“Did she call?” Toby asked.
“Nope.” Ackerman shook his head and stared at his feet.
As Toby shut the door behind him, the sound seemed to echo through an empty house. “Where is everyone?”
“Morrison and Lee are out looking for her. The XO’s upstairs sitting at his window.”
Disappointed to learn that the only available car was already in use, Toby recognized that he had no choice but to head upstairs and talk to Lt. Ashby. He found the man snoozing in a seated position, his head supported by one of the chair’s wingbacks. Apparently sensing his presence, Terrence slit his dark eyes and looked up at him. “You didn’t find her, yet.”
It wasn’t a question. Toby heaved a heavy sigh. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to her?” he asked. If anyone knew Dylan’s deepest, darkest secrets, it was her closest friend.
“None,” the XO replied, his face wreathed in equal parts worry and pain. “This isn’t like her. Something bad has happened. I’m certain of it.”
The words enveloped Toby in icy dread. He concealed his reaction by fetching a blanket to drape across the XO’s belly, tucking it in around him so he could keep up his vigil without freezing. “Can I bring you anything?” he asked.
“No,” the giant replied, his eyes drifting shut.
Toby’s own eyes trekked toward the window. Nothing lay beyond but the shadowy yard, barely lit by a cloud-smothered moon. The fear that something insurmountable had happened to Dylan raked his spine. Helplessness shuddered through him. And all he could do was wait for news and then react.
Chapter Fourteen
The electrical shocks emanating from the cell phone buried in Toby’s secret pocket had him leaping straight up out of the love seat where he’d sprawled at approximately five in the morning, an hour after Gil and Chet dragged themselves through the front door, baffled, defeated, and worn out.
A sweep of the brightly lit command room showed him to be alone. He pulled his phone out of the hidden pocket and scanned Ike’s numerical text. It was code for “Call in.”
Toby’s stomach lurched. He would rather walk barefoot across hot coals than tell Ike Dylan had disappeared. Then again, Ike might have already heard rumors through the law enforcement grapevine.
With a groan of dread, Toby tucked his phone away and zipped up his jacket. Calling Milly to join him, he headed out the front door. Dylan’s car remained notably absent. The dog bolted past him to pee beside the elm tree. Brisk morning air cleared the cobwebs from Toby’s mind as he started down the running course.
Normally at this time, they were all up and exercising. Without Dylan, the well-oiled machinery of her militia had ground to a halt. The land around her house seemed to have fallen under an evil spell, one that had sucked the life out of the once-glorious leaves, leaving them brown and brittle on the dead grass. Even the song birds were mute.
Reaching the bottom of the hill, Toby waded into the woods until he could no longer see the house. He pulled his phone out a second time and speed-dialed his boss.
“What’s up?” he asked, his gut churning.
“Tell me Dylan Connelly was with you all last night,” Ike exhorted.
The urgency in the former SEAL’s voice hit Toby like a slap in the face. “Why?” He braced himself for bad news.
“General Treyburn was shot to death coming out of a Halloween party in Loudon County at 11 P.M. last night.”
Toby widened his stance to keep from staggering backward. Loudon County lay within twenty miles of Harpers Ferry. And General Treyburn was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as passionate about military intervention in Syria as Defense Secretary Nolan had been.
Christ. Someone was knocking off supporters of Syrian involvement, and they were hiding behind Dylan and her militia.
“Unfortunately, she wasn’t with me,” Toby admitted. “She’s been missing for the past eight hours.” With reluctance and self-censure, he explained how she’d disappeared out of the hospital, taking her vehicle and her purse, but not her coat.
“You said she owns a .357 Magnum?” Ike didn’t sound at all interested in the details of Dylan’s disappearance.
Toby braced himself for more bad news. “Why?”
“Treyburn was shot with Speer, Gold Dot .38 special, 135 grain ammo. That’s the kind a Magnum would take.”
