Navy SEAL Noel

by Liz Johnson

  Not a good sign.

  The red and white flashing lights of Silver Lake’s rescue vehicles—all three of them—swept across the dark form of the lone diver waist-deep in the frigid water. If the diver drifted away from the ring of artificial light, the black night would swallow him. A chill skittered down Brett’s spine. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his lined jacket, relieved and guilt-ridden that it wasn’t him outfitted in a wet suit performing the search and rescue.

  “Please let it be a rescue,” he muttered to himself.

  The rugged soles of Brett’s boots fought for purchase on the icy incline as he navigated his way to the edge of the lake. There, Officer Ed Hanson, forehead wrinkled in concentration, took copious notes on a thick stack of papers on a police-issue clipboard. Brett suspected the young officer had missed his calling as a novelist.

  “Chief.” Ed’s eyebrows shot up and the lines eased from his face. He pointed his pen toward the road. “Tracks indicate car missed the curve. Tough to tell more than that. This beast of a snowstorm is messing with my accident scene.”

  “Any victims?”

  “Car was empty.” Ed brushed the snow from his paperwork and made another note.

  Those three simple words pinged in Brett’s brain. “What happened to the driver?”

  “The dive team’s still searching.” Ed scrubbed his leather glove across his face, his nose red from the punishing lake winds. “The water’s moving quickly. Afraid the driver might have exited the vehicle and been swept away.” Ed’s confident tone slipped on the last word. Perhaps because he didn’t want to believe the driver had perished in the accident.

  The tow truck’s motor whined at a higher pitch. The bumper of a Nissan Cube broke through the surface. Sludgy brownish-green water sluiced down its sides and apprehension pricked the back of Brett’s neck.

  He knew that car. His stomach pitched as he ran his cold fingers over his lips.

  The driver was missing.

  Ed jabbed his pen in the direction of the vehicle. “Isn’t that…? I’ve seen that car around town.” He turned to face Brett. “You know who I’m talking about, right?”

  Fear burned Brett’s gut like a bowl of diner chili on a midshift break. “Yeah. I know that car.” He cleared his throat, hoping he could keep his voice steady. “I believe Nicole Braun drives a lime-green Nissan Cube.”

  Ed pushed his hat up on his forehead. “I’ve seen her around town a few times. She had a kid with her. Oh, man…” he added, as if he had just realized the missing driver was a mom who might have had a young passenger.

  “Any sign of a child on the scene?”

  “No, sir.”

  Brett had never heard about a child. Maybe Ed was mistaken. And if Brett hadn’t seen Nicole around town himself a few times over the past few months, he might have assumed Ed was mistaken that this was Nicole’s car, too. When Nicole had left town years ago as a teenager, Brett figured she’d never return to Silver Lake.

  Considering this tragic twist, Brett wished she had never returned.

  Ed angled his body away from Brett and the punishing winds to call in the license plate. Brett stared at the vehicle, wondering what Nicole had been up to since she left Silver Lake. Unexplainable regret wormed its way into his gut now that he’d probably never find out.

  Ed pulled the phone away from his ear. “The plates are registered to Nicole A. Braun.”

  Brett shook his head and the pain in his gut showed no sign of letting up. Sometimes he hated his job.

  Really hated his job.

  Brett scanned the snow for footprints, but realized he’d never be able to discern Nicole’s prints from those of the rescue personnel.

  If she had gotten out.

  “Any chance the driver made it to safety?” A sliver of hope splintered the shell around his heart. The shell that protected him from the darkness threatening to crowd in on him. A person couldn’t do this job without coping mechanisms.

  Part of him wondered why he cared. Nicole had been nothing but a source of misery to his family. Yet he took strange solace in knowing he hadn’t lost all compassion in the course of doing a tough job.

  Brett was empathetic, or so he tried to convince himself, but familiar anger and emptiness swirled inside him at the thought of Nicole. He scanned the murky water and the fine hairs at the back of his neck prickled to life.

  He’d never wished her dead.

  “She’d be soaking wet if she made it to shore. She couldn’t go far.” Ed squinted against the snowflakes.

