“Do you think that’s going to be necessary?” she asked.
“According to the switchboard operator, he’s claiming that he’s here on a matter of life or death. Given a choice, I want to make sure we stay on the ‘life’ side of that particular equation.”
54
Merry was waddling toward the apartment, unable to keep her wind-loosened hair from whipping across her face while she juggled her takeout—which, she’d later decide, was why she didn’t see the two men approaching until they were right beside her.
One on each side.
“Mrs. Draper?” one of them asked. His hair was cut military short.
Her first thought was that something had happened to Tom. Didn’t they always send notification teams out in pairs?
“Yes?”
Dread had her knees on the verge of buckling. Since she’d begun to shake, Merry first assumed the man had taken hold of her to prevent her from falling.
Until she felt what was obviously the cold steel of a gun pressed into her side.
“We’d like you to come with us, please, ma’am,” he said.
“I don’t suppose I have a choice?” she asked, gauging the distance to her apartment door and deciding it was too far.
“No, ma’am,” he said.
The gun pressed harder.
She thought about screaming. But the weather had kept everyone indoors, so who’d hear her? And what if he shot her? As much as she didn’t want to lose her own life, even more important was that she couldn’t risk anything happening to her babies.
“You won’t be hurt,” the second man assured her. “So long as you cooperate.”
And if she didn’t?
Although she couldn’t see his eyes due to the dark glasses, she knew the answer to that.
Not understanding what was happening, she walked, on those still trembling legs, toward the black car, where a third man, sporting the same haircut, khakis, and a bright red sunburn, sat behind the wheel.
55
The sailor, an ensign, but not
their
ensign, looked vaguely familiar, but Julianne couldn’t quite place him.
“You’re the guy who wrote out the chit,” Dallas, who apparently never did forget a thing he’d seen or heard, said. “In the bridge. For our mess meal.”
“Yes, sir,” the ensign said. “That was me.”
“You said you’re here because of a matter of life or death?” Julianne asked. “Do you fear your life’s in danger?”
“Probably will be. If it gets out I talked to you.And what I’m going to tell you,” he said flatly. “But things are getting out of hand. So I just decided I had to step forward.”
“About what?” Dallas asked. “And what things?”
“LSO Manning’s death.”
Julianne felt a little burst of excitement that burned off the lingering lassitude from her and Dallas’s earlier lovemaking.
“You know how he died?”
“No.” The young jaw hardened. As did his hazel eyes.
“But it’s not because of what people are saying. That he and Lieutenant Murphy were having an affair and he felt guilty because he killed her.”
“And you know this how?” Julianne asked.
“Because he
was
having an affair. But not with her.”
Julianne guessed the answer that was coming. But she asked the question anyway.
“With whom?”
“Me.” He met her gaze, daring her derision. Which she wasn’t about to give.
“I see. And how long had this been going on?”
“For about six months. We hooked up at a gay bar during a port call in Hong Kong.”
“That’s quite a coincidence. Both of you, from the same ship, ending up in the same bar in a city that size,” Dallas observed.
“Not that much of one.” He shrugged. “It’s like the Navy gives you maps before you leave the ship.”
“They give out maps to gay bars?” Julianne asked, thinking that things had definitely changed since her father’s day.
“Sure. They give you this list of places and say stuff like, ‘Don’t go to this district, because it’s where all the prostitutes are,’ or, ‘Stay away from this area, because it’s a big drug-dealing hangout.’ Or, ‘Don’t go into this neighborhood or bar unless you want to get hit on by faggots.’ That sort of thing. Obviously those are the first places a lot of guys go as soon as they hit shore.
“We didn’t know each other all that well, but I’d admired his work. So, when I saw him at the bar, I went up to him and offered to buy him a beer. He said, ‘Sure,’ and after a few more, we paid for one of the rooms upstairs. Where we pretty much ended up spending the entire shore leave.”
“Then you kept your relationship going when you got back on the ship?”
