Waiting... On You (Force Recon Marines) (2 page)

Hanna glanced over at Yancy as he went
through a set of swinging double doors to the kitchen. “He’s always seemed like
a pleasant enough man to me. A little odd at times. A little disconnected, like
he might have smoked one too many joints. And I don’t like the crowd that hangs
out after nine in here, but I figured Yancy as an ex-hippie, a free-spirit
type.” Hanna leaned forward, her expression intense and inquiring. “How are we
going to prove Dylan didn’t fall off his boat drunk? We have virtually nothing that
says otherwise.”

“We have your Seattle medical
examiner’s report,” Lance reminded her.” It raises suspicions.”

“Not for the police chief or the
sheriff it doesn’t.” Tears glimmered in her eyes. She couldn’t hold them back. The
whole thing seemed so hopeless, and she was feeling helpless as well as
miserable. She missed her brother so much!

Lance saw a tear slip down her cheek
and moved swiftly onto the seat next to her. Pulling her close to his side, he
put an arm around her. “Oh, Hanna, I know this is hard on you. I promise we
will find out what really happened to Dylan. I still have to talk to some of
Nat Simms’ neighbors, and I’m going out to have another look around the lower
end of Discovery Bay. Tomorrow I intend to go diving out by Discovery Junction
and see if the cops overlooked any clues.”

“What are you hoping to find after
more than a week?”

He handed her a napkin off the table
to wipe away her tears. “Probably nothing, but it won’t hurt to have another
look around. I might get lucky and find something.”

“I have to work tomorrow. Wait for me
to go with you on Saturday. You shouldn’t dive alone.”

Lance reluctantly moved back to his
seat across from her. “The water isn’t too deep. I’ll be fine.”

“I could try to get off.”

“I’ll be fine, Hanna.”

Yancy returned with their order. It startled
them. Neither of them saw him approach.

“So, how’s your brother, Lance?” Yancy
asked while he set their dishes on the table, along with water, coffee, and
silverware. “I hear he just got promoted to Colonel.”

Hanna shook her head in bemusement.
She’d lived in Port George nearly all her life, and it still amazed her how
fast news got around. She wasn’t sure why the town even needed a newspaper.

“Lieutenant Colonel,” Lance clarified.
“It’s not official yet, just a recommendation.”

Yancy picked up his empty tray and
eyed his placement of dishes. “Nick will get the promotion. He’s a real gung-ho
Marine. How long has he been in now? Twenty years?”

“Yeah.”

“Still in Afghanistan hunting
al-Qaeda?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, tell him we’re all proud of him
when you write him again.”

Lance nodded. He heard this all the
time, but he didn’t mind. He was proud of his older brother, too. They’d always
been real close, in spite of the years living apart. They wrote to each other
regularly, and Nick came home whenever he could get enough leave, which
unfortunately, wasn’t as often as either of them would have liked. About the
only thing that had ever come between them was this woman across from him. Only
Nick probably didn’t know how much Lance had always loved Hanna Wallace, and he
probably hadn’t noticed, either, that Hanna had always been in love with the
wrong brother.

For years, Lance had been trying to
convince her of that. They saw each other casually just to appease Lance’s
lonely heart. They met for lunch or sometimes for dinner after work as often as
she’d allow. They took his ten-year-old son to the movies, the park, and the
beach. They all went sailing on her sailboat or his, but they never did what he
wanted most— become intimate and romantically involved. He knew he needed to
give her up and start looking seriously at other women, but he hadn’t been able
to do that yet. He kept thinking that one of these days she’d realize Nick was
married to the Marine Corps, and that he was never going to come home long
enough for anything to develop between them.

Nick was crazy not to see how
beautiful, compassionate, and desirable Hanna Wallace was, but that was his
loss. Lance had never felt compelled to enlighten his older brother on the
matter. It made him laugh, though, to realize that the three of them were
dancing circles around one another. He loved Hanna. Hanna loved Nick. And Nick
was clueless.

“I suppose Nick will reenlist now that
they are going to promote him again,” Hanna said, breaking into his thoughts.

“Probably. I just can’t see Nick
retiring. The Corps is his life.”

They finished their dinner just as the
respectable crowd was starting to disappear.

“I think it’s time to go,” she urged
Lance. “Some of the newer arrivals look like they’re too ready to party
tonight. Think I’ll turn my pager off.”

“Yeah, right!” Lance chuckled.

Hanna laughed silently with him. When
was the last time she’d turned her pager off? She was as dedicated to caring
for the sick and injured as Nick was to his Corps. She put money on the table
and stood up.

