The Marine Next Door (21 page)

John wasn’t worried. “It washes off.”

She passed a paper napkin back to Travis and faced the front again. “I’ll have to wash him and his uniform off, too. Once the sugar and excitement wear off that boy’s going to crash.”

“It was a great night, wasn’t it?” John reached across the seat to touch his fingers to Maggie’s, sending the message that he was talking about more than just a baseball game.

She shifted her hand to link them together palm to palm, letting him know she got the subtle message, even though she answered, “That was the Tigers’ first win of the season. Awesome job, Trav.”

“Uh-hmm.”

While Travis stuffed the last of his chocolate ice cream into his mouth to continue discussing his exploits, Maggie pointed to the dark pickup in the shadows at the far end of the lot. “That’s me.”

John slowed to pull up beside the truck. “If you want to leave him buckled up and his gear in the back, I can just follow you home.” He turned on his brights to give her a clear, safe path to her driver’s side door and stomped on the brakes. There was nothing
safe
about what he saw. “Sarge.”

“Oh, my God.” Maggie was out the door before John could stop her. “Stay back.”

Like hell.

“Maggie!” He glanced into the rearview mirror. “Stay in the truck, buddy,” John ordered. He killed the engine and climbed out, leaving the lights on to illuminate the atrocity parked before him. Grabbing Travis’s baseball bat from the bed of the truck, he armed himself before hurrying after Maggie.

She flinched when he caught her by the arm to pull her back but refused to let her go.

“Do you think they can find some evidence now?” he growled, wishing she’d let him turn her away from the vandalized truck.

There wasn’t a window that hadn’t been bashed in or splintered by dozens of hard blows. The headlights were toast, the hood and fenders dented in by something long and narrow—like the bat he held.

And that devastation wasn’t the worst of it. The front tires had been punctured and all manner of vile things had been carved into the paint by a very angry hand.
Mine. Liar. Bitch.

If he hadn’t been so alarmed by the unblinking pallor of Maggie’s expression, he would have heard the footsteps a moment sooner.

“Mom, what’s a ‘who-ree’?”

“Travis!” Responding like a fierce mama bear when she wouldn’t protect herself, Maggie grabbed her son, hugging him tight to her chest and turning him from the graphic image of what Danny Wheeler had wanted to do to her. “Don’t look, sweetie. It’s not a nice word. None of it’s nice. Don’t look.”

“Mom?”

“Let’s get him out of here.” John hated the tremor he heard in Travis’s voice. He hated that either one of them had to ever see something like this. He wound his left arm around Maggie’s waist, shielding both mother and child in his embrace. He moved them out of the light from his truck, making them harder targets to spot.

“Is this when we go to a safe place and call the police?” Travis asked.

“Yes.” Maggie’s voice was stronger now. She was moving with a purpose. “Yes, sweetie, that’s exactly what we need to do right now.”

John urged them both back to his truck, all the while scanning the ball diamonds and parking lot and street beyond for any sign of movement, any vehicle that didn’t belong. He briefly wondered if it was worth leaving their side to break into the maintenance booth and turn on all the ballpark lights again. He opened the door and Maggie helped Travis scramble up into the backseat before climbing into the passenger seat and pulling out her phone. “Lock it. Call for backup. Get a BOLO out for Danny Wheeler.”

Maggie nodded and punched in a number. He was going for the lights. But almost as soon as John turned away, the truck started behind him and he whirled around to see Maggie lowering the automatic window. “Where are you going?”

John spun the ball bat in his fist and peered into the darkness. Evil was lurking out there in the shadows. Of that, he had no doubt. “I’m gonna find that bastard, or at least some sign of where he went.”

She unsnapped the holster on her belt and pulled out her GLOCK. She pushed it out the open window, butt first. “Then take this.”

He pushed it right back. “No, you keep it. Wheeler’s the kind of man who beats up women and empty trucks. He doesn’t have the guts to come after me. If he shows his face before I get back, shoot him.”

* * *

L
IKE A COCKROACH CLINGING
to the dark places of the world, Danny Wheeler had refused to show himself and face John’s protective wrath. But he’d left a trail that even a private on his first sortie could follow.