It was also the same brand of ammo that Dylan carried in her purse. Toby kept the phone to his ear. Every thud of his heart rocked him on his feet. “Listen to me, Calhoun,” he grated, his blood pressure soaring, “Not only is Dylan incapable of killing another human being, but I’ve seen her fire her weapon at the shooting range. She’s way too lousy of a shot to hit a moving target. Last night she disappeared. Someone abducted her and used her pistol in order to frame her. I’m telling you, she’s being set up! I’m the one here. I can see what’s happening.”
“Maybe so, Burke,” Ike admitted on a slightly softer note, “but the evidence is overwhelming. When she shows up, you can expect the FBI to drop by and question her. Unless she has a fool-proof alibi, they’re going to charge her with Treyburn’s murder.”
“No.” Denial ripped through Toby with the force of a volcanic explosion. “God damn it, sir, I don’t even know where she is right now!”
“Why didn’t you advise me that she was missing?” Ike’s biting question let Toby know that he’d get no support from him now. “You say she’s being set up,” the team lead persisted, “but where’s the proof? All the evidence so far points to her guilt. I have no way of keeping the FBI from charging her with either Treyburn or Nolan’s murders.”
Both? Toby ground his molars together. “I’ll find the proof,” he swore. But right now, he just wanted to find Dylan. Without waiting to see if Ike had anything else to say, he ended the call with a jab of his thumb and a virulent curse. Slipping the phone back in his jacket, he called Milly to return to the house with him.
He was just pushing through the front door when the landline phone started ringing. The sound galvanized him into tearing down the hall and snatching up the receiver with a breathless, “Hello?”
“Tobias?”
The sound of Dylan’s frightened voice nearly brought him to his knees in relief. “Where the hell are you?” He winced when she audibly hesitated. “We’ve looked everywhere for you, baby,” he tacked on more gently.
“Something happened,” she whispered. “I don’t understand…”
Her fear and confusion made him want to reach through the wire and comfort her. “Talk to me, beautiful.” He swallowed against a dry throat. “Where are you right now?”
“In my office. I just woke up and found myself sleeping at my desk.”
Tobias pictured her empty desk chair and kept quiet. She clearly didn’t realize he’d swung by the hospital on impulse last night. Why would she lie to him? “After taking care of Hendrix, Fallon and I looked for you at work,” he stated, in a neutral voice. “You weren’t there.”
Silence. “What do you mean I wasn’t there?”
“Your office was empty, your purse and your car were gone. You weren’t there, Dylan. Where’d you go?” A hint of accusation colored his tone in spite of his faith in her innocence.
“Where’d I go?” She seemed confused by the question. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
Is she lying to me? Had he allowed himself to be blindsided by her seeming wholesomeness that he couldn’t see her for who she really was? A vision of her coat, hanging in her closet edged aside the suspicion. Why wouldn’t she have taken it with her if she’d gone out, considering how chilly it had been? And when had she ever been anything but honest with him? He had to give her the benefit of the doubt.
“Tobias?”
If someone at the hospital had published essays in her name, then that same someone could have stolen her purse and her car. Maybe they’d even drugged her so that it looked like she’d left. He couldn’t believe anything less.
“Dylan, listen to me.�
� He could hear the distinct thump of Terrence’s crutch, now, as the XO made his way to the restroom upstairs. “I want you to go straight to the lab there at the medical center. Have them take urine and blood samples and screen them for toxins.”
He heard her draw a shaky breath. “But I don’t take drugs,” she stated.
He nearly smiled at her righteous tone. “I know that, honey. But something happened last night, and I think you’re going to be implicated. We need to know if you were drugged.”
“What? What happened? Tell me.”
“I’ll tell you when I get there. In the meantime, go straight to the lab and don’t talk to anyone. Tell the lab techs that you need the results right away.”
“Okay.” She sounded frightened and confused.
“One more thing. Is your purse there with you?” he inquired.
He heard her pull her desk drawer open.
“Yes, it’s right here.”
