Yellow Ribbons (25 page)

Footsteps crunched on the sand. The handgun was still clutched in her grip. Lani peeled her eyes open to see skinny, jean-clad legs and Nikes. A man, bending over into the backseat of her car. Mita’s barks turned to snarls as she launched herself at the invader.

A man howled and jerked back, the laptop strap in one hand, Mita clamped down on the other. He swung the case around to hit her.

“Halt!” Lani’s shout sent shards of pain through her head.

Lieutenant Cornwall slung the laptop in one direction, Mita in the other. Blood poured from his right hand. Mita latched onto his left forearm. He screamed and fumbled for the weapon at his back. Lani rolled to her side. The world rolled with her. Two of everything constantly moving.

She heard Mita yelp. Saw the handgun pointed her way. Heard words she couldn’t decipher. Her arm refused to lift. Too heavy. Too numb. She aimed through the fog, trying to find a true target.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Captain.” Cornwall’s words came out in slow motion.

Lani stared down the barrel of his revolver. The sound of a gunshot split through the pain in her head. Had she fired or him? Her. She could smell the powder. Miss or hit?

Mita whimpered and belly-crawled to her side. Lani wrapped an arm around the dog and raised her weapon once more. Faces swam before her. Words she couldn’t understand. Cornwall kicked the gun out of her hand and pressed his knee into her back, forcing her facedown. Cold metal kissed her wrists.

“It’s all right, everyone. Police business. Apprehending a suspect.”

The ruckus had alerted the neighbors, and he’d bullshitted them. All the protesting in the world wouldn’t get them to listen to her. Greg would have heard the shot. All she had to do was hang on until he, Jordan, and Juarez got back.

Cornwall hauled Lani to her feet and tried to wrestle her into the back of her car. She braced her feet on the jamb and pushed back. He tumbled, taking her with him. She whacked the back of her head on the sidewalk. More starbursts blanketed her mind, and pain shocked her from head to toe. More snarls and another attack from a determined Mita. Cornwall kicked at the dog. Her yelp broke Lani’s heart, but she couldn’t see where Mita had landed to know if she was all right. Cornwall yanked Lani upright and aimed for the seat again.

Lani fell forward, too dizzy to fight, too fogged up to process everything. Light and sound made the pain in her head worse. Where was Greg? How the hell far could the three of them have gone? Maybe Cornwall had taken them out too. Cornwall… The concept was too impossible to process.

The engine started. He’d taken her keys. She felt the car move and squeezed her eyes tight against motion sickness. Mita’s bark followed them. Brave little champion was giving chase.

“Where are you taking me?” She panted for breath.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll make it quick. I’ll make sure you don’t feel a thing. I’m sorry it’s come to this, Captain Hollister. It all spiraled out of control. Fuck!”

He swerved hard to the left then back to the right. Brakes squealed, and the sound of a gunshot exploded in her head. The force of the stop knocked her to the floor. The laptop he’d slung onto the backseat slammed into her ribs. More pain stabbed through her head and down her spine. And what the hell was that god-awful smell?

Faces. Voices.
No barking
. God, had he run over Mita? Then she felt hands she’d recognize anywhere brush her skin. The fog dissipated. The nausea didn’t.

“Lani, sweetheart. God fucking damnit, someone get the handcuff key off that bastard!”

“No yelling,” she gasped out. “No…”

The next thing she knew, Lani was puking in the street. Her only regret was that it wasn’t all over Cornwall. She lifted her head to accept a bottle of water Greg thrust her way, and the world went black.

Greg couldn’t think straight. He stood stock-still and watched the ambulance roll down the street. His whole world was inside it.

Everything had happened so fast. Him, Jordan, and Juarez coming around the corner on a return trip to the Whittaker house at the same time that Lani’s car had barreled down the road with a determined Mita giving chase. They’d all registered that Lieutenant Cornwall was the driver at the same moment, drawing their weapons right before Nerine’s SUV cut in front of Cornwall and Whittaker’s van blocked him from behind.

Cornwall had braked with enough force to deploy the airbag, breaking his nose and making it mere child’s play to haul his ass from the car. Greg let Jordan and Juarez deal with the bastard. His focus was Lani and Lani alone. Besides, if he’d gone near Cornwall, he might have killed him.

