been kidnapped this morning… “Flashback? You sure that’s what he said?”
“Yes, ma’am. Look, I told you this is out there. And if it was anybody but him, I wouldn’t have told you.”
“You believe him?” Dean’s tone expressed the same contempt as his earlier snort.
The kid stood his ground. “Like I said, if this was anybody else…”
“You keep saying that,” Eden tried to clarify. “What does it mean?”
“It means he thinks Underwood’s a hero,” Dean answered, “and therefore exempt from the same commonsense scrutiny he’d give anybody else coming in here with that cock-and-bull story.”
“That’s not—”
Dean didn’t allow the deputy to finish. “God knows, I don’t want to speak ill of somebody who’s served their country. But the truth is Jake came back from his last tour a little less put together than when he left.”
“From his last tour” and “who’s served his country” were obviously references to the military. What Eden didn’t understand was the cryptic finish. “‘Less put together’?”
“Head injury. Along with some other stuff. It’s the brain damage, though, that would put thoughts of seeing that little girl into Jake’s head. And that’s all this is, you hear me.” The last was clearly directed at Grimes. “You go spouting this story around town, and you’re liable to get somebody hurt. Somebody who sure as hell doesn’t deserve to be hurt.”
“Then…you don’t think this man might have had something to do with the kidnapping?” Eden asked. “I mean, someone who’s brain-damaged and having visions of a missing child… Seems to me that makes him a prime candidate.”
It didn’t make sense for Dean to dismiss the idea out of hand, although she couldn’t argue with the warning he’d just issued. If the people of this town thought one of their own had been involved in Raine’s kidnapping, emotions would definitely run high. That was something the department, its resources stretched to the limits, shouldn’t have to deal with.
“You talk to him, Chief,” Grimes said. “See what you think. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Oh, trust me,” Eden assured him, getting up, “I’m going to talk to him. Just forgive me if I’m a little less receptive to his story than you seem to be.”
Her heart was actually pounding, blood rushing through her veins like thunder. Since the call had come in about the kidnapping, this seemed to be the first potentially important piece of the puzzle they were trying to solve.
Of course, it was always possible the brain damage Dean referred to had caused this guy to hallucinate about the crime, given the second-by-second media coverage that had been going on all day. But it was equally possible, she decided, that a man deranged by the horrors of war and by injury had seen an attractive child around town—
Eden broke the thought, determined not to speculate about this guy’s motives, or his guilt or innocence, until she had more information. “Where is he?”
“I put him in the conference room. I thought that might offer more privacy.”
“For him or the department?” Eden asked, as she made her way across the office.
Winton didn’t answer. She was aware that the two men trailed her as she walked down the hall to the room they used for department meetings.
Operating under the influence of the adrenaline flooding her system, Eden opened the door and then realized she hadn’t even stopped to think about the best way to question someone who might be classified as a prime suspect.
The man who’d been seated at the long conference table stood up, his back suddenly ramrod straight. And for his next trick, Eden thought cynically, he’ll snap off a salute.
“Mr. Underwood?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His posture was the only thing remotely military about the man standing before her. Dark stubble covered his lean cheeks. His hair, blue-black under the fluorescents, was badly in need of a trim.
She also noted, her survey automatic, that his clothing, although nondescript, appeared to be clean. The threadbare jeans, white T-shirt and boots were practically de rigueur for a certain type of Southern male, though she’d met enough bright, hardworking “good old boys” not to characterize anyone strictly by his dress.
Still, she acknowledged as she walked across to the table, her reaction was not the same as it would have been had Underwood been wearing a suit. Or a uniform.
“I understand you told Deputy Grimes that you’ve seen the Nolan girl.”
The steel-gray eyes shifted to the doorway. Eden didn’t turn, understanding that the ex-soldier was silently chastising Grimes for not making the situation clear. Neither she nor the deputy bothered to disabuse him of that notion.
“If he told you that, ma’am, he was mistaken. I haven’t seen her. Not physically.”
“Then how?” The question sounded confrontational, which wasn’t the tack she should be taking.
The thought that this man might have harmed a little girl infuriated her. Even if Dean was right, and he hadn’t been responsible, the idea that he could be in any way, shape or form pulling their chain about this—
“I have flashbacks. Yesterday morning…” The soft words halted as Underwood took a breath, one deep enough to move the strongly defined pectoral muscles underneath the thin T-shirt. “A child—a little girl—was in the one that morning.”
“In a flashback about Iraq?”
“This one wasn’t. I don’t know where it was. I was in a place that was wet and dark and cold. Then, just before it all disappeared…there was a child in there, too.”
“Raine Nolan,” Eden suggested flatly.
“I don’t know. The image lasted only a second. It was…almost an impression, rather than an actual sighting. I told him that.” Underwood indicated the young deputy with a lift of his chin. “But after I heard about the kidnapping, I wondered if maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Dean’s question brought the ex-soldier’s head up.
“If maybe I was somehow connected to her.”
“And how would that happen? That ‘connection,’ I mean.” You son of a bitch, Eden thought as she asked her question. If you did something to that little girl…
“I don’t know. It just… The longer this went on, the more I wondered if somehow, in her terror…”
“You told Deputy Grimes she was terrified. If you didn’t even get a good look at her, how could you tell what she was feeling?”
Underwood took another breath, his lips tightening briefly before he spoke. “Because I was feeling it, too.”
“Terrified?”
She