“What about the Suburban? Do you see it in the parking lot?”
He heard her get up and cross to the window. “It’s parked right where I left it. Where else would it be?”
When he hung up, he’d get Fallon and Hooper—whoever had jurisdiction—over to the VA Medical Center, ASAP, to scour her vehicle for fingerprints. “Okay, don’t go anywhere. Go get those tests run. I’ll have Chet drive me over. I’ll be there soon.”
He could hear some of the men moving around upstairs now. They’d all want to be the first to get to her, to collect her and bring her safely home.
“I just don’t understand what happened,” Dylan murmured in an anguished voice. “Why don’t I remember anything?”
He could tell that her disorientation was genuine. “I don’t know, beautiful, but the tests will help us figure it out.”
The only way she could be lying to him was if she were also lying to herself. Was it possible that PTSD had spawned schizophrenia, giving rise to some kind of split-personality disorder? If so, she could become someone else entirely and then have no recollection of her actions.
God, he hoped that wasn’t the case. “I’ll be there soon, babe. Go do what I said. Don’t waste any more time.”
“Okay.” She remained on the line for several more seconds as if there was something else she wanted to say. But then the phone clicked in his ear.
Toby fished Cal Fallon’s business card out of his wallet and dialed the sheriff directly. Both the Taskforce lead and the FBI were convinced of Dylan’s guilt. But Toby knew that the law enforcement officials at the local level vehemently believed in her innocence, and he wanted them on his side.
***
Shivering on a bench at the edge of the hospital parking lot, Dylan watched Sergeant Hooper’s forensic expert clean up the charcoal-colored dust he’d left behind from fingerprinting the steering wheel and door of her Suburban. He’d lifted and bagged a couple of hairs found on her car seat. Now he was swabbing the entire dashboard and gearshift with a Q-tip.
At the far end of the lot, the sun’s rays climbed up the trunks of the trees, and the lot itself began to fill with cars as the morning shift arrived for work. Dylan herself was expected to meet with patients in just one hour, but according to Tobias who’d left a voicemail on the director’s line, she was taking the day off. Dr. Hendrix had yet to show up for work, which meant that he would be absent, also. A lot of patients were about to have their appointments canceled.
Rubbing the tender spot on her temple, she watched Tobias and Sheriff Hooper put their heads together to discuss her circumstances. Something had happened last night, but no one wanted to tell her what. The look on Sheriff Hooper’s face when she surrendered her Magnum and box of ammo had put a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. What if someone was dead and she looked guilty—just like last month after the car bombing in D.C.?
Then again, considering the results of her urine test, how could she be guilty of anything?
She’d tested positive for benzodiazepines, a broad class of psychoactive drugs that produced sedative, hypnotic, and amnesic effects. Perhaps if she’d taken the sleeping pills she’d been prescribed by her psychiatrist, she could understand why there’d be benzos in her bloodstream, but she’d only taken one sleeping pill over a week ago.
That being the case, there was only one way benzos would have shown up in her bloodstream: the coffee she’d been given last night as a so-called gift from the nursing staff had been laced—with what, exactly? Only the blood test could determine that, and the results weren’t available yet.
But surely the urine test would exonerate her of any wrongdoing. She couldn’t have harmed a soul last night, let alone have driven her car somewhere to perform a nefarious act, not if she was drugged.
A squealing of tires wrested Dylan’s attention to the police car circuiting the parking lot and braking to a stop next to Tobias and Sheriff Hooper. The driver’s tinted window lowered, and Sheriff Fallon joined the first two men in what appeared to be a tense discussion. Since the topic no doubt pertained to her, Dylan rose from the bench to approach the trio. The time had come to demand answers. As she drew nearer, she could hear their voices, low and fraught with urgency. The tail end of Tobias’s words reached her ears
“…up to us to prove her innocence.”
He caught sight of her and quickly cut himself off. “Almost done here,” he assured her with a strained smile.