In record time, sheriff deputies and emergency vehicles were on the scene. Greg had processed it all, right then and there at the scene, as he’d been trained to do. Now he couldn’t stop shaking.

“You need to go with her.” Jordan squeezed his shoulder. “Take my car. I’ll get a ride in with Juarez.”

“Mita.” Where was she? The little thing had run her legs off, trying to catch the car.

“Whittaker’s got her. Giving her water out of his palm.”

Greg glanced toward the curb, where Mita slumped over Whittaker’s thigh and lapped water intermittently through her pants. Blood covered her muzzle, ears, and paws.

“She took a chunk out of Cornwall this time.” Jordan chuckled. “Probably making up for what she couldn’t do the other night.”

“You think he’s responsible for Shepard’s murder?”

“No doubt. I don’t know why, though.”

“You’d better find out quick,” Greg said through clenched teeth. “Because I want answers, and if I go near the smarmy little bastard—”

Jordan pressed his hand to Greg’s shoulder, as if that slight action would be enough to hold him in place. Twenty linebackers wouldn’t be enough to do that job. The only thing keeping Greg put was sheer will and a ton of fear that he’d lost the woman he loved.

He glanced up when Nerine approached them.

“I left Mick’s laptop and cell phone with Lani,” she said. “Both should be in the back of her car. Ron Pattison’s the key. When I was leaving, I saw the lieutenant take her and followed. It’s a bigger mess than I ever imagined. So horrid, I can’t process it. But it’s clear Pattison had a relationship with Mick, and Regina Whittaker was part of it. E-mails support that. What Lieutenant Cornwall has to do with all this…” She shrugged. “It’s bad, Greg. It’s very bad. Makes me sick.”

“Detective Juarez will want you to make an official statement about how you obtained the items, ma’am,” Jordan said.

“I’ll be at the Seabergs trying to mend bridges.” She took a handgun from her purse and held it out to them. “One of you take this. I’m too tempted to end the miserable bastard’s life. It’s where I was headed when Cornwall attacked Lani. I blamed Pattison for all this, but it was just as much Mick’s doing too.”

Greg let Jordan take possession. Nerine pressed her lips tight, then turned and walked back to her vehicle.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Greg snarled the words, rage building with every second. Someone was going to pay.

“I can’t answer that one yet. But it looks like Cornwall whacked Lani for the cell phone in the shed. It’s his. Guess who he’s been calling and texting. I’d tell you, but the impact isn’t as great as seeing it for yourself.” Jordan held up Cornwall’s phone and the list of calls to one person.

“Fuck!” Ron Fucking Pattison…again! “When I get my hands—”

“Deputies are on their way to his place to bring him in.” Jordan’s hand came down over Greg’s shoulder again. “We’ve got this. Your woman needs you. You need her. Go. There’s no secret anymore.” He waved his hand to the cluster of people around them. “The look on your faces when you saw each other… I should be so lucky one day. I don’t know what fallout this will create for the two of you, but I meant what I said. I’ll do whatever I can to help you out.” He smiled. “Hell, if they kick you guys out of the Marine Corps, maybe I can get you into NCIS.”

Greg managed a halfhearted chuckle and bit back a,
no way in hell
. “Thanks. I’m going to take Mita back to the house and then get to the hospital.”

“I’ll keep you posted.”

Mita greeted Greg with a puppy-dog smile and a tail wag. “You are a
very
good girl, Mita.”

She rolled belly up in Whittaker’s lap, earning her more praise and the belly rubs she craved.

“I don’t think she’s hurt,” Whittaker said. “I checked her paws for injury and couldn’t find any stickers, glass, or rocks. She’s a good little dog. My girls would love her.”

“Everyone loves her,” Greg said with a smile.
Everyone except Cornwall.

“I’d offer to take her so you could get to the hospital quicker, but I’m getting us a room at a motel, and they don’t take pets. We could have stayed with the Dickersons, but it’s a little crowded. Not that a motel is any better. I’ll be putting my name on the housing list tomorrow. Maybe we’ll catch a break because of special circumstances. We won’t be living in that house again.”

“Tell you what…” It took Greg about ten seconds to know what he needed to do. He fished his keys from his pocket and held them out to Whittaker. “You and the girls can stay at my place. Plenty of room to spread out and play. You’ll find a roast in the oven. Make yourselves at home…and give Mita a bath.”

