Stone Cross (Arliss Cutter #2) - Marc Cameron Page 0,60

worried about him. I need to know if there’s anything I can do for him. He seems so . . . I don’t know . . .”

“Ready to explode?”

“Yes!” Mim said, exhaling with relief that the chief understood. “Exactly. I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“You’re not,” Phillips said. “I’m worried about him too. The problem is, I’m his boss, and his new boss at that. He’s not likely to confide much in me. Not until we know each other a little better. I know he thinks the world of you and your family, though. He would never have left Florida otherwise.”

“He loves the kids,” Mim said. She knew how Arliss felt about her in the past—or she’d figured it out, shortly after she and Ethan were married. But he’d been married four times since then.

“Has something happened?”

“Not at all,” Mim said. “To be honest, he’s been this way for years. It’s nothing new. I’m just able to see it more clearly now.” She closed her eyes, pausing for a moment to screw up her courage. Jill Phillips seemed to know it was time for her to be quiet and listen. A rare trait in a boss, or any human being for that matter.

“I know it’s a lot to ask,” Mim said at length. “But, can you tell me what happened to him in Afghanistan?”

Silence.

“I’m overstepping,” Mim said. “Asking you to betray a confidence.”

“No,” Phillips said. “It’s not that. As a matter of fact, I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. And honestly, it’s more your business than it is mine. You’re his family. The U.S. Army doesn’t provide that kind of information when someone gets out. There are no specifics in his record other than the fact that he was awarded a Silver Star.”

“I knew about that,” Mim said. “He doesn’t talk about it, but I knew.”

“There’s a citation with it,” Phillips said. “But it’s vague. They do that if the action has to do with something classified.”

“My husband thought it was some other event that was bothering him,” Mim said. “Not related to the stuff that led to him getting the Silver Star. Their grandfather, the man who raised them, he thought so too.”

“Grumpy?”

Mim smiled. “Yes. I got the impression Grumpy found out something about what happened from one of the guys in Arliss’s unit, but Grumpy passed away before he could tell Ethan.”

Mim started to mention her conversation with Arliss at the Dome, but that seemed a violation of trust. It was a stupid notion. She was asking the chief to tell her Arliss’s secrets. She should be willing to do the same thing in order to help him. Phillips spoke before Mim had to.

“Listen,” the chief said, sighing as if she’d reached a major conclusion. “I’ve been going back and forth for the better part of three months about contacting one of Arliss’s old US Army Ranger buddies—a guy named David Carnahan. He’s a physician in Virginia now. For all I know, he’s the same one who Grumpy got his information from.”

Mim’s hands gripped the steering wheel. She rocked back and forth in her seat. “You have his phone number?”

“I do,” Phillips said. “But I have to tell you, there’s a danger here you need to keep in mind. People who serve together can be awfully protective. There’s a better than average chance Dr. Carnahan won’t tell you anything, but will call Arliss and let him know you’re digging around.”

“I . . .”

“You worried I might do the same thing?”

“I kinda did,” Mim said.

“I might have,” Phillips said. “Had you been a flake.”

“Dr. Carnahan’s number?”

“Here you go,” Phillips said, reading off the digits beginning with the 703 area code. “Arliss is fortunate to have you in his corner.”

“And you too, Jill,” Mim said, writing the number on her hand. “Tell me again what kind of doc Carnahan is. I’m a nurse. I know how to talk to doctors.”

“A pediatric surgeon,” Phillips said.

“But he wasn’t a doctor in the army?”

“No,” Phillips said. “A Ranger. So tread lightly. There’s a good chance that if something terrible happened to Arliss, David Carnahan was smack dab in the middle of it with him.”

“I’ve gotta do something,” Mim said.

“I’m that way too,” Phillips said. “A fixer.”

CHAPTER 20

Vitus Paul’s tracks stopped in the snow ten feet from the prone body. It was easy to see why.

Snow lent a peculiar intensity to blood, unmuted by the fog.

Pooling on the grimy asphalt of a city street or oozing onto the dirt floor of