"What?" she asked on an anxious note.
"You sure you belong in a place like this?" he asked her. "I mean, it's a far cry from where you came from." He pictured the neighborhood where she'd lived with Garret.
That silenced her for two seconds. "I'm not the pampered miss that you think I am, Chase. My roots are as humble as yours are. If you're worried that you'll be responsible for us in any way, you won't," she reassured him. "And, of course, I'll pay the full rent, which I hope I can afford," she added belatedly.
Her feisty reply made his lips twitch. He liked it when Sara stood up for herself. "When're you figurin' on coming up?" he asked.
"What about tomorrow?"
The thought of her and Hannah crossing paths unsettled him. "You should wait till the skinheads are apprehended," he suggested.
"But that's part of the reason that I want to come back," she confessed. "I want to help with that. I'm the only one who knows what Will looks like."
Chase grunted his acknowledgment.
"And then there's Kendal, who's missed so much school now. I wanted to enroll him before Columbus Day."
Yeah, and his leave time was also dwindling. If he meant to spend any time with Sara, it was best that she came back soon. Obviously, he was going to have to tell Hannah what he'd done.
"Well, come on home, then," he invited, with a rush of anticipation that he didn't care to ponder too much.
"I will. See you then," she promised, hanging up. Chase put away his cell phone with a self-mocking smile. As before, he just couldn't seem to tell her,
No.
Members of the Special Operations Alpha Team, convened in Conference Room B at the Broken Arrow Police Headquarters around a long, rectangular table. Chase was introduced by Dean Cannard as a former resident of Broken Arrow, currently a counterterrorist Navy SEAL, who was standing in for their missing team member. Given the closed looks of the fourteen other SOT members, he was going to have to win their acceptance.
Hannah, on the other hand, had been warmly received. She sat at the head of the table, one ear cocked to the conversation, fingers poised over the laptop in front of her. Using a wireless connection, she had established realtime communication with FBI analysts at headquarters.
"Les Wright and Timothy Olsen can't be located," admitted the SOT leader, Captain Lewis, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. "The leader of the group goes by the name Will. Detective Cannard's found no mention of his last name in the evidence that we've gathered."
Hannah looked up from her laptop. "He's the former Army Ranger?" she inquired.
"That's the rumor," the captain corroborated.
"I'll have my analysts access the American Veteran's database," Hannah offered. "If there's a Will living in Broken Arrow and receiving pension benefits, then he's probably your man."
Captain Lewis flicked a glance at Cannard. "Good idea," he answered.
"And as for Les Wright and Tim Olsen, I've requested tax information from the IRS on both of them," Hannah added. "It never hurts to look at employment history."
"Excellent. We're talking about a group of at least ten members, none of whom can be located for questioning right now. All we have is a reference to a truckload of ANFO and the promise of a demonstration on Columbus Day. We need to bring some of the members in. I have our uniformed division out scouring the city for them."
"Let's talk about potential targets," Hannah suggested, keeping Chase from having to open his mouth.
Detective Cannard leaned forward to put in his two cents. "Well, I've reviewed all the evidence at our disposal; I've even had a couple of officers here look at it, but we can't find mention of the target anywhere. Given the racial bias of this group, it could be a federal building, as in the Oklahoma City bombing. It might also be an ethnic neighborhood or a school, or even a local company that's given jobs to minorities and laid off too many white workers. Who knows?"
A reflective silence stole over the table.
"The members of the group know," said Hannah, garnering everyone's attention. She gave them a cool smile. "You put up flyers all over town with Les and Timothy's pictures on it, and offer a reward. Does anyone know what Will looks like?"
Dean Cannard's gaze slid expectantly in Chase's direction. Hannah followed his gaze with a curious look.
"We may have to subpoena Ms. Jensen to give us a description," Dean said on an apologetic note.
Chase couldn't give him the excuse that Serenity was gone, not when she was on her way back, even as they spoke.
"Who's Ms. Jensen?" Hannah asked, with a frown.
