Thin Ice

by Irene Hannon

  “Psychologist.”

  A power couple.

  “Impressive.”

  “I’ll tell Emily you said that. She could use a pick-me-up after being on the night shift with the baby until the wee hours this morning. Mark Sanders, as you saw from my ID.” He held out his hand.

  She took it, and he gave her fingers a firm squeeze. “Christy Reed.”

  “Where’s the letter?”

  So much for chitchat—which was fine with her.

  She led him to the counter in silence.

  He pulled a pair of latex gloves out of the pocket of his jeans as he eyed the envelope. “The weekend arrival is out of pattern.”

  Lance had briefed him well. “Yes.”

  While he removed two folded evidence envelopes from the inside pocket of his jacket, she indicated the knife block off to the side. “Lance always uses one of those to open the envelopes.”

  He gave her another quick smile. “I came prepared.” He removed a pocketknife from his jeans and held it up. “I’ve never been without one since my Boy Scout days.” With a deft flick of his wrist, he slit the top of the envelope and removed the single sheet of paper.

  She edged closer to read the message.

  Like the others, it was typed—but this one was much shorter.

  You will see your sister soon.

  She frowned. “That’s weird. It almost sounds like he’s through communicating.”

  “Yeah. It does.”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “I’m not sure. In general, developments happen fast in kidnappings, including the ransom terms. This guy waits two months, sends a series of letters, then wraps things up with no demands, no threats, no ultimatums.” He slid the two items into evidence envelopes. “Weird is an appropriate word for it.”

  Christy massaged her temple. “I’m totally confused. I mean, what was the point of all this?”

  “Since the typical economic payoff of kidnapping wasn’t the goal, we have to consider other motives. A power trip, revenge, vindication. And was Ginny the only intended victim? Playing these games, drawing the kidnapping out over an extended period, has thrown your world into a tailspin too.”

  “This sounds like a very deliberate strategy to make life as difficult as possible for you.”

  As Lance’s words from the night the second letter arrived echoed in her mind, a shiver ran through her.

  “That’s kind of what Lance implied early on—and this note seems to support his theory.”

  “I assume he warned you to be extra careful until we sort this out.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll second that recommendation. In terms of next steps, the lab will have this on Monday, and I’ll touch base with Lance today. If this is the kidnapper’s last communication, he may play his final card—whatever it is—very soon.”

  “Do you think . . . is there any chance he might simply let Ginny go?”

  “I wouldn’t cross anything off the list of possibilities yet.” The words were positive, but no encouragement warmed Mark’s brown irises. Just the opposite. If Ginny’s safe return was even on his list of potential outcomes, it was at the very bottom.

  Despite the temperate air being churned out by her furnace, a numbing chill seeped into her pores, penetrating to her core. As bad as the trauma had been so far, she suddenly had a feeling it was about to get a lot uglier.

  She linked her fingers in a tight knot. “I appreciate you making a special trip over on a Saturday. And I’m sorry I interrupted your painting project.”

  “No problem. It’ll be waiting for me when I get back. I’ll leave the same way I came.”

  She followed him to the sliding door, thanked him again as he slipped out, then rolled it closed and twisted the lock. A few seconds later, he disappeared around the shrubbery.

  Christy had no doubt he’d follow through on everything he’d promised. Mark Sanders seemed like a solid agent—competent, responsive, smart, and buttoned-up.

  But he wasn’t Lance.

  And while she was confident the case was in capable hands, dealing with Mark had neither calmed nor reassured her the way talking to Lance, or being in his company, did.

  He alone had the power to create a momentary oasis of peace in her chaotic life.

  She crossed to the counter and plucked her cell out of the charger, weighing it in her hand. Would calling him in the midst of his own family crisis really be such a huge imposition?

  Of course it would, Christy. That’s why he asked Mark to fill in and gave you the man’s number. Don’t bother him.

  The firm reminder from her conscience couldn’t be ignored. With a sigh, she dropped the phone back into the device. Lance had said he’d call when he could, and he would.

