Uncle Sarge

They rode on in awkward silence until they reached the bridge that crossed Pensacola Bay and led into the city. “I guess we should pick up a map.” Rich pulled into a service station. “I need to gas up anyway.”

“Good idea,” Jennifer said. “I’ll see if they have one while you pump.”

Jennifer reappeared before he had filled the tank. She unfolded the map and pored over it while he settled the bill.

“Ah, here it is. Smith Street,” she said as Rich started the engine. “It’s on the other side of town.” She directed him to the main artery and settled back against the seat.

Rich drew in a breath and steered the truck toward the northwest side of town.

Jennifer knew she should be breaking his tension by talking, but darn it, sitting this close to him, she could barely think. She’d thought he’d made her office feel small, but in the confines of his small pickup truck, separated only by the space between bucket seats, it was all she could do to breathe.

She would be so glad when they were done with this.

Jennifer glanced at his strong profile and his lean jaw starting to bristle with golden five o’clock shadow and wondered if she might just explore…No, she told herself, it was too soon. Besides, she knew about his kind of man. Those special tactics combat control operators were love ’em and leave ’em all the way. She’d already been left once. And once was more than enough.

She busied herself reading the map and watching the landmarks fly by. Finally, they pulled off the main road and into a neighborhood.

Only a few more blocks and Rich would reach his sister’s address. Only a few more blocks and he’d be reunited with the only relative he had. She smiled at that.

Most of Checkmate’s work was doing background checks for Okaloosa County businesses. She seldom saw the people she researched. She seldom reached out and touched the people whose lives she explored. It would be wonderful to experience something good and positive.

“Shouldn’t we be turning now?”

Jennifer snapped out of her thoughts and ran a finger along the course she’d marked. “About two blocks. Then turn left.”

The neighborhood was a relatively new one comprised of small houses, with small mortgages, for couples just starting out. Most of the yards were well tended, and most had one car in the carport and one in the drive. She and Duke had once lived in a neighborhood like this together. She sighed. Now, she lived there alone.

Finally, they came to the street. “Right turn,” Jennifer said with less than full confidence.

Rich turned, and Jennifer began scanning for house numbers. “I think we’re headed in the right direction,” she said. “It should be right around this curve.”

It was.

Rich pulled up to the curb and parked. He exhaled slowly as he assessed the appearance of the small, yellow bungalow. Sherry had always loved the color yellow, but she never would have let the lawn go so long without mowing.

He knew that from the way she’d loved to do the yard work when they were in foster care together. She’d always said she wanted to have a little yellow house with a white picket fence and lots of yard to putter in. There was no fence, but two out of three was pretty good.

The lawn looked as if it hadn’t been mowed in several weeks, and children’s toys were scattered throughout the tall grass. There was a very old minivan in the carport, but the second car, if there was one, was gone. A pile of newspapers filled the seat of a lawn chair on the tiny front porch. Though it was too early in the evening for lights to be on, the house looked dark and forlorn.

“Do you suppose they’ve gone on vacation?” Jennifer echoed exactly what Rich had been thinking.

He nodded. “You’d think they’d’ve canceled the paper, though.”

“Let me check the mailbox,” Jennifer said, pushing open the door. She came back in a minute. “Nothing there. Maybe, one of the neighbors is picking up their mail. But, if they were going on a trip, wouldn’t they put away their kids’ toys first?” she mused.

“Beats me,” Rich said. “Now what?”

“We talk to the neighbors. We’ve come this far, we might as well see what they know.”

The house to the right was as dark as Sherry’s with no cars filling the carport or the drive. But the one on the other side seemed cheery and open, and cooking smells wafted from that direction. “Guess we start with that one.”

Rich drew a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “Here goes nothing.” He rang the doorbell.

A plump, middle-aged lady appeared, drying her hands on a dishtowel. “May I help you?” Her expression was pleasant, but cautious, as she pushed open the storm door a crack.

Rich cleared his throat, struggling to dislodge the industrial-size lump, as Jennifer stepped forward and smiled reassuringly.

“My name is Rich Larsen. I’m looking for my sister, Sherry. I haven’t seen her in several years, but I think she lives next door.”

