He knew how to push her buttons as he stroked her arm and kept her close. Still, she wasn’t buying it. Finally, after a half an hour, she rose and stretched. “Hey, today’s workout wiped me out, and I’m dropping fast. I also need to be up early for church. You mind calling it a night?”
The annoyance in those blue eyes of his told her that yes, he did mind. Then he smiled. “Sure. I’ll call you later.”
Please don’t. She wanted to shout that, but her southern manners locked her jaw shut. Grrr! She wished she’d had the fortitude right then and there to say no way, no how was this going to work out. Now she’d merely delayed the inevitable talk.
Once he’d gone, she locked the deadbolt and wandered onto the porch. His cologne lingered, but at that point, it made her slightly queasy. She stared over the creek. To the northwest, lightning flashed. The first thunderstorm of the season headed in her direction. Her mind churned much like the waves the breeze now kicked up along the surface of the creek. Rick. Jonathan. Sal. Why had the men in her life suddenly created chaos for her?
She knew what she had to do with Rick. Tell him she was done. After all, all of the signs emanating from him pointed to a very possessive man as an admirer at best or an abuser at worse.
And Sal? She floundered a bit as she tried to figure out how to explain to him why she’d delayed her leave at the last minute. Something had come up at work for her brother. That as all she would say. Could say.
As for Jonathan, they needed to have a talk. A long one.
15
Raleigh, North Carolina
Two weeks later, Jonathan turned his rental car into the Dogwood Hills neighborhood along the edge of Raleigh’s downtown. When he came within view of his property, he eased to the side of the street and stared at the corner lot with the gray house and white trim where he’d grown up and now lived. He leaned his head against the seat and closed his eyes.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” he muttered. He’d been talking aloud to God a lot lately. Christine too, which made him question his sanity. His touched the jump drive hanging on a lanyard under his shirt. He’d stashed an identical copy along with the pilfered drive in his safe at the beach.
He reached for the Bojangles cup of sweet tea in the cup holder but hesitated. “Are You with me? Will You see this to the end with me?”
Through the open windows, the pleasant scents of azaleas, gardenias, and other blooming plants tickled his nose. He inhaled deeply, and the tension of the past several weeks began melting away. Peace crept over him, if only for the briefest of seconds. That was enough.
He knew.
God walked with him.
He put the car in gear and drove the last block to the house. After he pulled into the driveway and parked in the carport beside his Jeep Grand Cherokee, he stared at the back door that led to the kitchen. His worry returned like a panther jumping out of hiding. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea. For a moment, fear rooted him to the spot. He shook his head.
I’m being paranoid.
Finally, he climbed from the car and began a walk-around of the house by strolling down the sidewalk and checking the side. Nothing looked disturbed. He turned the corner and investigated the front. Same result there. Someone, most likely his neighbor, had placed pots of petunias in a lively purple and white on his front steps.
“Why Jonathan Ward, what a surprise,” an older female voice with a Carolina lilt exclaimed.
Dottie Parker, his next-neighbor, stood at the low picket fence in front of her house, two more pots of petunias in her arms. She opened the gate and hurried through it.
He stepped forward and hugged her, flowers and all. “Hey! It’s good to be back.”
“Did you just get home?”
“Yes.” The less she knew, the better. He glanced up and offered a smile as a marked Raleigh Police Department cruiser rumbled past. “Thanks for looking after the place. Looks like Raleigh’s finest did the same.”
“They were by here every night. I had some leftover petunias, so I thought I’d share. It makes people think someone’s here all of the time.” She winked. “Harold will be so glad you’re home. He’s been wanting to play chess with you.”
“I’ll have to take him up on that.” He glanced up and down the street. “Everything else was good here?”
“It was.”
“And no one’s been around the house in the past couple of weeks?”
“Not a soul. Is something wrong?”
“No,” he lied. “Sometimes it’s hard coming off a hazardous duty station.”
“I’m sure.” She patted his arm. “I heard about Christine. Abigail called us. Please know I’m sorry. I’m sure you miss her terribly.”
He nodded because right then, the massive lump in his throat blocked any words.
“Well, let me get these flowers on your steps.” She set her pots down.
“Is Harold around?”
“He’s at his drawing class right now.”
“Do you think he could give me a lift from the airport this afternoon so I can return the rental car?”
She knelt and fluffed the blooms. “I imagine he could.”
“And how about if you two come over for supper tonight?”
“Why, you shouldn’t have to cook on your first day back.”
Finally, he poked a real smile through his shroud of grief and paranoia. “I know, but I’ve been on the road so much that I’m ready for some home-cooked food. Not to mention, there’s a grill out back with my name on it. And I’m sure Harold will want to play chess.”
“If you put it that way…” She smiled. “Then we’ll be over at six. I’ll be sure to bring my knitting so you two can play to your heart’s content.”
“I’ll see y’all then.” He watched as she headed to her porch. Once he returned to the carport, he unlocked the kitchen door for the first time in over three months. After shutting it behind him, he snagged a butcher knife from the magnetic strip over the counter next to the refrigerator. With it held at ready by his side, he made his way through the small kitchen, past the dining room, and into the living room. Only the curtains swayed slightly in the air conditioning. His moccasins whispered across the floor as he stepped into hallway and cleared the master bedroom, the downstairs guest bedroom, and the bathroom on the first floor.
