Lean on Me by Claudia Hall Christian Page A

Amelia smiled. “I go to nursing homes with my Girl Scout
troop.”
    “ I bet Leena will ask your
advice about a good nursing home,” Alex said.
    Amelia smiled and stood a little taller. Her
father’s beautiful Navy mineman partner had become Amelia’s
not-quite-a-parent, fun adult friend. Alex smiled.
    “ Is that Alex?” Vince’s
voice came from behind Amelia’s door. Amelia was startled. “Sorry,
Am. I didn’t mean to surprise you. I need to talk to
Alex.”
    “ The rooms adjoin through
the bathroom,” Amelia rolled her eyes.
    Vince put his hands on Amelia’s shoulders
and kissed the back of her head. Alex had been in a medically
induced coma when Erin had seen her high school friend Vince
Hutchins’s name on the board at Walter Reed Hospital. Knowing he
didn’t have a family, Erin talked their father into having him
moved in with Alex. Of course, Erin didn’t know Alex had rescued
Vince from a hole in Iraq just six months before. Through mutual
pain, multiple surgeries, and the playful torture of their Navy and
Army guards, Vince and Alex became fast friends.
    “ I’ll get dressed,” Amelia
waved and retreated to the bathroom.
    “ Hey!” Vince said. “Don’t
be in there long!”
    With one more roll of her eyes, Amelia
closed the bathroom door.
    “ She’s a real bathroom
hog,” Vince said.
    Alex struggled to keep from laughing.
    “ What’s up?” Alex
asked.
    “ I haven’t had a chance to
talk to you since going to Troy’s place,” Vince said. “Then it was
paperwork and reports and…”
    “ James thinks he may have
set the explosives ahead of time,” Alex said. “We don’t see
anything on the satellite but we haven’t looked past
yesterday.”
    “ He’s probably right,”
Vince said. “I’ll check it out after the marathon. It would be nice
to catch the bastard red-handed.”
    “ We should match the dates
with Troy’s schedule. I bet he set them on a date he knew Troy
would be there,” Alex said. “That way it would link back to the
whole PTSD soldier crap that Asshole Jasper is spewing.”
    Vince nodded.
    “ Anyway, good luck today,”
Alex turned to leave.
    “ Wait,” Vince said. She
spun around. “I got a call right after we landed last night. My old
Commander…”
    Alex nodded.
    “ He couldn’t talk,” Vince
said. “He said he’s missing a crew. He knew I was working for you
and wondered if I could look into it. He sent the details to Emmy’s
work email from a bogus civilian account and I forwarded it to
you.”
    “ Why couldn’t he talk?”
Alex asked.
    “ He asked about them a few
times and has been told to leave it alone. The last warning came
with a detailed safety review of the destroyer.”
    “ Clean?”
    “ Of course, they were
clean. It’s just a pain in the ass,” Vince said. “The team in
question has been gone a few months. He’s been waking up in the
middle of the night with the feeling they’re begging for help. He
waited until the ship was in port and used a burner phone to call
me. He’s scared – for them and for himself.”
    “ That’s not good,” Alex
said.
    “ He said he didn’t want to
be in a Navy that would let its men and women just disappear,”
Vince said. “Alex, I’ve known this guy for a long, long time. I’ve
never known him to be scared.”
    “ I’ll look into it,” Alex
nodded.
    “ But you’re not surprised,”
Vince said.
    “ This is maybe the eighth
time I’ve heard the same story,” Alex said. “At dinner last night,
Mom said Heath was missing. I was like, ‘Hookers and beer?’, but
she was dead serious. I think something actually happened to
him.”
    “ When did you first hear?”
Vince asked.
    “ Three weeks? Maybe four?”
Alex shook her head. “Sergeant Dusty had an Army Ranger friend
disappear. He thought it was weird because the guy was about to
have a baby.”
    “ The timeline fits,” Vince
said.
    “ Anyway, I’m on it. These
things take a lot more time to set up than you ever think