“Oh, Mr. Larsen. It’s so good that you’ve come,” the lady dithered. “I’m just so sorry you couldn’t have come sooner.” She pushed her screen door open and beckoned them in. “It’s too bad you couldn’t have come before…” Her voice trailed off, then she sighed. “It’s so sad.”

Chapter Two

She might as well have walloped him with a rifle butt. Rich staggered backward. Before what? No, he couldn’t have finally found her only to have…

Jennifer took charge. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. What’s happened?”

“You mean you don’t know?” The woman paled. “I am so sorry. I could have softened the blow some.”

“What blow? Please. Tell me what’s happened to my sister.”

“It was terrible, just terrible,” the lady said, wringing her hands. “They had gone out to celebrate their anniversary. Five years, I think it was. They didn’t go out much. They were just starting out and their budget was stretched to the limit. I used to sit with the little ones so they could take in a bargain matinee from time to time.”

“Please, Ma’am. My sister?” Rich didn’t like the way she kept referring to the past.

“It was a terrible accident. It was raining really hard and they skidded right into oncoming traffic. Mike was killed. Sherry’s in the hospital. Broke her neck. They tell me it’s going to be a long road before she’s back on her feet.”

Jennifer squeezed his hand, then released it. “Thank you, Mrs…. Can you tell us which hospital?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m June Benton. She’s in Baptist Hospital. I think she’s supposed to be transferred to a rehab facility soon.” She wiped her hands on the dishtowel she was still holding. “Sherry often spoke of her big brother. I’m sure she’ll be glad to have you visit. It’ll help having family around at a time like this.”

Rich had heard everything, but he wasn’t sure he’d absorbed the content of what Mrs. Benton had said. He had still been thinking of the fifteen-year-old he’d last seen, and in one afternoon he’d learned she’d married, borne children and been widowed. Not to mention the injury from the accident. This was not the happy reunion he’d hoped for.

“Thank you, Mrs. Benton. We’re sorry to have bothered you.” Jennifer turned to Rich. “Come on, we’ll go to the hospital. At least, you can see her.”

“Yeah, sure.”

They started for the door, then Jennifer turned back. “Do you know what’s happened to the children?”

Kids. He hadn’t even thought about that. Sherry had kids. Who was taking care of them?

“Sherry’s friend, Rebecca, took them home with her.” Mrs. Benton looked inside. “I have a phone number for her somewhere.”

“That’s all right, Mrs. Benton. We have to hurry to reach the hospital before visiting hours are over. I can get that number later.” Jennifer was certain Rich would want to know once the shock wore off, but right now, it was better to let him see Sherry than find the location of the children he didn’t know. She took a business card from her purse and handed it to Mrs. Benton. “When you find it, call me. You can leave a message on my voice mail if I’m not there.”

Mrs. Benton took the card and studied it, then nodded.

“Thank you, again, for being so helpful.”

Rich had begun to show the classic signs of shock, so Jennifer took him by the arm and urged him through the door.

She steered him toward the passenger side of the truck and waited for him to protest, but Rich barely murmured a word as she climbed into the driver’s seat and adjusted it to accommodate her smaller frame. “I need the key.”

Rich dug it out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“There’s some cola left in the cup holder. I think if you drink some, you’ll feel better.” She wasn’t sure it would help, but Rich needed to do something, or when they did reach the hospital, they’d be visiting the emergency room and not his sister.

He did as she suggested. Jennifer checked the map for the location of the hospital, then turned the key.

Rich just stared out the window.

He’d probably been assuming that Sherry was living a fairy-tale life, and that presumption had just been tossed into the garbage. He might be in shock tonight, but when he had time to assimilate everything, he’d have questions, doubts. But for now, she knew he just needed to see his sister.

THE LARGE, suburban hospital came into view. Rich’s heart began to race, and his breath rushed to catch up with it. It might not have been the same hospital, but it was the same feeling all over again.

Rich tried to push away the memory of his mother’s last days, tried to forget those tumultuous, confusing weeks when he and Sherry had had nowhere to go, no one to turn to before the state put them into foster care. His father had died in the veterans’ hospital several years before from the aftereffects of his tour in Vietnam and alcoholism. The ten years Rich had spent in the air force might as well not have happened the way one look at that large hospital brought it all back.

