Her Own Best Enemy (The Remnants, Book 1) (33 page)

The two MPs flanked him on either side and led him to the door.

“We’re not taking any chances.” Moe’s lip curled.

They opened the door, gripped Keith’s arms to ‘help’ him out the door.

“Keith. Wait!”

Grace.

He yanked his arms out of the MPs’ grasp and spun. “Grace?”

She took stepped forward, hands clutched in front of her heart. “I...” Her beautiful eyes filled with tears. She opened her mouth then shook her head and closed it. The muscles in her throat stood out as she swallowed. “Be careful, okay?”

His heart sunk like a torpedo. “You too.”

The MPs grabbed his cuffs and spun him around.

“We’ll give you a call and let you know what’s going on,” Cam said propping the door open with a booted foot.

The MPs all but pushed Keith out the door and down the short hallway to the hotel’s elevator.

Curly punched the down button, Moe kept a tight grip around Keith’s bicep, and Cam, in an atypical Cam-like move didn’t crack a joke.

Instead, he clapped Keith’s shoulder. “She’ll be okay,” he said.

No doubt Grace would be okay. Even with the threat of danger shaking up her world once more, she’d be okay.

Unfortunately, Keith wasn’t so sure he could say the same.

Chapter Twenty

“Okay, spill.”

Grace swiped a towel off the counter and reached for the oven door. “What?”

She paused to glance at her sister Becca who sat at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee clutched in her hands.

“You know what.” Becca tipped her head, her pale blonde hair drooping across her forehead. She reached up and pushed the strands behind her ear. “I’ve never seen you like this. You barely leave the house, unless Ryker needs to go somewhere. And I don’t think it has anything to do with those security people who’ve been hiding outside my door the entire week.” She shook her head. “I don’t get it. I’m the messed up one, not you.”

“You’re
not
messed up.” She tugged the cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on the counter. The smell of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies filled the air.

“Sweet, but untrue.” Becca paused and took a sip of her coffee. “When a person freaks just stepping out onto her front porch, I’d say that’s messed up.”

“Oh, Becca. Is your new therapist helping at all?”

Becca shrugged. “Some. She was nice enough to talk me down from a pretty bad panic attack the day after Ryker went missing.”

Remorse pooled in Grace’s stomach as she slid the cookies off the sheet and onto the wire cooling rack. She had a valid reason for not returning her sister’s panicked message the day she’d gone for Keith’s help. Becca understood Ryker’s safety came first and would never make her feel guilty because of it. But she couldn’t help feeling as though she’d let her sister down.

She set the cookie sheet in the sink. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here—”

Becca held up a hand. “You don’t have to apologize for not hanging around babysitting me when Ryker needed you. And you know, what? I don’t want to talk about me. We do enough of that already. Let’s talk about you instead.”

She sighed, leaned against the counter with her arms across her chest. “Why? There’s nothing to talk about. I just feel...I don’t know...odd.”

Becca’s mouth tightened. She tipped her cup and stared inside as if looking for answers. “Does this peculiar feeling have anything to do with Keith King?”

Grace dropped her defensive pose and curled her fingers around the edge of the countertop. She’d tried so hard to put Keith from her mind this past week, but he kept cropping up at the oddest times. Like yesterday at the grocery store when she’d see a man in produce wearing camouflage. She’d known the man couldn’t have been Keith, but that hadn’t stopped hope from blooming in her chest.

And her dreams, oh, Lord, Keith had invaded every one of them. She’d come to dread nightfall when the crickets chirped outside her window and lulled her to sleep.

She shook her head and banished Keith from her mind. “No. Absolutely not.”

“What happened with you and him?”

She plucked two cookies off the rack, handed one to Becca and joined her at the table. She tore her barely cooled cookie in half and popped it into her mouth, hoping to stall her sister’s inevitable interrogation. The morsel burned her tongue, but she ignored the discomfort. Anything to stop Becca from asking questions better left alone.

But Becca set her cookie aside untouched and asked anyhow. “Did you fall in love with him?”

Her stomach fluttered. She hadn’t expected Becca to ask her straight out. She laid her half-eaten cookie on the table, suddenly unable to finish it.

“We were together twenty-four-seven in a highly stressful situation. It’s natural I felt a certain...bond with him. He saved Ryker’s life. He...he saved my life. But in love with him? That’s...”
Ridiculous.

But, oh, God, it wasn’t.

She loved Keith.

She squeezed her eyes shut and resisted the urge to cover her ears in case it would help block out the loud truth of her thoughts. She’d felt it for a while now, but had refused to admit it, even to herself.

Now, she could no longer deny it. She loved Keith. But she would never hurt Becca by saying it out loud.

“Yeah, right, you didn’t fall in love with him.” Her sister’s eyes filled with tears and she blinked to clear them. “It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

“Oh, Becca.” Grace dropped her head in her hands. “How can I look at Keith without seeing all the pain you’ve endured?”

“Do you ever look at him like that? Do you ever just see him, without me getting in the way?”

“Sometimes.” The word burst past Grace’s lips in a leaden whisper. Guilt flooded her throat and nearly drowned the breath from her.

“Why?”

“He’s...different now. I look at him and that careless teenager I despised is gone.” She reached across the table and squeezed her sister’s hand. “I wish you could’ve seen him, Bec. He was amazing. He fulfilled every promise he made to me and to Ryker. Even when I didn’t deserve it.”

“I never blamed him.” Becca rubbed at a scar that marred the wooden table with her finger. “He didn’t do it. Only Colby is responsible for raping me.”

She swallowed hard. “I know.”

“You’ve forgiven me for ruining your life,” Becca said, “So why can’t you forgive Keith?”