“Yeah. But it wasn’t like we hooked up all that much. Because there aren’t a lot of places to have sex on a carrier.”
“Yet people manage,” Dallas said. “Given that the lieutenant was pregnant.”
“We did it a few times in the life jacket locker,” he allowed. “But it wasn’t like it was a lot of fun, because it’s about the size of a broom closet, and dark. Good if all you want is to get your rocks off. But . . .”
His thought drifted off. Then he shook his head, as if to clear it. “Besides, that’s irrelevant, because Lane wasn’t the father.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Didn’t you hear me? He was gay.”
“Could’ve been bi,” Dallas pointed out.
“He wasn’t. Hell, he didn’t even like females being aboard ships. No way would he have wanted to fuck one.”
“How about rape one?” Julianne asked. Unfortunately, she’d prosecuted more than a few of those cases during her time in JAG.
“Nah. He wasn’t into rape fantasy. Unless he was the one getting it.” Another shrug. “Gay fighter pilots are a lot like gay Marines that way.”
“What way?”
“They tend to be bottoms. I always figured that it’s because they have to keep up all the macho swagger in their day jobs. So when they get alone with someone, where they can be themselves, they’d rather just surrender the control to someone else.”
It was an interesting, if unproven, concept. But rape didn’t tend to be about sex, but anger. And according to the witnesses they’d interviewed, both Manning and Murphy had been really hot under the collar after that last trap.
“Well, we’ll find out when we test his DNA,” she said. “Meanwhile, do you have any idea why someone might spread a rumor like that?”
“Sure. To shift the blame. The same way they did with that explosion on the
Iowa
back in ’eighty-nine.”
“When the gun in one of the battleship turrets exploded, killing all those sailors,” Dallas remembered.
“Forty-seven,” the ensign said. “And instead of admitting the fact that bags of propellant left over from the fucking Korean War exploded, the Navy immediately went on a witch hunt because two guys made the mistake of becoming close friends.”
“The early investigation pointed toward suicide by one of the sailors, because he was unhappy his married lover had broken up with him.”
“Yeah. But it was all garbage. Just the military doing a CYA lie, finding themselves a scapegoat. It was a lot easier to put the word out that an unhappy homo would be willing to blow up himself and forty-six of his crew-mates than admit that they’d screwed up.”
“But tests eventually proved the propellants had been improperly stored,” Julianne said. Like Dallas, she remembered the case. It had caused such a scandal, she doubted anyone needed O’Halloran’s remarkable memory to have the topic ring a bell now, even twenty years later.
“Yeah. The good news was, the Navy destroyed the rest of them and established new rules for storing the stuff. Which is keeping sailors safer.
“The bad news is that the official report claims that the disaster was caused by a wrongful intentional act, and the powers that be willfully and deliberately continued to blame some poor dead schmuck who wasn’t alive to defend himself. Meanwhile, the other guy’s life and career were ruined.”
“That was two decades ago,” Julianne felt obliged to point out, even though she could understand why this ensign, who would have been in grammar school at the time, would be so upset by the incident. “Times have changed.”
“Yeah. We’ve got ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell,’ which is a real joke. And unrealistic. Because if you follow the ruling to the letter, what you’re doing is telling gay sailors that they have to remain celibate. Which is patently ridiculous. We joined the U.S. military. Not the fucking priesthood.”
“Do you see either of us arguing against gays in the military?” Dallas asked mildly when the sailor’s voice rose to a shout.
“No. Sorry. It’s just so damned unfair. And incomprehensible to me that guys who are willing to go to war to fight bad guys can be so freaked out by the idea of some faggot checking them out in the head.
“Like I can’t take a shower with twenty naked guys and not get aroused? It’s not like we can’t control ourselves, and hell, we’re probably not attracted to most of them anyway.” He turned toward Dallas. “You’re straight, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well, do you want to have sex with every woman you see?”
“Actually, these days I’m finding monogamy real appealing,” Dallas drawled.
“So did I. Lane, too. We were a couple. We had plans for when we got out of the Navy.”
