I resisted the urge to stick out my tongue at him.
Not that Barrett would’ve noticed. He was already on his way to the living room to inspect Padilla’s knuckles. But if the young man had punched the holes in the wall, there was no telling when. Not with the fresh cuts from his encounter with Barrett. So Barrett questioned him one more time about his family’s whereabouts. Private Padilla still didn’t have any answers. Not that that stopped Tim from expecting some.
The summons to Tim’s office came just as Barrett and I reached his cruiser. Over the squawk of Barrett’s radio, his dispatcher relayed Tim’s message. Colonel Tim Thorp wanted to see Lieutenant Colonel Barrett and Ms. Sinclair—and he wanted to see them ASAP.
Tim, we were informed, would await us in the administration building. No doubt the Colonel had plenty of work to do there. Post commanders always do. But he could’ve taken a leave of absence while the hunt for his daughter went on. Of course, if he just couldn’t bear to hand his responsibilities over to someone else, he could’ve had Derrick Larkin bring work to him, as he’d done the day before.
I suspected, however, Tim had wanted to get away from the house, from the silence of his daughter’s absence and from the girl’s worried mother. Tim had never been good with worry. Or with any other feeling.
Not even his own.
Before Barrett and I entered the building, I scanned the puddled parking lot and surrounding scrub pines for signs of Matty on surveillance. I didn’t see him. But then, I hadn’t expected to.
The admin building itself had been built just before my father commanded Fort Leeds. A lot had changed since then, but the décor hadn’t. The wide lobby, with its shining terrazzo floor, still displayed a rug emblazoned with the seal of the U.S. Army. A pair of personnel manned the information desk. A pretty first lieutenant and a sexy civilian secretary in a charmeuse blouse both smiled silkily at Barrett. Maybe they were admiring the bruising along his jawline. Where Padilla had punched him, it had already darkened to a moody blue. And from the looks of things, it would be purple before too long.
In any case, Barrett didn’t notice the signals they were sending.
At least, he didn’t seem to.
In the command section, eyes peered at us from every cubicle. We pushed through the glass door to the commander’s office and caught Derrick Larkin, with a clutch of manila folders in his hand, halfway between his desk and the inner office door. As stiff as a tin solider, he froze at the sight of us.
So did the two men hanging around the seating area.
Clearly a couple of Kev’s Bureau agents, one slouched on the leather couch, but he was anything but relaxed. The other leaned against the wall behind Derrick’s desk, his hands in his trouser pockets. The pose exposed the shoulder holster he wore under his suit coat and the firearm it carried.
He made no effort to hide it.
“Ms. Sinclair.” The fluorescent lights overhead dulled Derrick’s perfunctory smile, but they set the single brass bar on each shoulder of his dress shirt on fire. “The Colonel’s with someone right now. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
Before the words were out of his mouth, the office door at his back opened.
“Jamie.” Pearce crossed the room to me. The hard office light slanted across his lenses and obscured his eyes. And, though he was also in uniform, he took advantage of a chaplain’s privilege and broke the behavior code to welcome me with a hug and a kiss. “Please tell me you’ve brought him good news.”
“Let’s go inside” was all I would say.
Tim didn’t rise from his desk to greet us. I wasn’t sure he was able. He may’ve been at work, he may’ve been in uniform, but he looked like he should’ve been in bed.
Pearce guided me to one of the chairs facing Tim’s desk. It was a modified wingback thing that managed to look modern and ugly at the same time. My father would’ve relegated it to a 1970s-style basement.
Pearce didn’t offer the other chair to Barrett. He took it himself. Like a sentry, Derrick Larkin positioned himself beside Tim’s desk. He clenched the big, black portfolio I’d seen him toting around under his arm as if it contained Holy Scripture. That left Barrett to stand. So he did—behind my chair.
I felt Barrett’s hands settle on my chair back, directly behind my head. They remained absolutely still. Tim’s, on the other hand, trembled at the knot of his tie. Brushed the pen on his blotter. Fluttered at his sides.
His agitation may’ve meant fear for his only child. It may’ve meant grief. But he opened his mouth and I knew it meant anger.
