“Will do, ma’am.”
Molly burst into the room. My God, thought Chase, she is the very image of her father. The shape of her tiny mouth. How could someone so tiny and feminine be modeled after someone who had been, at least by appearances, so masculine?
Chase reached to open the refrigerator door for a bottle of water and willed herself to avoid the snapshots of Stone. Of course, she’d have to decide soon what to do about them. Would she have the stomach to leave them up for Molly’s sake? How would Chase explain taking them down? “Is it time to go?” she asked in a shaky voice that surely sounded ridiculously chipper, even to Molly. Thankfully, the doorbell rang.
“Can you get the door while I get the candy?” Molly ran for the door, and Chase ripped open the candy bags she’d been safeguarding all day and dumped them into a large ceramic bowl that she carried into the living room. Sara, Paige’s daughter, was dressed as a princess, or so Chase was guessing by the look of the frothy pink dress and glittery crown; Erin was a gypsy in her floor-length peasant skirt and wild red hair like her mother’s, like Chase imagined Samantha to have looked as a little girl. Molly was spinning about in her grass skirt, while Erin demonstrated how finger tambourines worked and sounded. Sara’s face turned somber, as if she were suddenly disappointed in her princess costume, and Chase wondered if dressing as a princess had been the little girl’s idea or Paige’s.
“Let me change clothes,” Chase told the girls, and headed for her bedroom. She stood in the middle of a walk-in closet among the orderly rows of khaki Capri’s, pressed white shirts, the stacks of folded jeans, and the row of uniforms and found it impossible to choose. This was depression, she thought. A never-ending sense of the present. If Hickman had his way, she was out of a job already. Her marriage had been a sham, and her husband had played a vital role in a cover-up conspiracy that may have cost so much loss of life. Her infidelity with General Armstrong had been exposed, which could mean a possible court-martial for both of them on grounds of conduct unbecoming an officer. She’d put her entire career at risk by delivering what she knew to a reporter rather than trusting the military chain of command—
Her impatient daughter called from the living room. “I’m coming,” Chase shouted from the walk-in closet. She hurriedly pulled on a pair of Khakis and slid a white, long-sleeved t-shirt over her head. She eased into the comfort of Nikes and gazed longingly at her bed, at the temporary escape of sleep it promised. Then she slipped her wedding band from her hand and tossed it on the bed.
Back in the living room, Molly was doling candy to several trick-or-treaters. Chase stuffed her cell phone in a pocket, set the bowl of candy on the porch, flipped on the porch light, and ushered all three girls out the door.
Paige and Samantha had been waiting on the sidewalk in front of Chase’s house. “Love your costume, Molly,” Samantha said. “Can you hula?” Molly set her candy bucket on the grass, provided the shortest version of the hula most likely ever performed, then raced to join Sara and Erin who were already at the house two doors down. Samantha chuckled. “She’s adorable.”
“They’re growing up so fast,” Paige said.
Their daughters shouted Mahalo (thank you) at the first house and were already racing for the second. “Right now,” Paige added, “they can’t imagine not knowing each other, not spending time together every day.” Paige seemed in an uncharacteristically reflective mood this evening.
Samantha gently pulled Chase aside onto the grass to avoid the group of children now racing from Paige’s house, where Lt. Col. Abercrombie was sitting on the front porch with a bowl of candy in his lap.
“Were we ever that young?” Samantha laughed.
There was the chorus of “trick-or-treat,” then Mahalos. Samantha leaned in. “Everything okay, Chase? You look so pale.”
Chase shrugged. “Sure,” she said, and pointed down the street toward their girls who were heading toward their third house. “We need to catch up,” she urged.
It was a breezy October night with a damp chill in the air. Lining the sidewalks were flickering candles in white paper bags. Several bags had already been blown to their sides, or perhaps they’d been knocked over by exuberant children. She shivered as she walked down the sidewalk between Samantha and Paige. Over her arm was Molly’s light blue windbreaker that she’d grabbed from the closet by the front door. Now she was wishing she’d grabbed a windbreaker for herself. Samantha appeared comfortable in her long denim skirt and heavy sweater jacket, and Paige had used the burst of October coolness as an excuse to pull on a pair of tan corduroy pants. Over this, she wore a long T-shirt and a fitted denim jacket, reminding Chase of a walking advertisement for J. Crew.