“You have not ruined my life.” She reached for Becca’s hand. “I’m the one who should’ve been there for you, Bec. Mom and Dad told me to stick with you. You were so young. I should’ve been there to protect you. If I didn’t go off with Keith—”

“Is that what this is really about? You feel responsible?” Becca’s eyes clouded with tears. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me? It’s not your fault, Grace, and yet, you’ve been paying for Colby’s wrongs all these years. You gave up everything for me and never once resented me for it.”

“I love you. You’ve never been a burden.”

Her heart twisted. She wanted to believe she could move beyond the past, but even with Becca’s absolution, she didn’t know if she could ever free herself from its chains.

“You love Keith.”

“But, that’s different.”

“How? Stop blaming yourself, Grace. You did nothing wrong. And neither did Keith.”

“You’re right. God, Becca, you’re so right.” What was it she’d told Ryker?
There are bad people in the world. But there are good people too.
Keith was one of the good. She covered her face with her hands. “Keith was such a convenient target for my anger. If I could blame him, I wouldn’t have to look so closely at my own actions. All this time…it wasn’t Keith I hated, it was myself. But I’ve lived with this...this grudge against Keith for so long. It’s almost like it’s a part of me, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.”

Becca left her chair and pulled Grace into a fierce hug. “Forgive yourself. Do it for me, Grace. Do what I never could. Grab at your chance for a happy life and stop letting the past stand in the way.”

Keith stepped inside the JAG courtroom and sucked in a deep breath.

This was it.

When he left this room he’d know whether he still had a career with the Army or whether he’d end his career with a dishonorable discharge.

He glanced at the jury box as he walked the narrow aisle to the defense table. Twelve empty chairs stared back at him. There would be no jury today. The Judge alone would decide Keith’s fate in a hearing that would either acquit him or prosecute him.

He saluted his attorney, Captain Trey Wilkins. “Good Morning, Sir.”

Captain Wilkins nodded. “Have a seat.”

The attorney had assured Keith everything would go smoothly. Maybe so, but Keith couldn’t shake the tight ball of lead that lurched in his stomach as he took his seat at the defense table.

Behind him, the door whooshed open and footsteps drilled across the parquet floor. Keith turned to see members of his A-team file into one of the galley’s rows. Chaz, Pigpen, Duck, Bowser, and Jace, the rookie, saluted Keith before taking their seat. He returned their salute, a ball of gratitude lodged in his throat over their show of support.

Cam followed them in a split second later and strode up the aisle. He crouched next to Keith, his elbows resting on the table, his left knee forced to bend at an awkward angle to accommodate the crouch. “I was finally able to get an imprint on this.” He smoothed the piece of paper across the table. “Bank account routing numbers. I’ve talked to a friend of mine who assures me that banks use a precise number system to mark their accounts. By cross-referencing them against the numbers here, we should be able to get a bank location and the name on the account. We should be able to nail the bastard before he gets to Grace.”

Keith frowned. “What if the name on the account is Victor?”

“Then we’ll find out who else is authorized on his account.”

“And if no one is?”

“We setup surveillance on the account and wait for him to access it.”

The bailiff entered through a door behind the Judge’s bench. Cam squeezed Keith’s shoulder. “One way or another, we’ll get him.” He retreated to the galley.

“All rise. Major General William R. White presiding.”

Keith stood at the bailiff’s announcement and saluted as a tall gray-haired gentleman in his pristine dress uniform entered the courtroom and took a seat at the Judge’s podium.

The Judge gave a sharp nod for everyone to reclaim their seats. “I’ve spent the last few days reading through all of the witness statements and documentation.” He rubbed his brow. “This case is not a simple straightforward matter.” He looked at Keith. “You deliberately disobeyed the direct order that put you at Monthan Rehabilitation Center. I can’t take that lightly, do you understand?”

Acid gnawed at Keith’s stomach. ”Yes, sir.”

“On the other hand, I have dozens of reports here that clear you of any blame for the training accident that happened at Fort Bragg. They also state that you were carrying out your appointed mission under Defense Intelligence orders.”

The Judge flipped open a manila folder. “Sergeant King, please rise.”

Keith pushed back his chair and stood. He resisted the urge to fidget under the Major General’s impassive stare. He’d handle the outcome, good or bad.

“You have an impeccable record of service, here.” Judge White paused and tapped the thick folder of records on his bench. “Under the circumstances, I’m not going to suspend you. However, it has come to my attention that they’re in desperate need of a HALO freefall instructor at Yuma’s Proving Ground. Therefore, I’m ordering you to give thirty days of service to YPG in the capacity of instructor. After that time, you’ll rejoin your team.” He banged his gavel on the bench. “Court adjourned.”

The Judge rose from his seat and left the room as Keith’s buddies surrounded him.

Relief washed through Keith, quickly followed by a flood of dread.
HALO.
In his opinion, hell would be a more appropriate name for the high altitude low opening freefall jump. But the maneuver was a necessary skill that allowed them to perform stealthy insertions into hostile territory without detection on enemy radar. It was also the only Military technique that made Keith sicker than a dog.

“HALO, huh?” Chaz grinned, his prominent Italian accent loaded with laughter.

“I wonder if they still have your chuck bucket at YPG?” Pigpen clapped Keith on the shoulder. “You’re gonna need it.”

Keith narrowed his eyes at both Chaz and Pigpen. “Did they keep your diapers, boys?”

Chaz and Pigpen laughed. “Later, Sarge.”

Jace shook Keith’s hand. “You’ll be missed.”

Duck slapped him on the back.

“See you in thirty,” Bowser said.

Cam waited until the other men retreated from the room. He blew out a breath. “I knew you’d pull through.”

“Yeah. Thanks. For everything. I mean it.”

Cam’s brow rose. “Stop. You’re gonna make me blush.”