Chapter Two
“There really needs to be a good reason my phone is ringing at four a.m. on a Tuesday.” Ben leaned his head into his palm and held the phone to his ear. He’d just fallen asleep a half hour before and right then, he felt like committing murder and mayhem.
“I’m at the hospital.”
Ben sat up, instantly awake at the familiar voice. “Escoberra?”
“Yeah.”
Ben blinked rapidly, trying to clear his brain and think about why Escoberra would be calling him this early. Or at all.
Then he remembered. He was the commander.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“No. Just. I need my commander here and that happens to be you. As soon as you can get here.” His voice broke and the line went dead.
Cold slithered down Ben’s spine as he sat for a moment. His hands shook as bitter, angry memories crashed over him, none of them good. He sat and breathed deeply, trying to let them go as opposed to stuffing them back down again.
But they were relentless, pounding away on the inside of his skull like the thundering of artillery on a distant battlefield.
His lungs ached but the memory came anyway. Once again, he was standing at the position of attention in front of his commander.
“Sir, I gave the order.”
“You were flat on your ass getting your guts stitched up.” His battalion commander looked at him. “The enemy broke through six t-wall barriers, killed four of your men, and you’re telling me you gave the order to pursue in direct defiance of my orders.”
Ben exhaled sharply, the memory as raw as it had been four years ago.
Funny how therapy never worked outside the office.
But after a minute, he stopped thinking about when things had started fraying at the edges and focused on the here and now. And that meant getting his ass up and on post. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and an old sweatshirt. The jagged scar on his belly itched and he rubbed it absently before he rinsed his mouth then headed out the door.
It didn’t bother him so much anymore. Except when it did.
Fifteen minutes later, he flashed his ID card at the emergency room entrance and asked at the desk for Escoberra.
He was not prepared to see two young MPs guarding him. “Jesus, what happened?”
Escoberra looked up, his eyes red and watery from drinking or crying, Ben couldn’t tell. “Hailey. They said I beat Hailey.”
Time froze as Ben looked at a man he’d worshiped and saw now as a broken, beaten man. “Is she okay?”
Jesus, how old was Hailey now? Fifteen? Sixteen? Ben couldn’t remember. It had been so long since he’d seen her.
“They’re checking her out now.” Escoberra covered his face with his hands. “I don’t know.”
Ben sucked in a deep breath, his brain racing. What the hell was he supposed to do? He scrubbed his hand over his mouth. “I’ll go see if I can find anything out,” he said quietly. He stepped outside the small room and leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes against the unexpected sting.
“Hey, you okay?”
He opened his eyes at the familiar voice. Captain Emily Lindberg stood near his shoulder, looking neat and prim in a white lab coat.
Emily had started dating Sergeant First Class Reza Iaconelli, one of Ben’s good friends, a few months ago. Despite their being from completely different worlds, she and Reza worked together. Luckily for Ben, his best friend’s significant other was a resident shrink at the hospital.
“You look far too awake right now,” he said by way of greeting.
“I’ve been here since last night,” Emily said. “I’ve been mainlining coffee since about nine p.m.” She folded her arms over her chest. “What’s got you in here?”
Ben breathed out hard. “Apparently, I’m a company commander now.”
She made a sympathetic noise. “Reza mentioned that.”
“I have a soldier who may have put his- ” Ben stopped, his throat blocked. There was a long pause before he cleared his throat roughly. “His daughter’s being examined. Can you help me find out any info?”
He liked Emily, but for a brief second he thought she was going to grip his shoulder or show some sympathy. Ben wasn’t sure he could hold himself together. Not for that.
“Sure. What’s her name?”
“Hailey Escoberra.”
“Give me a few.”
Ben went back into the room with the two military police and Escoberra and stared at the cops. “Do you two really need to be here?” He shouldn’t be a dick but he didn’t like what their presence implied.
He couldn’t wrap his brain around what it all meant.
“Are you taking custody of him, sir?” the little female private asked.
“Yes,” was all he said. It might have been true, it might not have. Ben didn’t know and he didn’t care. But he damn sure wasn’t going to let them continue to sit there and treat Escoberra like a criminal.
