A SEAL's Return

by Grace Alexander

  Jake jumped back. “Hey, I didn’t know you were right there.”

  “I have a problem,” she whispered. “And I have to tell you.”

  He patted his knee. “Hop on.”

  Charlotte crawled onto his lap and laid her head against his chest. “Mommy always said if I did something wrong, I was supposed to tell her.”

  “Did you do something wrong?”

  She propped up. “I’m not sure.”

  “Try me, and I can help you figure it out.”

  “I know I’m not supposed to eavesdrop, right?” she asked hesitantly.

  His stomach tightened, wondering what she might have heard. “Right. Did you hear something you maybe shouldn’t have?”

  “I think so.”

  “Recently?”

  She nodded.

  Ugh. This wasn’t what he wanted to talk about. “With Nora?”

  Charlotte nodded again.

  “Okay.” Jake ran his hand into his hair, for the first time appreciating that it had gotten long enough that he could tear it out. Had Charlotte heard him…talking to Nora? “So…”

  Nothing came to him. He didn’t want to say too much, or not enough. Maybe he should call Nora and ask what do. He hadn’t gone anywhere near that section of the parenting blogs because he figured he had years. Or maybe not.

  “When two people love each other…” Jake pinched the bridge of his nose, positive that he was going to break into hives.

  “I know you love her,” Charlotte interrupted. “But she sounded like she was screaming.”

  His eyebrow crooked. “Say what, now?”

  “Graham FaceTimed you, and I answered. I’m sorry. But we eavesdropped. And Nora is shouting.”

  Jake’s brow furrowed. “Now?”

  She nodded.

  Unease hyperfocused his attention. “Where’s the phone, bug?”

  Charlotte scurried into the hall and came back in with his cell phone wrapped in a pink blanket, tucked into a baby carrier. Jake grabbed it, searching Graham’s bored face. “Hey, buddy.”

  “Hi, Jake!”

  “What’s going on?” He kept his voice calm even as his heartbeat jackhammered.

  “These guys are here, and I’m not allowed to leave my room.” He leaned close to the phone, his eyes big, as if he was surprised and concerned. “And Mom is shouting.”

  “At who—”

  “The battery is about to die—”

  FaceTime showed the call ended, and panic like Jake had never known seized him. “Come on, Charlotte. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  At the bottom of the stairs, Jake lifted Charlotte as he had when she was a toddler and put her on his hip. He bolted across their yard and hopped the small fence to the closest neighbor, the 9-1-1-calling Mrs. Eller, and rang the doorbell. No answer.

  Jake growled under his breath. She was home. Her car was there, and he’d spied her peeking out her window several times that day. Jake banged on the door twice. Come on, come on. “Mrs. Eller.”

  Finally he heard the shuffle of footsteps on the other side and the click of a dead bolt unlocking. Such simple sounds made his insides celebrate as her door inched open and a middle-aged woman peered out.

  No doubt, he was intimidating to look at, especially when he knew that she’d called 9-1-1 on him for burning dinner and started the Tidings grapevine extravaganza on his first day back in town.

  “Hello, Mrs. Eller,” Charlotte said with more manners than Jake could muster.

  Mrs. Eller inched the door wider with a somewhat embarrassed face.

  Maybe one day they would have a discussion about not calling 9-1-1 on neighbors when it wasn’t needed. But that wasn’t today. “I need you to watch Charlotte. It’s important.”

  “An emergency,” Charlotte added.

  Jake cringed, not wanting this lady to involve the authorities before he figured out what was going on.

  Suddenly more interested, Mrs. Eller shot an interested look at Jake. “Really?”

  “Hang tight on this one. Please. You can call the cops if you don’t hear back from me in thirty minutes.”

  “Why thirty minutes if it’s an emergency now?”

  “Because I don’t know that it’s an emergency now.”

  “I do,” Charlotte shared.

