by Dale Mayer
Lucas immediately turned away and stared out the side window, then faced the roadway, but … not her.
“Does that bother you?”
His shoulders visibly relaxed. Then he shook his head, but it was such a minute movement that she almost missed it. “I’m glad you and Meg are close.”
He wasn’t normally so blunt, nor so uncaring of her feelings. But she needed the honesty. She knew he’d taken the breakup hard.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be mean.”
“You never mean to be,” she said. “Sometimes we have to be mean to those we love to get them to understand.” He didn’t say anything. She smiled. “Anyway, thank you for letting me come. Otherwise, I’d be sitting at home doing nothing and hating my life.”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s been going on?”
“You sure you want to hear?” she asked with a broken laugh. “Remember Alice and Claire?”
He nodded. “Of course. The three of you were The Three Musketeers.”
“Well, Claire is dead. Alice is in the hospital in a coma.” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if trying hard to hide her grief. “Claire was murdered.”
“Jesus,” he said softly. “Seriously?”
She nodded. “The RCMP have some leads but haven’t found out who killed her yet.”
“Any idea how she was killed?”
“She was kidnapped on her way home from work one day. She decided she should walk home. Then that was her. She loved to jog and walk—she was very much the outdoor girl. She never made it home. Her body was found two days later.”
“How did she die?”
Tanya sighed. “It’s horrible.”
“Stabbed? Shot? Strangled?”
“Looked like a dog attack,” she said, her voice breaking up despite her best efforts to control it. “Her throat was ripped out, and she had bite marks all over her body.”
The cab of the truck was eerily quiet. She shouldn’t have been so graphic, but it was an image she couldn’t get out of her mind.
“Dogs?” he asked quietly. “Are we talking about dogfights?”
“The police are looking at that angle because we have had some problems recently with underground dogfighting rings. The police rescued dozens of dogs. At least two of them had to be put down because they couldn’t be saved.”
“Did Claire have anything to do with any of the people involved in those cases?”
“Who knows?” she said. “She was one of the dispatchers for the RCMP, so it’s possible.”
“That’s rough,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“I am too. It’s been a rough few months.”
“How long ago did this happen?”
“One hundred and twenty-six days ago.” The number fell off her tongue because she’d been counting every day.
“What happened to Alice?” he asked, looking at her.
She glanced at him and then out the front windshield. He had the softest gray eyes. They still had the same impact on her.
She sighed. “She was hit by a car crossing the road, and the driver fled the scene.”
“And let me guess. The police never caught who did it?” he asked drily.
“No. But then I’m not sure I can blame them. It was nighttime. She left a bar, at night, dressed in black … At least she’s alive, and she will recover, but she’ll be in the hospital for a while.”
“Do you get to see her?”
“I go a lot. Unfortunately that has also become a bit of a crutch as I’m either sitting at Claire’s graveside or sitting at Alice’s bedside. A lot of people think it’s not very healthy. I can’t walk away though. I’m just so angry, and I feel shitty that I’m the only one left.”
“Being a survivor can be a terrible guilt trip.”
She stared at him, her lips parting in surprise. But what he said made an odd kind of sense. “Oh. … Survivor’s guilt? Yes. … You’re right. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But that’s what it is. I feel guilty because I’m okay, and they aren’t.”
As Lucas had already considered over and over again earlier this morning, he wondered at the impulse to allow Tanya to accompany him. He’d avoided talking to her all this time, but the request had come out of the blue.
It was one thing to have the company of somebody you really liked; it was another thing to have the company of somebody you really loved and had broken up with you. Then add in the passage of time and the lack of communication, and you wondered if you were friends at this point or not ever again. Maybe that was why he was doing this. To see if they were still friends. Or at least had the hope to be friends one day. He didn’t know, but the impulse to say yes to Tanya had been strong.
He knew his sister had been surprised, and he also knew he’d shocked Tanya because there’d been nothing but silence at the other end of the phone initially. Then she’d hurriedly asked him what time she should be ready, and, after he had told her, she’d rung off, and that had been it.
Until now. Except he hadn’t slept well thinking about her, worrying at the pain of leaving her again. It had taken him weeks if not months to get over their breakup—and, in truth, he never did. He carried this sense of being suspended in time—waiting for them to pick up where they’d left off.
A part of him had thought she’d chicken out and not show up this morning, but he hadn’t been able to hope that she’d be true to her word. He couldn’t wait to see her again. It was all he could think about, and surprise—not really—she’d been there, looking nervous and still gorgeous. Dressed in jeans with a simple white T-shirt and sweater, her long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’d always had a fresh innocence about her, such a casual beauty, as if she were completely unaware of how beautiful she was …
He’d always known it. She was sincerely gorgeous inside too. But she had one issue which she had let dominate her future. It was what had broken them up. … And it was a big one.
