by Cathie Linz
“So you live on a landfill,” Caine said.
She laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it. What about your neighborhood? What’s it like?”
He remained silent.
“You haven’t said where you live,” she pointed out.
“And I don’t intend to.”
“Why not?”
“I like my privacy.”
“I could find out if I really wanted to, which I don’t.”
He responded by peeling through an orange light at the intersection and pulling into a White Castle fast-food drive-through.
“What are you doing?” Faith demanded.
“Getting food. I’m hungry.”
He ordered a sack of sliders, the nickname for the four-bite, grilled-onion-soaked hamburgers that were an acquired taste. An addictive acquired taste that Faith happened to have. He opened the bag and handed her one.
He’d ordered two large Cokes without consulting her.
When he tossed a straw in her lap, she had to speak. “What is your problem tonight?”
“No problem.” He reached for another slider as he exited the parking lot and turned onto the main street.
“Are you upset that I pointed out you misspelled gnat?”
His “No” was very curt.
“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
“Yes, you did.”
Maybe she had, but only to pay him back for grinning at her the way he had after his finger foreplay had driven her over the erotic edge. That knowing I-can-strum-you-like-a-guitar grin had infuriated her. Still did. So why was she sitting in his Mustang gobbling his sliders?
What was wrong with her?
A complicated question that was growing increasingly so by the second.
She turned her attention to the case. “Why do you think Weldon got cold feet tonight? Do you think he saw us there?”
“Possibly.”
“That’s twice that we’ve gone to a viable surveillance location only to have Weldon not show up. First at the theater and then at the Geek Meet. Maybe we’ve spooked him. Maybe we should rethink this approach and try another way of reaching him. What do you think?”
He just grunted.
“That’s real helpful.” Her voice vibrated with anger. “What is your problem tonight? You’re acting like part of you wants to stay with me and the other part wants to toss me out of your car.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I feel the same way,” she muttered while jostling the ice in her cup to cover her words.
“What did you say?”
“Because I feel the same way!” she yelled. “Are you happy now?”
“Not really.”
“Me neither.” She grabbed another slider out of the bag and sank her teeth into it.
“I never would have pegged you as a slider girl,” he noted.
“Which just goes to show how little you know about me.”
Caine knew enough. He knew she got through his defenses in a way no other woman ever had before. And that freaked him out.
So Caine remained quiet the remainder of the trip, as did Faith. Yuri was there to greet them at the door to her building.
“You sure know how to show a girl a good time.” Faith shot Caine a saucy grin before hopping out of his car and marching into the building.
Yuri bent down and gave Caine a questioning look.
Caine rested his forehead against the steering wheel, looking like a man who was near the end of his rope.
“You okay?” Yuri asked.
“I need a drink,” he muttered.
“I’m off duty in two minutes. Mind if I join you?” Caine shook his head.
Twenty minutes later, they were seated in a bar, drinking beers. “So what’s with the strange getup?” Yuri asked.
Caine looked down at his geeky shirt and sweater vest. He’d forgotten he was wearing them. He peeled the vest off and stuffed it in his backpack. The plain white T-shirt was more his thing. “I was doing some undercover surveillance work tonight.”
“With Faith?”
“She insinuated herself into the situation, yes.”
“So you and Faith were together on some undercover mission?” Yuri said. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, me too. I also can’t believe I told you about it.”
“Hey, I’m a fellow Marine. You can trust me.”
“I can’t believe you’re a doorman/actor now,” Caine said.
“And I can’t believe you’re no longer in the Corps.”
“It wasn’t an easy decision.” Caine took a healthy swig of his Corona right from the bottle. No fancy microbrewery beers for him. The Mexican beer had been his beverage of choice since his boot camp days at Camp Pendleton outside San Diego. That seemed like a lifetime ago now. But the things he’d learned there had been ingrained into him so deeply there was no changing them now. “Not easy at all.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I did it for my dad. Left the Marine Corps, I mean.”
“You said Faith’s dad was responsible for his death.”
Caine nodded and swallowed another swig of Corona down a throat gone tight with emotion. “That’s right.”
“What happened?”
Caine wiped the condensation off his bottle with his thumb. “Jeff West accused my father of a crime he didn’t commit.”
“I thought Faith’s dad was a private investigator not a cop.”
“That’s right. He was investigating a case involving corporate fraud. He thought my dad was guilty. He was wrong.”
“So your dad was arrested?”
“No.” Caine was finding it harder and harder to swallow. “My dad couldn’t take the shame of being falsely accused. He committed suicide. An overdose.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“What made West think your dad was guilty?”
“A shoddy investigation.”
“So what’s next?”
“I prove my father’s innocence.”
“And that’s why you and Faith were on that stakeout. Did the perp show up?”
“Okay, you’ve been watching way too many police shows.”
“So now you and Faith are working together to clear your father’s name?”
“I wouldn’t put it exactly like that. Has she talked to you about me?”
