“You got us all together.” Leslie’s brow furrowed. “Told us that the disappearances didn’t just happen on base. That they’d happened all around the world.”
Megan nodded encouragement. “That’s right. I did, and they did.”
The statement caused Leslie to shake her head vehemently. “No. This is just a dream.”
“You were watching television that night,” Megan stated calmly. “Up past your bedtime.”
“I do that a lot.”
“You and your mother argued about that earlier.”
Leslie stared through Megan, nodding and starting to rock herself. “Yeah. We argued about that a lot. She hated—hates—trying to get me up in the morning.” She hugged herself with her free arm and gazed around the room. “Now I can hardly wait till she comes and gets me out of bed. Out of this. I can’t believe it’s taking so long.”
Megan ignored that and kept pushing Leslie forward. “You heard a noise that night.”
“My mom,” Leslie agreed. “I swear I heard her call out to me.”
“You thought you were in trouble.”
“Oh, yeah. I hit the remote and blanked the TV quick as I could.”
“But your mom never came to check on you.”
Slowly, Leslie shook her head. “No. And she always checks on me when she thinks I’m up. When she knew I was up late—when she knows I’m up late.”
“But not that night.”
“No.”
Megan made herself breathe despite the desperate tension and fear that filled her and thrummed like a live thing. She kept her voice low and hypnotic, neutral and no threat. Leslie had experienced trouble sleeping lately. She looked worn-out now. Because of the drugs in Leslie’s system, Megan hoped the girl would go to sleep listening to her voice.
“You went to check on your mom,” Megan reminded.
“Yeah.” Leslie remained a knotted ball rocking against the wall.
“What did you find?”
“I thought she’d be sleeping. I mean, if she wasn’t awake checking on me, she had to be sleeping. But I thought maybe she was having a nightmare. I wanted to check on her, make sure she was okay. She’s had it rough since the Rangers deployed. My dad being over there in Turkey—it worries her, you know.” Leslie grimaced. “I mean, of course you know. Your husband is over there.”
“Yes, he is. I worry all the time, and I’ve gotten to talk to him.”
Leslie focused on her. “Has he said anything about my dad? About whether he’s okay or not?”
“He hasn’t,” Megan said. “Goose is in Sanliurfa. Your dad is with a team in Diyarbakir.”
“I don’t even know where that is.”
“It’s is the eastern part of Turkey. Diyarbakir is a large area. An important place. Goose’s team is being kept separate and out of close contact with the Rangers stationed in Diyarbakir and Ankara.” Megan knew that from the news coverage.
According to the media, primarily OneWorld NewsNet, Sanliurfa was a lost cause, a sinking ship that the Americans, Turks, and United Nations were struggling to get to in order to rescue the border militias that had gotten stranded there. She also knew from her infrequent conversations with Goose that the story wasn’t entirely true.
“I wish I could talk to my dad,” Leslie said.
“Maybe we can make that happen,” Megan suggested. “Communications around the world are steadily improving.”
Leslie shrugged. “That’s just in this dream. Maybe when I wake up I’ll find out I was dreaming that, too.” She scratched her leg absently with the pistol.
Megan waited a moment then said, “Could we put that away now?”
“No.” Leslie hauled the pistol back into her stomach. “I like holding on to it.”
“It’s a dream, remember? You have all kinds of powers in dreams. You could fly out of this room. You don’t need that.”
“No.” Her features turned hard.
Megan gave up that front for a moment. “You went to check on your mom that night.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember what you found?”
Leslie tried to speak, couldn’t, then swallowed hard and tried again. “My mom was gone.”
“Yes.”
“I thought maybe she’d gone to the kitchen for a drink of water,” Leslie whispered. She looked through Megan again, trapped by the memory. “But that didn’t make any sense because if she’d gone to the kitchen I’d have heard her door open.”
“You were watching TV.”
“She would have heard the TV. She’d have come into my room to check on me and probably ground me for a week.” Leslie shifted her attention to Megan. “I looked in her bed and found her pajamas. That was weird. If she’d left her pajamas in bed, that meant she was walking around the house naked. And that would be like … like … just gross.”
Megan took in a breath and let it out.
“But she wasn’t walking around the house naked,” Leslie said. “She was just … just … ”
“Missing.” Megan tried to keep her voice low to lessen the impact, but she knew at once that the effort was futile. She’d tried to find a new way to talk about the disappearances for two days.
Looking totally miserable, Leslie nodded. She squeezed her eyes tight again and shook as she cried silently.
Resisting her maternal instincts, so sharp now because Chris was missing and Joey had left and Goose was in danger, Megan made herself remain seated instead of crossing the room to put her arms around the girl.
“I found Mom’s wedding ring in the bed, Mrs. Gander.” Leslie snuffled and wiped her tears from her trembling chin with a hand. “Mom never took her ring off. Never. She said Dad had put it on her hand and she would never take it off.”
“I can only imagine how hard that was for you, Leslie.” Megan struggled with her own memories of finding Chris’s clothes after Joey had told her of the disappearances in the base child-care facility.
“It was terrible. Worse than when our cat had kittens and I found one of them dead.” Leslie shrugged, looked up at the ceiling, and wiped mascara from her eyes, smearing black
