The Soldier's Valentine--A Clean Romance

by Pamela Tracy

  Halt! Halt!

  Her body sparked like a live wire, humming and crackling with the adrenaline zipping through her. If caught, she’d either meet the same fate as the victims she documented or worse, languish in a Filipino prison for the rest of her life. Death or imprisonment. Neither was uncommon in her dangerous career, yet she’d never quit. She’d worked too hard to let fear drive her away. This tale of corruption, violence and cover-up had to be shared with the world. Too many lives depended on it. Too many lives had been lost already.

  Shoving aside prickly branches, stumbling over slippery, moss-covered ground, she charged through the forest. Her heartbeat raged in her ears. Faster. Faster. Faster.

  The sound of large bodies crashing through the foliage behind them grew louder. Closer. More shouts then—

  —something whistled past Cassidy’s ear and struck the trunk of a palm tree just ahead. Scorched black encircled the embedded bullet. Another blast of gunfire shredded the overlapping fronds and leaves around her. Her heart thundered in her chest and each rapid breath grew shallower and more painful as she hurtled after her guide. A brief glimpse of his T-shirt appeared to her left and she swerved to follow. Without him, she’d be lost. Even if she managed to evade the shooters, she’d never make it out of this lethal wilderness on her own.

  Her eyes stung, and her muscles screamed as she labored up a hill, gunshots raining through the air. A piercing scream rang out and her guide crashed to the ground. In three steps she was upon the writhing man. He clamped a hand to his ragged ear. He’d been shot, but not seriously. Her own war injuries included a knife scar in the stomach, shoulders marked by shrapnel spray and a bullet embedded in her left hip.

  “Get up!” she urged. With every ounce of reserve strength, she dug her heels in the spongy earth and pulled the guide to his feet. “Hurry!”

  The man swayed slightly before recovering. “This way!” He lurched forward, and they resumed their headlong flight.

  The officers’ shouts grew louder still, the barrage of bullets unrelenting. Something sliced her upper arm, sharp as a wasp’s sting. Pain bloomed and spread. Sticky warmth gushed from the wound. She’d been shot, she thought, with a strange sense of detachment, her adrenaline keeping her from feeling too much. When they crested the hill, the guide yanked her down, then scuttled backward into a shallow hollow in the embankment. A downed tree shrouded the entrance.

  A moment later, footsteps pounded overhead. Cassidy held her breath as the men conferred with each other. The world’s spin seemed to slow. Time stopped. So did her heart. Then, after what seemed like an eternity, they moved on. Their agitated babble growing fainter and fainter until it quieted altogether.

  Still, she and her guide remained motionless until her muscles cramped, and her body grew prickly, then numb. The guide mumbled a prayer beneath his breath. The rosary. She’d heard it in enough languages to recognize it. The rank smell of their sweat and blood permeated the cramped space.

  After peeling back her sleeve to examine the wound, she tied a bandanna around it, one-handed. Her teeth clamped on one end as she pulled it tight. She’d been grazed, not struck. A relieved breath flew from her. She would tend to it later in her hotel room, since seeking medical treatment wasn’t an option. Not if she hoped to live anyway, because they would be scouring the hospital within the hour.

  After what seemed like an eternity, her guide poked out his head, then led them down the hill. All around, the forest pulsed, alive and deadly in the dark. They moved cautiously, but swiftly, following the glimpses of the moon through the thick canopy overhead. At last, they reached the Jeep hidden in the brush, flung themselves inside, then raced down the back road, holding their breaths. After several glances in the empty rearview mirror, Cassidy sank back in her seat.

  “We did it.” She traced her camera with trembling fingertips. Its critical memory card had survived...as had she...this time.

  How many more assignments before her luck ran out?

  She tipped her forehead out the window to let the rushing air cool her flesh. No time to think about that now.

  Or ever.

  Growing up near Carbondale, Colorado, she’d worked on enough cattle ranches to know the only thing stopping a beast from killing you was convincing it to fear you instead.

  It was mind over matter.

  Courage over danger.

