This needs to happen sooner rather than later.”

  Trent said nothing for a long moment. He bounced one leg, wrestling with the hundred thousand questions that burned inside him. “So what about the other allegations?” he finally asked.

  Patrick scrubbed both hands over his face before releasing a harsh breath. “Here’s how you have to handle this… you’re not going to like it, but hear me out.” He paused before speaking again. “I’m going to need you to play nice with your wife.”

  Trent went utterly still. “What do you mean, play nice?” he whispered. The emotions inside him twisted and swirled violently.

  “I need you to pretend like you two aren’t getting divorced. That you love each other. That you can’t live without her.”

  Trent shoved away from the table and pushed to his feet. He stared at the photos in the glass case behind him of the last deployment. “I can’t put Laura in this position,” he said after a moment. “I won’t.” He paused. “It won’t work anyway. Everyone knows she’s taken off her wedding rings.”

  “The officers on the board will be from this brigade but that doesn’t mean we can’t make this a believable lie. It’s them we have to convince. No one else.”

  Trent rubbed the scar over his heart. It ached where he touched it. A dense fire that fucking hurt. If he asked her to do this, he would destroy any chance he had of winning her back.

  But goddamn it, he couldn’t win her back if he went to jail.

  “Listen to me. When this whole nightmare first reared its head, you told me you didn’t want to drag her through a court-martial, right?”

  Trent turned back to face him and nodded, unease twisting in his belly.

  “The only way to keep this from going to court-martial is to stop it at the Article 32 level—before it gets to court. We don’t do that by attacking Randall and Adorno. We do that by showing the officers on the board that you’re a good soldier, a good officer, and a good husband and father. That you wouldn’t dream of cheating on your wife. That’s how we beat this.”

  Trent shook his head slowly, holding his breath until his lungs felt like they’d burst. “Patrick, I’ve known you a long time, and you’ve never suggested anything half as fucked up as this.”

  Patrick scrubbed one hand over his mouth. “I know. And I hate that I’m asking you to do it. But if you don’t want to watch someone else raising your kids because you’re in jail, you and Laura need to start looking like a happy husband and wife. And every single officer sitting in that Article 32 hearing needs to believe that it’s true.”

  There was no way he could ask Laura to do this. He’d lost her ages ago, when the rumors about the missing weapons and Adorno had spiraled out of control. When she’d lost faith in him—in them. Not that he blamed her. But goddamn it, that didn’t make it hurt any less. She’d ripped his soul out with those papers. There was too much distance between them now for him to ask her for something like this.

  But that wasn’t the real reason. He didn’t want to do this to her. It would hurt her all over again and he’d done enough of that. There had to be another way.

  “You need to figure out another plan,” Trent said, keeping his voice low. “I won’t ask her to lie for me. I won’t risk her future. She’s been through enough.”

  “Laura’s job as the family readiness liaison is not at risk here. Believe me, she’s valued here. They pretty much got down on their knees and begged her to stay when she tried to quit last year.”

  “That’s not the issue,” Trent said quietly. Please don’t ask me to do this to my wife.

  Patrick looked at him, his blue eyes filled with sympathy at Trent’s unspoken plea. “I know what I’m asking you, Trent.”

  “Then you know why I won’t do it.” He stood abruptly, pushing his glasses down and pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “Find another way to keep me out of jail. I won’t use Laura like that.”

  * * *

  For a training holiday, the office was ridiculously busy. Normally on training holidays, the only people in the office were her and the commander. Sometimes the sergeant major. There certainly wasn’t the constant stream of soldiers and spouses that she’d already seen this morning. They were looking for information on when their family members were due back from NTC. Laura knew that and she was doing the best she could pushing out the information that she had as soon as she had it.

  Apparently that wasn’t good enough. If one more eighteen-year-old spouse stomped into her office, Laura was liable to lose her furry little mind. Just because the Internet existed did not mean communication was either instantaneous or flawless. But you couldn’t tell some people that.

  Laura clenched her pencil in both hands and pasted on a calm smile. Maybe if she held it long enough, it would bleed over into her mood and she wouldn’t feel as stabby as she felt right then.