Hospitals scared the bejesus out of him.

His parents had gone into hospitals and not come out. That Rick Larsen had not come home was a good thing in the long run, but Rich still missed his mother every day of his life. Please, he prayed silently, let this not be history repeating itself. He clutched the edges of the passenger seat and held on for dear life. Please, he prayed again, let Sherry leave this place. Let her go home to her kids.

Jennifer turned into the parking lot and followed the signs that directed them to the main entrance. “Do you want me to drop you at the door, or can you wait till we park?”

That was the $64,000 question. Yes, he wanted to see Sherry so bad he could taste it, but to do it, he’d have to go inside the hospital. He drew in a long, shuddering breath. He could wait a long time for that. He gripped the seat tighter. “I’ll wait,” he said finally. If he had to do this, he’d rather do it with Jennifer.

He didn’t need her to hold his hand, but he had no objection to it.

She found a parking space close to the front doors, and pulled in. “It’s close to the end of visiting hours, I’d expect,” she said as she turned off the engine. “We probably don’t have much time.”

The possibility that he might not get to see Sherry at all gave him the strength to release his death grip on the seat. “Okay,” he said, his throat tight, his voice husky. He pushed open his door.

And couldn’t move an inch.

Damn, had his apprehension affected him so much that he was paralyzed with fear? Then he looked down.

He hadn’t unfastened his seat belt.

Hoping that Jennifer hadn’t noticed, but certain she had, he released the mechanism and stepped to the ground.

The air was still and thick enough to slice. Clouds piled up in the distance, obscuring the sinking sun, and flickers of lightning occasionally brightened the dark gray sky. The storm must be far out over the Gulf because there was no sound of thunder, but its proximity added a feeling of foreboding to the sultry atmosphere.

Rich felt a hand on his arm, and looked away from the gathering clouds to Jennifer. “I guess we’d best go see what we can see.”

Jennifer slid her fingers down his arm to squeeze his hand. “It’ll be all right. Didn’t Mrs. Benton say your sister was going to rehab soon? They don’t send them there unless they’re ready for physical therapy. And they don’t give them therapy if…” She didn’t finish, but Rich knew what she meant.

If they were at death’s door, she hadn’t said.

“Yeah.” He scanned the aisle for cars. “Let’s do it,” he said as if he were readying himself to jump out of the rear of a C-130 over a hostile drop zone. He set off with Jennifer in tow.

The front doors swooshed open at the touch of their feet to the door pad, and chilled air blasted them as they stepped inside.

Rich steeled himself for the medicinal odor that he associated with hospitals and death and still smelled in his nightmares, but it wasn’t there. Relieved, he hurried to the information desk, then peered through the glass partition. “I’m looking for my sister, Sherry Connolly. I just found out she’s a patient here.”

The receptionist typed the name into a computer and after an eternity, or so it seemed to Rich, the information came up on a screen. She jotted the floor, ward and room number onto a sheet of paper and pointed Rich in the general direction. “Just follow the green lines to the elevator, and when you reach the floor, turn left.”

Rich nodded, grabbed Jennifer by the hand and followed the green line to a bank of elevators.

As the doors closed behind them, Jennifer drew in a deep breath. What was she doing here with a man she hardly knew, visiting a sister he hadn’t seen in years? She didn’t belong here. She didn’t want to be here.

But when she glanced at Rich and caught his grim expression in the mirrored walls of the elevator, she knew she had to stay. She might have entered into this venture as a detective, but now she was emotionally involved. If not with Rich, at least with the case.

She had to know how it turned out. She had to know if there was a happy ending.

The elevator stopped at the appropriate floor with a gentle jerk, and the doors seemed to take forever to open. Finally, they stepped out and into a wide area that branched into three halls. “Left, the receptionist said.” Jennifer urged him through a set of swinging doors and toward the nurses’ station beyond. She didn’t know why, but she could tell that Rich’s state of anxiety had to do with more than just worry for his sister.

A pretty, young woman looked up and smiled. “Are you Sergeant Larsen?”

“Who to—? How…?” He wore the expression of a boy caught with his fingers in the cookie jar, and Jennifer loved the way it softened his hard face.