Yuri just smiled.
“Come on, Gunny. I’ve known you longer than she has.”
“I don’t pass on intel. What you say to me stays with me. Ditto for what she says to me.”
“So she has talked about me. I knew it.”
“I heard she dumped her drink in your lap last week.”
“Who told you that?”
“I know one of the servers at the Sushi Place. I have a lot of contacts in the Streeterville neighborhood.”
“Did you meet that asshole fiancé of hers?”
Yuri nodded.
“So what did you think of him?”
“He was an asshole.”
“What did she see in him?”
“Who knows? He was smart and polished.”
“I can’t believe he left her at the altar that way. Do you think she really loved him?”
“Well, she was going to marry him.”
“Yeah, I know but maybe . . .”
“Maybe what?”
“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. It’s none of my business. I need to stay focused on my father’s case.”
“Hard to do when Faith is working on it with you.”
“She is a distraction,” Caine admitted.
“I can imagine. I remember you telling me once that women got in the way if you let them get too close.”
“Right.”
“Do you still feel that way?”
“Affirmative.”
“Well, I’m certainly in no position to be giving you romantic advice. I’ve been married twice and divorced twice. The Marines and marriage don’t always make for a g
ood partnership.”
“But you’re out of the Marines now.”
Yuri nodded. “I know. But old habits are hard to break.”
“Tell me about it. I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking I’m back in Iraq.” Caine didn’t say more, and Yuri didn’t ask. There was an unspoken code between most Marines that you never referred to the bloody horror of war, but instead you sucked it up and kept going. Because sometimes the realities were just too damn difficult. Sharing emotions was not a Marine Corps thing.
Improve, adapt, overcome. Those were Marine Corps rules.
“Pain is only temporary. Pride is forever,” Yuri said. “I’ve got the T-shirt.”
“Yeah.” The demons of war weren’t the only things haunting Caine. His father had e-mailed him, begging him to come home. Caine had e-mailed back, saying that being a Marine wasn’t a nine-to-five job. He’d made a commitment, and he had to honor that.
His dad committed suicide a few days later. December had always been a rough time for his father because it marked the anniversary of Caine’s mother’s death on December 7, Pearl Harbor day. “A day that shall live in infamy,” President Franklin Roosevelt said. Caine’s dad said the same thing every year around December 7. Caine could only imagine the demons that haunted his dad, who had never remarried nor had another woman in his life.
“She was my soul mate,” he’d tell Caine, who decided at a young age that he didn’t want a freaking soul mate if they could cause you such pain. Better to keep things casual. Mating for sex—okay. Mating of souls—definitely not okay. It was a code he’d followed his entire adult life.
“So you and Faith are working together. Does this mean that Faith is going to let you into the building now?”
“I have no idea,” Caine said. “My focus is on the case, not on her.”
Yuri just laughed and shook his head. “You keep saying that often enough, you might start believing it.”
Caine sure hoped so. Because he had no intention of having his heart yanked out and stomped on. He knew better.
“Thanks for meeting with me tonight,” Sara said so formally that Faith was immediately worried as she guided her mom into the condo and motioned for her to sit on the couch. “I know you’re busy.”
“You’re my mom, of course I’d meet with you. I’m never too busy for you.” Faith hugged her, but her mother didn’t reciprocate. “What’s wrong? Is it Aunt Lorraine? Is she still staying with you? What has the Duchess of Grimness done now?”
“No, it’s not Aunt Lorraine. It’s something your father has done.”
“If this is about my taking the job at West I nvestigations—”
Sara cut her off. “It’s not. Not directly.”
“Are you angry with him for hiring me?”
“No, I’m angry with him for having an affair.”
Chapter Eleven
Faith was speechless. Her father? Having an affair?
Faith had been raised to do all the right things: to tell the truth, to be nice to others and to respect her parents. Not to think of her father having an affair. In fact, she didn’t like to think of her parents as ever having sex at all except for the one time she was conceived.
“At least I think he’s having an affair,” Sara said. “I’m not sure. I just know that something isn’t right. He’s done all the things that raise a red flag in cases like this—like an increase in the number of late nights when he says he’s working, him not being where he says he is, a new secrecy about his actions. He’s clearly hiding something.”
“Well, I know he’s got this war going on with Vince.”
“Vince is the one who told me about the affair.”
Faith heaved a sigh of relief. “Well, there you go then. If Vince told you, then you know it’s a lie. Since when has Vince King been talking to you anyway?”
“I ran into him at a charity function I was attending on my own because your father canceled at the last minute. I was there to help the Anti-Cruelty Society.”
“And Vince was there to drive you crazy by telling you that your husband is having an affair. I can’t believe that you actually gave his lie any credence at all.”
“I wouldn’t have under normal circumstances. But things haven’t been normal between your father and me for a few weeks now.”
This news took Faith by surprise. “Is it because of the wedding? Because that turned into such a mess?”
