Chances Are - By Christy Reece Page 0,43
happened?” wasn’t a surprise. What struck him was the sadness he heard in the man’s voice.
Quickly and succinctly, Jake described the evening’s events. McCall had expelled a long, ragged breath. “Bring her back here when you can. She’ll want to talk to Samara.”
The LCR leader had ended the call with disturbing information. Another woman was missing. There was no seeming tie to the disappearances of the other women with the exception of a bouquet of red roses found in the woman’s home. Neither a stripper nor a waitress, the missing woman worked at a small investment firm. Her home was in a different area of the city from where the other victims had lived. Plus, her physical characteristics had nothing in common with the killer’s preferences. The only similarities were the roses and the fact that she had vanished without a trace. The police were tentatively treating her disappearance as related.
After talking with McCall, Jake debated his next move. Telling the others, Riley Ingram and Justin Kelly, that he and Angela were off the job felt too precipitous. He wanted to wait and talk to Angela again after she’d had a while to think about her decision. Just because she’d told McCall she was off the case didn’t mean things couldn’t be reversed. Why he was so concerned about changing her mind escaped him. Only a week ago, he would’ve been happy to hear she had decided against being an operative. Now, he wanted to convince her to stay the course.
Jake shoved his fingers through his hair. Hell, his thinking was as skewed as Angela’s.
The door behind him opened. He whirled around and watched as she wandered into the room like a lost waif. And he knew why he wanted to change her mind. Before this incident, there had been a bright, unquenchable light in her eyes. The brightness was gone, leaving them dull and sad.
She held up a bandaged hand. “It’s a slight sprain. No fractures. The doctor said it should be fine within a week or so.”
“That’s good news.”
She grimaced a half smile. “I guess we can leave.”
In silence they left the hospital, got in the car and headed back to the apartment. Jake searched for the right words—something he could tell her that would make her rethink the experience and realize her fear had been natural. The truth hit him between the eyes and with a sigh, he opened his mouth and did something rare. He began to talk about his past.
“I went into the Army gung-ho and clueless. Took to the training like a duck in water. Everything they asked of me, I was eager for the challenge and excelled in it. Ask me to shoot a target, I was dead-on. Drop me in the middle of wilderness with no equipment and I’d find my way home, no problem. Tell me to swim a mile in the ocean and then hike twenty miles just to capture a damn flag, I was all over it.”
As he talked, Angela sat quietly, unmoving. He knew he had her attention because her body was stiff, as if she were holding her breath. Encouraged, he continued, “Then came my orders. They were sending me to Afghanistan. I was going to fight, probably kill, and possibly be killed. It finally hit me that I was going to have to put all those skills I’d learned and excelled at to use. I was scared shitless.”
Jake thought back about that time. Today he could smile at that too eager kid who enjoyed playing Army until it came time to man-up and actually do what he’d been trained to do.
“What did you do?”
Pleased at the question, he continued his story. “The night after I got my orders, I lay in my bunk and thought about all the things that could happen. The harder I thought about it, the more I panicked. The next day, I was headed to talk to my sergeant, ready to admit that I wasn’t prepared. On the way, I passed by the chapel. I thought, ‘What the heck? I’ll go in and have a talk with the Big Guy before I give it all up.’
“The chaplain happened to be in his office as I passed by, and for whatever reason, maybe because I looked scared or probably because he’d seen the same thing in hundreds of other soldiers, he invited me inside. I sat down and let it spill. Every fear, every scenario my brain could come up with…”
They pulled into