She suddenly had the uneasy feeling she was being watched. She glanced in the rear-view mirror. The house across the street belonged to a lieutenant colonel and his wife. They were childless and kept to themselves. Other than a street cookout for the Fourth of July, neither Chase, nor Stone as far as she knew, had ever bumped into them. Their house was dark, but the porch light was on. She checked her side mirrors. The street behind her was quiet. She was beginning to feel silly when her cell phone rang, startling her and nearly causing her to shriek. She fumbled through her purse for the phone and flipped it open.
“Where have you been?”
She recognized his voice, and decided right then and there that her fears of being watched were spot on. “Where do you think I am?” she asked, willing a degree of calm into her tone.
“Samantha Harold said you were going to the movies alone. I left her house a few minutes ago and noticed you still weren’t home.”
Convinced he was somewhere, watching, she turned off the ignition and gathered her purse. She quickly made her way up the sidewalk with the phone pressed to her ear. From somewhere in the neighborhood, a dog, a large one given its bark, disturbed the quiet.
“I’m fine, Colonel. Is there anything else?” she asked, fumbling with the key and the lock. She switched on the porch light and the light to the foyer. Once inside, she locked the front door and set her purse on the foyer table. In the kitchen, she flipped on lights, even flooding the backyard. She suddenly wanted every light on in the house, every overhead, every lamp.
“What movie did you see?” he asked. Despite his direct order, she wasn’t ready to tell him about her meeting with Paul Shapiro.
“Sir, it’s late. I appreciate your concern.” She’d reached her bedroom and flipped on light switches, even the one to her walk-in closet. When the light illuminated Stone’s uniforms, for the first time she felt numb and absent of the usual sentimentality. She spun through the combination of a small gun safe and removed Stone’s .45. “I suppose,” she added, “Samantha gave you my cell number?” She’d have a terse conversation with her friend in the morning.
He didn’t answer the question. “It’s not exactly safe,” he was saying as she reached Molly’s room and turned on all the lights, “for a woman to be out this late at night alone, Skipper.”
“Well, I’m safe and sound,” she said, now back in the living room, standing in the middle of a house on fire with light.
CHAPTER 12
Chase tossed and turned all night over the thought of Stone’s infidelity and what, if anything, there was to tie him to a 464 conspiracy regarding the 81. She was still mulling it over in the morning, while making a pot of coffee in the kitchen. Her mind flashed with images of Melanie—Melanie in the photograph; Melanie at the office the morning of White’s crash; Melanie at the memorial service. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t mentally place either White or Stone in an intimate relationship with the woman. Was it mere denial? Would Kitty feel the same way? Most likely Kitty had known that her husband was seeing a therapist, right? But then, how to explain Melanie’s photograph in his cockpit?
And, what if all this did lead to Stone as a possible suspect in a conspiracy to hide the truth about the 81, as Paul Shapiro believed? She imagined the barrage of telephone calls from the media, Sergeant North down the hall in his office, compelled to answer questions about his boss’s private life—how long had the Andersons been married? How had Captain Anderson been informed of the news of her husband’s infidelity? Of his possible involvement in altering squadron maintenance records? Nothing was adding up. And now there was Colonel Figueredo’s role to consider in all this. Sure, he was the base’s Intel officer, but that didn’t justify his checking up on her. And what to make of his association with General Armstrong?
The way she was seeing it, there were two reasons for Figueredo’s interest in her. Either there truly was a base conspiracy to hide the mechanical flaws of the 81 and Figueredo was in some way involved, which would explain his order that she inform him of all contact with Paul Shapiro and the sense that he was watching her house last night, or he was—ridiculously, mind you—interested in her. The latter was unthinkable.
She poured herself a cup of coffee and sent a question to the universe—to Stone. “Help me understand all this, Stone,” she whispered, her eyes shut tight. “For your sake … for Molly’s.” When she opened her eyes, she landed on her backyard view of the Pacific, placid, unyielding.
An hour later, Molly bounded breathlessly through the front door. Chase was at the kitchen table, pretending to read the newspaper, pretending because she had just moments earlier received word from North about what he’d uncovered the night before at the NCO club. They’d considered a quick meeting at the office, but Chase dismissed the idea. “Let’s meet some place extremely public,” she said, and they’d agreed to meet at 1400 at the Starbucks on Ala Moana Boulevard in Waikiki. She’d have to ask Samantha or Paige to watch Molly again, and while she hated to impose, there was no other way. Molly had run toward the back of her mother’s chair and wrapped her arms around Chase’s shoulders. “Erin’s going to Koolau Ranch for a horseback ride through the valley,” she said breathlessly. “Miss Samantha invited me too. Can I go?”
Chase pulled her daughter from around the chair. Hugged her. Stared into her daughter’s blue eyes, Stone’s blue eyes. “But you’ll be gone all day—” she said in a pretense to hide her relief. “Besides, I thought you were terrified of the night marchers—”
Molly stiffened, then relaxed. “They only come out at night, Mommy. Remember?”
“Then you better be home before dark,” she said, giving Molly a squeeze.