  Jake gritted his teeth but put on his most earnest, trustworthy face. “I’d like to check it out first.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Do you have Nora Cabot’s address?” Because everyone seemed to have Nora’s contact information for their crisis du jour.

  “Well, yes,” she admitted, voice pinching as her eyebrow inched toward her hairline.

  “Ally told me I could trust you. That if I ever needed a trusted, helping hand, you could be a reliable resource.” He gave her an earnest look.

  “Ally told me to trust you, too,” she muttered.

  “I need thirty minutes before you call the cops. You’ll hear from me or Nora within that time if everything is fine.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Tell them to head toward Nora’s with everything they have.”

  Mrs. Eller’s jaw dropped, flapping as though she didn’t know what to say, then grasped Charlotte by the hand. “Will do.”

  He nodded gratefully, and she tugged Charlotte inside.

  As soon as the front door shut with Charlotte safely deposited on the other side with the neighbor who’d call for help the moment she could, Jake sprinted back toward his house, jumped over the fence, and rushed inside.

  He moved toward his gun safe and loaded up. By the time his keys hit the ignition in his truck, he was able to take on a small enemy unit. He had a Glock tucked in his waistband for easy access and a shotgun resting on the passenger seat.

  He drove safe but fast, skipping every light and sign that told him to slow down or stop. When Jake hit Nora’s street, he parked two houses away.

  Jake passed the front door, stepped into the bushes, and crept against the cedar plank wall. He peeked inside a window and saw nothing then dropped to a crouch before hustling around the side of her home.

  Safely out of view of windows and the street, he stood and moved toward the backyard, pausing long enough to see a fresh pile of cigarette butts. But this time, there were white ones mixed with brown-tipped butts too.

  Two people he didn’t know were prowling around, likely inside.

  He angled for a look into another window, seeing the living room—and two men with Nora. Her head faced the floor as though she were distraught, but her fists were balled into a tight, angry knot.

  One man was twice the width of the other, and the slighter one stood to her side talking. The larger man lifted his arms and smashed into the wall.

  What the…

  Jake didn’t know if it was a hatchet or a large knife, but they ripped a gaping hole then sliced down. Like her insulated shed.

  Nora’s hallways were made of cedar plank with some accent areas covered in decorative stone. But her upstairs and downstairs living spaces were framed only by the wood.

  The man in front of the wall methodically tore apart her drywall. What were they looking for?

  The man next to her put an arm on her shoulder, patting her as though to offer comfort, and Jake saw red—until Nora backed up and swung.

  His pulse froze. As much as he wanted to holler yeah, there was no telling who they were or how they would react. But neither man flinched.

  Jake crept toward the back door and found the white cigarette butts again. But they had been stubbed out a different way. He dropped to his knees and stared. Three people?

  Was that her ex-husband? The man who’d tried to touch her? The one who went on expeditions and wouldn’t let her sell the house without telling him, who wanted to stop by a few weeks ago but didn’t care about seeing his own child…

  Her ex-husband wasn’t a treasure hunter. He sounded more like a drug runner who was searching for an old stash.

  Now this wa
s a different game entirely. Jake wasn’t going in ground floor; he was going in from the top down to see what was going on.

  Stealthily, he crept back and surveyed the best way to get to the second floor. Not many options. A gutter and the latticework were the best chance he had, but they wouldn’t be able to hold his weight for long. He had to move fast. If a neighbor saw him and called the cops, this could go wrong in a split second if those were drug runners.

  How to do this? As long as he used the stonework and the wood planking, he could reach Nora’s bedroom with his arm span. Hopefully.

  Jake paced back then sprinted toward the house. He rocketed up with one powerful step, hooking his hand on the blue-faded copper drainpipe. He threw his weight toward the edge of the cedar windowsill, and his left hand caught the edge by the tips of his fingers.

  Ugh. Jake stretched, breathing hard, and growled as he dropped his right arm, sliding roughly against the exterior wood. His back was against the wall.

  “Not my best.” Jake grunted, twisting his body until he faced the house.