“We’re going to need him to be brought to CID tomorrow,” the private said.
“Call my ops tomorrow. Later today. Whatever.” Ben nudged a small black stool out from beneath the stainless steel sink.
For a moment, Ben thought they were going to argue but then, mercifully, they left.
“What happened?” he finally said when he was sure he could speak.
“I don’t know.” Escoberra leaned back against the wall, his face a mask of misery and guilt. “Hailey was arguing with her little brother and the next thing I know, we’re here.”
Ben looked away. Down at his hands, clenched into useless fists in his lap. He wanted to ask but was terrified of the answer. If Escoberra was so drunk he didn’t remember doing it… Jesus, he couldn’t even think it.
“I didn’t do it.”
Ben opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it closed again. The door opened and Escoberra’s wife Carmen walked in. Her eyes were red, her jaw set. She smiled sadly when she saw Ben. “Hey, stranger.”
Ben stood and hugged the woman he’d asked to adopt him once upon a time when he’d been a renegade lieutenant and Carmen had love and giving and kindness to spare.
She was everything his own mother wasn’t. “How’s Hailey?” he asked, wondering where Emily was.
“She’s fine. Three stitches on her shoulder.” Carmen slipped from his arms and moved to Escoberra. She knelt in front of him, cupping his face. “She’s fine,” she whispered to her husband. “She wants to see you.”
A sob ripped from Escoberra’s throat, violent and torn. He collapsed against his wife, who knelt there, her arms tight around his neck.
Ben slipped from the room, wishing he hadn’t been such a shit to let his friendship with Escoberra and his family lapse.
“Hey?”
Emily motioned for him to follow her. She closed the door in a separate exam room behind them.
“This doesn’t bode well,” he said dryly.
She didn’t smile. “The entire family is shutting down. No one will talk but the hospital has triggered a Child Protective Services case anyway.”
Ben’s heart pounded in his throat. “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you need to call Olivia and get legal advice about what to do next.”
Ben frowned. “Olivia?”
“Major Olivia Hale. She’s a good friend of mine. Didn’t she just start working in your unit?”
Ben thought of the rigid female major he’d seen in the conference room, what, yesterday? “Somehow, I don’t think she’s going to be up for a four- ” He glanced at his watch. “Five a.m. phone call.”
Emily moved then, sliding her fingers over his shoulder. His scars throbbed where she touched him. It took everything he had not to flinch. To stand straight and steady and hide his reaction from her.
Because if what Reza said was true, Emily was pretty damn perceptive; and Ben wasn’t really up for sitting on her couch and spilling his guts.
And he damn sure wasn’t about to call the lawyer.
Bad things always happened when lawyers got involved.
***
Olivia walked into the emergency room a half hour later. Her stomach wrenched with an all too familiar anxiety.
Teague hadn’t called her. She was there only because Emily had given her a heads-up about the platoon sergeant in the hospital with his daughter.
Granted, Emily had given Teague the benefit of the doubt but Olivia had her own suspicions about what was going on. She’d seen too many soldiers shielded by commanders, soldiers who had done terrible things.
She hoped she was wrong, that a friend of Emily’s wouldn’t do something like that, but the fact that Emily had called her and not Teague didn’t bode well.
Olivia was braced for a fight – not exactly high on her to-do list first thing in the morning, but it was her job.
She walked into the back and found Emily talking to the tall, angry captain from the conference room. He wasn’t angry this morning. He looked wrecked, as if part of his soul had been taken outside and stomped. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
She knew that look, etched into the lines around his dark eyes – the look of someone devastated by a doctor’s words. Old memories collided with the sterile reality of the emergency room and she shoved aside the churning emotions she saw on his face to focus on the facts.
She walked up, palming her keys, ID card, and cell phone in one hand while she extended the other. “Captain Teague?”
He accepted her offered hand. Olivia wished she didn’t notice the strength in his fingers, the heat in his touch.
She didn’t want to notice. She couldn’t.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s going on here?” she asked, keeping her voice mild. She looked between Emily and Teague.