With the park lights now casting daylight over the nearest ball field and parking lot, John knelt next to a pair of skid marks on the concrete pavement. The stripes of black rubber beneath the paint chips and shattered glass indicated a quick stop and speedy retreat.

The suited-up detective with the light red hair who’d introduced himself as Spencer Montgomery and taken charge of the scene nodded his agreement. “Something big stopped here.”

Maggie followed right behind the detective. “Like a white van?”

“That’d be about the right dimension to match this wheel base.” John pointed out the bits of displaced gravel around Maggie’s truck. “And those are definitely man-sized footprints.”

John braced his knee and pushed to his feet as Detective Montgomery nodded. “I’ve already put out an APB on the bug van and Wheeler. We’ll find him, Maggie.”

An outburst of laughter from the back of John’s truck, where Montgomery’s partner, Nick Fensom, was playing some kind of game with Travis to keep the boy’s attention off the disturbing scene, turned Maggie’s head. But only for a moment. John could tell that something had changed inside her, something had hardened knowing that Travis had seen this. Whatever bond of fear Danny held over her had finally been burned out by pure, white-hot anger. She wasn’t the skittish, paranoid woman John had first met on the elevator that day. Knowing that her innocent son, who’d never known his father, had finally gotten a glimpse of the unspeakable things he’d done had finally enabled her to seize the courage and strength she possessed.

“Nick’s good with kids.” She pointed out the obvious.

“Probably because he’s the oldest of six brothers and sisters.”

Maggie still worried like a mom, but she was thinking like a cop now—not a battered spouse who lived in constant fear of her ex’s return. She went to stand by John and face the detective. “How did Danny get out of jail so quickly?”

Montgomery shrugged his apology. “We tried to hold him, but his boss, Lawrence Boyle, posted bail. He’s a free man until his assault hearing, unless we can pin this or something else on him. Then I doubt he’ll ever be a free man again.”

John wanted a better answer. “Can’t you arrest him on suspicion or take him in for questioning and lose the key to his cell? Who else would do something like this to Maggie?”

“We have to find him first,” the detective pointed out. “But we will. Doing something like this seems like suicide for a man who wants to stay out of prison. But because he’s so keen on going back, I’m happy to put together a case and oblige him.”

John liked the cool, methodical thoroughness he saw in Montgomery’s documentation of the crime scene and questions he’d asked Maggie. If there was evidence to be found and a case to put together, this guy would get the job done.

He slipped his hand to the middle of Maggie’s back. There was nothing more he could do here—Wheeler was smart enough to be long gone. “Is it okay if I take Maggie and Travis home? It’s getting late and he’s got school in the morning.”

The detective nodded. “Sure. Let us work on this. I’ll order an extra patrol unit to keep an eye on your building.”

“Thank you.” Maggie leaned back against John’s hand, no doubt feeling the emotional fatigue of the day.

Montgomery may have noticed it, too, because he reached out to give Maggie’s shoulder a supportive squeeze. “I need you to focus on the Rose Red case, and that talent you have for getting the victims and witnesses to open up and talk. You don’t need to be dealing with this sick…” The tension in his voice faded away to silence. “I guess that’s why you relate so well to the victims.”

“Call me if you find out anything,” Maggie said, turning toward her son.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” John paused, a step behind her when Montgomery put up his hand. “Are you military?” he asked.

“United States Marine Corps, sir.”

“Are you staying with her and the boy?”

Maggie came back, making a polite argument that John wouldn’t hear. “John lives next door. I wouldn’t ask—”

He’d answered the call of duty more than once in his life. He’d answer it again.

“Yes. They won’t be alone.”

Chapter Eleven

“We’d better put these away.” Maggie slipped the navy blue Marine Corps jacket from beneath Travis’s limp hand and tucked his arm beneath the blanket and sheet. She swept the shock of chestnut hair off his forehead and leaned over the bed to kiss his sweet, unfurled brow. “I don’t want anything to get wrinkled or broken.”

As stressed out by the clear threat against her as he’d been excited about the ball game, Travis had been too wired to sleep. But John had had the brainstorm of bringing over his uniform and medals and sidearm to reassure her son that he was someone who could keep him well and truly safe.