He said, “It’s been thirty-four hours since someone kidnapped my baby. Now I understand two more kids have been abducted. You two had better tell me you’re close to finding all of them.”
In a stage whisper, Pearce said, “The FBI brought in dogs this morning. They’re searching the woods behind the house.”
And apparently, they’d lit a fire beneath Tim Thorp. No wonder the Colonel hadn’t stayed home. And no wonder he called Barrett and me to his office. He wanted some whipping boys. Well, he wouldn’t find one in me.
“You.” Tim pointed a crooked finger at Barrett. “Report.”
Barrett did his duty and gave Tim a rundown of the FBI’s pharmacy canvass, the attempt to link someone buying insulin to Brooke’s abduction, and the disappearance of the Padilla children.
“My God,” Pearce breathed. “We have a serial kidnapper.”
“No, sir,” Barrett replied. “The abduction of Colonel Thorp’s daughter and the disappearance of the Padilla children are completely unrelated.”
“How do you know?” Tim snapped.
“Because,” I said, jumping on Barrett’s bandwagon. “In the Padilla case, the mother is missing as well.”
Tim rose, turning his back on us to pace behind his desk. Its surface was awash with memos, spreadsheets, and reports. Front and center lay a list of names that ran from one page onto the next, and onto several more after that. I knew these were the names of soldiers bound for combat. Many of them would appear on other lists soon enough.
Lists of the missing.
Lists of the wounded.
Lists of the dead.
Then, out of the blue, Barrett said, “Sir, I’d like to have Private Padilla held for psychiatric evaluation.”
This was news to me. And it seemed extreme. Padilla had been drunk, sure. But lots of young men end up drunk once in a while. While binge drinking could blot a soldier’s career, though, a psychological evaluation could end it.
“Poor boy,” Pearce said. “Perhaps I can speak with this soldier.”
“He’s Catholic,” I offered, grateful that Pearce was such a good man and a great chaplain. As long as I’d known him, he’d always gone out of his way for the sake of a soldier. “Or maybe the wife’s Catholic and Padilla goes along with it. I saw a crucifix hanging in their house.”
“Then I’ll speak to Father Michael. One of us will visit him this afternoon.”
“I’ll call my sergeant,” Barrett said, “and let her know you’re coming.”
“Two more kids,” Tim muttered. He stopped pacing to stare at the glass plaques hanging on the wall behind his desk. Accolades for this, mementoes for that. I doubted if he even saw them. “Two more.”
“They have nothing to do with Brooke’s abduction,” I said, my irritation needling me now. I waved a hand at the path Tim had trod. “Even if it did, this tap dance won’t bring any of them home. And neither will your lies.”
No one moved. No one breathed. I’d just called the commander of a prominent U.S. Army post a liar.
And because I got no reaction from the liar himself, I did it again.
“Tell me the truth, Tim. Who shot at you? Does he have Brooke? Is that why no one’s contacted you with a ransom demand? Because you know who has her?”
Tim wouldn’t face me.
Or he couldn’t.
“The cadaver dogs behind your house aren’t there for exercise.”
; “Jamie, really.” Pearce tried to silence me with a hand on my arm.
I shook him off. “Someone threatened you, Tim, by leaving a paper target on your car. Someone shot at you, then got really nervous when Barrett and I checked the trees last night for a sniper stand or shell casings. Worst of all, someone snatched Brooke right out of her bed. Why aren’t you worried sick it’s the same someone?”
Pearce licked dry lips. Like a marksman before the long shot, Derrick Larkin didn’t breathe. At my back, Barrett stood as still as the eye of the storm.
“I’ll find out what’s going on,” I told Tim. And every emotion I’d harbored over the past two days poured out of me. “So help me God, if Brooke is dead because you lied—”
Tim’s arm flashed out so fast, its motion was a blur. He scooped a citation encased in Lucite from his wall. He spun and flung it at me.
“Damn you, Jamie! Don’t say she’s dead!”
I hit the floor as the award hit my chair. The Lucite shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. The office door banged open. Kev’s agents charged into the room. But I wasn’t done.