Lance picked up her money and handed it
back to her.

“Why don’t you ever let me pay for
dinner, especially when I’m the one asking you?”

He grinned and shrugged. “I’m
old-fashioned.”

She chastised him with a shake of her
head and a teasing prod to his upper arm. “Male chauvinist!”

“Guilty... sometimes,” he laughed.

Outside, they walked to his brand new burnt
orange Jeep Rubicon. The soft top was off in back. After loading her bike in the
rear compartment, he opened the passenger door for her. “Why don’t you get a
new car, Hanna, instead of driving that relic that starts some days and stalls
others? You can afford it, can’t you?”

“Yes, I just haven’t had time to go to
Seattle and look.”

“You’ve been going over on the ferry
to teach classes at the University Medical Center two days a week all winter.
You could take a little time to look on one of your trips. Hell, I’ll go with
you and help you pick a car out, then dicker with the salesman. I hate to see
you driving a car that’s so unreliable. What if you get stuck out in the
boondocks at night after one of your late shifts?”

“Classes are out, and I’m not teaching
the summer session.” A tear slid down her cheek suddenly. “Dylan said nearly
the same thing to me the night before he died.”

“Oh, shit!” Lance cursed his stupidity.
“I’m sorry.”

His arms slid around her, and he
pressed her close against his chest. He kissed the top of her head, but she stepped
back before he could offer more.

He found a grin in spite of his
disappointment. “Want me to put the top up?”

“No, it’s a nice warm night. Might as
well enjoy it a little.”

Inside the Jeep, Lance reached for her
hand. “Hang in there, Hanna. I’ll try to get to the bottom of this for you.”

CHAPTER 2

JESSIE PRICE FELT EVERY ONE OF HER
SIXTY YEARS as she walked next door to visit her neighbor and friend, Colleen
McHenry. Their houses were separated from one another’s by a few hundred yards.
Both were turn-of-the-century, two-story Craftsman-style homes, lovingly kept
up and cared for by their owners. Their only difference was that one was
painted a slate blue and the other a sunny yellow. Sided in clapboard, they had
a blocky design, gabled attic windows, hipped roofs, and huge porches that
framed the front of each house. On the second floor, both homes had a small
covered porch off the front bedroom. Their similarity was due to the fact that
the same builder had built both.

In addition to the similarity of their
houses, both families owned a dozen acres of land that fronted the western side
of Discovery Bay. Though Jessie was only a Price by marriage to her now
deceased second husband, she was well acquainted with the two families’ history
on the peninsula. A century ago, the Prices and the McHenrys had moved into the
region about the same time. Fishermen, boat builders, and farmers from the
start, they had a long intertwining history.

More recently, their lives had become
tragically intertwined.

First, Colleen’s grandson had drowned.
Then nearly two weeks later, Jessie’s youngest son, Lance, had disappeared.
This past week, Colleen’s granddaughter, Hanna, had narrowly escaped two
harrowing brushes with disaster on her way home from work. Jessie felt uneasy.
Something evil had entered their placid happy lives. She was afraid, and she
was beside herself with worry for her missing son. No one seemed to have the
slightest clue what had happened to him. He’d gone diving and never come home.
Not even his rubber dinghy had been found.

Walking around the wide front porch
with its white wicker chairs and colorful potted flowers, she went around the
side of the house, to the back door, passing through Colleen’s incredible
garden. The woman had an amazing green thumb. She grew everything that would
flourish in this corner of the Pacific Northwest, from gorgeous flowers, to
lacy ferns, to fragrant herbs, to a variety of vegetables. And beyond the
house, there was Colleen’s lusciously fragrant grove of fruit trees. Jessie
gardened, too, but her garden, even with Colleen’s tutelage, wasn’t this
magnificent. With its trellises and benches, it was such a peaceful magical
place. Jessie usually loved to linger in it. Today, though, she passed through
it without even glancing at the early summer blooms.

Sitting in her rocker on the smaller
back porch, Colleen greeted her neighbor as she came up the steps. “Go in and
pour yourself a cup of coffee, then join me.”

Colleen McHenry was twenty years older
than Jessie. Despite the age difference, though, they had been the best of
friends since Jessie had married Sean Price and moved to Port George with her
two young sons. At eighty, Colleen was still an attractive woman. Her snow-white
hair was worn in a thick long braid that hung to the middle of her back.
Diminutively built, she was in good health, except for her arthritis. Her
granddaughter had always lived with her, and Dylan’s wife and baby had just
moved in. Since his divorce, Lance and his son, Christopher, had lived with
Jessie. Their two homes were full of family, but a great sadness hung over both
now.

