Unknown - The_Growing_589064

“Because I could have died.”

At that Koda looks up, searching Kirsten’s face as she goes on more quietly. “Or you could have, only I had no idea how. And I didn’t want this fight to be the last of us.”

“I wouldn’t have—”

“Yes you would. I’d have tried to stop you, too, if I’d known you were going to fight a duel.”

“I’d have gone with you.”

“And you wouldn’t have been where you were really needed.” Kirsten meets her gaze levelly. “There are things only you can do. Things only I can do. We have to acknowledge that.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like it, either. But we are what we are.”

Stalemate. Don’t leave me! Don’t you leave me! The words echo in the dark places of Koda’s mind, driven on the wind of panic. But she will not speak them. Instead she says, very quietly, “I don’t want to lose you.”

After a moment Kirsten steps around the table to lay her hands on Dakota’s shoulders. “You won’t. We’ll see this out together, wherever it leads.”

Koda turns in her seat, covering Kirsten’s hand with her own and laying a soft kiss on her wrist. “Wherever.”

Kirsten’s arms slip down over her own, soft hair tickling her cheek, followed by soft lips. She leans back into the embrace, giving herself up to her lover’s persuasion. “If you keep this up—” she murmurs.

“—we’ll end up back in bed. Hmm?”

“You have anything better to do?”

“Not a thing.” Very delicately, Kirsten bites the side of her neck.

“Vampire.”

Koda draws Kirsten around to stand before her, then down, straddling her lap. “There’s really something to be said for this kiss and make up thing, you know? Let’s—”

She never finishes her suggestion. A fist falls on the door like a hammer, and Jackson follows it into the room as it swings open and Asi scambles to his feet, baying. “Ms. President! Ma’am—oh.” He fixes his gaze on a point somewhere midway the lintel of the door.

“Quiet, Asi!” Kirsten gets to her feet and turns to face the airman with what Koda considers remarkable aplomb under the circumstances. “What is it, Jackson?”

“Ma’am!” he gasps. “The Colonel’s compliments, and would you both please come to her office. General Hart has gone missing!”

*

Maggie looks up as the door to Hart’s office flies open and Koda comes storming in, Kirsten following on her heels. She holds up a hand. “Hang on, guys. We just found out.”

“How,” Kirsten demands, coming to a stop before an immaculate, and empty, desk.

“He set up a meeting with his secretary for noon. She waited for an hour or so before checking out his house.” Though it’s late in the afternoon, Maggie looks, as always, neat, trim, and immaculately pressed.

“Empty?”

“A hovel,” Maggie answers succinctly, rapping her knuckles on the desk. “But he wasn’t there.”

Koda, having gone over to the window, parts the blinds and peers out into the warmth of the sunny spring day. “A note?”

“Suicide?” Maggie guesses.

Still peering out the window, Koda lifts a shoulder in elegant reply. A shaft of sunlight lances through the blinds and across the room, to land on the scuffed and bland military tile, highlighting its many imperfections.

“No. But she was looking for a man and not a note, so….”

Nodding, Dakota turns from the window. “How about the gate?”

“Already checked. Nobody in or out since you came back.” She turns a significant eye toward Kirsten who, to her credit, hides her flush well as she peers around the empty room as if looking for something she’s lost. Maggie, who isn’t buying the ruse for a moment, hides her smile behind a patently faked cough, earning her a right proper glare from glittering green eyes.

“Anybody spot him before then?” Koda intones, deliberately ignoring the none-too-subtle byplay between her two companions. “He might have slipped out when the convoy returned.”

Maggie narrows her eyes, about to protest. Then she thinks better of it and sighs, resigned. “I’ll check again, but I doubt it. No one made any mention of seeing him at all since sometime yesterday.”

Crossing the room, Koda lays her hands, palm down, on the Spartan desk. “Do you know where Tacoma is?”

“Yeah, I sent him out with the squad to scour the base. Why?”

“He’s a damn good tracker.” Rising to her full height, Dakota eyes Maggie steadily. “Send someone out to find him and tell him to see if he can spot any tracks that might lead to our man. Kirsten and I will comb over his house and see if there’s anything to be found there. We’ll meet you back here, or in your office in, say, two hours. Sooner if we find anything.”

Maggie nods crisply, resisting the urge to snap off a salute. Inwardly, though, she’s smiling at the effortless way that Dakota assumes command of the situation. It’s something she saw in the tall, quiet woman from the first moment they met, and she’s pleased to see the shining potential slowly coming to fruition.

It is only when the dynamic duo has left the office and the door closes quietly behind them that she lets the smile bloom fully over her face. With a jaunty little whistle, she turns back to work.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

“GOD! THIS PLACE stinks!!” Striding across the darkened living room, Kirsten draws aside the heavy, smoke-impregnated curtains, and throws open the large westward facing window. Fresh air flows in on a strong breeze, helping neutralize the stench of unwashed clothes, rancid food, half-empty beer and liquor containers, though doing nothing to touch the foul undercurrent of far more identifiable, and personal, odors permeating the house like a miasma.

Turning, she watches as Koda, seemingly unaffected, casually lights one of the two kerosene lamps she’s brought with her and lifts it in her lover’s direction. “You have a cold or something?” Kirsten asks as she approaches and grasps the lamp’s wire handle. “This place is enough to gag a maggot and you’re not even breathing through your mouth!”

“I’m a Vet. I grew up on a ranch. I have seven brothers.” Koda lights the second lamp, her smirk hiding in the shadows sliding over her features.

“Point,” Kirsten grants, hefting her lamp and turning in a circle. “Well, this is gonna be fun.”

“You take out here and I’ll tackle the bedroom.”

Kirsten grins over her shoulder, straight white teeth glittering in the flickering lamplight. “Better you than me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Holler if you find anything.”

“In this mess? If you hear me holler, it’ll be because a rat just bit me.” Shuddering inwardly, she makes her way, with her lamp, to the tiny kitchen. As she advances, she hears her partner’s soft steps retreat, and she silently wishes Koda luck in her quest.

Holding the lantern shoulder high, Koda uses her free hand to push open the door to the bedroom. It gives grudgingly, jammed from behind by gods only know what refuse. The boards groan as she forces her way into the dark, stinking room, and she lifts the light high, scanning the small space with narrowed eyes.

The bed, unmade, sports sheets that she’s quite sure could stand up on their own and dance a jig with the equally offensive pillowcases. The quilt and blanket, lying in a tangled heap on the floor and covered with dried filth that Koda can all too readily identify, are obviously lost causes.

Pushing several glasses onto the carpeted floor where they land with muted thunks, she sets the lamp down amidst the half empty bottles of Ol’ Grandad and Wild Turkey on the small bedside table. Rounding the bed, she lifts the fallen quilt and blanket, shaking them out and turning her head from the stench the covers emit as they’re disturbed. She drops them back down into a heap when nothing is shaken loose.