Nothing.
Carefully placing his feet to avoid the places on the steps that creaked, he made his way upstairs. His fingers tightened around the knife as he peered into the front guest room. Empty, as was the second bathroom. His study at the back of the house remained undisturbed as well.
The tension in Jonathan’s shoulders eased. He dug a small safe key out of his desk drawer and opened the closet that contained a file cabinet and a safe. After inserting the key, he punched the numbers, which were identical to the safe he had at the beach. The door popped open.
He traded the knife for a Beretta, which he stuffed with its holster into his belt at the small of his back. Then he lifted the second lanyard from his neck and slid the small drive into the safe until he could share it with Abigail.
By tomorrow evening, he’d have a concrete course of action. Finally, something positive was about to happen.
He closed the safe and dropped the key into his shirt pocket.
After reconnecting the rental car’s GPS to the battery, he hauled his duffels inside and dumped them in his bedroom. Home. He could breathe again. Nothing compared to this wonderful sense of belonging.
Now in bare feet, he wandered into the living room. He’d lived in the house his parents had willed to Abigail and him ever since they’d died in an auto accident six years before. For a bit, Abigail had lived there too as she recovered from her own set of troubles. While they lived together, she’d helped him decorate, from repainting and making other cosmetic changes to the rooms to helping him put his own unique stamp on the place. Part of that consisted of filling the bookshelves and glass-fronted cabinets with pictures and bo
oks.
He perused all of the frames as if seeing them for the first time. Several were of friends and family from over the years. One portrayed the day when he’d graduated with a degree in business nine years before. Mom beamed at him from the picture, so proud that her son had finally received his bachelor’s degree. Dad, ever the professor, did as well. Another picture held his mentor, Judge MacKenzie. Without his wise guidance, Jonathan would have ended up in jail.
He came to a photo of Abigail and him. In this one, he saluted her when she received her gold second lieutenant’s bars on commissioning day, right before she graduated from college. For him, it’d been a happy day to see his little sister follow him into the Army, even if she’d outranked him at the tender age of twenty-two.
Next to the one of him with his sister sat one of Christine and him. The rose arbor at the back of his yard framed them. Her smile was wide, teasing. She never did things halfway, including her smiles. He picked up another photo of them, this one taken by a retired couple when they’d been hiking in the Rocky Mountains near her Colorado hometown.
“I miss you, Christine. I guess part of me always will.” He brushed his fingertips across her image, then replaced it on the shelf.
To his right was a shot taken in 2007, shortly after the Mighty Men had come together. They crowded around a long picnic table with frothy mugs of beer held high. The picture had been taken in Mexico. They’d conducted joint training with Mexico’s Federales. Once it wrapped, they’d hit one of the local bars with their local brothers-in-arms until the manager finally ordered them out. Good times.
In the last picture on the shelf, he and David Shepherd stood at the top of a mountain. Which one, he didn’t remember. Both had their right legs propped up on rocks, their right arms cocked in a bodybuilder pose. The grins on their faces indicated how proud they’d been that day. The faint lines of a tattoo peeked from Jonathan’s arm.
His right forearm bore a tattoo revealed by the rolled-up sleeve of his sailcloth shirt.
Sola gratia.
By grace alone.
Having gotten it at eighteen right after he’d finished basic training, it symbolized the most important thing to him.
A peace that defied his current situation blanketed him. “You’re with me, God. I can feel it now. Thank You.”
Time to hide the key. But where? He picked up the picture of David and him and popped off the backing. It took some doing, but once he’d stowed the key behind the picture, he replaced the backing so that it stayed secure with the help of a little Scotch tape.
What had happened to his best friend? He’d lost touch with him when his Master’s Degree and his first year at SecureLink had consumed him. Five years ago, David had left him a message for him to call when he could, a message blurred by alcohol or something. He’d returned the call the next day, only to receive a message that David’s phone had been disconnected.
Maybe once he got things sorted out, he’d call Kyra, David’s sister, to get his contact information. Reconnecting with his best friend would help push him past the gash created in his soul by Christine’s death.
Quantico, Virginia
I’m on vacation. I’m on vacation. Those words hummed through Abigail’s mind as she turned off the engine of her navy blue Honda Accord and climbed from behind the wheel. She grabbed her bags from her Wal-Mart trip on the way home. Thanks to her brother’s call before noon, she’d bolted to Sal’s office and announced her intent to take leave for two and a half weeks. At least by this time, his sense of humor had returned. He’d laughed as he handed her the paperwork to sign and told her that her leave began at 1600 hours. Now, she actually did a small skip in her step as she headed toward the stairs leading to her third-floor apartment.
“I saw that.” A teasing male voice drifted her way.
She froze, and her cheeks heated as she noted Lance Murphy, one of her across-the-way neighbors, climbing from an old gray Mercedes that looked like the sides would fall off. He still wore his Marine ACUs, meaning he’d just arrived home from work. “Uh, hi.”
“Someone’s happy tonight,” he added as he let her precede him upstairs.