A few hours later, Erin came over to round up Molly. Chase thought of walking across the yard to talk with Samantha about giving out the cell number to Figueredo, and then reconsidered for now, anyway. After Molly left, she straightened the house, finally getting around to turning off the excess lights, and headed out for the drive downtown. Since she was early for her meeting with North, she’d lose herself among the shoppers and sun worshippers on Ala Moana—lose herself in their sea of flowery clothing and clouds of coconut sunscreen.
Instead, halfway there, Chase found herself pulling the rental car into a deserted parking lot of a drycleaners and reaching in her purse for her cell phone and Paul Shapiro’s business card. She chose the cell number.
His voice was sleepy at first and then took on a startled quality. “Chase … oh, Captain Anderson … is everything all right? Are you okay?”
“Well, not really. You’re about to expose my late husband as an adulterer, maybe even worse—”
“Listen, I’ve been up all night, if you want to know the truth. When I got home last night, I had a call from … him, the source. He’s got it, Chase. He’s actually got proof about the … well, we shouldn’t talk about this on the phone.”
“Does this proof clear Stone?” She watched a black Honda sedan with dark tinted windows pull into the parking lot and disappear behind the building, and she guessed it to be the owner’s.
“I haven’t seen the evidence yet,” he said. “We’re meeting tonight. I’m finally going to meet this guy, Chase.”
The black sedan reappeared. It stopped, and for a moment, Chase expected a dark window to roll down and for someone to demand an explanation for her loitering in his parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. But no window rolled down. Instead, the sedan remained parked, idling.
“Are you there?”
“Just a minute,” she said, feeling uneasy, but grateful that Paul was on the line. After a moment, the black sedan drove off, merging into traffic that was headed, as she had been earlier, toward Waikiki.
“Strange,” she muttered.
“What’s going on?” he said.
“Nothing … just a car that pulled into the parking lot. It felt a little strange.” And then she remembered that Paul was to meet his source that evening. “So you’re meeting this guy tonight?�
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“Wait … what kind of car?”
“I don’t know. Some sort of dark sedan.”
“Get out of there!”
“What?”
“Melanie said she was nearly run off the road by someone in a dark sedan—”
“Yeah, but—”
“Just get to a crowded place. Now!”
“Okay, okay.” She gunned the rental car out of the parking lot and checked the rear-view mirror for the stretch of empty asphalt behind her. “Whoever it was is gone.”
“I don’t care. Keep your eyes open. Get to a public place as quickly as you can.”
“Waikiki public enough for you?”
“I want you to be careful.”
“Me? You’re the one meeting Deep Throat tonight.” She released a nervous giggle and looked in her rear-view mirror. She was alone on the road.
“I asked him about Melanie’s death, whether his evidence would help me prove she didn’t commit suicide.”
“And?” Ahead in her lane was a pick-up loaded with pineapples, and she signaled for a lane change.
“He said he’d tell me about Melanie tonight.”
A shiver danced up Chase’s back. “I don’t like the sound of it, Paul. Are you sure it’s even safe to be meeting this guy?”
“We’re meeting on base.”
“On base,” she shouted. “How? Where? You know you aren’t allowed on base without an escort from my office.”
“He said there would be a VIP pass waiting for me at the guard shack. All I have to do is show my license like any Joe-Blow and get my pass to drive on.”
“And then what?”
“We’re to meet at eight, at the chapel.”
“Won’t there still be people there from the Sunday night service?”
“Which is why it won’t look suspicious. Two cars in an empty parking lot are bound to stir up interest for an MP patrol.” That made sense. But what if Hickman happened to be there?
“I want to be there.”
“No,” he said. “I already suggested it. He said it was too risky for the Public Affairs officer to be seen with a reporter at the chapel on a Sunday night. No way to explain it.”
Was it her imagination, or had the same black sedan just passed her going in the same direction for Waikiki? “You may learn something tonight that will totally clear Stone of any sort of—”
“How early can you get to the office in the morning?”
She thought for a moment. “I’ll have to take my daughter to school. That puts me in the office about seven-fifteen.”
“I’ll call you then.”
“Call me tonight,” she insisted. “The minute you leave the base.”
“I’m worried about calling you at home,” he said. “Your home phone—”
“And you think calling my office is less dangerous?” She had to admit, she was beginning to believe all this Deep Throat stuff.
“At least it won’t look suspicious for a reporter to be calling the Public Affairs office, you know?”
“But you won’t say anything to HP about Stone and Melanie until we talk, right?”
“We’ll talk first.”
“Paul,” and she felt her body becoming wracked with emotion. “I have a daughter. I’ll need … I need to plan when I talk with her about what she may learn from other children once this breaks in the media, if it breaks. You’ll give me time, won’t you?”
“Sure.”
She felt like a woman who had just been given a stay of execution. She wanted to thank him, to tell him to watch himself and other things, but she couldn’t choke out the words.
When he asked in a tone of concern she’d nearly forgotten existed, “Are you okay?” the emotion welled up in her throat and threatened to choke her. She tried to speak and couldn’t.