The sidewalks were filling with children and clusters of parents who were hanging back to provide that heady sense of freedom they had relished as children on Halloween nights. Chase, Paige, and Samantha strolled their neighborhood, greeting the clusters of parents who would often pause midsentence to compliment another child’s costume or shout at one of their own to slow down, and then conclude the sentence in that skillful way parents develop over time. Chase smiled and answered questions about Molly’s well-being. She floated through the motions of being neighbor and mother.
The three girls were by now at the Sims’ house. The major’s wife, Charlotte Sims, whom Chase had met the first time at the Ball nearly a year ago and had only run across a handful of time since while shopping at the PX and commissary, tossed candy at the girls. The girls shouted Mahalo and were off to the next house. Paige called out to Charlotte who waved and shouted, “Have you seen the boys? All three of them.” The reference to her husband, the tall and lanky Major Sims as one of the boys, caused all three women to erupt in laughter.
“No,” they called back in unison.
Paige added, “We’ll keep our eyes out for them.”
The girls were working their way up the opposite side of the street now, nearly parallel with Samantha’s house, skipping down the sidewalk, slowing to stare at two boys whose heads were eerily enclosed in carved out pumpkins. The boys held flashlights under their chins to add to the spookiness, and the girls squealed and raced to the next porch. Chase and the others laughed and pulled up under the limbs of a wide tree across the street from her house.
“Do you have a sitter for the Marine Corps Ball?” Samantha said, waving to her husband and pointing toward the house where he could catch a glimpse of his daughter on her night out.
Chase stammered, “No … I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Use mine,” Samantha suggested. But, thought Chase, what did it all matter, now that she’d been fired? Samantha—the whole world, for that matter—would find out in the next day or so. What if all her efforts to expose Hickman and Farris as co-conspirators with Shapiro’s help came to nothing? What if Figueredo….
The two boys with the pumpkin heads walked by with the flashlights under their chins. Creepy, Chase thought, remembering why she hated Halloween. Why she’d always hated horror movies. She watched the two pumpkin heads cut across the lawn of the Sims’ house and disappear behind the front door. So two of the Sims’ boys were home, anyway. Chase glanced around for the tall figure of their missing father.
“But the Ball’s next Saturday night.” Paige was saying to Samantha. “Did you find a gown?”
“I was serious,” Samantha chuckled, “when I said I was going to wear the same dress I wore last year.”
Paige abruptly excused herself to speak with a woman who Chase recognized as a board member of the Officers’ Wives’ Club and who was in charge of raising money for the annual Navy Relief Fund Drive. Both women were huddled in a private discussion.
Chase looked up at the moon that reminded her of a round, white pool of light. She thought of the families of those Marines who had just lost their lives in the 81 crash over Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, that minute, the sun was already rising on a new day….
“Chase, is something wrong?” Samantha had stopped w
alking. She tugged at Chase’s forearm.
“What do you mean?”
“You seem so distracted.”
“Samantha, if I …” Chase hesitated. Could she trust Samantha?
“What is it, Chase? What’s wrong?” Darkness had settled over the island like a blanket. On Oahu, there were no street lights, and the base, out of courtesy, had observed this reverence for energy conservation or whatever the purpose was. Chase had never learned why. But now that the breeze had picked up and darkness was enveloping them, the only light on the street was proffered from small porch lights and the open doorways that allowed the outside world a glimpse into the home conditions and styles of others, and the tiny, flickering candles in white paper bags that lined the sidewalks and driveways. Samantha moved in close enough that Chase could read the concern in her friend’s face. Sam gave a reassuring squeeze to Chase’s upper arm.
