her pen on the green cloth cover of her notebook, watching the black barrel spin to stop, pointing straight at the chaplain, who’d stood to gather his papers after leading the casualty briefing for rear detachment. She couldn’t shake the thought of a family who was going about their business right now, thinking everything was right in their world.
“You okay?” Captain Alexander, the battalion rear detachment commander, stopped behind her on his way out the door. “Did you know Specialist Murphy?”
“Only by sight.”
The captain didn’t even hear her. He’d already moved on, out the door before her reply could even get to him.
Jessica stacked her things and pushed her chair back, feeling older than her twenty-eight years. This was no way to start a Monday.
No, she hadn’t known Specialist Murphy, but she could picture his mischievous grin at the Family Readiness Group picnic when he’d paid half a week’s pay to shove a cream pie in his First Sergeant’s face. It was true to form for Murphy. He’d taken every opportunity to buck his chain of command. Having license to do it publicly, even for a fund-raiser, had apparently been too much for him to resist.
Pulling the book tighter against her chest, Jessica shook off weighted emotion as she walked across the small courtyard from headquarters to her company’s building. Death never got easier. If the captain wasn’t going to get upset, neither was she. She could fall apart when she got home away from anyone who would see her grief as a weakness.
Her boots thudded heavy on the industrial tile, but they slid to a stop as she neared her office. The door was cracked slightly, light from her huge windows leaking into the dark hallway.
She shoved her hand into her uniform pocket, feeling for the key, vividly remembering how the lock had stuck as she’d left for the casualty briefing. With her Rear D soldiers on a detail across post and everyone else of consequence in the briefing, there was no one who should have needed access to her office.
Laying her book on a desk in the outer office, she peeked around the corner.
A female soldier, her back toward the door, stuffed Jessica’s work laptop into a small black backpack, but her focus stayed on the desktop’s screen. She fidgeted back and forth as if she was waiting for something, then reached under the desk, pulled something from the computer’s tower and shut the machine down, just like Jessica had left it.
It had only been a couple of weeks since her other laptop was stolen, and that theft had brought wrath down on her head. No way was she going through that again. Jessica stepped back, giving the woman just enough room to exit the office. Arms crossed over her chest, she waited.
The door pulled fully open, and Specialist Lindsay Channing stepped out, intent on shutting the door quietly behind her before she turned. When she spotted Jessica, her steps stuttered backward. “Staff Sergeant Dylan. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Funny.” Jessica dropped her arms and balled her fists loosely at her sides. “I could say the same thing about you. Care to explain?”
Channing’s gaze darted from Jessica to a spot up the short hallway, then to the floor before going back to Jessica. “I was just coming back from a meeting and was going to stop by and give you some paperwork but your door was open and...” She took a step forward, sliding the backpack into her hand.
“Try again.”
“That’s the truth.” Channing smiled slightly and then edged to one side, trying to slip around Jessica.
Not on her life. Not until she coughed up what she’d been doing in that office. Jessica stepped sideways with her as Channing lashed out and swung with the heavy backpack, catching Jessica against the temple.
Something clattered to the floor as the blow drove Jessica to the right and slammed her shoulder into the cinder block wall, shooting pain through her body like electricity. It took a moment for the world to clear, and Channing was running up the hall for the exit.
Jessica tried to shake off the blow, doubling over with her hands on her knees, shoulder screaming from contact with the wall. A few feet away, what had to be Specialist Channing’s cell phone glinted in the sunlight. Jessica shoved it in her leg pocket and took off out the door in pursuit, though each fall of her boots on the floor jarred an unbearable pounding through her.
One of the young soldiers on staff duty, tasked with keeping watch over the battalion area, stepped out of the headquarters building as Specialist Channing raced across the courtyard, flinging the backpack into the bushes as she ran.
“Call 911!” Jessica shouted at him as she rushed past, pushing to gain on the thief, praying he’d follow the order instead of gawking at their backs.
Jessica’s world spun in the chill of a November Kentucky afternoon, the ache in her shoulder intensifying in the cold. She would not let this slow her down. She. Would. Not. Rounding the corner of the building at the parking lot, she stopped and grabbed the rough metal of a small fence, willing the pain to stop, watching as a small red sports car screeched into the parking lot, throwing gravel in its wake.
Channing dove into the passenger’s seat, but the car didn’t move.
Gathering her reserves, Jessica pushed away from the fence and stepped forward, prepared to confront anyone who tried to get in her way. She was not going to get called on the carpet for another missing laptop. Her career couldn’t take that blow.
A man in civilian clothes climbed from the car, reaching into his coat for something she couldn’t see, setting off alarms that refused to be silenced. His dark eyes raked across her as he paused beside the vehicle not twenty yards away.
Jessica took a step back, catching her foot against the fence, reaching out to brace herself as the man pulled his hand from inside his coat, a thick knife glinting in the late-afternoon sun.
* * *
Staff Sergeant Sean Turner was out of his small rental car and halfway to the building when the man exited the little red sports car and stalked toward Staff Sergeant Dylan. Three days he’d been pulling surveillance on her and nothing. Now, everything exploded at once.
He pushed hard across the asphalt as the man pulled a knife and stepped closer to his victim.
If Jessica Dylan died in front of him, Sean would have one more sin to add to his list of unforgivables. That list was long enough already. “Back away!” The shout echoed off the buildings on the other side of the nearly deserted parking lot, competing with his footfalls for volume.
The man straightened and whipped around, knife at the ready.
This was not going to be fun.
Especially not without his weapon and with his shoulder still healing. There was no way to get authorization to carry a gun on post without compromising the mission. He’d have to get through this altercation with what existed inside his own skin.
Holding up his hands to show he wasn’t armed, Sean stopped a few feet away from Jessica Dylan, edging slowly to the left to put himself between the man and his prey. “If you put down the knife, we’ll stop this now.” He motioned for Jessica to slip around the end of the fence—anything to put a barrier between her and the man creeping closer.
“Staff duty called the police.” Jessica spoke from behind him. “They should be here any second.” There was no fear in her voice, just fact.
If the situation weren’t so dire, Sean would break away to high-five her cool in the heat of battle. She didn’t even sound out of breath.
The other man didn’t flinch at Jessica’s declaration. He took a step to the left, seeming to calculate the shortest distance around Sean to Jessica. Never once did he turn back toward the car, his likely escape route.
Sean’s heart hammered harder. Whoever this guy was, his focus wasn’t on getting away. It was squarely on Jessica Dylan.
That changed everything. If keeping her quiet was more