When I See You (41 page)

I gasp for air, while she casually picks up a pen and starts signing my life away. Trying to recover, I glance over at my team leader. Stein shakes his head. He shoots me an I-can't-help-you-out-of-this look and gets up from his desk.

Reed has the audacity to shake my hand. "Good work, Lieutenant. Thank you for your service," he says.

Kate looks up from her paperwork long enough to say, "I'd like to speak to the lieutenant alone. You're both dismissed."

She outranks them both. They file out like good little soldiers, while I sit there and blaze in her seething silence.

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"I'm saving your God-damn life," she says. "Be
thankful
."

"I don't need saving."

"Well, I think you do."

She gets this scornful look. I glare back at her.

"Go pack your things. We leave at twenty-two hundred. And, Lieutenant, don't keep me waiting."

We leave by helo, thirty-two minutes later. The woman has suddenly become a stickler for time. After take-off, she leans back against the seat headrest and closes her eyes and essentially ignores me, while I look out the window, dispassionate, and watch the dark abyss of Afghanistan disappear.

A mere twenty minutes later, we land at an unfamiliar airstrip where a private jet, with its engines running, waits. As we board the all but empty ten-passenger plane, we take seats together in what could be construed as first class. I start to wonder just how much pull this woman has.

"I have a new boyfriend," she says, watching me as I look around.

"Oh."

"You sound disappointed."

"I am. I thought we could have a little fun on the way back. Pick up where things were left off." I give her this brazen look and put Jordan out of my mind. I've lost all hope of finding Jordan. No one's heard from her in months. Three private detectives I've hired have turned up nothing. She's gone. Lost to me forever. Maybe, my bad boy persona is all I have left. And, Kate came to see me. Maybe, Kate is what I need. Maybe, if I say this often enough, I'll convince myself. "Like I said, a little fun."

"I'm in enough trouble already," Kate says.

I shrug and openly gaze at her. My fingers trail along her collar bone. She's wearing the full-dress navy whites. The ones they issue for female officers. My other hand slides up her skirt and lingers at her inner thigh. She moans at my touch, but stops me from exploring her further, and gives me this wan smile. "You are so fucked up, Lieutenant."

Her words and the way she says them pull me back to reality. My hands fall away and I slide back in my seat farther away from her.

She gives me a surreptitious look and disappears. Minutes later, she returns with a glass of water and two white pills, which she drops into the palm of my hand.

"Take these. You'll feel better. You really need to get some rest." I give her a scornful look. "Trust me. You're going to need to rest. Your body is in a completely separate time zone. I'll wake you up in a few hours. I've got a story for you."

She gets this contemplative look and half-smiles. I swallow the pills with a swig of the water, lean back in the seat, and close my eyes. I take solace in the blackness. I'm determined to play along with her unsolicited advice for sleep for a few minutes and then ply her with the hard questions about what she knows. Because, instinctively, I know Kate may have some answers for me about Jordan and what's been going on.

I fight to stay awake, but sleep overtakes me. I realize too late that what I assumed was Ibuprophen may have been something else. Before I can confront her about it, I lose the battle to darkness. Just like old times.

≈ ≈

I'm unceremoniously awakened with intense shaking at the shoulder level. Alert, at once, just like the training has taught me, I sit up from the leather sofa and throw off the blanket that someone has placed over me. I stare up at Kate. It seems so out of character for her to be hovering over me.

"Wake up, sleepyhead," she says softly.

Her eyes are this intense blue. She looks anxious, but subdued.

We stare at one another.

I begin to feel uneasy. Boyfriend or not, Kate isn't being completely honest or as selfless as to why she's helping me.

"We're in Dulles to refuel. We'll be here for an hour or so. And then, it's on to your final destination."

I look at her warily, then push up and out of my seat and step off the airplane. I'm assailed with the biting cold air that is Washington D. C. My first greeting stateside. Grogginess leaves with the first draw of breath and I rub my hands together to get warm. I make my way inside with Kate following closely behind me.

"Next time, please tell me if you're going to drug me with something, besides Ibuprophen," I say dryly as I pull open the door and allow her to enter first.

"You needed your rest."

"I need to get to Austin. And then, I need to find Jordan."

"Let's talk back on the plane," she says, affecting this sad smile. "Like I said, I have a story for you." Before I can ask her what she means by that, she disappears into the ladies room.

I make a point of buying a toothbrush and then head to the restroom Kate so eloquently pointed out to me a few minutes earlier. I brush my teeth, splash cold water on my face, and spend a few minutes staring at myself in the mirror.

I recognize the permanent change. I love Jordan. There's no more or no less to it. I love Jordan.
I love Jordan.
The face in mirror nods back at me. In the next second, this rising panic takes over. What if I never find her? What if she's lost to me forever? But I push the fear way down because I can't deal with the thoughts of never finding her, of losing her forever. All I can do is try and find her. Kate's given me that chance and I'm taking it.

Dulles. It's the dead of night on a Tuesday in mid-December. I only know it's a Tuesday because I happen to glance at the television where CNN continually runs and happen to see the date and time in the lower right corner of the television set.

Kate waves me over and hands me a sandwich she was able to procure. The airport is all, but dead, at this hour. No one is around, but the cleaning crew and a few shop owners that, somehow, remain optimistic about staying open for the clandestine, early dawn travelers like Kate and me.