  “She has a name. Nicole Braun.”

  The officer gave him a subtle nod. “If Miss Braun had made it to safety, she would have gone to the closest house.” Ed jerked his chin toward a well-maintained home overlooking the lake. “Mr. Hendricks, the neighbor who called us, is home. He would have been there to answer the door.

  “Mr. Hendricks was a little uncertain about what happened. He thought he saw two sets of headlights coming around the curve with one vehicle missing the curve.” Ed gestured with his thumb toward the water. “It ended up here. It’s been snowing pretty hard. The more I talked to the witness, the more he started to wonder if he had seen only one car. The headlights bounce off the falling snow. Either way, good thing he witnessed the accident. Miss Braun’s car could have gone unreported for…I don’t know how long.”

  “No one else reported an accident?” Not one car had passed since Brett had arrived.

  “No. Afraid not.”

  Brett nodded, staring at the mud-caked wheel wells of the Cube. The tow truck’s spotlight lit on a fish magnet on the back of the car. Nicole didn’t seem the type. Had she truly changed that much since her wild teenage years?

  He scratched his head. What did it matter now?

  If he believed in God and heaven and all that stuff—stuff his parents had shoved down his throat to the point he wanted to puke—it might have been a source of comfort. A sign she believed.

  Now, it only made him doubt everything he had thought he knew about his deceased brother’s girlfriend.

  Brett ran a hand along his jaw. He stared at the vehicle as the tow truck driver secured it to the back of the truck. “I’ll contact the family.”

  Ed cut him a sideways glance. “You sure you’re up for that? I understand—”

  Brett held up his hand. There were many benefits of living in a small town, but everyone knowing when a guy blew his nose wasn’t one of them. “I got it.”

  Ed met his gaze, then nodded like the good subordinate he was.

  Brett turned on his heel and hiked up the incline. The icy snow crunched under his boots. He lost his footing once and had to put his hand down to catch himself. At times like these, he wondered why he hadn’t moved south, away from the harsh winters of Western New York.

  He climbed behind the wheel of his cruiser, cranked up the heat and squeezed the cool leather of the steering wheel. He stared straight ahead at the swirling snowstorm.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  Hard to imagine that now, eight years later, Nicole had met the same fate as his brother—both their lives snuffed out in horrific car accidents.

  *

  Brett plodded through the six inches of fresh snow covering the front walk leading to Miss Mary’s small ranch. He wrapped his gloved hand around the black metal railing, steeling himself against the onslaught of emotion clogging his throat. Notifying families of accidents—possibly fatal—was never easy.

  Brett took off his hat and tucked it under his arm. He pressed the cracked doorbell and waited. And listened. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, trying to even his emotions.

  Nicole’s grandmother had been confined to a wheelchair recently, the reason, as he understood, Nicole had returned to Silver Lake. A sense of anticipation flooded his gut and made him antsy.

  Patience.

  Navigating a wheelchair through the small house would take a little extra time. He blew out a few short breaths. The moment Miss Mary opened the d
oor, her life would be changed. Forever. No going back. He ran a hand across his short-cropped hair and mentally rehearsed the few feeble words of comfort he planned to offer.

  The door creaked open. Brett glanced down, anticipating Miss Mary’s sweet face looking up at him from a wheelchair. The same sweet face that, a lifetime ago, made Sunday-school lessons fun. To his surprise, a little boy with hazel eyes, a splash of freckles across his nose and a quizzical expression on his face appeared in the doorway. Something distant, like a forgotten memory, whispered across his brain.

  “Hi, mister.” The little boy’s voice snapped Brett back to the moment.

  Brett crouched to the level of the boy. “Is your grandma home?” The word grandma came out as a question.

  The boy glanced over his shoulder but didn’t open the door more than a foot. He was probably cold in his superhero pj’s and bare feet. “My Gigi’s home.”

  “Your great grandmother?”

  The little boy nodded slowly.

  Of course.

  “Can you get her?” Brett forced a smile, his lips and cheeks frozen from the elements.