After getting herself a cup of coffee,
Jessie went back out to the porch and took a seat in the rocking chair next to
the older woman. Neither woman spoke for a few moments as they stared silently
out over the rear yard, rocking and sipping their coffee. A compact red barn
stood in front of a small orchard of fruit trees, and beyond that, there were
glimpses of the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and the Strait of San Juan de
Fuca.

Jessie loved the Northwest,
particularly the coastal community of Port George. The weather was the best in
the region, and it was such a pleasant, peaceful community, or at least it had
been until three weeks ago, when Colleen’s grandson had died.

Jessie turned to her friend at last.
“I came over to tell you that Nick finally called me back. I just got off the
phone with him. He said his commanding officer told him to take whatever leave
he needed.”

“He’s coming home, then?”

“He’s taking the first transport plane
out of Kandahar.”

“How is Nicholas?”

“Whole and uninjured. He’s happy to be
leaving Afghanistan. It’s been a long time since he’s been home. I wish he was
coming home under better circumstances. He’s anxious to help us discover what
happened to Dylan, and he’s really worried about Lance. He’s worried about all
of us, in fact.”

“He’s a good son, Jessie, a good man.
Both boys are.” Colleen’s smile grew wistful. “I guess I love your boys as much
as I love my grandchildren. It seems we raised all of them together, like one
big family.”

Jessie had finally decided Nick needed
to come home; that this was certainly a family emergency. After Dylan’s death,
she’d called the base commander at his forward operating base and left a
message for Nick, since he was in a remote border region of Afghanistan, on an
extended covert assignment. She’d finally gotten an electronic response from
her eldest son a week ago. Then, just this week, she’d had to call his most
senior commanding officer at Camp Pendleton. General Tyler was an old friend of
her first husband’s. She had sadly informed him that Nick’s brother was
missing. General Tyler understood the severity of the family crisis and got in touch
with Nick so quickly, it took just a few hours for her son to return her call.

Like his father, Nick was a Force
Recon Marine; a career military man. Now part of the Marine Special Operations
Command, extensively trained in counter-terrorism and intelligence, he was in
command of multiple Marine Special Operations Teams. He and his units were sent
on some of the toughest, most dangerous missions in the world. Most of his
assignments were highly classified and covert. Jesse rarely knew what he was
doing, but she always knew where he was stationed. He’d risen through the
officer ranks fairly rapidly, his prestigious career helped along from the
start by many of the men who had remained in the Corps after serving in Vietnam
under her first husband. Twenty years ago, some of those same men, like General
Tyler, had helped Nick get nominated, then accepted into the Naval Academy at
Annapolis.

“What did Nicholas think about his
brother’s disappearance?” Colleen asked.

“He was upset and concerned, like all
of us.”

“Did you tell him what happened to
Hanna this week?”

“I did. He didn’t like it one bit. He
told me to tell Hanna to leave things alone until he got home—that it was too
dangerous to investigate on her own.”

“So he thinks her vehicle mishaps
could have been deliberate?”

“He thinks it’s a possibility.”

“Hanna isn’t going to leave Dylan’s
death and Lance’s disappearance alone.”

“I know. She feels terrible about
Lance. She thinks it’s her fault for encouraging him to look into Dylan’s
death, then letting him dive alone.”

“Lance would have done that on his own
anyway. Dylan was his best friend.”

“Oh, Colleen, this is all such a
nightmare!” Jessie exclaimed in a rush of tears. “What’s happening to our
families? What happened to Lance? He was less than a mile offshore. If he had
drowned, his body, dear God, would have washed up by now! Lance is as expert a
diver as Nick. I just can’t believe he died diving. He does it for a living,
and he’s been in much more dangerous waters. There still hasn’t been any sign
of his boat or his equipment. Thank God, Christopher doesn’t fully understand what
happened to his Dad. For once his limited understanding is a blessing. He’s
worried, but not frantic yet. God, I’m just heartsick about all this!”

Colleen reached over and gripped her
friend’s hand as it fisted on the wooden arm of her chair. “Nicholas will be
home soon. If anyone can get to the bottom of all this, he can. He’ll make sure
no more harm comes to our families.”