“This has nothing to do with you. Our problems were not due to your wedding.”
Faith wasn’t ready to let herself off the hook that easily. “Still, if I hadn’t been so wrapped up in the preparations, I would have noticed something . . . some stress between the two of you. But just because you’re having some trouble doesn’t mean Dad is having an affair. You know Vince just wants to create trouble. It’s his specialty.”
“I know, and if it was just Vince, I’d ignore it. But my instincts tell me something is very wrong. I’ve tried in roundabout ways to get your father to talk to me, but he avoids me. I’m only asking you for your help because I don’t know what else to do. That’s why I want you to see what you can find out. There’s no one else I can turn to. It was hard enough to come to you and admit there might be trouble in my marriage. I couldn’t face telling a stranger. And I can’t just come out and directly ask him. I don’t know that he’d . . . that he’d tell me the truth.”
Her mother never cried, not even when Aunt Lorraine would say something mean enough to test the patience of an angel, but her mother was crying now. Two big fat teardrops slowly rolled down her cheeks. “I shouldn’t be dumping this on you. It’s not right.”
“Let me do a little digging and see what I can find out,” Faith said. “I’m sure there’s nothing for you to be worried about, but you’ll feel better if I can prove that, right?”
Her mom nodded.
“Okay, then. Consider it taken care of.” Faith hugged her.
This time her mother hugged her back. “That’s what Jane Austen would do,” Sara said unsteadily. “She’d reassure her mother and hug her. Not that the mothers in Austen’s books were all that appealing. They tended to be self-serving and self-centered.”
“Not you.”
“I am being self-centered to ask you for help.”
“No, you’re not.” Faith handed her a Kleenex from the end table. “I’m the one who was self-centered when I took off for Italy and left you here to handle the mess. Helping you now is the least I can do. Everything will be okay, you’ll see.”
“Thank you.” Sara hugged her again, squeezing her tight, reminding Faith of the time as a child she’d gotten lost in the Marshall Field’s store, and her mother had hugged her when they’d found Faith asleep in one of the empty intimate apparel fitting rooms. Faith had forgotten about that episode until this moment.
It was funny how old memories sometimes came back. Her mom had never told Faith’s father that she’d wandered off, breaking a rule her parents had taught her practically from the time she took her first steps. It had been a secret between the two of them, kept all these years.
Faith couldn’t say no to her mom now. She’d prove that her dad was faithful, and that would be the end of that. So here she was for a second time trying to prove her dad was not guilty of something.
“Like I said, I’m sure there’s no cause for concern,” Faith reassured her mom. “But I’ll check things out and see what’s going on with Dad.”
“I knew I could count on you,” her mom said, dabbing at her tears with the balled-up Kleenex.
Faith handed her a new tissue. “Of course you can count on me.”
Her mom took a ragged breath before voicing her biggest fear. “What if . . . what if he is having an affair?”
Here’s where Faith’s worst-case scenario train of thought came up. What if her dad really was cheating on her mom? What if they got divorced? What if her dad took off to Bali to find himself like Alan did?
Okay, she was losing control here.
And control was required to get through this tricky situation. She didn’t want to go borrowing trouble. Maybe she’d have to rethink that worst-case stuff and go with something else instead. “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves, okay? No use worrying about something that in all likelihood isn’t true. Let’s go with the plan that I’ll find out what’s wrong and clear this misunderstanding up. Think how relieved you’ll be knowing that Dad isn’t being unfaithful to you.”
“But if he is cheating, he’d be good at hiding it. I mean the man is the top private investigator in Chicago. He’d be hard to catch.”
“Yes, but I’m a former librarian, and you know one of our mottos: If we don’t know the answer, we know where to find it. So don’t worry. I’ll find the answer.” Faith just hoped it was the answer they both wanted to hear and not one that would break up her family.
“So how are you settling in?” her dad asked Faith at work the next morning. She was seated in his office to go over an insurance fraud case.
“I’m doing good. How about you?”
“Overworked and underpaid.” It was a long-standing joke of his.
“Well, you’re the boss. Maybe you should ask for a raise. Or take some time off. You should take a vacation. You and Mom together. Doesn’t that sound like a great idea?”
“Hmmm.” He’d already focused his attention on a file he was studying on his computer screen.
“When was the last time you and Mom got away?”
“Hmmm.”
“Hello?” Faith rapped her knuckles on his desk. “Dad, I’m talking to you here. When was the last time you and Mom got away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then it’s been too long. Your anniversary is coming up soon. You should go somewhere romantic.”
He gave her a look. “Like Italy?”
She squirmed. “Or someplace else. Or a cruise.”
“Just shoot me now. Being stuck on a boat with a thousand other people is my idea of hell.”
“Okay then, no cruise. And it’s a ship not a boat. But there are plenty of other options. Isn’t there someplace that you’ve always wanted to see?”
“Yes. The National Security Agency in Maryland, but it’s a restricted area.”
“And not a romantic location.”