  Footsteps sounded down the hall and Brett narrowed his gaze.

  The door flew open. A wash of confusion mixed with relief swept over him. Dressed in gray sweats, with her long, wavy brown hair flowing over her shoulders, Nicole Braun glared at him, the annoyance in her gaze matching her tone. “Can I help you?”

  *

  Max’s brother stood at her door.

  Nicole braced her hand against the door frame, pinpricks of anxiety sweeping up her arms. An officer at the door with his hat tucked under his arm was not a positive development, especially when the officer happened to be the older brother of her deceased boyfriend. She swallowed hard and her eyes drifted down to her son.

  She nudged Ethan’s arm. “Run and tell Gigi I’ll be back in a few minutes with her tea.”

  Ethan glanced at the officer with wide eyes. Her little man was at the age when a man in uniform was automatically a hero. “Aw, Mom,” he groaned. “Can’t I stay?”

  Nicole’s gaze landed on the man standing on her porch. Flecks of gold touched his brown eyes, just as they did in her son’s.

  Just like Max’s eyes.

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear then crossed her arms in front of her and stifled a shudder, thankful she could blame it on the arctic wind whipping in through the open door.

  The officer’s unreadable expression did nothing to quell her rioting emotions. Had he uncovered her secret? Nicole placed a possessive hand on Ethan’s shoulder. “Go.” Impatience and dread weighed heavily on her chest.

  Once her son was out of earshot, she leaned her hip against the door frame and forced a curt tone. “Can I help you?” She made a big show of letting her gaze drop to his name tag. “Chief Brett Eggert.” But she knew exactly who he was.

  Who his family was.

  Who his brother was.

  Or had been.

  Nicole glanced over her shoulder to make doubly sure Ethan had followed her instructions. She didn’t want him to overhear their conversation.

  “Nicole.” He tipped his head in greeting. “It’s me, Brett. Max’s brother.”

  “I know who you are, Chief Eggert.” She made sure her voice oozed with indifference.

  A hint of confusion creased the corners of his eyes. “You can call me Brett.”

  She crossed her arms and sighed. “Okay, what do you want, Brett?” Despite her snarky attitude, her nerves hummed with apprehension. She had no idea why he was here—but she wasn’t about to show any weakness in front of an Eggert, a member of the family that had run her out of town eight years ago.

  Brett seemed to do a mental shake and something flittered across his eyes. “Were you in an accident this evening?”

  She slowly shook her head. “I don’t even have my…” She was about to say the word car, when it hit her. Cold icy fear pumped through her veins, matching the chill on her flesh. “My friend Missy Flowers borrowed my car.” Her eyes widened. “Has there been an accident? Is she okay?” Instinctively she sent up a quick prayer for her friend.

  But why was he asking her if she had been in an accident? If Missy was okay, he would have known Nicole wasn’t driving her own car. Her stomach pitched and her mind scrambled with the possibilities. Nothing made sense.

  Nicole stepped back and held out her arm, suddenly forgetting all the reasons she shouldn’t invite this man into her home. “Come in.” The words rasped in her dry throat.

  “Is Missy okay?” she asked again, her impatience growing each time he didn’t answer her question.

  Brett stepped into the foyer, his broad shoulders filling the narrow space. His silence ramped up her panic.

  Dear Lord, let Missy be okay, she repeated in her head. Please, please, please.

  “We pulled your vehicle out of the lake this evening.”

  “And Missy…?” Blackness darkened the periphery of her vision. She flattened her palm against the flowered wallpaper. “Is Missy okay? I let her borrow my car.” A shrill tone laced the edges of her words. She fisted her hands at her side, resisting the urge to reach out and throttle him. Demand some reassurance.

  His somber expression gave none.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally said, his voice gruff. “No one was in the car.”

  Nicole’s brow furrowed. “No one? How can that be? Where’s Missy?” The busy wallpaper swirled and the ground heaved underneath her.

  This wasn’t the first time an officer had notified her of a traffic accident. The night the police officer came to her door to tell her Max had been killed in a wreck was imprinted on her brain. She’d never forget that night and the subsequent tailspin it had sent the rest of her life into.