“If I were to tell you something …”
“Wait,” Samantha whispered. “Chase, you can tell me anything, but whatever it is … are you telling me as a friend or as someone who needs a lawyer?”
The question was startling. Up to that moment, Chase hadn’t been thinking of Samantha as anyone other than a friend, but it was now occurring to Chase that it was everything about the woman—the fact that Samantha had once been a Marine and a JAG attorney, was still an attorney—that was instilling an unusual boldness within Chase to divulge what she knew about Stone and Melanie and about the conspiracy to keep the 81 flying, even about Hickman and Farris’ involvement and that Hickman had just fired her. Several years earlier, when Chase had been in advanced public affairs training at Fort Meade, she’d met a troubled, complicated air force captain who finally broke one night over a beer in the officer’s club and told her about his secret life as a CIA operative. At first, Chase had thought the story of how this man had left briefcases behind toilets in bathroom stalls in foreign countries, and of retrieving them from behind toilet stalls, had been some sort of come-on ruse to get her into bed. He’d said, “They told us, you know, during CIA training that we’d eventually break and have to tell one person … I guess you’re my one person …” and she’d been about to congratulate him on making it on her top-ten pick-up line list when she realized he was serious. North had been Chase’s one person, but she doubted she could even tell North about Stone’s affair with Tony White. Was Samantha about to become the one person to whom Chase would tell everything? But did she need Samantha as a friend or for legal advice?
Paige was still talking with the woman from the officer’s wives club when Sara and Erin came jogging back up the sidewalk. “Where’s Molly?” Chase asked.
Sara said, “I thought she was right behind us.”
“No,” said Erin, “she was still talking to Mrs. Sims when we left.”
Samantha scolded her daughter. “The rule was for the three of you to stay together.” Samantha looked around for Paige.
“That’s okay, Sam,” Chase said. “I’ll walk back for her. You and Paige go on ahead with the girls.” The Sims’ house was on the opposite side of the street and a block south, and Chase was only halfway across when she had to dodge a wave of tiny trick-or-treaters. She turned back to see that the ghoulish river of costumed children was dispersing around her friend, in search for the path of least resistance. Samantha appeared hysterically defenseless in their wake. “Let’s meet back at my place,” Chase shouted.
“Sure,” Samantha called back and waved above the bobbing heads of chattering children.
CHAPTER 19
She’d actually expected to meet Molly sauntering up the sidewalk from the Sims’ house. As each small wave of children passed, Chase strained against the darkness to make out her little girl in the hula skirt. Chase rounded the corner, and though the Sims’ house was still two away, she could make out the empty porch under an umbrella of white light. Chase stopped walking. She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, now all alone, and searched both sides of the street. There were trick-or-treaters at the door of a house halfway down the block, but Chase could tell Molly wasn’t in the group. Where was she? There could only be one explanation. Obviously Chase had missed her daughter in one of the chatty waves of children. By now, Molly was most likely home, or she’d been safely corralled by Samantha. Chase headed quickly back up the hill and toward home.
She liked her street best, at least by day. The trees provided a canopy over the street, a sense of life in the suburbs, even if it were in a tropical paradise such as Hawaii. But at night the canopy blocked out much of the light from the streetlamps. Porch lights fell short of the sidewalk. Every now and then, she was aided by the light of those few candles still glowing in white paper bags, but most had been knocked over or blown out under the pressure of the night’s breeze. She shivered. Molly must be freezing, she thought, and wished she’d insisted her daughter wear the jacket that Chase was clutching in her right hand.
Ahead, the street was alive with children and parents. Molly had to be somewhere in that crowd. There was Samantha, under a streetlamp, talking with Paige. Samantha smiled when she first noticed Chase, and just as quickly dropped the smile. “Didn’t you find her?”
Chase slowed her pace. “You mean she’s not back? You haven’t seen her?”
“No. We’ve been here the whole time. Let’s check inside.” Chase heard the urgency in Sam’s voice. It matched her own.
Paige called out, “I’ll stay here with Sara and Erin,” as Samantha and Chase raced up the sidewalk and driveway.