  In the meantime, she needed to sit tight, be careful, and wait for the kidnapper’s next move. Mark had suggested it could happen very soon, and that suited her fine. She’d had enough of his games. Whatever was coming, better to get it over with than spend every minute of every day teetering on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the push to come.

  But she hoped Lance was back before it did.

  14

  Lance! I think he’s coming around.” Mac shot out of the chair he’d claimed beside Finn’s bed.

  From his feet-up position in the recliner, Lance pulled himself back from the deep slumber he’d just dropped into after keeping vigil with Mac through the long, dark, endless Friday night.

  Swinging his legs to the floor, he rubbed the grit out of his eyes and half staggered across the room.

  A groan from Finn as he approached, and the flicker of his brother’s eyelids, chased away the last remnants of his sleep.

  “I already pressed the call button.” Mac didn’t take his gaze off Finn.

  As Lance joined him beside the bed, Finn blinked. Peered up at them. “What . . .” The single word came out in a croak.

  Mac grabbed his hand. “You’re at Walter Reed, kid. You’re gonna be okay.”

  “Hey, runt.” Lance’s voice broke. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble to get our attention, you know.”

  If either of their comments registered, Finn gave no indication. Instead, panic flared in his glazed eyes and he began to thrash. “Not safe. Go! Go! Take cover!”

  Mac held him in place and barked out an order. “Grab his other arm and his good leg.”

  Lance did as he was told, speaking over his shoulder as a nurse hurried in. “He woke up and went ballistic.”

  “That’s not unusual. They think they’re still over there, in the line of fire. Nightmares and hallucinations are common, and the high-powered meds he’s been on are contributing to the problem.” She went about her work with practiced efficiency, injecting a clear liquid into the IV and checking his vitals. “He’ll drop off again in a minute. Next time he wakes up, he should be more lucid. I’ll let Dr. Owens know he’s talking.”

  Sixty seconds later, thanks to the spiked IV, Finn’s thrashing subsided and his eyelids drifted closed.

  “If you guys want to grab some food, you should have a couple of hours before he wakes up again.” She continued attending to Finn.

  Lance released his hold on his brother’s arm and looked at Mac. “That makes sense.” Food might not be at the top of his priority list, but his stomach was sending out a loud SOS. That burger he’d scarfed down last night from the cafeteria was long gone.

  “I agree. We’ll be back shortly.”

  The nurse waved them off. “Have a decent breakfast. It will be tougher for you to get away once he’s back with us full time.”

  Lance led the way as they left the room, but when he leaned over in the elevator to punch the button that would take them to the cafeteria, Mac beat him to it and pressed a different number.

  “Hey! What are you doing?”

  “I want to talk to the other survivor of the helo crash before we eat. His name’s Deke Flood and he’s two floors up.”
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  Lance squinted at him. “Where did you get that information?”

  “I asked one of the nurses to check after you zoned out in the recliner.”

  He could have done that himself while Mac had taken the first turn sleeping—if he hadn’t been so intent on watching Finn’s chest rise and fall.

  “How bad is he?”

  “He lost an arm.”

  Lance winced. “You sure he’s up to talking?”

  “I spoke to the floor supervisor. She asked him. He’s expecting us.”

  The elevator pinged, and the doors opened.

  “His room is on the right.” Mac read the number off the slip of paper he pulled out of his pocket.

  Lance let Mac precede him when they arrived. A twentysomething woman looked up from her chair beside the bed, the dark circles under her eyes clear evidence she, too, had spent a long, worried, sleepless night.

  “You must be Finn’s brothers. I’m Joan.”

  Lance stared at her girth as she struggled to her feet, his gut twisting.

  She had to be eight months pregnant—just as Debbie had been when Taz was killed.

  Mac did the introductions, and Lance forced down the bad memories as he gave her cold, shaky hand a squeeze.