  Dragging her hand along the wall, she tottered to the kitchen. She found her purse hanging on the back of a chair. Her pulse roared through her ears competing with the Jeopardy! theme music in the next room. She clawed through her purse until she found her cell phone.

  Brett was saying something—headlights, accident, gone—but his words sounded like they were being forced through a long tunnel like thick goop. The orange and brown hues of her grandmother’s dated kitchen sharpened into focus.

  “I’ll call Missy. Maybe…somehow…” She swiped a finger across the smudged screen of her smartphone. Nicole frantically entered her passcode. She tried three times before she got it right. She dialed her friend’s number and lifted her eyes to meet Brett’s while the phone rang. Once…twice… His sympathetic expression made it difficult for her to breathe.

  Nicole studied the floor and focused all her energy on the ringing phone.

  Three…four…five…

  She imagined Missy clawing through her oversize bag, muttering to herself, fumbling for her cell phone. In one second Missy would answer and someday they’d laugh and laugh about the time she borrowed Nicole’s car and drove it into the lake during a snowstorm. Yeah. Ha-ha.

  Missy’s cheerful voice sounded on the line. “It’s me. You know what to do.” Voice mail.

  The last shred of hope drained from Nicole’s numb limbs. “Missy, call me as soon as you get this. I’m worried about you. Really worried…” Her last word crumbled on a sob. She tossed the phone down on the table and dropped into a chair, its legs skidding on the worn linoleum floor. “She’s not going to call me, is she?”

  “The circumstances seem dire.” Brett stood in the middle of her kitchen, as if frozen, unwilling to commit to an answer. He cleared his throat. “How do you know Missy?”

  “We both work at the funeral home.” Nicole pressed her palms together and touched the tip of her nose with her fingers. “I told her not to go to Buffalo. That the weather was bad.” She bit her lower lip, fearing she’d lose it if she let herself cry. “I canceled an appointment I had in Buffalo tonight. We were supposed to go into Buffalo together. Me for my meeting. Missy to visit a boyfriend. But my grandmother wasn’t feeling well. I didn’t want to leav
e her alone with my son.” She winced, wondering if she had made a mistake by mentioning her son, but hiding Ethan’s paternity when her friend was missing didn’t exactly seem to be a top priority.

  Nicole continued, “Missy was determined to see her boyfriend and she doesn’t have a car.” Her friend had an infectious smile and could talk anyone into anything, including talking Nicole into lending out her car on a snowy night, against her better judgment.

  “Where was Missy headed?” Brett sat across from Nicole.

  “Her boyfriend lives outside of Buffalo.” Nicole rested her elbows on the table and stared out the window, willing her car to appear in its usual spot in the driveway. “How could this be happening?”

  “The lake is mostly frozen, but there are strong undercurrents. The dive team is still searching…I’m sorry.” Brett paused, the compassion in his voice both comforting and unnerving. She wanted someone to reassure her that Missy was fine, not apologize for the reasons she wasn’t. “What time did Missy leave Silver Lake?”

  She glanced at the bird clock on the wall and saw it was about to chirp the eight o’clock hour. She sighed. “About two hours ago. I know because I was supposed to meet…” She hesitated, uncertain how much she wanted to say “…I had planned to meet with a client of the funeral home to straighten out some paperwork.”

  She traced a scar on her grandmother’s oak kitchen table. “I had to cancel my plans because my grandmother wasn’t feeling well. The meeting could wait.” She hoped. A funeral home client had complained he hadn’t received the services his father had paid for prior to his burial. Isaac King had threatened to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, his lawyer and anyone who would listen if his complaint wasn’t resolved in a timely manner.

  Nicole did some office work and cosmetology at the funeral home. When she answered Mr. King’s angry call, she promised to meet with him. Hopefully to clear things up. She didn’t want to bother Mr. Peters with this. He had enough on his plate caring for his ailing wife. Ultimately, it came down to two things: Peters Funeral Home couldn’t afford the bad publicity and Nicole couldn’t afford to lose her job.