“A Mrs. Benton called and said you were on your way,” the nurse said, putting down a chart and coming around the desk. “She wanted to be certain your visit wouldn’t be too much of a shock.”

“A shock?”

Jennifer hadn’t thought of that, and Rich hadn’t been thinking clearly at all. It hadn’t occurred to her that this visit might be upsetting to Sherry. “Will she be able to handle seeing her brother?”

“It’s probably the best medicine she could have other than having her children come see her, but you know the rules about children on the wards.” She gestured toward some chairs in a small waiting area.

“I’d rather go see my sister,” Rich said, holding his ground.

“And so you shall,” the nurse said. “But I have to prepare you for what you’re going to see.”

“Prepare me? Is there more I don’t know?” Rich sat in the indicated chair though he looked like he wanted to get up and run.

The nurse sat across from him, her knees almost touching his. “No. I just want to assure you that your sister will probably make a complete recovery. She’s not in that much pain, though she’s obviously sad.” The nurse placed a hand over Rich’s, and Jennifer felt a slight finger of jealousy stab at her, but she shook that notion away. She barely knew the man.

“Your sister is wearing a rather complicated apparatus called a halo. It looks frightening, but it’s serving to stabilize her neck, and it’s actually relieving her of pain, rather than causing it.” She described it, then waited for Rich’s response.

“I don’t care if she’s in plaster from head to toe. It’s been a long time, and I just want to see my sister.”

“Then, let’s go.” The nurse rose and gestured toward a corridor behind the nurses’ station.

Jennifer squeezed Rich’s hand. “I’ll just stay here. This is your reunion. I don’t know your sister.” She wouldn’t tell him that she was a coward, that she was afraid of the intense emotions this moment was about to bring.

“No. Come with me. Wait out in the hall, or something. Just be nearby in case I need backup.”

As much as Jennifer didn’t want to go, the panic in Rich’s eyes told her she had to.

Rich followed the nurse down the corridor feeling as though his feet were encased in concrete. He wanted to see Sherry, yet he dreaded what he might find. He’d had more than his share of shocks today.

“Wait here,” the nurse said as they reached a door. There was a nameplate of sorts: a strip of masking tape with Connolly scrawled on it with a red marker. They waited outside for what seemed like the longest moment of his life while the nurse went in.

“Richie?”

It sounded like Sherry. Only softer, huskier. The lump returned with vengeance, and Rich’s eyes burned. Had the change in the timbre of her voice come from her injuries or the passage of time?

The nurse beckoned, and Rich stepped inside.

“Richie. It is you,” a pale apparition inside an Erector set project of braces and stainless steel said. She looked as if she were being tortured by something from the Spanish Inquisition, but the smile on her face was angelic. She reached through a maze of tubes and wires toward him.

“It’s me. In the flesh,” he said, taking her hand. That lump made it damned hard to talk.

“And so much more flesh than the last time I saw you,” Sherry said. “I guess they feed you pretty well in the air force.”

“They did. Now I feed myself. And I work out.” As if two hours of hard PT every day would qualify as a workout. It was more like the Olympic Decathlon with the Bataan Death March combined.

“You look wonderful.” Sherry smiled ruefully. “Don’t feel you have to compliment me in return. I know what I must look like.” She let go of him and waved, encumbered with tubes from a nearby intravenous setup, toward the halo apparatus. “I promise, I’m not into body piercing,” she said, indicating the brace that appeared to be anchored directly into her skull.

“You look damned good to me. I didn’t think I’d ever see you ag—” He stopped, his throat too constricted to go on.

“I’m so sorry, Richie. It was so stupid of me to leave the Parkers after I graduated and not tell anybody where I was. I was so upset about you going overseas and leaving me behind, I wasn’t thinking clearly. At the time, I really thought you didn’t want to be bothered with me.”

“You know that wasn’t why I couldn’t take you. I explained it.” Rich’s throat was still tight, his voice husky, but he swallowed and went on. “I was just an airman. We had to have orders just to pi—” Remembering where he was, he stopped.

“I know that now.” She paused, her welcoming smile gone, replaced by one more melancholy. One that matched the dull blue of her eyes. “Mike explained it all to me.”