≈ ≈

After less than an hour spent refueling the jet, the flight takes off from Dulles. I assume we'll be in Austin in a little over three hours. Kate and I sit across from each other, mesmerized by the familiar drone of the engines and surprising companionable silence. She undoes her seat belt and gets up from her seat once we reach thirty thousand feet at the pilot's announcement. She fills two highball glasses with Jack Daniels and hands me one with a seductive smile. My patience wears thin. I get this anxious feeling inside, while she affects this knowing look as she studies my face. We are in a whole different place from those first few hours of traveling together. I'm determined to get home. To find Jordan. Everything with Kate is finished. She's a means to an end. I try to remain impassive under her watchful glance. The woman can still read me like no other. God knows she knows my history better than anyone else. I know that now.

I cajole myself to play nice. Kate has managed to fuck up my life and yet probably saved it in the past twenty-four hours.

"I believe you have a story to tell," I say with a tight smile.

"I do," she says. She gets this resigned look and then unlocks her briefcase and retrieves this file folder that must be an inch thick.

I get this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I start to flip through it. There are various photos of Jordan. Recent employment history. A Social Security report for a Lisa Breckinridge. A driver's license in three different states. It reads like a felony record, but, upon closer inspection, it just reveals the life of a woman on the run. The photographs capture her devastation. There's one of Jordan walking alone along the banks of Lake Michigan. The grief, so evident, is etched across her face and captured in the photograph. It's been marked with red ink with a Chicago address dated from last month. There's a picture of her running in a marathon from there. She's looks haunted, like a ghost. If I had any doubt about what Jordan's been doing these past four months, it's been laid to rest with these photographs of her.

Kate waits patiently for me to peruse through the whole thing. I flip through the file quickly, pausing every few seconds as some small detail of Jordan's life momentarily captivates my attention. I hold a photograph up to the light, hoping for illumination or salvation, but all I can see is the tangible unhappiness and the true devastation of grief that must run through her at a soul level. I close my eyes and attempt to get a grip.

"Where did you get these? How did you get these?" I finally ask.

"She became—a project. I wanted to understand what you saw in her, so I started to think about what she would do, this woman, who had basically lost everyone she had ever cared about. If she disappeared, where would she go? I started with the four and five star restaurants, figuring she would do work in something she was good at and knew so well. It took a while, but then, we got a hit on a Lisa Breckinridge, five weeks ago. I knew I'd found her." Kate's voice trembles. "I didn't know, not right away, anyway." She stops. "I didn't realize that she was so broken."

"Couldn't you
see
it?" I hold up the photo to Kate, inches from her face. My hands shake with fury. "What kind of psychiatrist
are you
?"

"Not a very good one, I'm afraid," she says.

"Major, you better figure out something else to do with your life. Marry a senator or something."

"How did you
know
?" Kate bites her lower lip and actually blushes.

I look around the plane and realize the Virginia governor was recently widowed and that must be who dear Kate is involved with. She would need a replacement for me before she would officially admit defeat. This much I do now know about her.

I sigh and take a deep breath. "You could have helped her."

Then, I shrug and wanly smile at her. Kate is what she is and
isn't.

"Never mind," I say. "Let's just focus on what you have done.
Thank you
. You found her for me. I've hired private detectives to no avail. And you?
You
found her. Thank you."

"Ironic; isn't it?" Kate asks with a wan smile. "I start researching her whereabouts with the intention of keeping you two as far apart from each other as possible and now I'm taking you to her."

"I'm not a senator, Kate."

"Well, you're plenty
more,
Lieutenant." I shake my head and give her a pleading look, but don't say anything more. "Anyway," she says, trying to smile. "She's back in L.A. Arrived a week ago. We're on our way to LAX. We'll be there within hours. She's working at Le Reve tonight. She'll be there late. We should be able to make it with plenty of time."

"Thank you, Kate." She gets this wan smile, and then, looks like she's about to cry. Something I realize I've never seen her do before.

Eventually, she pulls it together and so do I. We retreat to opposite ends of the cabin and leave everything else unsaid. The flight remains silent, until we land at LAX. We've gained three hours back. It'll be early afternoon. I reset my watch. All that matters to me is getting to Jordan.

There's a sedan waiting as we deplane. I look at Kate in surprise.

"What's this?"

"Just trying to make things right. Good luck, Lieutenant."

I take Kate's hand and bring it to my lips, sad that this is good-bye, but knowing I'll never see her again.

"Good luck, Doctor Major Kate Richards. You're quite something."

I wave one last time, then slide into the car, as she re-boards the airplane.

I rest my head against the backseat as we traverse the streets of L.A. and head out on the 101 towards Malibu.

One thing holds true. I no longer feel guilty for loving Jordan. I don't feel guilty over Ethan anymore either. It's done. It's over. I'm here. Jordan's here. And, that's how it's supposed to be. And, I'll never leave her again. That's a promise I intend to keep.

*≈*≈*

Chapter 26. What I've done

Jordan

"Any plans for your day off?" Seth asks.

I glance up and over at him. The guy is nothing if not persistent. I nod my head at him and almost smile.

"Skydiving," I say.

He gives me a disconcerted look. "For real?" Seth asks. "In December?"

"Yes."

It's late, close to midnight. I finish scouring the Viking stove with a newfound zeal, belying my sudden nervousness at his personal questions. His constant inquiries into my private life, my love life, to be more specific, are playing havoc with me. In the past four months, it would have been a clear indication that it was time to move on, but living Jason Bourne's spy life took its own toll. I finally got tired of running, so I came home.