“I’m on vacation as of” —she checked her watch— “an hour and a half ago.”
“Are you cooking tonight?” He gave her puppy dog eyes that usually meant she’d wind up cooking for more than just herself, which was always fine, since it meant she wouldn’t eat alone.
“Not tonight. I don’t have a drop of food in the house since I’m leaving town tomorrow. I’m sorry,” she added when his puppy dog eyes turned into a hangdog look.
He heaved a great sigh. “I guess Ames will cook, then. It’ll be spaghetti out of a jar for sure.”
“Why don’t the three of us go out? You know, so I can start vacation off the right way.”
The Marine captain visibly brightened, and a grin crossed his dark features. “Then no spaghetti out of a jar. Sounds like a plan to me. Ames is home already. Want to meet downstairs in fifteen?”
“Works for me.” She tossed him a mock salute, then unlocked her apartment.
She changed into jeans and a blouse and was just about to tug on one of her favorite cowboy boots when her cell phone rang.
Rick. Again. All because she’d avoided having The Breakup Talk. Instead, she’d put him off with excuses about being busy at work—which was true since she’d been following up on several cases that had loose ends. Why could she be direct with suspects but not with a suitor? Curse her Southern roots. She yanked on her boots and let the call roll to voicemail.
With a windbreaker in hand to ward off the chill later in the evening, she joined her neighbors at the base of the steps. Lance led the way to his Mercedes.
“You ever going to sell this?” she asked as she slid into the front seat.
“Nope. Not when my girl enjoys riding in it.” He chuckled as he started the old car. It hacked as he backed up.
“Your girl needs to have better taste in cars,” Ames Forsyth said from the backseat.
“No, my girl has perfectly good taste in cars. Where to? The pub?”
“Of course.”
On the short ride to the restaurant where she’d met Rick, she settled for listening to the banter between the two roommates. At the pub, cars packed the parking lot. “For a Tuesday night, it seems kind of crowded.”
“My bet is that they have the deck open, and after a week of rain, people want to be outside.” Ames hopped from the car and led the way inside. When they ran smack into a wall of people at the hostess’s podium, he nodded. “Yep. Count my suspicions as correct. You guys go get some drinks and maybe grab a pool table.”
“Just make sure we’re outside,” Abigail replied. “C’mon, Lance. A rum and Coke awaits me. I’ll grab you a beer if you tell me what you want.”
He gave his order and wandered in the direction of the pool tables.
Once she had their drinks in hand, she joined him as he racked the balls.
He handed her a cue stick. “You get opening shot, lady.”
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” she drawled in her finest Southern accent.
He laughed.
She leaned over and placed the cue stick on the bridge formed by her finger and thumb. She lined up her shot before letting the stick fly. Perfect hit. The balls scattered across the green felt, and a stripe and two solids dropped into different pockets.
“Phewee. Good shot, Abigail.” Lance chuckled. “I take it you want solids?”
“Of course.” She winked in his direction. She located her next shot and began lining up. As she did so, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She tried to ignore it, but the feeling intensified. She took the shot, missing by a wide margin.
Lance circled the table and eyed the new setup.
Abigail stepped back and picked up her drink.
Just as she lifted it to her lips, Rick whipped her around and pushed her against the wall. The rum and Coke crashed to the floor.
&nb
sp; Uh, oh. Her delay had landed her in trouble.
“Uh, hi.” She tried a weak smile.
Jealous anger sparked from his blue eyes, and the way his jaw flexed told her he meant business. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Who do you think you are? You go behind my back and go out with that—” He let loose with a racial epithet hurled in Lance’s direction.
Lance glared at him. “What did you call me?”
“Excuse me, but we’re not exclusive.” Abigail shook loose. Or tried to. He had too tight of a grip on her arm. “We aren’t even dating.”
“Says who? You?” He called her a foul name.
Lance tossed his cue onto the table. “Let her go!”
“And you stay out of it.” Rick held out a hand before getting right in her face, smothering her with his alcohol breath. “You and me, we’re going to go and have a little talk.”
“Let me go, and do it now,” she stated in a low, calm voice. Her heart rate sped up as adrenaline pumped into her system.
“Not on your life.”
Lance grabbed him. “I said, let her—”
Rick repeated his racial slur as he shoved him, sending him crashing to the floor.
Murmurs rose as a crowd formed.
“Hey!” Ames’s voice barely penetrated the buzzing that suddenly filled Abigail’s head.
She flipped into automatic pilot. Before she realized it, she’d kicked Rick’s feet out from under him. As he crashed to the floor, all six feet, two inches and two hundred pounds of him, she yanked his arm behind his back and twisted it until he yelped. She dug her knee into his shoulders.
“Let me go!” He called her another name as he squirmed.
“You listen to me and listen to me good. You are coming very close to assaulting a Federal law enforcement officer. You understand, you drunk idiot? I have every right to arrest you here and now.” Her voice boomed in the silence of the stunned crowd gathered around them. “You have one chance and one chance only to leave here peacefully. You blow that, and you walk out of here in cuffs. Not a good solution for a Marine Corps officer.”
The Athena File Page 12