  He took a breath and pressed up to his elbows. Quickly he looked into the room, ducked down, then lofted up again. No one was visible. Jake tore through the window screen, tossed it behind him, then took another deep breath.

  The wood edge strained his forearms as sweat beaded at his neckline. He lifted up again, praying that Nora had left her windows unlatched. No dice. And he had to wait.

  Jake listened. Nothing but silence.

  Those men were here for a reason. They had stripped her shed and, from the quick glance inside her bedroom, had done the same thing upstairs. They were working their way downstairs. Sooner or later, they’d start ripping the place up again. All Jake needed was patience and for the wood edge to remain in place.

  Another round of banging began. Jake catapulted on one arm, slammed his elbow into the window by the lock, then ducked his hand through before unlatching it.

  With quick maneuvers, he pushed the window up and dragged himself through, ducking and rolling before landing in a defensive position. Jake looked around. He saw nobody. He heard no one.

  He blew out, sweat dripping down his back, then cleared the master bedroom. Then the next room and the next. The bathroom was empty, and he prayed Graham’s room was not destroyed like this. All he wanted to find was a happy, bored little boy in a perfectly intact room.

  Jake rounded the corner, but Graham’s room was empty. The walls were fine, but the boy was gone.

  His heart sank. Footsteps coming up the stairs was the new problem. He pressed against the wall and waited. Two men, different from the ones he saw downstairs, ambled by.

  After taking them both out, he searched them for weapons. Keeping an eye out for other threats, he bound their hands and feet with plastic zip ties. A quick perusal of Nora’s linen closet revealed cloth napkins, and Jake fashioned gags for both men.

  A moment later, the one he had choked out was tied to the bathroom sink and the toilet, and the other man was tied to a four-inch pipe that ran through Nora’s walk-in closet.

  “Graham?” he whispered.

  No sign of the kid, and Jake headed downstairs, creeping for the living room.

  He had seen a lot over the years, but it had never been personal. Nora was sitting in the middle of her couch with her head buried in her hands, surrounded by the stuffing from her couch. That was a hard thing to take.

  She looked up, and Jake’s despair turned to hope. He pressed his finger to his lips, and she gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  The two men near her were in an intense argument. Jake’s job got much easier. He crept close, passing Nora and motioning for her to run out then breathing easier when she did.

  Jake knocked one guy out. The other man lunged, but Jake got him in a headlock. “Your buddy’s out of commission. The two men upstairs, immobilized. And you’re not doing so well.”

  “I’m just the muscle, buddy. You know how this goes.” But then he jerked and pulled as though there was the chance of escape.

  Jake kept a strong grip on the man. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Maybe they didn’t have the same definition of stupid. The man lurched, then used his limbs in an attempt to escape. They wrestled until he could neutralize the man, squeezing a pressure point in his neck until he passed out.

  “That could’ve gone differently,” Jake mumbled, dropping him. “Nora, there were four of them?”

  “Yes.” She peeked around the corner.

  “Then that’s that then.” Jake secured the downed men as he saw the first police car pull up outside the front window. He guessed he had taken more than thirty minutes. “Where’s Graham?”

  Nora’s face fell. “What do you mean, where’s Graham?” She spun in a circle then raced upstairs. “Graham?”

  “Wait!” he called. There were people tied upstairs, and he didn’t know how she’d react when Nora needed to calm down and focus on her son. Jake chased behind Nora, his mind racing. Maybe Graham had slipped out to get help. “We should check your neighbor’s.”

  She didn’t respond.

  Jake found Nora, hands clasped over her mouth, eyes wide and focused on the immobilized man on the ground.

  Jake wrapped Nora against him. “He’s fine, just unconscious. Nobody can hurt you.”

  “But Graham!”

  “I promise, they didn’t get to him.”

  “Then where is he?” she cried as tears streamed down her face. “Graham? Graham!”