“Brooke may be dead already because you didn’t help her, Tim—”
“Shut up!” he shouted—and lunged for me.
Derrick slipped an arm across this boss’s throat like a referee at a wrestling match. Tim gripped Derrick’s arm, slammed him to the carpet with a jujitsu hip throw. He lay there moaning as Barrett hauled me to my feet.
“Get in the car.” His voice was like a rock slide’s rumble; his grip was a vise.
“Barrett—”
“Now.”
He turned in time to stop Tim from plowing into me. Barrett’s hands, red and raw from his fight with Padilla, fisted in Tim’s shirt. Tim kept on coming, though the agents were all over him.
Still, Barrett blocked me with his body.
“Ms. Sinclair is going to walk out of here,” Barrett told Tim. “And you’re going to go home and get some rest.”
“He can do that. He can go home,” Pearce promised. He palmed Tim’s shoulders, hustled him a step backward. “It’s all right. I’ll drive Colonel Thorp home right now.”
But Barrett’s attention didn’t stray from Tim.
“I’m going to overlook a clear case of assault,” Barrett told his colonel. “But this is the last time I overlook anything. Sir.”
Chapter 13
Heads swiveled in the cubicles as Barrett—his fingers wrapped firmly around my upper arm—escorted me from Tim’s office and out of the building. He didn’t slow his pace and he didn’t let me go until we were outside in the stinging rain. Halfway to his cruiser, my BlackBerry rang with Matty’s number.
“You under arrest, girlie girl?”
“No.”
“Well,” Matty sounded doubtful, “you oughta know.”
He hung up on me.
Barrett didn’t speak. He didn’t drive me back to the MP building, either. He didn’t drop me off at my Jaguar. Best of all, he didn’t warn me off the post. At least, not then.
The rain slowed, then stopped as Barrett drove through the Town Gate and onto the picturesque Main Street of Leeds. Past quaint clapboard storefronts crowding brick sidewalks, he turned into the parking lot of Bertie’s, Leeds’s only deli and a town institution. The white brick building with ruby-and-emerald striped awnings was just as I remembered.
“Barrett, what are we doing here?”
“You’re going to cool off and I’m going to feed you.”
I grumbled as I got out of the car. I didn’t need to cool off. I needed to find Brooke.
Barrett said nothing more as we walked to the front door of Bertie’s.
When the cowbell over the door jangled to announce our arrival, a sense of déjà vu swamped me. The shiny chrome dinette sets with glossy cherry seats were still scattered around the dining room, and though it was well past noon, most of the tables were occupied. Bertie, son of the original proprietor and a bent old man himself now, milled through the restaurant, shaking hands and chatting with customers. He still wore his self-imposed uniform of black pants and a white shirt and cardigan. Once upon a time, he had cardigans in every color of the rainbow.
I imagined he still did.
If he and I were caught in a time warp, we weren’t the only ones. Young Bertie, who’d been learning the business during my high school years, bustled around behind the deli counter as he’d always done. He directed three other white-coated men as they wrapped pickles and cut waxed paper for the evening rush. When Barrett and I approached, he looked up, grinned, and hurried over to greet us. If he observed the bruise on Barrett’s jaw, he didn’t comment on it.
“Noon came and went, but you still had to have your Reuben today, huh?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“And I suppose you’ll want a burger, too. With nothing on it, right?”
Barrett smiled, but it was a pale imitation of the original he’d flashed at me the day before.
“Saw the news last night,” Young Bertie said as he scratched the order on a pad. “Poor missing baby. It’s a sad thing.”
“Not if we can help it.”
“Well, we’ll help you. Lunch is on us.”
“No, Bertie, that’s not—”
“Yeah, yeah, support our troops, you know? Your money’s no good here today. For your lunch or the lady’s here.” Bertie pointed his stub of a pencil in my direction. “A turkey club, miss? We do a great BLT, too. What’ll ya have?”
