Meant for Her (4 page)

“What do you have for me?” said Barstow.

“The motel fire was deliberately set to cover up a murder, sir,” said Hank.

“Whose murder?”

“It seems the body is that of Commander John McDowell.”

The line was silent, and Hank resisted the urge to speak to fill the void. If his suspicions were correct, the admiral was already well aware of who had died in that fire.

“What makes you believe the body is McDowell?”

Hank told him about the ring, the safe deposit box, Julie Trueblood and the cipher. “Dental x-rays were sent in for positive identification.”

“A lot of good that will do.”

“Sir?”

“All of McDowell’s service records are gone, from his basic personnel file to the data from his last assignment,” said the admiral. “Including his dental records.”

Hank was stunned. It was no small feat to make someone’s entire military existence disappear. “What happened to them?”

“They were deleted from our computer system, either by someone in the Navy with the clearance to do so, or by someone who hacked into that computer system.”

“People can actually hack into the Navy’s computers?”

“Computer gurus with exceptional code breaking knowledge and expertise,” said the admiral. He pronounced guru like it had quotation marks around it. “Someone like McDowell’s daughter.”

“Is she that good?”

“McDowell was one of the best cryptologists the Navy has ever seen, but the daughter was rumored to be some kind of prodigy. McDowell bragged she was better than he would ever be. Then she grew up and got herself a degree in mathematics and computer science.”

“That’s why the Navy kept interrogating her when her father disappeared. If she sympathized with him, she was a threat to national security just like he was.”

“Yes. And it’s why the Navy has kept tabs on her all these years, no matter what she wants to call herself.”

Hank didn’t allow himself to consider his next words. “You knew it was McDowell in that motel.”

“We got an anonymous tip.”

“An anonymous tip,” Hank repeated. The sheer convenience of such a tip made it suspect.

“A voicemail left on my line. It said we’d find McDowell and his last secret.”

“The message from the safe deposit box.”

“Yes. Send me a copy of it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you get Julie Trueblood to decipher it, Jared. If anyone can, it’s her.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” As Hank hung up the phone, he steered his SUV onto the exit ramp. According to his GPS, he was less than half an hour from Gwen Trueblood’s house in Vermont. He had been about to head to the airport for his flight back to Jacksonville when Julie phoned and told him about the break-in.  He had offered to come out, and she had quickly accepted.

It wasn’t like Hank to keep things from his commanding officer.

“Sometimes, you’ve got to trust your gut,” he said to himself.

Chapter 3

As Hank stepped up to the front door of the unlit house, he had an uncomfortable feeling, like he had shown up for a party on the wrong day. He found it hard to believe no one was home after a personal invitation and a five hour drive.

Hank heard nothing when he rang the bell, so he knocked loudly on the door for good measure. He was rewarded with the barking of dogs who quickly came to the other side of the door.

Turning around, Hank surveyed his surroundings by the day’s last light as he waited. The white farm house had a wide front porch with turned railings and a painted wood floor. A two-story barn loomed to the side of the garage, and distant snow-covered fields were studded with split-rail fences.

The land reminded him of his mother’s property, and Hank was acutely aware that he was just a few hours’ drive from his family’s home in the Adirondacks. He imagined his mom and siblings sitting around the big dining table with glasses of wine, and promised himself he would do everything in his power to make the ceremony tomorrow.

Everything except walk away from a case.

The door opened behind him and Hank turned to see the face he hadn’t even realized he’d been missing. It was there in the hitch of his breath as he looked at her.

“Thanks for coming, Mr. Jared.”

Her blonde hair was tied up and away from her face, her eyes calm and clearly grateful.

“Of course.”

Was this the face of a traitor?

If Julie Trueblood had hacked into the Navy computers to protect her father, she no doubt believed that what she had done was right. As she held the door wide for him to enter, he realized that the moment might come when he would need to arrest her. Hank crossed the threshold and hoped he wouldn’t have to do that.