"Friend of mine," said Chase, earning a long, curious stare from her. Now that Sara had identification corroborating her new name, he supposed it wouldn't hurt if she gave a statement. "She's been out of town. I'll bring her in tomorrow."
Hannah put a thoughtful finger to her lips.
"See if you can get a composite sketch from her," Captain Lewis instructed Cannard, who gave a nod.
Chase was conscious of Hannah's burning regard throughout the rest of the meeting.
At last, the group disbanded, and she and Chase headed into the sun-baked parking lot, headed for the red Mustang. She'd insisted on driving, not because of her unlimited mileage but because she loved flying along the hilly back roads at way over the speed limit.
"Okay, Chase," she said, tossing her briefcase into the backseat, "spill the beans."
He waited until their car doors were shut and she was backing them out of the parking space. "You remember Sara Garret, the lawyer's wife at Jaguar's court-martial?"
She shot him a funny look. "Yeah, she and her kid disappeared a few weeks back."
Chase kept quiet, waiting for her to figure it out.
"Oh, no," she exclaimed with predictable horror. "Oh, my God, Chase!"
"Don't lecture me," he warned her. "You don't know what her life was like, what he did to her kid."
His words rendered her silent for a long, long while.
That didn't slow her speed, however. The Mustang screamed down the country road, turning the pastureland on either side into a green blur. Chase lost his stomach on a couple of hills as the car caught air.
"Chase," Hannah finally said, with a rare quaver in her voice, "that case was labeled an abduction. An Amber Alert was issued nationwide. Do you know what that means?"
He'd intentionally not given it much thought.
"It means," she continued with intensity, "that the FBI has jurisdiction over the case, which means that I have every right to arrest you right now."
"It wasn't an abduction," Chase insisted. He didn't suffer a moment's doubt that Hannah would arrest him.
"That doesn't mean that Garret won't press charges." She shook her head, shooting him a few more looks, each one more incredulous than the last. Unexpectedly, a smile seized the edges of her mouth, turning her frown into a grin.
"What's so funny?" he demanded.
"I never thought I'd see it," Hannah declared.
He had an inkling of where she was going with this.
"You're in love!" she cried, with a shout of laughter.
Chase's heart seemed to freeze over at the suggestion. He glowered at her, causing her broad grin to fade. "Don't say shit like that," he warned her. If she were any woman other than Hannah, he wouldn't talk that way. But Hannah, to him, was one of the guys, as good a friend as Luther was.
Her smile disappeared. "Come on, Westy, lighten up," she countered. "Everyone falls in love at some point in their life."
"Not me," he insisted, hardening himself further. "I don't want you sayin' it again, especially not around Sara. She knows what I do. She doesn't need to be misled by some cock-'n'-bull notion that I'll be there for her. Besides, what would she even see in a redneck like me?"
"Are you kidding?" Hannah retorted, giving him a candid once-over. "You have to realize what a catch you are."
"I'm not a catch," he said, incredulously. "I'm a sniper. Everyone knows that snipers are psycho, especially the ones that've spent as much time in the field as I have."
"So maybe it's time to quit," she suggested gently.
"I just reenlisted," he articulated on a growl. "I can't fucking quit."
There wasn't a hint of humor left in Hannah's pitying look. "Just remember what you told me back when I was falling in love with Luther," she advised him.
He hated it when his advice was thrown back at him. "What?"
"Some things can't be planned ahead of time. You take them as they come," she tossed out, imitating his drawl.
And of course, she remembered that word for word. With a grumble of annoyance, Chase set his jaw, refusing to talk the rest of the way home.
Sara quelled the impulse to jump out of the truck and run up to Chase the way Kendal did.
"We're gonna get a puppy!" he shouted, circling Chase like Indians circling a wagon train.
"I said to
ask
him, not tell him!" Sara chastised, reaching into the back of the truck. It was all she could do to behave like her heart wasn't leaping at the sight of him and her spirits weren't soaring.
"What's all this?" he asked, his gaze sliding to the boxes in the truck bed. He didn't greet her with the enthusiasm she'd privately hoped for.