  Not damn likely. She loved her job as the brigade’s family readiness liaison, but sometimes it took everything she had. Some spouses were more trying than others but it was her job to keep the Family Readiness Group running smoothly no matter who the current leadership was. Some days she felt like she made a difference; other days it was absolutely exhausting. But she had a purpose. And she loved it.

  Except for moments like this.

  When the woman who had accused her husband of inappropriate conduct sat across from her and pretended like it was just another meeting. Like Laura didn’t know who the young soldier was.

  Laura wanted to break something. To scream and rail at the insanity of the world that would have this young woman sitting across from her. Instead, she smiled. Her expression could have cracked glass.

  “PFC Adorno, I can’t give you the phone number and I’m not calling the brigade commander over your husband’s cat.”

  “Do you know who my husband works for?”

  With that single sentence, Laura’s patience inched closer to snapping. She forced her smile wider.

  “PFC Adorno, I don’t really give a flying leap if your husband is on the brigade commander’s personal security detail. A cat having kittens is not a reason to call the brigade commander while they are in the maneuver box at the National Training Center.”

  One would think that after all this time, years into the war, families and spouses especially would understand how things worked.

  PFC Adorno, however, turned a deep shade of pink beneath her too-thick foundation. Laura had half a mind to ask her if her makeup was in accordance with regulation but she managed to keep that comment to herself. Barely. She was supposed to be the mature adult here.

  As a soldier, PFC Adorno should know how these things worked. And yet, there she was, sitting in Laura’s office, asking about a phone call to her husband because of kittens.

  “I’m calling the inspector general. I’ll have your job.”

  Laura didn’t even blink. She reached into the stack of cards on her desk and handed one to PFC Adorno. “Here’s the number. Please spell my name correctly.”

  She’d been threatened with the IG one too many times to let this latest addition to the roster upset her too much. Half the time, the threats were empty anyway.

  PFC Adorno looked like her head was about to explode. She sucked in an outraged breath, then stalked out of Laura’s office.

  The air was instantly clearer and Laura inhaled a deep breath. Did that soldier hone
stly think Laura didn’t know who she was? Or did she not realize that Laura was her former commander’s wife? Dear God in heaven, Laura needed to rail and scream at the heavens.

  Instead, she released a deep sigh and tossed the pencil on her desk. It wasn’t nearly as satisfying as say, stabbing something violently and repeatedly, but then again the army as an employer tended to frown on fits of violence. Didn’t look good on the performance review.

  She rubbed her eyes and wished—not for the first time—that she’d slept better. But she’d gotten used to the fatigue that haunted her, keeping her awake at night and rising with her in the morning.

  The stress in her life was not work-related.

  She was the Family Readiness Group Liaison for Death Dealer battalion, a job she’d taken before her marriage had gone to hell and before she’d gotten run down by life, the war, and everything else.

  She covered her face with her palms and just breathed. She was so goddamned tired. The mistakes she’d made haunted her, reminding her that her current predicament was as much her fault as it was her husband’s. She should have been stronger. Should have been able to wait for him until he came home.

  She shouldn’t have let the war break her.

  She glanced at the picture on her desk, the picture of the lie she’d lived for far too long. Her husband, holding their daughter, their son between them. A smile on his face, love in her eyes.

  Yes, once she’d been part of a happy family. At least that’s what she’d told herself. But the lies and the war had wormed their way into the marriage and destroyed her faith in the man she’d pledged to wait for. She didn’t know why she left the picture on her desk when she’d taken her rings off. It wasn’t like people didn’t know.

  But something about that picture made her unable to put it away.

  She closed her eyes, wishing she could forget the way he looked. Wishing she could forget the way he’d made her laugh and feel, once upon a time. He was out at NTC now too but not as someone who would be deploying. The army wouldn’t let him leave Fort Hood, at least not until the charges against him were fully investigated.

  And since the investigation had been ongoing for the last six months, she was starting to wonder if it was ever going to be finished. Her family—her life—was in limbo.