“The power’s been out since this morning,” she said. “There’s a generator in the barn, but we haven’t been able to get it working.”

“Maybe I can fix it.”

“I’ll pretend I wasn’t hoping you would say that.”

“Why?”

“So I can seem like a tough, independent woman who doesn’t need a man to do anything mechanical.”

“And fry it up in a pan?”

“Exactly.” She had a beautiful smile, he noted, just as it fell. “Of course, I’m already hamming up the damsel in distress routine pretty well.”

“I’m glad you called. Someone breaking into your home is unsettling for anyone. Given the circumstances, you were right to call me.”

She accepted his words with a nod. “Come on in,” she said, stepping aside and motioning for Hank to follow her down the dim hallway. “Watch yourself, it got dark all of a sudden.” She trailed her hand along the wall to navigate in the dim light as she called out, “I think it’s about time to pull out the candles, Gwen.”

They stepped into the kitchen, where a tall woman with flowing blonde curls was busy unpacking boxes of candles and candle holders. “One step ahead of you,” she said. She smiled warmly at Hank, and he knew they must often be mistaken for sisters.

“Gwen Trueblood, this is Hank Jared,” said Julie.

Hank extended his hand. “That’s a lot of firepower, Ms. Trueblood.”

“Call me Gwen,” she said, lighting candles as she spoke. “I heard you may be able to fix our generator.”

“I can give it a try.”

“Wonderful,” she said, taking a flashlight off the counter and handing it to Hank. “Any tools you might need are out in the barn with the generator. Julie, will you show him where it is?”

“Sure thing.” Julie grabbed a down jacket off the back of a kitchen chair and pulled on tall winter boots before leading the way out the back door. When they were alone, she turned and waited for Hank to walk beside her.

“Mr. Jared, I owe you an apology.”

He could smell her scent, clean and light, floating on the crisp winter air as he stepped closer.
In a different time and place…

“It’s Hank,” he said. “An apology for what?”

“For losing it when you were in my office,” she said, her embarrassment plain. “For throwing you out on your ear when you tried to be compassionate.”

At her words, Hank remembered the way she had fit in his arms, warm and solid. He knew that he wanted her back there again, and the knowledge made him uneasy. “It must have been quite a shock,” he said with sincere sympathy.

Julie frowned. “You know, then.”

He nodded. “I did have to work for it, if it makes you feel any better.”

She turned back toward the barn and began walking slowly through the snow as she spoke. “I hadn’t seen my father in ten years.”

Hank knew the admiral wouldn’t believe her. “That must have been hard for you.”

“I understood it. My father came to see me the day he disappeared.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I read the official report. It says the last time you saw him was the night before the disappearance.”

“I lied. I got home from school and he was waiting for me at the kitchen table.”

The sound of their footsteps through the snow and a blowing wind were the only noises between them. They crossed the last of the field between the house and the barn. Julie lifted the cold metal latch and opened the door, lighting her flashlight for the darkness within.

She led the way as Hank followed closely behind her. At the far end of the barn, she opened a small door and revealed an organized workshop. A red generator had been pulled into the middle of the floor.

“Here it is.”

Hank crouched down in front of the machine and extended his hand for the flashlight. She gave it to him and watched as he oriented himself to the older generator.

“The fuel lines are intact. Electrical looks good so far.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t get a response from the starter.”

She did say she had already tried to fix it. He would do well not to underestimate this one. He moved on to examine the starter. “What did you and your dad talk about that day?” he asked.

Julie leaned back against the wall. “He told me what was coming,” she said quietly. “The accusations. The charges of treason.” Julie took a trembling breath. “He told me he was leaving.”

The picture of Julie surrounded by reporters flashed in his mind and Hank felt a surge of adrenaline, as if her father were here and he could beat some sense into the man who was willing to abandon his daughter to save his own skin.
Didn’t he know what that would do to her?

“He told me who set him up.”

Hank looked at her in surprise. Nowhere in the file was there mention of any kind of conspiracy.