“Lieutenant Colonel, hello!” Old Bertie descended on us. His rich black hair had gone white in the years since I’d seen him, but his arctic-blue eyes still sizzled. Especially when he turned those eyes on me. “I remember you, miss.”
“Hello, Bertie.”
“You used to come into the shop here when you was a teenager. Sometimes with your girlfriends, sometimes with your dad.”
“That was a long time ago.” Today, it felt like much longer. Back then, all my heartaches still lay ahead.
“Those days are like yesterday to an old man. Seems like your old man was some kind of big shot on the army base back then. What’s he now? He’s that senator, right?”
I couldn’t look at Barrett. “Right you are.”
“You were such a pretty girl. With a imp’s grin and a light in your eye, just like little Judy Garland. Now look at you. All grown up and beautiful. Like Lauren Bacall.”
I wasn’t fond of all this remembering—especially when I caught Barrett eyeing me like a skeptical Humphrey Bogart.
But the old man tapped his temple. “It’s like I tell my son. My ticker may slip a gear now and then, but there’s nothin’ wrong with me upstairs. Nothin’.”
On my hip, my BlackBerry buzzed. I seized the opportunity to excuse myself and ducked outside. To answer the call? Sure. But also to put some distance between the past and the present—and me and Barrett.
My caller ID read “Government Number,” so I half-expected my call to be from Tim, eager to ream me out all over again. Or perhaps it was my father’s secretary. The Senator had had time to see the news and receive curious calls of his own—and he’d never been a fan of that kind of exposure.
My caller wasn’t my father, though.
And it wasn’t Tim, either.
In a gruff whisper that made it hard to put the voice with a face or a name, my caller said, “Did you mean what you said? Is Colonel Tim Thorp a liar?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t like liars. They’re a disgrace to the uniform.”
My mystery caller was a man. That much, I got. Behind him, I heard echoing voices, footfalls, and the scrape of chairs. I pictured him in the food court attached to the Post Exchange, but he could’ve been in a dozen locations around the installation or in town. How he’d gotten my cell number I had no idea, but when it came to his identity, getting my cell number narrowed the possibilities.
He said, “I’ve got letters. Hate mail. Threats. They’re all addressed to Colonel Thorp. S
ome of them are signed. Meet me tonight, and I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”
I didn’t have to think twice. “Where?”
“The Last Stand. Do you know where that is?”
“I’ll find it.”
“Good. I’ll be at the bar at twenty-one hundred hours. Don’t bring the MP or that FBI agent. If either one of them walks in, I’ll be gone.”
“I understand.”
And I did.
But that didn’t mean I’d go to the Last Stand alone.
Chapter 14
“Good news?” Barrett materialized on the wet sidewalk beside me, our white lunch sacks dangling from his hand.
“Maybe.”
“About Brooke?”
“Not that good.”
We headed back to his cruiser. Barrett popped the trunk, grabbed a black wool blanket from the emergency kit there. He spread the blanket over the fat rain droplets dappling the hood of the car.
“Have a seat,” Barrett said.
He meant on the blanket.
I obliged him, using the bumper to boost myself up.
Barrett didn’t sit. He kept to his feet, leaning against the grill at my knee. I took in his profile, glad Padilla hadn’t managed to break his nose. Beneath the sandy scruff of his beard, his jaw was a definite purple.
My eye traveled down the line of his body. If he stripped off his shirt, I wondered, would the small of his back be black and blue? I stopped myself before I could picture the bruising—or Barrett bare.
“You know,” I said, “you ought to put some ice on your face.”
Something in my voice had Barrett sending me a sideways look. He slipped a can of cold soda from his lunch bag. Dutifully, he laid it against his bruise. The chill had to sting, but he didn’t even flinch. And he didn’t take his eyes from mine.
Mollified, I turned my attention to the sights Bertie’s back lot had to offer. Parked as we were, we had a spectacular view of Bertie’s Dumpster. Just beyond, a scrim of budding trees divided us from a ring of houses. Behind us, traffic rolled slowly up and down Main Street, tires hissing on the wet pavement. I wondered if Tim had indeed gone home—and what Matty could tell me about his activities there.
The Kill List Page 9