“I’ll let him fill you in,” Emily said. “I’ve got to go make my rounds.” She glanced over at Teague. “Are you going to be okay?”
It was one of the things that Olivia loved about Emily-her endless compassion. Teague looked at her, his eyes bleak. The compassion Olivia had felt earlier was back, stronger, urging her to offer comfort where she knew it would do little good.
She deliberately took a step back, needing personal and professional distance from the torment she saw in his eyes.
“I don’t really have a choice now, do I,” he said to Emily. There was irony in his voice, a deep-seated anger below the surface. She wondered why Emily didn’t call him on his response. But then she remembered that Emily had said Teague was a friend of Emily’s other half, Reza.
That would explain things.
Olivia folded her arms across her chest. “So what’s the story?”
“Supposedly, there’s a Child Protective Services thing being triggered?” He sounded unsure. “The family wants him to come home. What do I do?”
“Why is CPS involved?”
“I don’t know.” He refused to look up at her, staring instead at his feet.
She had the distinct sense that he was hiding something but she couldn’t get a read on what it could be. “Why is the daughter in the hospital?”
“Stitches.”
Olivia took a deep breath. They could be here all day if this was how he answered questions, one at a time and excruciatingly slowly. “There’s a mandatory three-day cooling off period. You have to order him into the barracks and give him a no-contact order.”
He looked up sharply at that information. “His wife wants him to come home.”
“His wife doesn’t get a vote,” Olivia said simply. She’d seen this movie one too many times. The wife loved her husband, loved him enough to bring him home after an incident of domestic violence.
The story too often ended the same way-with a dead wife.
It was worse, so much worse, when there were kids involved. Her heart ached as memories unfurled inside her. Memories of a time long past that, try though she might, she couldn’t forget. People were counting on her not to forget what it felt like to be that little girl in the exam room.
Olivia took a deep breath and focused on the here and now, shoving away the bad memories. Judge each case on its own merit.
Teague straightened. “What do you mean, his wife doesn’t get a vote?”
“You don’t have a choice in giving him the no-contact order and putting him in the barracks for the cooling off period,” Olivia said. “That’s dictated by higher headquarters.”
She watched his eyes darken as the meaning of her words sank in.
She braced for the argument. She narrowed her eyes, studying him, trying to get a read on the man in front of her as she listed the other formalities.
“Okay,” he said simply after a pause.
“You don’t look too happy about it,” she said softly.
The muscle in his jaw pulsed; his neck was tight and tense. He looked away, down the shiny hallway. “I’m not.”
Olivia let the silence hang on for a moment. “The first ninety days in command are always the roughest,” she said quietly.
He grunted in response. “Thanks for the encouragement.”
He pushed away from the wall and headed down the hallway. Olivia watched him go. He was hiding something.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what.
She’d have ample opportunity, though, in the coming months. She signed out of the emergency room and headed to her car, making a note of the case information for her spreadsheet. She’d never lose track of another case. Ever again.
***
“Captain Teague!”
Ben stiffened behind his company formation. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Sarn’t Major Cox, not after spending the last two hours getting Escoberra and his family out of the hospital. He didn’t want to be the one responsible for keeping Escoberra away from his family.
He knew, knew, that Escoberra hadn’t hurt Hailey.
Major Hale’s recommendations chafed. There was no way he was going to restrict his old platoon sergeant from going home-not when his wife wanted him there.
Ben didn’t know what the hell had happened to get Hailey put in the hospital but he damn sure wasn’t going to add to the stress.
He owed Escoberra too much.
Ben sighed and headed toward the sergeant major, crossing the quad toward him. Cox saluted sharply and Ben returned the salute.
“What happened this morning at the hospital?” Cox asked.
Ben ground his teeth. If he told Cox, the old man was going to find out, and once the battalion commander knew, it was going to be out of Ben’s hands. Hell, it might already be out of his hands.
“One of my platoon sergeant’s kids ended up in the hospital. Fighting or something.”
The lie felt awkward and thick on his tongue.