She didn’t look any different except a little older, a little like life hadn’t been easy on her the last few months, but then it hadn’t been easy on him either. Although what had happened to her two girlfriends …
He couldn’t believe what he had heard. “They were both so full of life,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine they’ve been stopped in their tracks like that.”
“At least in Alice’s case,” she said quietly, “it’s not permanent.”
“Were the incidences connected?”
She shook her head.
He studied her for a long moment. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “They were as different as can be.”
“Maybe, but if anybody knew they were very good friends, maybe somebody was worried they had seen something they shouldn’t have or that they discussed something they shouldn’t have.”
“Then they obviously didn’t know Claire. She never said anything to anybody about anything,” Tanya said firmly. “She never discussed any part of her work.”
“Some jobs are like that,” he said. “But somebody might have thought she’d have shared with her best friends.”
“Besides, if that were the case, they would have come after me too.”
“Maybe …” he said. “Have you noticed anybody watching you or hanging around?”
“No,” she said. “But then again I moved, and I doubt anybody knows where I live now. I couldn’t afford the old place, not on my own, not after everything that happened.”
He thought about that for a moment. “You mean, after the girls couldn’t contribute their share of the rent?”
“That was definitely a big part of it. I probably could have hung on, but then I lost my job,” she said quietly. “For a while I worked at several dead-end jobs for minimum wage, more than one at the same time, until I ended up with the one I have now, which isn’t much better, but at least it’s only the one job.”
“Why?” he asked. “You’re an accountant. What could possibly go wrong?”
&
nbsp; “My reputation was trashed after an investigation because people said I was stealing from the company. And, believe me, it’s not something I like to talk about.”
He snorted. “They obviously didn’t know you well.” He glanced at her. “Didn’t they figure out they were wrong?”
“They did, but it was too late to save my reputation. They said that trust had been broken, and they were sorry, but they had to let me go.”
He winced. “Trust on your side for them was broken, I’m sure, but they have no business not trusting you if their allegations were wrong.”
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “But, hey, that was months ago.”
“Well, shit, Tanya. It sure does sound like you’ve had a crappy year.”
“Yes,” she said. “Now I live in a small apartment by myself and work at a department store, my degree worthless.”
“Damn,” he said.
“At least you have a job, even if it’s tracking down dogs in other countries,” she said. “Of course it’s not the job you used to do. I’m sorry about that.”
“Thanks. It’s not as if I’m getting paid for this job,” he said quietly. “And I get my navy pension and disability, but it’s not the same thing as having a career.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she said. “I spent years on my career, and now I don’t even have that.”
“Have you tried applying for other accounting jobs?”
“I have,” she said. “Nobody in town will risk hiring me. My reputation precedes me. And I don’t have references.”
“That sucks and is hardly fair. Particularly if they cleared you of any wrongdoing.”
“They did, but it didn’t wipe out the bad times getting to that point.”
“Why didn’t you move? Look elsewhere for a job?”
“I have friends here, people like family. Technically my family is here too.”
Lucas tilted his head, raised one eyebrow.
“I may have lost Claire, but I still visit her grave weekly, talk to her. Just like Alice may still be in a coma, but I speak to her too most nights. I hope to be there when she wakes up. I believe she hears me talking to her, that it helps her to heal. As for my biological family,” she said, glancing at him, “I’m working through that. Or trying to. And, if and when, maybe I can confront those issues with my mom.” She waved both hands, as if dismissing that hard subject. “But I could be much worse off, Lucas. Look at Claire and Alice.”
“True. But, counting your job loss, that’s three really crappy things in a row,” he said. “Sounds like way too big of a coincidence.”
“It really does, right? I wasn’t sure if I should be suspicious of that. But nothing else has happened to me. Nothing stood out at work that seemed odd. So I don’t know what I could have known or seen that I shouldn’t have, or what Alice and Claire could have known or seen that they shouldn’t have, to warrant all this.” Tanya appeared to struggle for a moment before she added, “What happened to you that sent you to the hospital?” she asked.
He paused and took a deep breath before replying. “I was in Iraq, working on a special training mission, and one of the men from the Iraq team, who was a mole, shot six of us. The rest of the US team ended up shooting him and his team. Two of us lived. Four of us died. All of the Iraq team died.”
He knew he sounded cold, but it had taken him a while to give any explanation. They had been his friends; they weren’t just men. They weren’t just some team. They were friends—men he had trained with, had worked alongside, had trusted, and they were gone in a heartbeat from something that had no reasonable explanation.
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. They were my friends. The four men who died all had wives and families.”
“Awful,” she whispered. “The other guy who survived?”
“He lost both legs,” he said quietly. “He’s still in rehab, but he’s doing much better.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. “Prosthetics aren’t what they used to be.”
“That field has come a long way. I worked with a specialist out of New Mexico, and her stuff is cutting-edge.” An odd silence followed, and he looked at her and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“You have prosthetics?”
