Paula Graves - Secret Keeper

Wade nodded. The Department of Defense certainly wasn’t feeling very sanguine about a recently retired Air Force general with years of operational secrets stored in his brain going missing for three weeks. The hunt for the missing general was all over the news, with conspiracy theories flying all over twenty-four-hour cable news channels.

Coverage of his missing wife and daughter had been tangential in comparison, thanks to the general’s potential significance to American national security. But the news shows had flashed their photos often enough. Someone in the hospital could have already recognized Annie Harlowe’s name and face.

Wade stood and limped over to the window, which looked down on the front entrance of the hospital four stories below. No news trucks yet. But information would get out soon enough. Then what?

“We have a limited window of opportunity to get anything out of her,” he told Jesse, who’d crossed to stand next to him at the window.

“Aaron’s supposed to be here any minute to ask her questions in an official capacity.”

Aaron had called in a crew of Chickasaw County deputies to do a grid search of the woods behind Wade’s house. Along with his wife, Melissa, he’d stayed with them to direct the search while Wade followed the ambulance to the hospital.

“That may not be soon enough,” Wade warned, spotting a Huntsville television news van moving up the drive toward the hospital entrance.

Megan joined them at the window. “Here come the newsboys,” she said with a grimace.

“They’re just doing their job,” Jesse said.

“They’ll be all over her like stink on a pig.”

Wade had to smile at his sister’s description. Apt, probably, but Jesse was right. The news people had a job to do.

Just like he did.

“I’m going to go see if the doctor is finished examining her,” he told his brother and sister. “Why don’t y’all go see if you can waylay the reporters for a little while?”

Jesse clapped him on his shoulder. “What are you going to tell her?”

“The truth,” Wade answered simply.

The door to Annie Harlowe’s hospital room was half open when he reached it. He listened for the doctor’s voice but heard only a soft, snuffling sound coming from within the room.

Crying, he thought, his heart twisting with a disconcerting mixture of sympathy and dread.

He made himself knock lightly on the door. “Annie, it’s Wade Cooper. Can I come in?”

There was a long pause before she answered. “Yes.”

He crossed to her bed, trying to keep his limp to a minimum. He wasn’t very successful. She lay with her head turned away from him, as if she were staring out the window. But the window shades were drawn.

“What did the doctor have to say?”

“I have a concussion. Some scrapes and contusions.” She turned her face toward him. Her eyes were red-rimmed but dry. “And I’m missing three weeks of my life.”

* * *

I NTERESTING , A NNIE THOUGHT, watching Wade Cooper’s face for a response. His only reaction was a softening in his dark eyes, a hint of sympathy creasing his forehead.

Her words came as no surprise to him.

“You already know who I am,” she whispered.

Wade sat in the chair by her bed. “You’ve been all over the news for three weeks.”

“Why aren’t my parents here? Has anybody even thought to call them?” They must be frantic, she thought, showing up at the airport only to discover their daughter had disappeared from the airport without a trace.

Or had there been a trace? She didn’t know. Everything after the baggage carousel was a big blank.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Wade asked.

“Arriving at the Chattanooga airport,” she answered, not liking the fact that he hadn’t answered her question. “Where are my parents?”

“We don’t know,” Wade said. “You all went missing at the same time.”

She stared at him, nausea rising in her gut. “My parents are missing?”

“You don’t remember anything after the airport?”

“No. I thought—I assumed that’s where I was abducted or whatever.” A new, horrifying thought blackened her mind. “Was I—did anybody check to see if I was raped?”

Wade’s face blanched. “I don’t know.”

She struggled against a sudden flood of nausea. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Wade grabbed a small bedpan from the table by the bed and thrust it into her hands. A series of dry heaves racked her aching body, but apparently her stomach was empty, for nothing came up.

Wade disappeared from view for a moment, returning with a wet washcloth from the bathroom. He handed it to her and she took it gratefully, pressing the cool cloth against her mouth.

“I know they looked you over carefully in the E.R. before they brought you to a room,” Wade said gently. “There was a female deputy with you, so they probably checked for that. I think the doctor would have told you if they’d found anything.”

“Three weeks,” she rasped, her throat aching. “They might not even find anything after three weeks—”

Wade closed his hand over hers. Heat spread through her from his warm, firm touch, helping to settle the shakes that threatened to take over her body. She took a couple of deep breaths, willing herself to deal with what she knew rather than what she didn’t.

She had to separate herself from how the story affected her personally and stick with the facts. She had to think like a reporter.

“Is there a theory behind what happened to me and my parents?” she asked aloud, dreading what Wade’s answer might be.

He hesitated before he spoke, drawing her gaze to his eyes to see whether she’d find truth in them or more secrets. “The official story is that the investigators have formed no theories.”

“And unofficially?”

“The fact that your father is such a high-ranking military officer suggests a national security angle.”

Of course, if she were thinking straight, the thought would have crossed her mind already.

And there was also her father’s odd behavior when he’d called her the Monday before her flight to Chattanooga to ask her to make time for a family vacation the next week. “There’s something I need to tell you about,” he’d said, sounding serious.

Had he ever gotten a chance to tell her whatever he’d wanted to share?

“How did anyone kidnap all three of us from a busy airport?” she wondered aloud.

“They didn’t,” Wade answered, squeezing her arm with gentle strength. She looked down at his long fingers, at the play of muscles and tendons in the back of his lean hand as he squeezed again and let go. “You and your parents arrived at the cabin on the eighteenth of August as planned. The caretaker handed the key over to your father, and you and your mother were both there with him. You were seen the next morning in Dahlonega, where you’d apparently gone for breakfast. The caretaker remembered seeing you and your parents return in your father’s silver Ford Expedition around ten-thirty on the nineteenth. That’s the last anyone saw of you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“Your concussion could have caused a memory loss.”

“Will I get it back?”

“I don’t know.”

The nausea was knocking on the back of her throat again. She wrestled it back to mere queasiness. “Why do I get the feeling you know more about what happened to me than I do?”

“I don’t think I do.”

He sounded honest enough, but she saw more mysteries behind those big brown eyes. “You’re keeping something from me.”

Wade Cooper was saved by a knock on the door. When nobody entered a moment later, Wade stood. “I’ll see who it is.”