Cox rocked back on his heels. “Was she admitted?”
“No.” The cannon went off and the entire formation shifted. One of the platoon sergeants called “present, arms” and as one the formation saluted, rendering honors to the flag. Reveille ended and Ben dropped his salute, turning back to the sergeant major.
“I could really use my first sergeant down here, Sarn’t Major,” Ben said. It was as close as he could come to asking Cox for help.
He had some pride, after all.
“He’ll be here in the next day or so. We asked him to sign in early.” Cox spat into the dirt. “So there’s nothing else I need to know about this morning at the hospital?”
Ben bit the inside of his lip and shook his head, hating the job that put him in this position, where he had to lie to the leadership in the battalion or betray one of his own.
Of the two, betrayal was the worse sin. He could sleep at night with the lie-well, if he slept, that is. He and sleep weren’t exactly BFFs.
Beside him, Cox grunted and toed the dirt. “I hope there’s nothing the boss needs to know, Teague,” Cox said quietly.
“Or what, Sarn’t Major? I’ll get fired?” He tried to look hopeful and failed. He was just too damn tired.
“You wish. You’re not getting fired, Teague. You can just get that out of your damn mind once and for all.”
“Shit,” Teague muttered.
Cox shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you. Most officers would jump at the chance to command.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not most officers. I’m not up for throwing my soldiers under the bus to save my own ass.” Cox stared at him, hard, and Teague wondered if he was getting ready to snap. The old man wasn’t known for his sanity. “There’s more to command than saving your own ass. If you’re too stupid to figure that out, then maybe you don’t deserve this damn job.”
Cox walked away, leaving Ben alone, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
Cox knew he was lying. He wasn’t sure if Cox knew the specifics but that didn’t matter. He knew.
And he hadn’t called Ben on it.
Ben scrubbed his hand across his mouth, wondering how to read between the lines.
“You look grumpy. Did the coffee pot break again?”
Ben turned to see Sergeant First Class Reza Iaconelli approaching from the headquarters company formation.
“I saw Emily this morning,” Ben said, falling into step with Reza. They were both in PTs for first formation. Good a time as any to go for a long, therapeutic run.
“Yeah, she told me. How’s Escoberra’s kid?”
Ben swallowed the lump in his throat. “She’s okay.”
“What happened?”
“I’m going running. You coming?”
Reza nodded. “Sure. How far you going?”
“I was thinking the water tower across post.”
“Someone’s in a mood,” Reza said.
“Just because your old ass…”
“Don’t start with the rehab jokes,” Reza growled. “What?” They fell into step, weaving through the masses of formations and bodies running on Battalion Avenue. The sun was just creeping over the corps headquarters across post and the sound of five thousand feet running in formation beat a rhythm into Ben’s chest.
It was a comfortable rhythm.
“How’re things with Emily?” Ben asked.
He glanced over and saw Reza’s face break into a slow grin. “She’s good.”
“Look at you, going all soft and mushy over a woman.” Ben rolled his eyes. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
A simple statement but one he’d never thought he’d hear from his longtime friend. Reza was always going to struggle with alcohol but he’d found someone to stand with him.
It was a fucking miracle and damn if Reza wasn’t a guy who deserved some good luck.
“I’m happy for you,” Ben said after a long silence.
“Thanks.”
They ran in silence, the only sound the rhythmic shuffle of their feet on the pavement. Ben lost himself in the beat, falling into the rhythm and letting it take over every conscious thought.
“What are you going to do about Escoberra?” Reza asked when they reached the tower.
Ben turned around, heading back toward Cav country.
“I don’t know. I don’t believe Carmen would let him back into the house if he beat up Hailey. She wouldn’t put up with his shit.” Ben smiled. The one time Ben had gone out drinking with Escoberra and they’d gone back to the house drunk and needing a place to crash, she’d put him to bed and then given him hell the next morning, all while cooking him breakfast.
“The lawyer was in the headquarters this morning, talking about it with the battalion commander,” Reza said quietly. “If you’re planning on telling him, you might need to do that before she does.”