  “I’ll run down the hall and get some juice while you guys talk.” She angled toward the guy propped up in the bed, his face marred by contusions, his left arm no more than a stump below the elbow and encased in a thick dressing. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, sweetie.”

  His lips twisted into a lame excuse for a smile. “Don’t rush. I’m not going anywhere.”

  A shadow flitted across her face, but she gamely smiled back before disappearing out the door.

  The sandy-haired guy motioned to the two chairs on his left. “Sit, please. How’s Finn?”

  Mac took the seat closest to the head of the bed and gave him a quick rundown of Finn’s injuries.

  When he finished, Deke let out a slow breath. “Is he going to keep his leg?”

  “We think so.”

  “That’s good news, anyway. It’d be a lot tougher to lose a leg than an arm. At least I’m right-handed.” Once again, he tried for a grin.

  There was no easy way to approach the hard stuff, so Lance dived in. “We were hoping you could give us a few more details about what happened.”

  A shadow darkened Deke’s eyes. “I wish I could. But it was pitch black, and it happened fast. The landing area was supposed to have been secured, but as you both know, one guy at night with an RPG and decent aim is all it takes for disaster. One minute we were fast-roping, the next the helo was a ball of fire above us. The next thing I remember, I was on the ground and Finn was putting a tourniquet on my arm. He saved my life, you know. Without him, I’d have bled out by the time help arrived.” He swallowed. “And to think he was bleeding worse than I was, only on the inside.”

  His voice hoarsened, and he reached for the cup of water on the bedside table.

  Mac handed it to him, waiting until he finished drinking before asking the next question. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “Yeah. It was real quiet after the crash. Too quiet. There should have been moans or calls for help, but there was nothing. I could see from the light of the fire that Finn was dragging himself around on his elbows, trying to check on the rest of the team. Then I noticed this guy in a turban creeping into the crash area, holding a rifle. I tried to reach for my Beretta or a grenade, but I couldn’t even lift my good arm at that point.”

  His features hardened, and he fisted the hand he had left. “All of a sudden, he pulls out a digital camera. He was taking pictures of the kill.” Anger and disgust contorted his face as he spat out the words. “I tried again to get to a weapon. He spotted me and lifted his rifle. Finn started screaming at him, and the guy whirled around. A second later, his head was gone.”

  Deke began to shake, and Mac took the cup from him as the water sloshed close to the edge. “We’re sorry to put you through this, but Finn is still out of it and we needed to know what happened.”

  “Yeah. I get it. I’d do the same thing in your place.” His words came out shaky, and he squeezed the sheet in his good hand. “You guys got a hero for a brother, you know. Purple Heart material for sure. That’s what I told the brass.”

  Lance exchanged a look with Mac and saw the same emotion he was feeling reflected in his brother’s eyes.

  Pride.

  Under the most terrifying circumstances, with all the odds stacked against him, their kid brother had done everything—and more—that was expected of an Army Ranger . . . including risking his life to help his teammates and taking out an enemy insurgent, despite his own grievous injuries.

  After a lifetime of trying to best his older brothers, the runt had finally succeeded.

  He was, indeed, a hero.

  “Thanks for telling us all that. It helps to have a picture of what happened.” Mac started to rise.

  “Wait!”

  At the man’s urgent command, Mac sat back down. Lance stayed put.

  “Look, I don’t . . .” Deke stopped. Blew out a breath. “I’m not the kind to tell tales out of school, okay? Me and Finn, we’re tight. We trust each other. So I’m taking a risk here. But for the past few months, he’s . . . I’ve been worried about him.”

  Lance narrowed his eyes.

  The past few months.

  The same time frame in which he and Mac had noticed a change in Finn.

  Maybe they were finally going to get an explanation for it.

  “Why?” He leaned forward.

  Deke shifted in the bed, wadding the sheet in his hand. “Man, he’s gonna hate me if he finds out I told you guys this.”

  “He won’t find out.” Mac’s tone was resolute. “We’ll figure out some way to deal with your information so he doesn’t know the source.”

