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you tried talking to General Marsh again?”
Jesse’s grim silence was an answer in itself. When he finally spoke, it was in a low growl. “He won’t take my calls.”
“Surely he’ll take Evie’s.”
“I don’t want to put her in the middle between the company and her father,” Jesse said firmly. “I hired her for her accounting skills, not her relationship to Rita. And definitely not because of her father.”
Wade thought his brother was being overly sensitive, given his tumultuous past relationship with Marsh’s eldest daughter, Rita, but he knew better than to push him. Jesse had his own way of doing things, and arguing made him dig his heels in that much more firmly. “I could try calling him myself,” he suggested.
“Do you think it would get you anywhere?”
Wade doubted it. He might not have the baggage of a failed engagement with Rita the way Jesse did, but it wasn’t likely the general would talk to him, either. The family lived less than a quarter mile away, along the lakeshore, but they were hardly friendly neighbors.
Still, there were lives at stake, the missing Harlowes included. It was worth a try. “I won’t know until I give it a go,” he answered Jesse’s question.
“Well, don’t try it tonight,” Jesse warned. “The general’s one of those early to bed, early to rise types. And New York’s an hour ahead.”
“New York?”
“Oh, right. I didn’t mention that. Evie said the general and his wife are in New York City with Rita. Trousseau shopping.”
Ouch. “Rita’s getting married?”
“Yeah. Some N.Y.U. professor she met when he was doing lectures at Emory. They hit it off and now she’s gotten a job as a history lecturer at some high-priced private prep school in Manhattan.”
Jesse hid it well, but Wade knew his brother still had some unhealed scars from his broken engagement to Rita Marsh, even though the relationship had ended years ago. Wade supposed Rita’s upcoming marriage might make a few of those old scars bleed again.
Poor idiot.
“I’ll email you the phone number. You can try him in the morning,” Jesse said. “I’ve got to check with everyone else and see where we are on the rest of the caseload. Talk to you later.”
Wade hung up and stared at his outstretched leg. It looked almost normal now, only the slightest bulge in the knee joint betraying the grievous injury that had nearly cost him his leg. Several surgeries and a knee replacement had spared him the fate of all too many of his fellow Marines. Though, considering how well some of his old military buddies were doing, artificial limbs and all, he had begun to wonder if the efforts to keep his leg had been a fool’s errand.
The torn muscles, tendons and ligaments, along with some nerve damage, meant the leg would never be the same. He’d had to leave the Marines, unable to meet the fitness requirements anymore.
Jesse had taken him on at Cooper Security because he was a Cooper, not because there was much he could offer the company in his current state. He wasn’t brainy like Isabel or cagey like Rick. He didn’t have a special skill set like Shannon’s computer genius or the analytical skills of his sister Megan. Before his injury, he’d been a bear of a man, strong and athletic, able to outrun and outfight anyone who challenged him.
All that was gone now.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
He pushed to his feet, ignoring the pain in his leg, and headed for the back door again. He might not be Super Marine anymore, but he could stop grousing about what he couldn’t do and go get a poor, wet old tomcat out of the rain.
The rain had stopped while he was talking to Jesse, but a damp fog remained, curling around his neck like phantom fingers. He shook off a little shiver and called out the door. “Ernie!”
This time, at the sound of his voice, a gray apparition appeared out of the dark woods, streaking across the backyard and coming to a stop at the edge of the patio. Now sheltered by the metal awning, the cat took his time stalking across the concrete patio, his bushy gray tail twitching in the air.
He came with another gift, Wade saw with dismay. It looked like a red and gray scarf.
It was only when Ernie got closer that Wade saw red splotches on his pale gray muzzle, as well.
Ernie laid the gift at Wade’s feet and purred softly.
Wade grimaced as he bent to pick up the scarf, his bum knee growling with pain. He let his good leg take most of his weight as he shook out the wet scarf. The drops of water that hit the patio at his feet were stained red.
Lifting the fabric to his nose, he sniffed. The metallic odor of blood hit him hard.
“Ernie, are you hurt?” Draping the scarf over the back of one of the outdoor chairs, he picked up the cat, even though he knew Ernie didn’t like being handled. The cat wriggled but let him examine his red-stained muzzle without scratching or biting. The red came off easily, and Wade could see no sign of any injury to the cat.
But the blood seemed fresh. Had he caught a mouse or a squirrel before he committed his latest act of theft?
“Let’s get inside, boy.” He opened the door, and Ernie scooted inside. The cat waited patiently for him to pour food and settled in front of the water heater, munching the kibble from an old plastic bowl Wade had designated for the cat’s use.
Wade went back outside and picked up the scarf. Taking another sniff, he caught a whiff of perfume mingled with the blood. The scarf itself was pale gray silk, more decorative than useful.
His gaze drawn to the woods from which Ernie had emerged, Wade started limping across the yard to the edge of the tree line. “Hello?” he called into the dense darkness beyond.
There was no answer.
As he peered into woods, he felt something rub against his leg. Ernie had rejoined him, staring up at him with luminous green eyes. He must not have pulled the door completely closed.
“What did you find out there, boy?”
The cat sniffed the air and padded quietly into the woods. He went about five feet and stopped, looking back at Wade.
Was the bloody feline trying to lead him somewhere?
The cat continued forward. Wade followed.
The undergrowth grew more dense, vines and fallen limbs twisting around his ankles, making the trek into the woods unexpectedly perilous. For a man who’d grown up in these woods, who’d once considered them as much his home as the old brick and clapboard farmhouse where his father still lived, feeling alienated from his old playground was disconcerting.
It was the leg. The weakened muscles, the artificial joint, the constant sensation of feebleness—Wade felt as if he were dragging around an alien limb, one that could turn on him in an instant given the opportunity.
Panic rose like cold fingers up his spine. He quelled the feeling with ruthless determination and upped his pace through the woods, ignoring the faint quiver low in his gut.
Ahead, Ernie had stopped near a broad-trunked oak tree. The cat moved cautiously around the tree, his tail flicking with curiosity. Wade caught up and circled the tree, as well.
The first thing he saw was a pale, blood-streaked hand. Small. Female.
Dark hair splayed out across the ground, wet from the rain and, in places, from blood, as well. Her face was half buried in the loamy mixture of old, dead leaves and newly fallen ones that carpeted the forest floor.
Wade started to kneel, grimacing at the sharp pain in his knee. He adjusted position, bending from the waist instead, and felt her throat for a pulse.
The woman moved at his touch, a quick, almost violent recoil.