  “He left. Went for help. Something.” Jake eased Nora down the stairs and opened the front door. What might have been the entire Tidings police force was parked and readying for an unknown situation.

  Jake motioned for a police officer as another squad car pulled up. They would have no idea what to do with this crime scene or with the mother whose son was missing.

  The next two minutes were filled with questions that erased the possibility that Graham had called them and was at a neighbor’s house. Nora couldn’t stop shaking, and a waterfall of tears stained her cheeks.

  Four men were arrested, led out of the house, and Nora refused to look at her ex-husband as he offered a halfhearted apology on the way out the door. Time seemed at a standstill. Jake didn’t know what to do—

  “No!” Nora stepped from a detective she’d been talking with.

  He’d been advised to give them space since he was part of their investigation, but that advice wouldn’t hold water when Nora was nearly shouting. He came closer and touched her elbow. “Everything okay?”

  “He wants me to leave.” She sidestepped under his arm. “I’m not going anywhere when Graham could come home, worried and scared.”

  He offered as much comfort as he could with a squeeze. “If she’s not ready, she’s not ready.”

  The detective’s brow furrowed. Nora stepped from Jake’s protective hold and held her ground. As they battled the best place for her to be, Jake paced the length of the foyer.

  Where would Graham have gone?

  He pinched the bridge of his nose—and froze.

  A cold shiver of hope slid over his shoulders, and Jake crouched down, running his fingers along the baseboard.

  Click.

  The hiding place under the staircase, the coolest place Charlotte had ever seen, clicked as a secret panel opened. Jake got on his hands and knees and crawled into the small, dark space under the staircase. He scooted over darkened flashlights and dolls, blocks and books, until he reached the farthest corner where the stairs met the first floor. Ducked and wrapped into a little ball was a very scared five-year-old who hid in his secret spot where he believed no one could ever find him.

  “Jake?” Graham asked quietly.

  The only light in the crawlspace was that flooding the room from the now-open secret door. Graham had locked himself in and hadn’t turned on the flashlight.

  Jake put a hand on his back, and Graham shook. “It’s me, and everything is fine.”

  “Are you s
ure?” he finally whispered.

  “Yeah, buddy, I’m sure. Your mom’s in the hall. The police are here, and everything is fine.”

  Quick as a flash of lightning, Graham launched into Jake’s arms and curled himself around his chest, pressing his wet cheeks and T-shirt close, shivering despite the heat. “Mom said stay where it’s safe and don’t come out no matter what.”

  Emotion pricked painfully in Jake’s throat as he petted Graham’s back. “I promise, it’s safe now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He nodded then crossed his heart. “Everything’s okay. I’m here. The police are here, and your mom is waiting to give you a big hug.”

  Graham sniffed. “Okay—”

  “What is it?” Jake asked.

  “Thank you for saving us.”

  “Graham…” Jake repositioned himself to a small area that had more space, and then he tugged Graham into a bear hug. He kissed the top of the kid’s head, whispering into his hair, “You have it backward, little man.”

  “How come?”

  “If you hadn’t told Charlotte what was happening, I couldn’t have helped. Which means, I need to thank you.”

  “Graham?” Nora called. “Are you in here? I’m coming in.” She crawled into the tight spot under the stairs. “Graham!”

  “Mom,” Graham called but didn’t move from Jake’s lap.

  “Come on in,” Jake reached for Nora, then held both of them in his arms.

  “I stayed put like you told me to.”

  Nora smothered him in kisses, promising her son how much he was loved.

  “I love too, mom.” Graham held their arms. “And, I love you, Jake.”

  His heart exploded. “I love you too, kid.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Three Weeks Later

  The table was decorated with Charlotte and Graham’s handmade Thanksgiving Day crafts. Multicolored marshmallows topped the sweet potato casserole, and the broccolini served as the focal point of conversation with the kids. Skinny broccoli. Tree broccoli. Pencil broccoli. They’d renamed broccolini. This was the first Thanksgiving where Jake had found himself at the head of the table and staring at his future.