Rich sucked in a deep breath. He had hoped they could avoid the topic of her husband. He wasn’t sure he knew what to say to a woman who’d been hurt and bereaved all at the same time. Even if she was his sister. “I’m sorry….” It seemed so inadequate, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“I wish you could have known him,” Sherry said, her eyes misty, her voice thick. “He was the best thing that ever happened to me.” She paused. “Him and the kids.” She reached through the apparatus and wiped at her eyes.

“Yeah.” Rich didn’t know what else to say. His eyes burned like crazy and for a moment his world looked as though he were seeing it through rippled glass. He swallowed. He was supposed to be strong for Sherry.

He rubbed at his stinging eyes with the back of his hand and looked away. When his vision finally cleared and the lump in his throat shrank from baseball to golf-ball size, he looked back. Sherry was looking at something on the tray table at the side of her bed and making no effort to disguise her streaming eyes.

“This is a picture of us,” she said, her voice watery and thin. “We took it at Easter. It was one of the rare moments we were all dressed up at the same time.”

Rich followed the direction of her gaze and focused on the framed picture of a happy family. The lump in his throat swelled once more. It was past tense. Sherry’s husband would never pose with them again.

“Sometimes it doesn’t seem real,” Sherry said, her voice cracking. “But at night I get snatches of memory. I hear the rain. I feel the moisture on my face. I see Mike lying so impossibly still.” She sniffed back more tears. “I remember the policeman muttering to his partner about the guy being a goner.

“I couldn’t even go to the funeral.” She broke down then, her sobs wracking and harsh.

He had no idea what to do, so he took her hand and held on. He squeezed it from time to time until she stopped weeping. “I’m so sorry, Sherry. I wish it had never happened. I wish I had been there for you.” Rich paused. “Hell, I wish I could’ve taken you to Germany with me. Maybe, none of this would have happened.”

“No,” Sherry said, her tone emphatic. “My time with Mike was short, but I wouldn’t give up a minute of it if it meant not knowing him at all.” She smiled sadly. “I loved him, but I have the kids to keep me going. His kids. He’s gone, but he left a big part of him in the world.”

Rich couldn’t look at her. He didn’t know how to act, how to respond. Instead, he stared at the picture and tried to get some sense of the brother-in-law he’d never know. Mike had been a big man. He had the tanned, fit appearance of someone who worked outside. Rich wondered if he worked with his hands.

He couldn’t tell much about the baby—they all looked like Yoda to him. But the little girl, a pixie with a mop of curly red hair, had mugged for the camera like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“I wish you could’ve met Mike,” Sherry said softly.

“Yeah, me, too.”

Sherry opened her mouth to speak, but a commotion in the hall stopped her. She turned her gaze toward the door as a pretty young woman with a mane of chestnut hair came bursting in.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” she said breathlessly. “But Mrs. Garrigan couldn’t come to sit until her daughter picked up her ki—” She stopped, apparently only just noticing Rich.

“It’s okay, Rebecca. Catch your breath, then I have someone I’d like you to meet.”

Rebecca, still flushed from rushing, turned toward Rich. “Are you…?”

“Yeah. I’m the long lost brother.” He offered his hand.

“We’ve been trying to find you, since…How did you know Sherry was here?” She stopped, obviously still flustered, and looked at his hand. “Oh, I’m Rebecca Tucker. Sherry and I were roommates in college.” She pushed her hand toward him.

“Rich Larsen,” he said. “I guess I should thank you for stepping in with the kids.”

“Thank you,” she answered. “I love those kids as if they were my own. I couldn’t imagine anyone else taking care of them.”

“What about that lady next door?” Hadn’t she said she’d been baby-sitting the night it happened?

“Mrs. B?” Sherry smiled, her face angelic in spite of the metal contraption surrounding it. “She’d love to, but she works nights to help put two kids through college, so she isn’t available.”

“We weren’t about to let them go to strangers,” Rebecca cut in. “They go to their regular day care in the daytime, and stay with me at night.” She shrugged. “It works.”

“And I will not let them become wards of the court,” Sherry added emphatically, her voice breaking. “I’ve been there, and it won’t happen to my kids.”