Page 34 of Operation Rescue
Ty laughed, and then that window vanished. The gauge continued to slowly fill. Erin felt tension building anew inside her as they waited. She grasped at the first thing she could think of for distraction.
“That photo over there,” she said to Rafe, “with the two men shaking hands. Is that… Gavin de Marco?”
“It is,” Rafe confirmed the identity of the world-famous lawyer who had dropped out of sight. “He works out of our northwest headquarters.”
“With you?” Blaine asked, and by his tone she was guessing he, too, had heard of the man.
Rafe nodded, then gestured toward the photograph on the wall. “The other guy is Marcus Rockwell.”
“The attorney your guy’s wife works for?” Blaine asked.
“Yes. He wasn’t real sure about Amy getting tangled up with us, so Gavin flew down here to reassure him.”
Erin blinked. “He came all the way here just for that?”
Rafe leaned back in his chair and gave her a steady look. “Welcome to Foxworth.”
“No wonder you sound happier now than you ever did in uniform,” Blaine said.
“Let’s just say the guidance at the command level of Foxworth sees a lot clearer.”
Blaine’s mouth quirked in that wry way of his. “Not,” he said, “that that would take a lot these days.”
“Truer words,” Rafe murmured, but he was turning back to the screen now, and she saw the file had finished downloading. He hovered the mouse over the file name, then looked at both of them. “You ready for this? You might not like what you see.”
“If it’s Ethan and he’s alive, I’ll deal with the rest.”
Blaine’s head turned rather sharply, and she could almost feel the look he gave her before he went back to looking at the screen. And belatedly it hit her that if she’d been that certain a couple of years or so ago, this man she’d never stopped loving would still be her husband.
And Ethan would still have a loving, full-time father, and they probably would never have ended up sitting here like this, waiting to see just how much trouble their boy was in.
Chapter 18
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t seen Ethan in three months, he recognized him instantly. And even if he hadn’t, Erin’s quick, audible intake of breath would have told him. There was no audio on the recording, but he didn’t need that, either. This was his son.
“He’s looking a little skinny,” he said.
“That’s more because he’s grown three inches in the last few months. He’s only a couple of inches shorter than me, now,” Erin said.
He knew she didn’t mean it that way but it hit him like a punch to the gut. She shouldn’t have had to tell him that, he should have known. He should have been here to watch it happen.
His jaw tightened. He should have pushed harder for a relocation. A desk is a desk is a desk wherever it was, and as long as they would only let him instruct and push paper, what did it matter? True, being where there was an airfield mattered, because at least they let him teach the basics of flight school, and he got to get in the air—although it wasn’t at all the same without the pulse-hammering addition of combat—but there were several places that fit the bill on this side of the country.
Hell, he could be stationed at Pendleton, barely ten miles away from this place, or from Erin’s house, once you got on the freeway.
He’d asked about it, way back, but they’d said no for whatever reason they had that they didn’t care to divulge. And once his initial desperation had faded a little, he’d realized he might be better off a little further away, if only because Erin had made it so coldly clear that casual, unplanned drop-in visits would not be welcomed.
And judging by the tension that crackled every moment he was around her, that hadn’t changed.
“Smooth,” Rafe muttered, yanking Blaine out of his thoughts.
“What?”
Rafe reached out and backed the video up about thirty seconds. He watched closely this time, and saw that one of the other boys who had come in with Ethan had engaged the man behind the counter in a rather animated conversation. The second one stood looking at a nearby aquarium that apparently housed a reptile of some persuasion, drawing an occasional glance from the owner.
And while that had all been happening, Ethan had walked to the end of the main aisle and grabbed something off the shelf, stuffing it inside his jacket and quickly zipping it closed.
“So the first two were in charge of distraction, and Ethan handled the stealing,” Blaine said.