  An hour later she hunched before her laptop inside her hotel room. Her fingers flew as she transcribed the day’s notes.

  “It’s not possible they were alive,” said Mahalia Cruz, 39, whose husband, Danilo, was among the dead. “We saw them thrown in the back of a truck.”

  Cassidy stopped typing, brought up the images she’d downloaded from her camera and studied the last one. A picture was worth a thousand words, especially when it corroborated witness statements. She dropped the picture into a digital folder, attached the folder to a brief email and sent it to her editor. She’d be arriving at her Manhattan office soon. Cassidy minimized the screen and resumed writing.

  “In police operations, we don’t know where the bullets may hit,” Police Chief Torres said. “Some suspects retaliate, fight us. We are only defending ourselves.”

  “Didn’t look like that to me,” she muttered. When she reached for her coffee, pain lanced in her arm. Little more than a scrape, the wound should heal on its own. Her guide hadn’t been so lucky. He’d lost his ear tip.

  “The police do the shooting, they do the killing—and they investigate themselves,” Rosaria Del Mortel, a forensic scientist and chair of the University of the Philippines Manila Pathology Department, said. “Impunity, that’s what’s happening. Such practices can leave the system open to abuse.”

  Cassidy pressed the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth and nodded, every nerve ending afire. The familiar sensation accompanied every important story she’d ever broken. Every journalist lived for this...if nothing else...

  Bereaved relatives and other witnesses said the bodies were taken to a hospital an hour or more after the shooting, and that none of the victims showed signs of life. “They weren’t moving. They weren’t breathing,” said Fernando Reyes, the local district medical director. “They were cold to the touch.”

  She stared at the screen, picturing the doctor’s anguished face, the widow’s grief. Her vision blurred, and her head dipped. So much injustice in the world and not enough time to expose it all in one lifetime.

  Her cell phone buzzed, and her editor’s number flashed on-screen. “Hey, Brenda.”

  “Quite the scoop!” Brenda crowed. “If you don’t win the Pulitzer this year, I’ll eat my Birkin.”

  “Would that count as a protein?” Despite her fatigue, Cassidy’s lips curved up in a smile.

  A Pulitzer. She’d been striving to win the highest recognition of her profession since she’d declared herself a journalism major her freshman year in college. Growing up in poverty, her father’s difficulty holding on to jobs amid layoffs meant they’d sometimes had to choose between rent, food or heating. Lying in bed, her empty stomach growling in the dark, she’d vowed to fulfill her pa’s unshakable faith. She’d break the cycle and achieve greatness someday. He’d spent every extra dime he’d scraped together on her, from her first camera, a battered, secondhand Nikon, to the uniforms required of the private school she’d attended on scholarship.

  “You were robbed last year,” Brenda said, then swore a blue streak about suing Starbucks over third-degree burns after what sounded like a scorching sip of coffee. “Your work on Erdogan’s strong-arm tactics should have beat that New York Times Ebola series. I’m so sick of sickness stories.”

  “Maybe this year.” Cassidy’s fingers dented her jeans. When a work injury caused her father’s permanent disability, she’d vowed to prove his sacrifices weren’t in vain, that his belief in her was warranted and she was worthy of all he’d given her, especial
ly his love.

  Her eyes flitted to the framed family photo she carried with her on every assignment. Only an arm showed of the person she’d carefully snipped out...her younger sister, Leanne, who’d betrayed her in the worst way imaginable.

  “How much longer before you send the final piece?”

  Cassidy ignored the pressure banding around her chest and scrolled through the text-filled screen. “By noon. Your time.”

  “That’s my gal. I owe you a bottle of Pinot when you get back.”

  Cassidy’s eyes closed as she imagined the crisp white wine. “I’ll hold you to that. So what’s my next assignment?”

  “You mean after we hate-watch Season Sixteen of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant?”

  Cassidy groaned. “I thought we kicked that habit.”

  “I just can’t quit it, Cass.”

  “Fine...but seriously, have you got anything in mind for my next storyline?”