“He was an aviator. That’s hard to walk away from.”
“That’s the same thing I said when he first brought it up. But you know what his answer was?”
“What?”
“That he didn’t need to pilot a fighter jet when I could make him fly.”
And couldn’t Julianne identify with that after the last few hours?
“If we use the
Iowa
as an example,” she mused, “then the rumors were spread to cast guilt on LSO Manning. To cover up another, more serious crime.”
“That’s my take on it.” The flush that had risen in his cheeks when he’d shared his lover’s words of love darkened—but this time with anger and resolve rather than embarrassment.
“You find the bastard who started that story,” he said, “and you’ll find who killed Lieutenant Murphy. And Lane.”
“It’s not that far-fetched,” she mused after the ensign had left the suite.
“Not at all,” Dallas agreed. “In fact, it makes a lot of sense. It also shows our killer isn’t infallible. He made the mistake of not knowing Manning’s sexual identity. He’ll make another.”
“Do you think so?”
“He’s killed two people. That we know of. And now there’s no way that I’m taking that commander at Pearl out of the equation. So yeah. I’m thinking he’s got to be getting a little desperate.”
“Which is why we have to stop him. Before he kills again.”
“Which he can’t very well do when the ship is crawling with civilians, as it’s beginning to at this moment,” Dallas pointed out. “So we might as well make the best of our time.”
“Oh?” Her lips quirked. Sexy laughter danced in her intelligent eyes. “And what would you suggest?”
When he bent his head and murmured a suggestion in her ear, she tilted her head back and looked up at him.
“You know what, Sergeant?”
“What?”
“It’s true.”
“What’s that?” He loved the smell of her hair. Dallas figured he could happily spend the rest of his life waking up with it on the pillow beside him.
“You really
are
a genius.”
56
“There’s something you need to know,” Julianne said as he carried her toward the four-poster bed. At first she’d felt a little foolish, being literally swept off her feet. It was more like something from one of those romantic movies Merry loved to watch.
But then, as he’d cradled her in his strong, mus cled arms, she decided there was a lot to be said for romance.
“If it’s about the case—”
“No. It’s about us.” She paused, feeling uncharacteristically nervous. Why was it that she had no trouble presenting an argument in a military courtroom, but couldn’t get what was essentially a simple statement out of her mouth? “About me.”
She drew in a deep breath and went for it.
“I don’t do this. Normally. Have casual sex,” she explained.
“Believe me, darlin’, there is nothing casual about the way I’m feeling right now. In fact, if you want the absolute truth—”
“I do.”
She could feel the chuckle rumble in his chest. “Why am I not surprised by that? Well, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is that I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you. Never
needed
a woman the way I need you.”
His drawl was deceptive, a riveting contrast to the passion blazing in his eyes. “And again, being perfectly honest, I’m not real sure how to handle that.”
His unrelenting honesty, when he could have easily lied, was only one of the reasons Julianne had fallen in love with Dallas.
Love?
The word, which she’d never even considered toward any other man, reeled in her head. It was a word she suspected they’d both always avoided. A word that had been continuing to grow between them for far longer than the past two days, until it was no longer deniable.
She’d thought about him too much ever since that damn court martial.
Dreamed about him too often.
Compared every man she’d ever met to him ever since that unfortunate investigation. And every one of those men had, in comparison, come up short.
But there would be time for talking. For now, she was willing to bask in the warm glow of her secret realization. At this moment, all she wanted was this stolen time with this very special man.
“I’d say you’re doing pretty well.” She flashed him a slow, sexual smile that was pure invitation. “So far.”
She watched the tension slide off his shoulders. Broad, strong shoulders capable of carrying the heaviest of burdens. Which, even if she hadn’t read his frustrat ingly blacked-out record, she knew he’d done. Time and time again.
He’d carried her across the tropical teak floors, past the master bedroom sitting area, then laid her on the mattress of the regal four-poster bed as if she were the most precious of treasures.