"My mother took us shopping," Sara explained. "I tried to talk her out of spending money, but she said she'd gone forever without a daughter or grandson to spoil. She even bought Kenny a television."
"I'll get that." Chase took the unwieldy box out of her hands. As their fingers brushed, pleasure licked over her; but if he felt it, too, he hid it well.
Feeling strangely hurt, Sara grabbed a smaller box that was filled with some of her new fall wardrobe. She followed Chase into the house, taking comfort from the home she'd worked so hard to clean. It'd had been so heartwarming to see the ranch again, not as a temporary resting point but as a place to put roots down.
"I thought maybe your FBI friend would be here," she said, moving past Chase to the bedroom that would now be hers.
"She's stayin' at a motel in town."
Sara paused halfway down the hall and hefted the box higher. It occurred to her belatedly that Chase might have preferred to be left alone with Hannah. The agent was married to Chase's best friend, but that would account for his lack of warmth right now.
Disturbed by the thought, she deposited the box on the bedroom floor and went back to the truck for more. Kendal was carrying his TV into the house. "Be careful with that," she told him.
Going in and out several more times, she passed Chase again and again, never managing to time it right so they would be together. Their gazes met briefly. Each time he was the first to look away.
Finally, she blocked his path. "Are you sure you want me here, Chase?" she asked, her emotions in a wild flux. This wasn't how she'd pictured their reunion.
He gave her a long look, one that remained oddly detached. "'Course I want you here," he told her. "I just got a lot on my mind right now, tryin' to stop the skinheads before I have to head back East."
She nodded, her heartbeat faltering at the reminder of his impending departure. "When do you have to leave?" she asked him.
"Pretty much right after Columbus Day."
She nodded, digesting the information as unemotionally as possible. Chase wasn't the man for her. If only her head could persuade her heart of that.
"I need you to come downtown with me tomorrow and give a statement to the police. We need that physical description of Will."
"I can do that," she agreed, grateful for the new ID that she carried everywhere she went. Thanks to Chase, she also had a college transcript from Dartmouth College. "But I need to register Kendal for school first."
Kendal had fake transcripts from a school in Vermont and a copy of his shot records.
"No problem," Chase said, summoning a smile for her that wasn't entirely reassuring.
She let him step around her, taking the box he held into the house. To comfort herself, she regarded the sunflowers in the field, most of which had gone to seed. The nights had gotten cooler, and soon the sycamore trees, the first to turn, would flush scarlet.
Taking a long, deep breath, she savored the scent of prairie grass and dry air.
I'm going to be happy here,
she told herself.
With or without Chase.
Kendal wanted Chase to walk him to the head of the driveway in order to meet his bus on his first day of school.
"Better ask your mother," Chase said, thinking that this was probably the only time he could actually put Kendal on the bus, since Monday was Columbus Day, a school holiday, and he'd be leaving for Virginia on Tuesday.
Sara, who'd fussed over Kendal's new school clothes and packed his lunch box, looked momentarily nonplussed. "Well, of course, honey, if it's okay with Chase."
Chase, who was planning to mow the rest of the field this morning, got up from the breakfast table. "Sure it is," he said, eager to get out of the house. If he stayed in here alone with Sara, he was bound to betray his agitation. She was getting way under his skin.
At quarter to eight, he and Kendal stepped off the front porch to encounter an autumnal chill, the kind that stimulated the brain and made you actually want to go to school.
The sun set the tops of the trees on fire, warming Chase's face as they forded the driveway. He abandoned thoughts of Sara long enough to glance down at his bright-faced companion. "Not scared or anything, are you?"
While registering Kendal yesterday, Sara had expressed her relief that Country Lane Elementary School was the same size as Kendal's previous school.
'"Bout school?" he scoffed. "Nah, school's easy."
"You think?" Chase had dreaded school.
They stepped beneath the trees, where the thinning leaves overhead filtered through sunlight. "There's lots of things worse than school," Kendal added philosophically.
"Like what?"
"Like my father finding us."
Chase's stride almost faltered. "He won't find you here," he said, sending him a reassuring look.