  Now it was Brenda’s turn to groan. “Do you ever stop and just enjoy your accomplishments? It’s always about what’s next with you, isn’t it?”

  “I—I love my work.”

  “Hmm.” Brenda slurped more coffee. “I wonder.”

  “You wonder if I love my job?” Cassidy’s voice rose. A buzzing window fan dragged in muggy air scented with something fruity and cloying.

  “Sometimes, Cassidy, I wonder if your drive is fueled by something else.”

  “A paycheck works nicely.”

  Brenda laughed. “There is that. Okay. Gotta go. We’ll chat about your next piece when you get back. You can stay with me.”

  “I appreciate it.” Since Cassidy lived a nomad’s life, all her possessions in her suitcase, it didn’t make sense to pay a Manhattan apartment’s astronomical rent. The rare times she returned to America, she rented an efficiency room.

  “I’ll introduce you to my brother. He’s been dying to meet you. And his divorce is final...”

  “I’m sure he’s lovely, but I—”

  “Am too busy, traveling too much and a type A, perfectionist workaholic,” Brenda finished for her with another laugh.

  “Pretty much. Bye, Brenda.” Cassidy punched off her phone and sighed. She longed for a lasting relationship and a real family, yet her career came first.

  Sure, she was lonely, but her demanding schedule, her dangerous life and the standards she drove herself to meet didn’t allow for long-term connections. She picked up the framed picture and the memory of that day—an annual family picnic in the Colorado Rockies, which she’d mostly avoided over the years—rushed through her like laurel-scented sunshine.

  Her fingers tightened around the frame. She stared into the smiling eyes of her younger self, recalling the photographer who’d made her that happy. Daryl. Her college boyfriend had snapped the photo when they’d returned home between semesters. He was the only man who’d tempted her to abandon her career aspirations for love...

  The only man to break her heart.

  No amount of time or distance had healed it. Hurt remained like slivers of broken glass, impossible to see and liable to draw blood even after she thought she’d swept them all away.

  How different her life would have been if she’d said yes to Daryl’s proposal instead of making him wait.

  Her oppressive, jumpy thoughts drove her downstairs and out into the stifling night, her cell phone’s flashlight feature illuminating the dark. She peered up at the crescent moon.

  When it’d gotten too hot, she and Leanne used to crawl onto their roof and stare up at the sky. They’d called themselves moon sisters. No matter how they grew and changed, they’d sworn to always be a constant in each other’s lives. Crescent had been Leanne’s favorite whereas Cassidy had preferred the full. It saw everything, just like she’d wanted to someday.

  Funny how blind she’d been after all. They hadn’t spoken in over a decade, not since Leanne’s crushing treachery, not since their worlds collided and they’d spun into different orbits, infinite space between them.

  Cassidy’s cell phone buzzed and then, as if conjured from her very thoughts, a familiar name appeared on the screen. Her mother had made Cassidy enter the contact because of her father’s fragile health.

  Why would she call? It was the most shocking, dangerous sight Cassidy had witnessed today. She’d rather face Duterte’s firing squad than answer. Something had to be very, very wrong...

  It took her three tries before she managed to push the answer button. Her phone shook as she lifted it to her ear and opened her trembling mouth.

  “Leanne?”

  * * *

  DARYL LOVELAND CRANKED the heat beneath a pot of water, snatched up his landline’s wireless handset and stopped by the kitchen counter where his children, Emma and Noah, labored over school assignments. “Be right back. No stabbing each other with pencils.”

  To his relief, they nodded without looking up from their homework. No signs of stress. No deviating from the routine he’d established to provide his teetering family stability. He ducked into the bathroom, shut the door and flipped on the shower. The phone slid in his damp palms as he dialed the next number on his list.

  “Hey, Kevin. Daryl Loveland calling. Was wondering if my wife was at your bar today.” He paced the narrow, tiled floor.

  “What?” Kevin asked. “Can’t hear you. Sounds like you’re in the car wash or something.”

  Daryl raised his voice slightly, one eye on the door. “I’m in the shower.”