“Don’t panic,” Chase heard Samantha say behind her as Chase threw open her front door.
“Molly,” Chase shouted and searched the kitchen first. She nearly bumped smack into Samantha who was returning from the opposite direction after searching in Molly’s bedroom.
Samantha shook her head. “I checked the bathroom, too.”
“Where could she have gone?”
“Now don’t panic,” Samantha said, pushing her friend back toward the front yard. “You know she’s out here among all these kids somewhere. Nothing’s going to happen to Molly here on the base.”
True. Samantha was right. This was a Marine base, for crying out loud. Then again, given what she’d just learned about Hickman and Farris, even Stone and Tony White and the role they had played in covering up problems with the 81, just how long was she going to hold on to such lofty ideals.
When the two women reached Paige at the top of Chase’s driveway, Samantha delivered the news. “She’s got to be around here somewhere, Chase.” And toward the group of trick-or-treaters playing in the street, Paige called, “Molly. Molly Anderson.” She called Sara and Erin over. “You girls still haven’t seen Molly?” They shook their heads.
Chase turned to Samantha. “I’m going back down the hill toward the Sims’ house. Will you go the other way?”
“Of course.”
“Do you have your cell phone?” Chase pulled hers from her pocket.
“No, but I’ll go get it.”
“Sam, if I don’t find her in the next ten minutes, I’m calling the MPs.”
“We’ll find her, Chase,” she said, but Chase had already walked away and was placing a cell phone call.
North picked up on the first ring. “I can’t find Molly,” she said, willing herself to remain calm.
“Where are you?”
“On foot. Headed toward Major Sims’ house where she was seen last. We’ve been trick-or-treating.”
“Meet you there in five.”
“No,” she shouted just before he could hang up. “Check out my backyard first. I remember noticing the gate was open—not sure who opened it or why.” Her stomach was flip-flopping. No way Molly would have gone into their dark backyard by herself, but if she and, say a friend from school, had decided to shortcut the walk home….
Charlotte Sims answered the door, perhaps expecting late trick-or-treaters, given the consternation in her face. “Oh, hi,” she said. “I thought—”
Chase introduced herself. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Sims, but I’m looking for my daughter, Molly, and her friends don’t remember seeing her after they were here. She’s about this tall,” and Chase pointed to her hip, “and she’s wearing a hula skirt.”
“I remember her,” Mrs. Sims said. “She has your eyes. Beautiful eyes.”
“Thank you, but do you remember which way she went after she left here?”
“No, I don’t.” Charlotte Sims thought a moment. “That was at least half an hour ago, and there were so many other children after her. Seems they all came at once this year.” Behind the woman were both sons, still half in costume.
“Could you ask your sons?”
Mrs. Sims called over both boys, but neither remembered even seeing Molly at all. As if reading the panic in Chase’s face, Charlotte Sims said, “I’m sure she’s probably at home by now, but I’d be happy to call my husband for you.”
Chase looked at her watch. It was nearly nine. Surely if Molly had returned home, Samantha would have called. She flipped open her cell phone. No service, which provided an explanation for why she hadn’t heard from Sam. “I’m sure Molly’s probably home by now. Thank you, Mrs. Sims.”
Chase marched back up the dark hill, stopping every ten or fifteen feet to check for service on her cell phone. Nothing. She crisscrossed the street toward a clearing with the thought that perhaps the tree canopy was adding to the normal interference caused by the air traffic control tower. She glanced up at the tower, at its blinking lights, and had the sense that whoever was up there tonight had a front-row seat to her state of panic. Her cell phone still registered no service, so she gave up and headed the rest of the way up the hill.
“A little old for trick-or-treating, aren’t you?”
A startled Chase stifled a scream. “What are you doing out here?”
Colonel Figueredo had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. To get home, she’d have to pass him, or she could cross the street again. She chose the latter. “I have to get home, sir. I’m in a hurry.”
An Unlawful Order (The Chase Anderson Series) Page 25
