CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FROM A SOLDIER
Soldier Mason had never been a stranger to helplessness. It seemed his entire life had been made up of incidents that forced him to make decisions that came with unfortunate, oftentimes tragic, consequences.
But that was the thing though, wasn't it?
All those situations he'd found himself in were more or less the result of a choice he'd made, whether with good intentions or otherwise.
He hadn't done a damn thing to make his oldest son—the one who had chosen him—disappear.
And nothing had made him feel more helpless than that.
Noah's fiancée, Meghan, was clearly trying to keep some semblance of calm as she sat at Soldier's kitchen table with her father, his friend, Patrick.
She spoke in shaky tones that she tried to steady, and her hands moved erratically before she tucked them tightly into her lap to keep them from moving altogether.
Despite her efforts, the girl was falling apart, piece by piece, as she explained what Noah had been up to over the last few weeks, the struggles he'd suffered through since he had been a child—long before Soldier knew him—while his wife, Ray, did nothing to keep her exterior from shattering into dust as she cried.
But Soldier …
The dismantling of his strength and composure came on slowly, with excruciating patience, like a snake slithering through shady blades of grass toward its prey. His face remained stoic as he listened to Meg and Patrick.
“It's so infuriating because I can't even track him.
He didn't want you guys knowing exactly where he was, but he told me he was going to turn it back on when he started driving home.
I guess he forgot, or … I don't know,” Meg said, her voice suggesting a hint of anger toward the man she had committed to marry.
Soldier knew the feeling.
Because he was too, wasn't he?
Mad, that was.
Oh God, he was infuriated, with so many things, but more than anything, it was Noah he was infuriated with—and shame on him for that, but fuck! How could that kid not have said anything? How could he have kept these secrets contained for as long as he had without confiding in him at all?
They'd gone through a few rocky years, sure, and Soldier had chalked those up to the traumatic incident they'd experienced together.
He knew Noah had struggled with the birth of his brother.
He knew he'd been jealous, knew he'd had a difficult time working through the issues of his childhood.
Noah had never said as much, but Soldier knew.
Come on; it hadn't taken a genius to figure that one out, and he had tried to reach out to Noah time and time again, tried to help him, but as it turned out, it wasn't a father Noah had needed at that time.
It was Meg … and Soldier had given him the space he needed to work through the trials of love and romantic relationships while relentlessly reminding the kid that he was there.
He wasn't going anywhere. He never would.
And so, why the hell was it that Noah had carried such a heavy secret with him for twenty years without saying anything? Not a word, not a single inclination, and that …
Well, that made Soldier feel like he hardly knew his son at all, which was just silly and he knew it, but, dammit, he couldn't help feeling that way over twenty-four hours after his disappearance.
“What about at the station?” Soldier asked, looking at Patrick. “You guys can track a cell phone down, right?”
Patrick sighed and ran a hand through his blond hair, a tinge of regret blanketing his face. “It's more complicated than that. I mean, yes, but there's protocol and—”
“With all due respect, Patrick … fuck protocol,” Ray interrupted through a clenched jaw, her face barely dry from her last bout of tears.
He nodded sympathetically. “I'm with ya, Ray.
I am. I'm not sayin' I won't try. But it won't be instantaneous. I'm gonna get on that. First thing though, I'm gonna get in touch with the police department in Salem. We can work with them, see if they can put out a missing person report, although I can’t guarantee how serious they’d take the situation, given that it hasn’t been long … but, um …”
He sniffed loudly and cleared his throat before using his thumb and forefinger to dab a tear or two away from his eyes. He gave his head a shake and forced a tight smile.
“Sorry,” he said needlessly, his voice choked. “This just … feels surreal. I keep expectin’ him to text or somethin’, and it’s just not happenin’. And if I feel that way, I can't imagine how you're both feelin' right now.” He raised his eyes to Soldier and Ray and pulled his lips between his teeth.
Ray started to cry again as she reached across the table, grasping Patrick's hand. Meg stared at their joined hands, and Soldier stared at her. Watching for when the girl would finally break.
She had called him hours earlier to tell him she didn't know where Noah was in a tone so trained, so schooled, that he knew there was nothing genuinely calm about it.
He knew that, deep down, she was holding on to her last thread of sanity, that final shred of composure, and at any second, she'd crack.
He wished she would. He wished she'd let it go. But if she did, he knew he would, too, as if this girl's strength was what held his together, and he didn't want to crumple.
All he wanted was to find his son.
And he wouldn't be able to do that if he broke.
“Daddy,” Meg said, her voice a whisper as she swung her gaze toward her father's face, “what if … what if he’s …”
“Don't go there,” Patrick said, pulling away from Ray to wrap his arm around his daughter's shoulders. “Whatever you're thinkin', don't give it life. We're gonna find him.”
Ray grabbed a napkin from the holder in the center of the table and clenched it in her hands as she managed to say, “But what if we don't? Wh-what if she’s right? What if he's—”
“Rain,” Soldier said through a clenched jaw. God, the tethers holding his soul to his sanity were close to snapping. So close. “Like he said, don't give that shit life.”
Ray turned with wide-eyed bewilderment, leveling him with her tears and a look so forlorn and betrayed that he couldn't stand it.
“And you're not thinking it?” she threw at him.
Soldier swallowed, sliding his arm around his wife's shoulders.
“Of course I am,” he admitted, dropping his voice to nothing but a whisper.
“But I won't say it. I won't put it out there. Because …” No. His throat tightened, and he cleared it repeatedly, willing the hurt to hold off. He’d dealt with pain before. He’d shouldered so much.
He could handle a little more. “Because we're gonna find him. He's gonna be okay. I mean”—he laughed and lifted his gaze to look through the living room, toward the large bay window at the front of the house—”he's probably gonna pull in at any second, walk through the door, and be like, What the fuck are you guys …”
Soldier's voice drifted off, and as it did, he listened to the faint sound of Meghan Kinney sniffling, finally breaking under the truth that it wasn't going to be that simple.
They all knew it.
They all felt it.
“Fuck,” Soldier muttered, dragging his palm over his mouth and beard, unable to stop a barrage of memories from flashing before his eyes.
The young kid who’d given him a chance when nobody else would. Knocking over bunches of bananas onto the grocery store floor. Helping him to put up his brand-new TV.
He’d taken that kid fishing. Taught him to fight. Smashed the window and lowered him into a drenched world and told him to run, ensuring that, even if he didn’t see another day, that kid would live.
And as he dropped his elbows to the table and cradled his forehead in his palms, his shoulders quaking with big, soul-racking sobs, he prayed and wished and hoped that kid was fighting now and held on long enough for Soldier to save him.
Again.