Whittaker hesitated, then wrapped his hand around the keys. “Thank you.” His eyes teared up. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem. Marines take care of their own.” He shook the man’s hand, gave him directions, then stood. “Jordan, I’ll take that ride now.”

Keys sailed his way. Greg caught them in one hand.

Greg stared at the floor tiles, trying to block out the screaming children, bitching wives, groaning marines, and CNN blaring on the television in the hospital ER. He was helpless, a nonentity. He could flash his badge and his ID all he wanted, but it wouldn’t get the ER staff to move any faster or give him any information they weren’t ready to divulge.

We’ll let you know soon.

Well, they had a different perception of soon than he did. Soon was now, not—he glanced at his watch—two hours ago.

He felt someone pat his back and jerked his head up. Lieutenant Colonel Seaberg leaned in, not the doctor or the nurse Greg expected to see.

“Walk with me, Master Gunnery Sergeant.” He motioned his head toward the hallway leading deeper into the hospital. “I’d suggest outside, but it’s cold and blowing like a son of a bitch.”

“I’m waiting for—”

“I know what you’re waiting for. Please don’t make me make this an order.” He shot a glance around the crowded waiting room.

Reluctantly, Greg stood. They walked in silence until they reached the isolated corridor leading to the clinics. There, Seaberg halted and faced him.

“You can’t be here, Greg.”

“I have
every
right to be here. That’s
my captain
.” He stabbed his finger into the air.

“Oh, she’s much more than that. I was in Palm Springs last night. I spoke with Lani at your house this afternoon, when I made a promise to her. That I’d protect you from fallout. Your emotions are all over your face. How long before people start to realize she’s much more than a captain to you? The longer you stay in that waiting room, the bigger the risk.”

“I don’t care.” Let the world know how much he loved Lani. He’d give it all up for her. His retirement, his benefits, the goals he’d worked over twenty years to reach. She was all that mattered.

“But Lani does,” Seaberg calmly replied. “Her last words to me, the very last words she might ever utter to me, were to protect you. I’m helpless to do anything else. In her current state, it could very well be her dying wish.”

“No.” He glared at the man, damning him to all levels of hell for suggesting such a thing. “Don’t play that card with me. Don’t make me—”

Seaberg’s head cocked to one side. “Lose control? Start to cry? Crack open the final chink in that brick wall of professionalism you live behind? Greg, it’s already crumbled. Please…leave. If not for yourself, then do it for her. Show how much you really love her by doing what she wants. I’ll stay as the command rep and call you the minute I know something.”

Greg turned his palms up. Damnit, he
was
close to tears. “But what will I do?”

“You go down to the sheriff’s station and find out what the fuck this is all about.”

Jordan barely budged when Greg walked into the surveillance room.

“Lani okay?”

“Don’t know yet. Seaberg highly suggested I leave. He stayed. Anything yet?”

Greg saw on the monitor that Pattison and his lawyer sat across from Juarez in one of the interview rooms, staring each other down. The monitor for the other interview room was turned off.

“Kenyon’s computer is a gold mine of information. It’ll take a tech to make sure we retrieve all the data. Kenyon and Pattison were running a prostitution ring. They’ve got a Web site too. Cornwall was a major player. The yellow ribbons were the key. Their own version of a red-light district. The ribbons are imprinted with ink clearly visible under UV light. Prostitution isn’t the only thing they sold from their Web site. They also sold distance photoelectric sensors to pick out the right yellow ribbon house. Sensors stolen from the base.”

Greg gave a halfhearted snort. “I bet you love tying two cases up with one.”

“Well, I don’t hate it, that’s for sure,” Jordan said. “From what we could find on the laptop, Kenyon liked using the merchandise too much. It got to be an issue between him and his partners.”

Right under his nose all this time, and Greg hadn’t seen it. “Any idea how long this has been going on?”

“At least six months.”

Since he and Lani started seeing each other. Greg closed his eyes and shook his head.
Just like a man
, his mom would say. His focus had been Lani to the exclusion of all else. “Is Juarez just getting started?”

“Yeah. Cornwall lawyered up and is talking with a public defender now.” He pointed to the blank monitor for the second interview room. “Pattison lawyered up the second we got to his house to bring him in. Judging with how quickly Mr. Peters got here, I’d say he was well versed in what’s going on.” He turned the volume up for Pattison’s interview.