Dark clouds had rolled over Waikiki, and Chase quickened her pace along the four blocks or so from the parking garage on Ala Moana to the Starbucks. In sight of the signature umbrellas and patio tables, the first drops of rain—the size of quarters—began to fall so intermittently that she seemed to be walking between them. She made a dash for the entrance but was held up by three elderly women who were retreating with their coffees and conversation to the indoors as well. Once inside, North wasn’t hard to spot. He was wearing a bright flowered shirt, looking like a typical tourist, and sitting at a small booth, facing the door. He waved and held up a cup to show her he’d already bought her a coffee. She slid in the booth and reached for a handful of napkins, wiping rain from her face and hands as North slid her coffee across the table.
“Thanks.” She took a sip. “So much for your weekend off, huh?” North looked as if he’d pulled an all-nighter. His eyes were red, moist, and weak. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I feel a little worked over,” he said. “Let’s put it this way, ma’am, I’m beginning to feel my age.”
She chuckled. “North, we’re only twenty-nine, for crying out loud.”
“Okay then, out of practice.”
She blew the steam from her cup. “Even that’s hard to believe. What did you learn?”
“I met a lance corporal with HMH-266 last night—maintenance guy—who used to work on the 81—” And here he paused. His shoulders slumped forward as if suddenly overburdened with a heavy weight.
“Go on.”
North slowly leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table, both hands cupping his coffee. “He was a mechanic with 464 in Afghanistan, ma’am.”
“With Stone?”
North nodded. Something in his demeanor told her he was hesitating.
“What is it, North?”
“You know how guys talk, ma’am. After about six beers last night, this guy starts running his mouth about everybody over there and about the 81, how he’d finally been transferred to Hueys midway through his tour.”
“Transferred—why?”
“He says he got into it with a staff sergeant who ordered him to make a false maintenance report. Seems the 81 this guy was assigned to had been having a few problems and needed a thorough overhaul, but the staff sergeant cleared the report so the bird could fly.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said, and leaned back, her spine slamming hard against the unforgiving back of the booth. “You’re not going to tell me the bird was Stone’s, are you?”
North shrugged. “He couldn’t say for certain, ma’am. He’d been gone for almost a month before Major Anderson’s crash. But he did say he’d known both Major Anderson and Major White.” She and North had been together long enough and through enough that she could tell in the way he was avoiding eye contact that he was withholding information.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
His eyes diverted left. “Nothing, Ma’am. I’m telling you everything I know.” He was lying. North, of all people, was lying to her. All the signals were there. He’d leaned back and crossed his arms over this chest. There was that glance off to the left—
North was lying, all right, but why? The only reason would be to protect her from the truth. Of this, she was certain. There was something Sergeant Harrison North didn’t want his captain to know.
“I want to talk to this lance corporal,” she said, and, ignoring the protest that was already mounting in North’s expression, added, “Can he be trusted, you think, to keep quiet about the conversation for a while?”
“Ma’am, I’m not even sure he’ll remember who I am after last night. When I left, he was screaming for carrier quals.” North said he had to join in with the others as they stacked tables end to end, poured beer all over the surfaces, and slid along the length of the sudsy tabletops to a crash landing. “He may have landed himself right into sickbay from a broken neck or alcohol poisoning.”
“The truth, North,” she demanded. “You don’t want me talking to this lance corporal, do you?”
“Ma’am, I’m just saying—”
Chase was staring him down. “I need someone to substantia
te the claims Paul Shapiro’s making against the 81. Maybe this Marine’s close to other maintenance personnel at 464. Surely, he knows some of them, has worked with them in the Middle East before his transfer.” What she really wanted was to ask this young lance corporal about the 81 that might have possibly been Stone’s bird that crashed. Dear God, what it could mean if this were true. Armed with this sort of information, she would take it clear to the top. General Hickman and Colonel Farris be damned. “North,” she said, and softened when North, looking like a cornered animal, met her stare, “I need you to make this happen. Please.”
He nodded, and dropped his eyes to the table. “Aye-aye, ma’am.”
CHAPTER 13
Back home, she waited all night for the phone to ring. She was expecting two calls: one from Shapiro after the meeting with his mystery source, and the other from North. She paced the house. After tucking Molly into bed, Chase repeatedly checked on her daughter, several times needing to draw the child’s covers back over her tiny, exposed body.
She repeatedly checked her cell phone to ensure the phone was getting a signal. Sometimes coverage on base was spotty, so she was checking for a possible voice mail. Nothing. Nothing at all. Eventually, she lay across her bed, still fully clothed, the cell phone by her side. She must have dozed, for the buzzing of her alarm clock startled her awake.
She was reaching into one of Molly’s drawers for a pair of socks. “Molly,” she called down the hallway toward the bathroom, “we have to hurry, honey.”
Molly burst from the bathroom and raced down the hall toward her room, giggling all the way. The child, so like her father, was such a morning person. Chase had become one out of necessity. “Get dressed,” Chase urged, eager to reach the office and to receive news from Shapiro. “We have to leave in ten minutes.”
An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) Page 16