A part of him clutched at the idea, wishing there was a way for this woman to be clean of her father’s sins, but the experienced investigator knew better. McDowell was a father who didn’t want his daughter to believe he’d done something terrible.

“His commanding officer gave him messages to decode, just like always. He told him they were from Uzkapostan, but in reality they were coded messages from our own Navy. The content of the messages were things like coordinates and location names, dates, that sort of thing. Nothing that let my father know they were really our own intel.”

Julie stared into the distance. “Until the Dermody went down. My father realized that the coordinates of the ship when it was sunk were identical to the coordinates he had decoded the day before.”

“What did he do?”

“He escaped.” Her features were oddly blank as she continued. “He went to the bank and emptied his accounts, then he came home to talk to me. He told me he would call Barstow and confront him once he was safe…”

“Barstow?”

“Yes, Captain Thomas Barstow. Do you know him? He was my father’s commanding officer.”

If Hank had been standing, he might have fallen over. He heard himself answer in a monotone voice that sounded like a stranger’s. “He’s an admiral now.”

“An
admiral
?” Her hands were clenched at her sides. “That man should be the one laying in the morgue right now. Not my father. Barstow is the traitor.”

Hank watched her fury, saw her chest rise and fall. Hank was a man who trusted his own gut, and his instincts were telling him that Julie Trueblood was telling him the God’s honest truth.

“Why did he run?” he asked. “Why not defend himself?”

“My father was born in Uzkapostan. He still has family there.”

People had been convicted of espionage on less.

If Julie was correct and the admiral was responsible, it would have been damn near impossible to prove it. Hank turned back to the generator. He needed to think.

“Do you believe me?” she asked.

Hank’s hands stilled, but he didn’t answer, unsure of what to say.  He would have been a lot more comfortable if she hadn’t asked the question.  His hand fiddled with the starter, and he saw her turn and walk out of the workshop from the corner of his eye. He looked up, staring after her and rubbing his lip with the back of his hand.

Then he was there, grabbing her hand and turning her around to face him, his body too close to hers. He had only meant to stop her. “I believe you,” he said.

He could see the desire in her eyes, feel it in the air between them as her scent met his nostrils and he fought for control. He forced his hands to unclench, and released her.

As he stepped back, Julie made the smallest noise deep in her throat, a hum of disappointment. It was enough. He grabbed her, pinning her between his body and the barn as he kissed her forbidden lips with his own.

Lust was there, swift and hot, surprising him with its intensity. She returned his bruising kisses, her passion matching his as they climbed higher, each short of breath, pulses racing.

A loud banging noise startled them apart.

“What was that?” asked Hank.

“It sounded like the barn door slamming in the wind,” she said. “But I thought I latched it behind us.”

“You did. I saw you.”

Hank quickly grabbed the flashlight and pulled out his weapon. “Stay behind me.” Halfway back to the door they had come in, they heard the same slamming sound in the opposite direction.

“It’s the back door,” said Julie. “Not the one we came in.” The pair doubled back and walked around a stack of hay, suddenly greeted by an unexpected expanse of white. The open barn door moved slowly in the icy breeze, the snow-covered field beyond glittering in the moonlight as the wind howled ominously.

Clearly visible in the radiant snow was a trail of footprints, leading from the back door of the barn through the field for as far as the eye could see. Julie sank into a squat and bent her head between her knees.

Hank moved closer to the tracks and examined them in the light of his flashlight. “They’re recent, but they have about two inches of snow cover,” he said, considering. “What time did it stop snowing?”

Julie’s gaze dropped lower.  “It had already stopped when I got the mail. Noon. Lunchtime.”

“So these were made this morning.”

“The snow cover might be from blowing snow. It’s windy.”

“The snow’s too wet. Feel it.”

Julie didn’t move from her crouch.

Hank knelt down next to her. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know who made them?”

Julie licked her lips, swallowed. She shook her head. “Gwen and I are the only ones here.”