“My left foot,” he said and turned back to face the road. “I can stand without a prosthetic but not for very long. The stump hasn’t got enough scar tissue built up for me to put too much pressure on it.”
“Oh …”
“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” he asked with a half laugh. “Who knew this is where we would end up.”
“I often wondered if I deserved this,” she said. “Or if it was connected to you because everything happened after I broke up with you.”
“Is that why you wanted to come on this drive?” he asked curiously. “To see if I was doing something to cause it?”
“No. No, I never blamed you,” she exclaimed. “Never. I’m the one who broke up with you. Just the thought of learning about fate and karma made me realize how much I still had to let go of and needed to work on.”
“Fate? Karma? Aren’t those the sister bitches?” he asked with a smile. “We joke about them a lot in the military. Because there is always the sense that another force is out there, keeping us alive when we have a close call or wondering why my four friends …” he said, swallowing before continuing, “died, and I survived.”
“Back to that old saying that karma’s a bitch,” she said. “If I believed in it, I’d wonder what I could possibly have done so wrong that would have taken my career out as it did. I’ve never done anything to hurt anyone intentionally,” she said. “So why the hell did this all happen to me?”
“I think that’s the hardest thing too,” he said. “The fact that we never get any answers. You can ask why until you’re blue in the face, and you’re still left with no answers.”
“Is that how you felt after waking up in a hospital room to find your friends were gone?”
“They had to strap me down,” he said. “I was determined to go after the son of a bitch who had done that to them. I didn’t even listen. I was so mad with pain and anger and grief that it took days for me to calm down. They kept knocking me out with drugs because I kept trying to get out of my hospital bed. I ripped out stitches and caused more damage because I was a stubborn fool, looking for revenge.”
“But he was already dead, right?”
“Yes he was, but I had taken that incident into my nightmares; and every time I surfaced, in my brain I was sure I was still caught up in that war and that he was there facing me. It took days before I understood it was really over, and he was dead. I had lost my chance to get revenge. It also took days to assimilate that I had lost four of my best friends.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice soft. “I only lost one.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s one or four,” he said. “It hurts like hell.”
Chapter 3
After that heavy discussion, they had a mostly lighthearted conversation until they reached their destination. Thankfully it gave her time to adjust to being with him. She was so damn sorry that she hadn’t been there for him while he’d been recovering. He shouldn’t have gone through that alone.
They each eased out of the truck, took a deep breath and stretched. It felt good to move.
“I haven’t done a road trip like that in a long time,” she said. “And never in this direction.”
He laughed. “This is nothing.”
She smiled. “Still, when you are used to driving five minutes to work or five minutes to the grocery store, then four hours in a vehicle? Well, that takes a bit of getting used to.”
“Yes, then it does.” He walked steadily into the Red Deer Rescue Center, and she followed. He walked with a normal gait, seemingly unaffected by the prosthetic. She wondered what that looked like and felt like. But it was almost unnoticeable, and, if he hadn’t told her, she wouldn’t have had a clue. Inside the center,
he asked for Clarence Jobin.
The woman on the other side of the counter smiled and said, “Clarence isn’t here today.”
“That’s fine,” Lucas said. “I’m here to pick up the War Dog Top Hat.”
“Oh! You’re the one,” she said. “I have a message for you.” She picked up a piece of paper addressed to him and passed it to him.
He opened the note, scanned it quickly and frowned. “Clarence gave Top Hat to somebody else? Even though he knew I was coming from the US government’s War Dogs division?”
The woman looked worried. “Are you actually here on behalf of the US government?”
Lucas drew himself up to his full height. “I specifically said we were here at US Commander Cross’s request to track down this dog.”
“The dog went nuts,” she said hurriedly. “He started attacking everyone. As it happened, we had one of the better dog trainers in the area here, and he said he would take him until you got here.”
At that Lucas seemed to relax. “Where is Top Hat? I can pick him up right now.”
She pointed to the bottom of the letter. “There’s a phone number.”
Lucas pulled out his phone and dialed the number. As it rang, he asked the woman before him, “When did he pick up the dog?”
“Two days ago.”
Tanya stood beside Lucas as he waited for someone to answer the call.
“Pull up this address please, Tanya,” Lucas said, showing her the note. “Find out how far he is from here.”
She nodded.
When someone spoke on the other end, Lucas said, “This is Lucas Scott. I’m here to pick up Top Hat, the shepherd you collected from the rescue center. I believe you’re holding him for me.”
“Well, that would be nice,” the voice said.
The lady behind the counter was close enough to hear that much. Tanya leaned in closer.
Realizing they were trying to listen in, Lucas hit Speaker and placed his phone on the counter so all three could hear.
The voice continued, “But he escaped yesterday morning. We’ve been looking for him since then.”