Colleen was the kind of woman who gave
comfort even in the face of her own grief. Jessie hurt for her friend because
poor Dylan was never coming home. At least she still had hope that Lance was
alive. If he was dead, she was certain she would feel it. She’d known the
moment her first husband had died. And she’d known when her oldest son had been
injured and near death, three years ago on one of his covert missions.

“When will Nicholas be here?” Colleen
asked as she pushed herself stiffly from her rocking chair.

Jessie rose to take her elbow.
“Probably midweek. He’s going to fly into San Diego, pick up his new motorcycle
from the dealer, and then ride it up here.”

The two women left the porch and
walked into the kitchen. “A motorcycle, huh? As if the man doesn’t endanger his
life enough,” Colleen chuckled, then turned soberly to her friend. “Have you
told Hanna he’s coming home?”

Jessie went to the sink to help
Colleen do her morning dishes. “No. Not yet. Will you tell her when she gets
home from work this evening?”

Colleen nodded yes, then smiled
wistfully. “Do you remember when they first met?”

“Oh, yes.” Jessie wiped the cups,
bowls, and saucers as the older woman washed them and stuck them in the dish
drainer. Staring out the big bay window, over Colleen’s sink, to the yard
beyond, she recalled the event wistfully. Lance and Nick had been eight and
nine years old at the time.

She and the boys had only been living
on the peninsula for a year when tragedy had struck their neighbors’ lives.
Colleen and Ben McHenrys’ only child, a doctor with the Red Cross, and her
husband, a doctor with the newly created Doctors Across Borders, had died in an
airplane crash in a remote quake-torn province of India. Their two small
children, Dylan and Hanna had remained in Calcutta with a nanny. They hadn’t
been with their parents when their plane had gone down, thank God, so Colleen
and Ben had flown to India to bring them home, along with the caskets of their
daughter and son-in-law.

Soon afterward, Colleen had brought
her two grandchildren over to meet Jessie’s boys. She’d been hoping to cheer
the children up, especially her five-year-old granddaughter, who was crying
herself to sleep every night because she missed her parents so much.

Lance and Nick had been out in the
yard, playing chase with Sean’s big old rangy dog. Jessie had been sitting on
the back porch, watching them, when Colleen had come over. Jessie would never
forget how Hanna had stolen her heart the instant she’d seen her. She’d been
wearing a ruffled sundress, and her honey-blonde hair had been pulled smoothly
back into a long, thick braid, secured by bows and heart-shaped barrettes. Even
then, the five-year-old had enormous, dark-lashed, emerald green eyes,
endearingly framed by even larger, black rimmed eyeglasses. Hanna Wallace was
just about the cutest little thing Jessie had ever seen. Having always wanted a
girl, she had fallen instantly in love with her.

But it was obvious at first sight that
the little girl was profoundly sad and extraordinarily shy. She had been
standing behind her grandmother, fiercely hugging her pant leg, nervously
peeking around it to look at Jessie’s two rambunctious boys. She’d also been
grasping a small basket with a tiny kitten nosing over the edge. Colleen had
bent down to tell her to keep it in the basket, when Hanna’s older brother,
Dylan, had charged by them to meet the two boys and play chase with the dog. He
had accidently tipped the basket, causing the kitten to jump out. The dog had
immediately run after it, barking furiously and chasing the kitten up the tree.
Poor little Hanna had started to cry.

Lance and Dylan, who had hit it off
immediately, started to laugh and encourage the dog. The commotion of the
barking dog and the hissing kitten, not to mention the adults’ admonishment and
Hanna’s frightened crying, made the scene chaotic. Nick took one look at the
little girl and how upset she was, and went up the tree after the kitten, which
had climbed almost to the top. Jessie remembered being scared to death as she
watched her oldest son climb out onto a limb after the barnyard pet. But Nick
had gotten the kitten down for Hanna, handed it to her with an apologetic smile
she shyly returned amid her tears, then severely admonished the boys for
teasing her. From that day on, Hanna Wallace had pretty much worshiped the
ground Nick Kelly walked on.

After that, the four children had
become inseparable friends, although it took some coaxing from Jessie and
Colleen to make the boys take little Hanna along initially on their exuberant
adventures.

Lance and Dylan were the mischievous
ones. They could think of more trouble to get into than a whole army of
children. But Nick had always protected and looked out after them all, while
Hanna attended to their numerous minor injuries, quietly, but steadfastly,
supporting their exploits. The girl was a born caretaker, just like her parents
had been.

And she’d always been in love with
Jessie’s oldest son, not that it had ever done her much good. Nick had simply
never been home long enough for anything to develop between them, much to
Jesse’s regret.