  “Dude. Call me when you’re dressed.”

  “No... I’ve got clothes on... Just... Have you seen Leanne?” Daryl wiped the fogging mirror and met his dark eyes. Dilated pupils turned them black, and a deep, vertical line cut between his brows.

  “What about your clothes?” Kevin asked.

  “It’s about Leanne!” Daryl shout-whispered. “Have you seen her?” He whirled from the mirror and leaned against the vanity, his chest so tight he struggled to breathe. Puffs of white steam billowed over the shower curtain and slicked his skin.

  “Leanne? What about her?”

  “She didn’t come home last night.” Daryl raked a hand through his hair.

  “Hey. You don’t have to shout,” Kevin protested. “Haven’t seen her since the other evening.”

  “And the night before that, and the one before that,” Daryl said wearily. He thanked Kevin and punched off the phone. Leanne spent more time at Silver Spurs than she did with her family.

  He reached behind him to grip the vanity’s granite edge and hung his head, thinking fast. Where was she this time? For the past year and a half, she’d checked out of their ten-year marriage, demanding he sleep up at the ranch’s main house when she was home. Otherwise, she was barhopping with friends and staying out until all hours, sometimes not returning until the next day.

  She’d never taken a suitcase before, though. When he’d returned to their cabin after his ranch work, he’d found his stepmother, Joy, with the children. Some of Leanne’s clothes, shoes and jewelry were gone, save for the wedding band he’d given her before their shotgun wedding. Had she left him?

  He rubbed his temples. His head ached as though he’d spent the night banging it against the wall, which would’ve been more enjoyable than staring at the ceiling, replaying all the quiet arguments, the bitter silences, the scathing asides he and Leanne had shared these past eighteen months.

  “Pa!” The knob turned, and his nine-year-old daughter, Emma, peeked her head around the door. “The water’s boiling over.”

  Shoot.

  With his thoughts swerving in every direction, he’d be lucky if he didn’t burn down the cabin. “Thanks, darlin’.”

  “Is Mama coming home soon?” Emma tore the top off the pasta box and handed it to him once he lowered the cooktop’s flame.

  Daryl nodded firmly. “Of course.” He dumped in the spagh
etti, grabbed a wooden spoon and pushed down the brittle noodles until he submerged them beneath the bubbling water.

  “Where is she?” Noah hopped off a stool and passed over the salt shaker.

  “It’s a surprise,” Daryl temporized, adding a pinch of the white crystals.

  “Are we getting a puppy?” Noah clapped his hands together.

  Daryl ruffled his six-year-old’s dark, silky hair. “We already have Beuford.”

  Hearing his name, their geriatric beagle, Labrador mix opened his eyes, raised his head and thumped his tail against the wooden floor. Then, as if the effort had worn him out, he dropped his head again with a long, suffering sigh.

  “But all he does is sleep and fart,” Noah complained. “He never wants to play with me. Nobody does.”

  Daryl’s heart clenched at Noah’s hurt expression, knowing he wasn’t talking about just Beuford.

  Leanne hadn’t spent much time with the kids lately either. She’d begun organizing a country store on his family’s ranch, Loveland Hills, and planned on selling the heirloom apples they grew along with produce and homemade baked and canned goods. When she’d first begun talking about it, he’d been encouraged, believing she’d recommit to their family, their marriage, but she’d only become busier. More distant.

  And now she was gone.

  Why? He’d failed to make her happy, clearly, but the kids and the store she’d invested so much time into?

  Something must be wrong.

  Very, very wrong.

  He’d swallowed his pride alongside the deep-rooted Loveland need for privacy and called his brother Travis, Carbondale’s county sheriff, earlier to report Leanne missing. Had they found her yet? Located her white Jeep?

  “Can you help me with math, Pa?”

  At Emma’s question, he grabbed a can of peas and an opener and carried them to the counter. Books, paper and crumpled candy wrappers littered the stone surface. “Sure.”

  “A bat and a ball cost one dollar and ten cents in total,” she read from a worksheet. “The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”