Dylan looked past him at Sheriff Fallon’s scowl. The man looked like he’d been chewing on gravel and had the stomach ache to prove it.
“I want to know what happened last night,” she demanded, including all three men in her request. “What am I being accused of this time?”
“I’ll tell you on the way home,” Tobias promised, reaching for her elbow.
To her surprise, Sheriff Fallon deliberately raised his tinted window and peeled off without another word, leaving rubber marks on the asphalt and her mouth hanging open in astonished hurt.
“Come on, honey. Let’s get you home,” Tobias repeated.
Huddling deeper into her coat, Dylan allowed herself to be drawn toward her Suburban. The cold in the pit of her stomach had started to spread through her entire body. Foreboding underscored her racing thoughts with the worry that a simple blood test wasn’t going to absolve her of any possible involvement.
“You almost done here?” Tobias asked Hooper’s forensic expert.
The man shot Dylan a funny look, closed up his kit, and walked away. Tobias guided her over to the passenger seat and helped her in with diligent care, as if conscious of her internal fragility. Then he rounded the front of the vehicle and climbed behind the wheel. Using the keys, which lay on the dashboard, he started up the vehicle and studied the display.
“Check the gas gauge and the mileage,” he requested. “Have they changed since yesterday?”
Dylan leaned closer and saw that her tank was nearly empty where yesterday it had been closer to full. “I don’t remember my mileage, but I had much more gas than that.” A shiver shook her frame. “What’s going on?” she demanded a second time. “Who drove my car?”
He swept a reluctant eye over the busy parking lot. “Let’s go somewhere more private.” Backing them out of her reserved spot, he sped them toward the highway.
Dylan sat frozen in her seat, sick to her stomach. As she closed her eyes, her thoughts went back to the previous night. Remnants of memories floated in her mind like bits of confetti, too scattered to form any kind of coherent picture.
Tobias laid a warm hand over her fisted one. “Did you eat anything yet?” His concerned tone, which was meant to be consoling, had the opposite effect.
“I had orange juice and a donut when I got my blood drawn. I need to know what’s going on,” she demanded, a quaver in her voice. “Obviously, while I was drugged someone helped themselves to my car, and that’s why the police went through it, but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
“I’m going to pull off up ahead, and then we’ll talk about it
.” His assuring tone ratcheted her adrenaline higher.
Ten minutes from the hospital, they neared a vacant scenic stop designated as an overlook for its stunning view. Toby swerved into the empty lot and parked the vehicle. Turning off the motor, he twisted in his seat and looked at her. The lines of concern carved into his face made him look like a different person, entirely. Where was the easygoing drifter who’d charmed his way into her heart? Only his navy blue eyes, filled with tenderness, struck a familiar chord.
“Dylan, do you remember those anti-war essays I asked you about?”
She thought back and nodded. “Yes, but I told you I never wrote anything like that,” she insisted.
“I know.” He reached for her hand and squeezed it, offering her the comfort she craved. “Sweetheart, someone is trying to frame you. Something happened last night, and right now it looks like you’re the one responsible.”
His words fueled her heart into a painful trot. “What happened?”
“Last night, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Treyburn, was shot to death leaving a Halloween party.”
She reeled at the awful news. Sorrow for the man’s anguished loved ones competed with sudden, clawing anxiety. “Oh, my God, it’s happening again, isn’t it?” Her kindling panic brought on a cold sweat that bathed every pore.
“Yes.” His lips thinned with equal parts regret and determination. “Did you notice something different about your gun when you handed it over?” he asked her.
She had put it reluctantly into Sheriff Hooper’s hands, loath to let it go. “I don’t think so.”
“What about the box of ammo?”
She thought back, and it came to her with a stab of horror. The sticker on the once tightly sealed pack of Speer bullets had been pulled off. At the time, she’d been too dazed to wonder why.
The look on her face must have betrayed her thoughts, for Tobias nodded. “Someone used your gun last night, Dylan, and some of your bullets.”
The Enforcer Page 20