The gun had quickly been stored away alongside Maggie’s, but the ploy worked. Soon enough, Travis’s natural curiosity kicked in and he’d begun to ask questions. Maggie had sat on the bed beside Travis while John patiently answered each one, sharing the meaning of the USMC logo and the brass buttons. Why he had captain’s bars and what a major, colonel and general’s brass would look like.

And then he’d brought out his boxes of medals and Travis’s face had lit up with real awe. Maggie listened, too, tearing up with heartbreaking sadness as John glossed over the more gruesome details of a routine patrol cut short by a roadside bomb, and the selfless sense of duty it took for a man with a shattered leg to crawl back and forth between a bunker and the burning vehicle to retrieve his wounded and deceased friends.

For once, Travis had been silent, hanging on to every word of John’s story. “You never gave up, did you, John?”

“No, son. A marine never gives up.”

Tears burned along Maggie’s cheeks and dripped into her lap at John’s matter-of-fact account of the tragedy that had earned him his Silver Star. And even though Travis might not have fully comprehended the magnitude of John’s sacrifice, he understood enough to know that with this man, he would be cared for and safe.

“Oops.” Just as Maggie reached for the felt box in Travis’s other hand, he rolled over in his sleep, hugging John’s Purple Heart medal as close to his chest as he’d held his ball glove the night before.

“Let him keep it.” John picked up the other medals from the bedside table. “If it helps him sleep.” He cupped his hand over the crown of Travis’s hair. She could see the impulse to lean in before he stopped and asked, “Do you mind?”

Maggie smiled her permission. “He’d love it.” She could easily understand how safe and assured Travis felt when the tall, muscular marine bent down and gave her sleeping son a gentle goodnight kiss, as well. “You’re his hero. Mine, too.”

“I was just doing my job.”

She swiped the dampness from her cheeks at the humble comment and closed the door to Travis’s bedroom before following John out to the living room.

“Don’t tell me you’re all heroed-out. The man I saw tonight—” she paused to turn on a lamp and summon the courage to say what was in her heart “—the man I’ve seen every day since I met you is a hero.” She shook out the folds in his jacket and held it out for him to put on. “May I?” When he reached out to take it from her, she pulled back a step and tilted her face up to his. “Please? I’d love to see you in it. I have a feeling you’re stunning in your dress blues.”

“Stunning?”

Okay, maybe not the word a marine wanted to hear. But when she refused to let go, he relented and turned his back to her so she could help him slide his uniform jacket on over his T-shirt.

“There you go.” He held his arms out to either side and turned.
“Semper Fi.”

When he faced her again, Maggie saw the man she knew him to be inside, the same man she wished he could see. She supposed she should come up with a different word to describe the man she was looking at right now—hot, impressive, noble, sexy, patriotic, proud, powerful, handsome.

“Well?” he prodded, waiting for her opinion.

“Stunning.”

John grinned, shook his head and started to shrug out of the jacket.

“Wait.” Maggie picked up the box with his Silver Star and opened it.

“Sarge…”

“It’s not complete yet.” She pulled out the prestigious medal and unhooked the clasp.

His hands settled at either side of her waist and he tried to look stern with her. “Maggie…”

“Shh. Let me.”

He touched his fingertip to the corner of her eye and traced the salty track of a tear down her cheek. “Will it make these go away?”

She nodded.

“Then do it.”

Humbled and honored by the permission bestowed on her, Maggie slipped her fingers inside the front of his uniform to protect his heart as she pinned the medal above the pocket. She felt his chest heave against the back of her hand as some deeply hidden emotion surfaced. His fingers slid beneath her blouse and massaged the skin above the waistband of her jeans, as though holding still for her was almost more than he could endure. She pulled the pin back through the material and sealed the clasp. John leaned in to rest his forehead against hers.

Maggie outlined the ribbon with her finger and touched each shiny point of the star. Then she rested her hand over the medal, over his heart, and smiled. She tilted her eyes to look up into the unblinking intensity of his. “Your character, your commitment, your caring—those are the things that make you a hero, John. Not this medal.” She slid her hands higher, framing the stubbled warmth of his jaw between them. “But maybe every now and then, if you look at this or your Purple Heart, you’ll remember the men whose lives you saved. And the ones who helped save yours.” She stroked her thumb across his lips and felt him shudder beneath her touch. “And maybe you’ll remember what makes you a hero to my son. And to me.”