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“Yes,” he says, his voice vibrating low and rough. “I know.”
My heart squeezes in my chest, and painfully. “You don’t know.” Seconds tick by and I can barely breathe because he doesn’t correct me. He doesn’t reply. “Rick. I—you left me. I was alone, and—”
His hands come down on my arms and he pulls me to him. “I know. I fucking know what I did. And I was a fool.” His forehead finds mine. “I let him get close enough to you to buy you a damn ring.”
“For his political gain. That man doesn’t love me.”
“No matter what the reason, you put his ring on. I let that us get to the place. I let that happen. That’s hard to swallow.”
“You know I don’t—”
“Love him,” he supplies. “I know. I did this.” He cups my head and fixes me in a tormented stare. “And I’m going to make it up to you. That’s a promise.” He inhales, his broad chest expanding with a breath as he takes my hand. “Right now, though,” he breathes out, “I need you to look at something with me.”
He doesn’t give me a chance to dread whatever this might be. He’s already leading me down the hallway. “What is it?” I ask as we enter the bedroom.
“The book I grabbed from your father’s office,” he says, releasing me. “It’s in my bag in the closet,” he adds, heading in that direction. “I’ll grab it.”
I quickly follow. “What about Adam and Smith?” I ask.
“They can wait,” he says, over his shoulder, disappearing inside the bathroom on his way to the closet.
Still pursuing, I catch him in the closet, as he adds, “This cannot wait. We should have already looked at this.” He kneels next to his bag and pulls out the book. “Does it look familiar?”
I kneel as well, opposite him across from his bag, and grab the book, frowning. “It does actually. This was in his home office. It’s not just a military training manual. It’s an antique. Actually, not just an antique.” I glance up at him. “My mother gave it to him. You found it at Fort Sam?”
“Under his couch in his office and there’s something stuffed inside it.” He takes the book from me and flips it open to show me. He’s right. There’s something inside it, shoved into the spine or maybe in between a special map insertion.
“I don’t understand. He wouldn’t destroy this book, but it’s damaged.”
“Maybe that’s the point,” Rick suggests. “No one would think he’d destroy this book, but we’re going to have to.”
“We can’t, Rick. It’s special. And valuable.”
“To save him, baby. To save him. I’ll have it restored. You have my word.”
I press my hands to my face and then drop them. “Right. Okay. Yes. We have to.”
“Let’s go into the kitchen table. I want to lay it out and do as little damage as possible.” I nod and he stands, helping me to my feet, dread filling me. Whatever this is, whatever we’re about to find, it’s not good. And it’s certainly proof that my father is in danger, not that I needed proof beyond the text message I read. All I can hope is that this might be ammunition we can use to keep him alive.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Candace
Fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting at the kitchen table next to Rick, with Smith and Adam on either side of us. Thanks to a special kit Adam had in his vehicle, wherever that may be, Rick is wearing plastic gloves and now has a long pair of tweezers and a special thin blade at his disposal. With a lamp above the book, Rick is now officially operating on an antique book, his skill with a knife remarkably comforting considering the connection it holds to my mother.
He studies it, examining his different options before he finally cuts the map I’d noticed earlier from the center of the book and sets it aside. With tweezers, he then pulls a piece of folded paper from the inside of the book. Another follows. And then another. Then two more.
Rick sets the tweezers down and unfolds the first sheet of paper, which contains two letters next to a series of numbers. I stare at it and then glance at Rick, watching a muscle tick in his jaw. He opens the second. This looks like coordinates and dates. That muscle in Rick’s jaw ticks harder and I glance at Adam and Smith to find them both watching Rick with all-consuming interest.
Rick opens the next piece of paper, and the next, and finally, goes back to one list of words and phrases that mean nothing to me:
Skydrop
Doppler
Redrock
Willow
The list is about fifty deep, but there are two words circled:
Westwood
Keystone
Rick sets all the paperwork down and then stands up, stepping away from the table. He walks to the center of the kitchen, giving us his back, hands on his hips, spine stiff. All eyes are on him and all kinds of things fly through my mind. I’m terrified and I don’t even know why. “Rick,” I say, pushing to my feet, hugging myself. “What is it?”
