Chapter 3
THREE
Linc powered his cell phone on when the C-17 touched down. Taking the military transport beat waiting for a commercial flight and making connections to Fort Liberty, but it wasn’t set up for comfort. There was no inflight food service, internet, charger ports, or entertainment for him or the other two passengers bumming rides back to the States.
He’d stretched out the best he could and maybe dozed off for an hour or two. Not enough. Nervous energy flowed through his body like touching a low-grade electric current as he took his phone off airplane mode. Immediately, it pinged with voicemail notifications. He’d be pissed if he’d bagged out on his team and flown across the ocean, only to land and hear everything was fine. Still, he’d happily take that over finding that Bri had relapsed, or worse, overdosed and was in a hospital or morgue. He’d run through all the worst-case scenarios, hoping to prevent them from coming true.
He hit play without checking the call record. Instead of Bri’s voice, he listened to the director of Jalen’s daycare program telling him that Mrs. Feldman hadn’t picked up Jalen from school.
His pulse picked up—not in a good way. He tamped down his personal feelings about Regina Feldman.
It made sense that Bri would ask her grandmother to help with Jalen, especially with Linc deployed. But where would Bri have gone that she wouldn’t take Jalen with her? If she’d gone to Atlanta to see her old friends , she’d have dropped Jalen off at Regina’s. God, he hoped Bri hadn’t fallen back in with the crowd she’d run with there.
The next message, also from Rachel at the daycare, said she’d have to contact the Department of Social Services if no one came for Jalen in the next half hour. Crap . She’d left that message close to two hours ago. He skipped to the last message and stood as soon as the huge aircraft came to a stop.
“Mr. Porter, this is Kendra Andrews with DSS. I’m your sister’s case worker.” Like he’d forget her? “I picked up Jalen from the daycare and am taking him to dinner. If you get this message, please call me as soon as possible. I?—”
He hit the callback button without listening to the rest of the message. “This is Linc Porter,” he started before she’d finished saying hello.
“Uncle Linc!” Jalen called out his name over the speaker phone.
Thank goodness she still had Jalen with her. It sounded like they were in a car. “Hey there, J-man. You okay?”
“I want Mommy.”
Linc wanted Bri too. “How about I come get you?”
“O-kay.”
“Where can I meet you, Ms. Andrews?”
“I was headed to my office?—”
“Let’s meet at Bri’s apartment instead. I can stay there with Jalen.” While he figured out where Regina was. And why Bri had left. And where she’d gone. So many questions he needed answers to.
Kendra paused before speaking. “That’ll work.”
“It’ll take me about twenty minutes to get there.” If base ops got the message that he’d be back and transported his car from the storage lot to the airfield. If not, he’d call for a ride. Whatever it took to keep Jalen out of the foster care system.
Linc parked a few spaces from an occupied car in front of Bri’s building. A woman got out and opened the back door. In the dim light, he recognized Kendra.
“Uncle Linc!” Jalen sprinted to him.
Linc caught him mid-leap and hugged him to his chest for several beats before joining Kendra.
While she still had a nice, curvy figure, she looked thinner than he remembered, though it’d been roughly four years since he’d seen her. She also didn’t smile at him, not that he could blame her, considering she was still working at nine at night. She handed him the child-sized camouflage backpack he’d bought Jalen for school. Linc’s gaze flicked to her bare ring finger on her left hand.
He shook it off. She was not why he was here, and she’d blown him off when he asked her out giving some lame excuse about a conflict of interest, being Bri’s case worker. By that point, she knew his general history as well as Bri’s. If anyone should understand and give him the benefit of the doubt, he’d thought a social worker, and one who, like him, was multi- or bi-racial wouldn’t hold his past against him and dismiss him as unworthy.
“You aren’t going to write this up in Bri’s file, are you?” he asked.
“Technically, she’s out of the system, but I’m supposed to document this. If you had called me sooner?—”
“I called you the second I got your message. I was on a plane over the Atlantic.”
“Oh.” Kendra broke eye contact and swallowed. “Where is Bri?”
“I’m not sure.” Totally clueless. “I’ve been on deployment in Europe.” He didn’t tell her about Bri’s frantic message about doing something stupid. That would go in her file, and he wasn’t doing that to her or Jalen. “Her work voicemail said she was out of the office for the week. Jalen, do you know where your mom went?”
The boy nodded right in Linc’s face.
