sunshine was too bright. Too cheery. Just …too much. It glinted through the trees and reflected off patches of ice melting on the road, painting a far too optimistic picture. The day was completely out of step with the gray mood Rachael had carried with her for the six long days since Cassie’s call.
She backed off on her speed, suddenly aware that she was driving fifteen miles over the limit. Nerves. Excess tension. Her eagerness to finally see Mac. They all came into play as she maneuvered the route to Ft. Riley.
During the many years Mac had been stationed there, she’d driven the fourteen miles from Manhattan, Kansas, to the army base more times than she could count. Knew the route by heart. Up ahead was a spot along the road where faded silk flowers and a small white cross rose from the melting snow, memorializing the site of a fatal accident. Just a mile further, she could push forty-five mph on a tight left curve if the road was clear of ice.
She also knew the exact spot for the turnoff to nearby Ft. Leavenworth and the United States Disciplinary Barracks maximum-security military prison – one of three prisons located on the Leavenworth property. She’d never had reason to take the turnoff. Until today.
That was the twist in the routine – the turnoff. The road that led to Leavenworth U.S.D.B. was a road she’d never thought she would travel. And the inside of the prison was something she’d never, in her worst nightmares, expected to see.
She swallowed a lump of apprehension as she neared the military prison grounds. An aching mix of worry and anxiety clutched her chest as tightly as her hands clutched the steering wheel. The same anxiety that had kept her awake every night since Cassie had called.
Mac. Her husband. Her lover. The father of her child. He was finally back from Afghanistan. But he wasn’t home. Where he needed to be. Where she and Addie needed him to be.
He wouldn’t know about the welcome home party she’d been planning for him when his deployment would have been up two months from now. Wouldn’t see their daughter who so, so badly needed her daddy to hold her and sing to her again. Wouldn’t take her to bed and make love to her the way she’d dreamed of for eight long months.
She wasn’t only afraid for him. She was mad as hell. She should be on her way to pick him up and bring him home. To celebrate his homecoming. To be hers again. But that wasn’t happening today. Based on the little she knew, it might not ever happen.
As she neared the security checkpoint, she felt overrun by fear that Mac might never be hers again. She still couldn’t grasp it. Mac? Accused of a war crime? The murder of an unarmed Afghan citizen? A non-combatant? No. They were wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Cassie may have been the first to call, but she hadn’t been the last. The rumors had clicked down the pipeline among the wives before Mac had even been granted permission to call her. The entire platoon, it seemed, was in shock. And no one had the full story.
That phone call six days ago was etched in her memory like a scar. But the onslaught of press that had started showing up at her door felt like a fresh wound, nowhere near ready to heal let alone scar over.
“Mrs. McKenzie. Is it true that your husband killed an unarmed Afghan? A man known to be friendly and provide intelligence for the Army?
“Have you seen your husband yet, Mrs. McKenzie? Has he admitted to the murder?”
“How old is your little girl? Can we get a picture? What will it be like with your husband behind bars at Christmas?”
“Do you anticipate they’ll ask for life in prison at his court-martial?”
They were like piranha, every one of them, wanting to sink their teeth into a piece of her flesh. Christmas was still a couple of weeks away. Mac would be home by then. She knew it. She believed it. She had to believe it or she wasn’t going to get through this.
Breathing deeply to get herself under control again, she pulled up to the security checkpoint. A military guard stepped out of the small cement block building. He squinted against the brilliant morning sunshine and bent down to speak with her. “Morning, ma’am. You have business here today?”