“Goddamn it,” Ben muttered. “She has no business telling the boss this shit.”
“She sure as hell didn’t see it that way.”
Heat that had nothing to do with the run scorched through his veins. He picked up the pace until his lungs burned and his thighs screamed.
He figured running some of the aggression in his blood out before he got a hold of that major was going to be a good thing. Maybe then he’d be able to hold on to a trace of his military bearing.
He wasn’t exactly known for his tact.
They turned into the battalion footprint and lo and behold, there was the target of his frustration.
Ben started across the field, ready to throttle Major Hale.
“Whoa.” Reza grabbed his shoulder, stopping him before he could leave. “Calm the hell down.”
“No. No goddamned staff officer is going to do my job for me.”
“You weren’t going to tell him,” Reza pointed out.
“That’s not the point,” Ben snapped. “Escoberra was like a father to me and goddamn it-“
“Goddamn it what, Captain?”
Ben turned to see the little major suddenly standing behind him. Great, she was a ninja, too. He refused to salute. “Goddamn it, ma’am, you have no business briefing the battalion commander about my soldiers.”
Major Hale lifted her chin. “That’s where you’re wrong, Captain Teague,” she said quietly. “It’s in my duty description to make sure you’re doing your job.” She tipped her head and smiled sweetly. “And since you didn’t opt to inform your commander that one of your NCOs put one of his children in the hospital last night, I did it for you.”
“He didn’t do it,” Ben said, barely restraining the violent anger in his voice.
“That’s not for you to decide,” she said quietly.
“It’s not for you to decide, either,” Ben spat. He took a step closer, not giving a damn who saw. “You might be down here to clean up the battalion, but don’t get your responsibilities confused with my goddamned job.”
She lifted her chin, refusing to back down. A part of him admired her willingness to go toe to toe with him. “Maybe if you did your job, Captain, I wouldn’t have to,” she hissed.
“Captain Teague! Major Hale!”
Ben stiffened as the battalion commander’s voice interrupted the anger throbbing in his temples. He took a single step backward.
“What the ever-loving hell is going on that I’ve got two officers getting into a pissing contest in front of the troops?” Gilliad pinned Ben with a hard look. “Goddamn it, Sarn’t Ike, why the hell did you let this situation get out of control like this?” Reza held up both hands and backed slowly away from the scene. “And who the hell do you think you are to talk to one of my majors that way?”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Major Hale stiffen and straighten to the position of attention. Ben did the same, searching for a way out of the hole he’d just dug himself into with his boss.
“We were just having a heated debate about something, sir,” Major Hale said before he could speak.
“That something wouldn’t happen to be Sarn’t First Class Escoberra, would it?” His commander pinned Ben with a hard look.
Ben stiffened. “Sir, I was coming to brief you on that situation after formation.” Not really a lie, not completely the truth, but Ben wondered if LTC Gilliad could appreciate his desire not to crucify someone he’d bled with.
“I’m already aware of it. Major Hale has told me that you’re doing the required paperwork?”
Ben sucked in a deep breath and barely avoided glancing at Olivia. “Roger, sir. I was going to take care of it this morning, then talk to Child Protective Services and see what direction this was going to go.”
LTC Gilliad nodded sharply. “Next time, commander, make sure I hear about these things from you first.”
Ben saluted as the old man turned away. “Roger, sir.”
He pivoted to face Major Hale, noticing for the first time that her hair framed her face and clung to the side of her neck. Seeing her and not the woman in the uniform. He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.
“Do your job, Captain Teague, so that I can do mine,” she said quietly. She left before he could say anything else. He watched her go, breathing deeply as his heart rate slowed to something approaching normal. She lifted her arms, retying her hair into some twisted mass at the base of her neck to keep it from falling out of regulations. He caught himself wondering how long it was.
He watched her until she was out of sight.
She’d held her ground against the worst of his temper.
Ben almost smiled. That was something most grown men wouldn’t do.
She hadn’t narc’d on him. She didn’t know him from Adam but she had just covered for him. People didn’t just do things like that, not out of the blue.
So why had she?
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