“Where?”
“A trip.”
Not helpful, not that he expected much from a four-year-old. Maybe there’d be some information in the apartment.
He didn’t see Georgia plates on any cars parked near Bri’s building, though Regina might have flown up. Then she would have needed Bri’s car, which he didn’t see either. “Let’s go see if Grams is here.” He set Jalen on the ground.
“Are you coming wif me to see Champ?” Jalen took hold of Kendra’s hand.
“Yes, you promised to show me.”
Great. Linc had planned to say goodnight and goodbye right here. He didn’t know what he’d find inside Bri’s apartment. What if Kendra found something to warrant taking custody of Jalen?
“How old is your grandmother?” Kendra asked Linc, following him toward the building.
“She’s not my grandmother.” And she had let him know he wasn’t a blood relative after his and Bri’s mother were killed in the auto accident with Regina’s son, Clifton, driving while stoned out of his mind. “But I’m guessing she’s at least in her mid to late seventies.”
“Is she in good health?” Kendra’s tone clued Linc into what she was thinking.
“I think so.”
As they climbed the stairs, a knot formed in Linc’s throat. He might not like Regina, but he didn’t want to find her lying on Bri’s floor. She might still act fearful and avoid eye contact with him, but the few times he’d been around Regina for things like holidays and Jalen’s birthday parties, Jalen had changed her perspective. At least she’d accepted him.
He knocked on Bri’s door, hoping it would miraculously open to Regina or, better yet, Bri. The second time, he pounded harder. He tried the knob. Of course, it was locked. He pulled his wallet from his uniform pocket and removed his lockpick set. Dropping to a knee, he inserted the two picks into the deadbolt.
“You can’t break into her apartment,” Kendra protested.
“Yes, I can.” A tumbler fell into place. “I’m on the lease, so technically, it’s my apartment too. But I don’t have a key on me.” He didn’t elaborate that Bri had taken away his key and accused him of not trusting her ability to take care of Jalen. He’d bought food at the post exchange and dropped it off at the apartment to help her out. It’s not like he had anyone else in his life to spend money on. But, growing up the way they had made her independent to a fault. That’s why he didn’t take her reaching out to him lightly.
The last tumbler clicked, and he turned the bolt. “Wait outside with Jalen while I check the apartment.”
“Good idea.” She held Jalen back, even though he whined about wanting his mom.
“Just a minute, J-man.”
Linc did a quick canvas of the inside. Everything was in order. A suitcase sat on the floor in Bri’s bedroom with clothes that had to belong to Regina based on the blouse he examined. Bri would never wear the collared shirt with a large floral print pattern.
The bathroom was clean and empty. He checked the trashcan—no signs of drug paraphernalia. Though Bri would know to dispose of that someplace safe and where it wouldn’t be discovered, the tightness in his chest lessened.
Jalen’s room was empty, and the twin bed was made. He scooped up the stuffed Golden Retriever toy he’d given Jalen before returning to the front door. “All clear.”
Jalen took the dog. “This is Champ.” He held it up to show Kendra.
“Nice to meet you, Champ.” She played along.
“Go put on your PJs.” He steered Jalen toward his bedroom, then took the backpack from Kendra. “I’ll stay with him tonight.” And maybe start calling hospitals. “Thanks for picking him up, but I’ve got it from here.”
“It’s not quite that simple,” Kendra started. “With what happened tonight, there are procedures I need to follow.”
Shit? Really? “I’m his relative.” No way was he letting her put Jalen in the system. Linc’s core tightened as he prepared to battle to keep Jalen with him.
“That will make it easy to appoint you as his temporary guardian until we get in touch with Bri. If you can come to my office in the morning, we can do the paperwork, and I’ll get it signed off by the magistrate.”
“Fine. What time?”
“I’ll be in the office between nine and eleven. And you’ll need to undergo a drug test.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s standard protocol in situations where there’s a family history of drug use. It’s not my rules.”
He knew all about generational addiction. It was why he’d never done illicit drugs. He was not following his mother’s path. It haunted him that Bri had. “No problem. It will be clean.” A dirty drug test could cost him his spot on the Bad Karma team. “And if Regina shows up before then?”
“Bring her with you. We’ll test her too.”
While he didn’t expect Regina to be using, the idea of making her undergo a drug test reduced the tension by a degree. But she would have to explain herself before Linc would trust her with Jalen.