  “That might be hard to do.” Deke exhaled. “But if anyone can come up with a strategy to make that happen, it would be former SEAL and Delta Force operators. And somebody needs to know about this.” He tightened his grip on the sheet. “The thing is, I think Finn’s got PTSD.”

  The word Mac had used earlier, when they’d arrived at Finn’s bedside, flashed through Lance’s mind.

  It was as appropriate now as it had been then.

  Post-traumatic stress disorder was serious stuff.

  Big-time serious stuff.

  Mind-mangling stuff.

  He did his best to sound calm despite the alarm bells going off in his head. “Why do you think that?”

  “He has a bunch of the symptoms. He’s got insomnia real bad, and when he does sleep, he thrashes around and sweats like a pig. In our downtime on base, we used to shoot hoops and play a lot of one-on-one, but he lost interest in that and started going off by himself. He always seems on edge too. And he overreacts. Three weeks ago a pot fell in the mess hall kitchen, and he dived for the floor and yelled for everyone to take cover. The guys razzed him about that, and he laughed it off, but all the pieces add up to PTSD.”

  “When did you first notice this?” Mac’s tone was sober, his expression grim.

  “Last spring. Right after a recon mission went wrong. Someone in the area got wind of our presence, and before we knew it, we were under fire from the local villagers. It wasn’t much of a fight, but there were a few casualties on the other side. One of them came rushing straight at Finn, rifle aimed at his chest. After the skirmish was over, we checked on the dead. Turns out the one Finn shot was a kid. He couldn’t have been more than twelve.”

  Lance closed his eyes. He’d been in similar situations, fighting young boys who should have been playing on the local soccer team, not toting guns.

  “I remember him muttering ‘What kind of a war is this, where we have to kill children?’” Deke drew a ragged breath. “Something seemed to snap in him that night. He hardly talked for days afterward. The other stuff began to develop over the next few months.”

  Lance sorted out the tim
eline in his head. Everything fit with the mini-reunion they’d had in St. Louis last summer, not long after Mac took the job with the St. Louis County PD and moved to the Midwest.

  He tightened his grip on the arm of his chair. “Did you ever bring this up to Finn?”

  “I tried. He just laughed it off, denied he had any problem.”

  Not surprising. Most guys in elite units assumed they were above those kinds of issues. Admitting to any sort of weakness was anathema. Sure, stuff like that happened once in a while—but always to the other guy.

  That had been his mind-set too.

  If it hadn’t been, he might have seen the signs sooner in Finn.

  Deke spoke again. “I was on the verge of taking my concerns up the chain, but after Finn told me he wasn’t re-upping, I thought it might be less of a problem once he was back home.”

  What?!

  Lance sat up straighter.

  Finn wasn’t re-upping?

  Since when?

  He turned toward Mac. His big brother appeared to be as surprised by the news as he was.

  “You guys didn’t know about that?” Deke looked from him to Mac.

  “No.” Twin furrows creased Mac’s brow. “Finn hasn’t been that talkative with us over the past few months, either.”

  “Well, the re-up decision is new. He just told me two weeks ago. But if he does have PTSD, it may not go away so easily after this incident.” He flicked a glance to the stump of his arm.

  No kidding.

  Mac glanced over at him, and he nodded. It was time to go.

  “We appreciate your candor, and we’ll honor your confidence.” Mac pushed himself to his feet.

  “Thanks. Like I said, I don’t want to lose Finn’s friendship, especially since we’re the only ones . . .” His voice choked, and he swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. “Sorry. That tube they jammed down my windpipe during the operation messed up my throat.”

  Possible.

  But trauma—and loss—could also choke a man up.

  Lance stood, too, and started toward the door. “We’ll get out of your hair and let you rest that throat. Thanks again for filling us in.”

  “You tell Finn to hang on to his leg, okay?”

  Mac paused at the door. “We’ll pass that along. Take care of yourself.”