Yellow Ribbons by Caitlyn Willows Read Free Book Online Page B

found murdered with his presumed mistress. One commanding general’s explosion imminent. One provost marshal missing and unaccounted for. Pretty desperate.
    She exited the vehicle and retrieved her tire iron from the trunk. There was no sense trying to hide the thing in her duffel. In under five minutes everyone within earshot would know what she was doing. She had nothing to hide. The major, however…
    Loyalty had edged out common sense too much the last several months. Kenyon was on a downward spiral that seemed all too clear at this point in time. Lani had lied to herself that it was nothing, that she was mistaken, that what she suspected of the man couldn’t be true. He was gone more times than he was here, leaving at all hours of the day, only to return smelling of booze and—she hated to think it was true—sex. She’d covered his ass for the last time. Doubt crept in, just as it always did.
    She clutched the tire iron in her right hand and her duffel bag in her left. Shoulders squared, she donned an air of confidence she didn’t feel and marched into the building. She passed no one, though the rumble of voices near the coffee mess told Lani she wasn’t alone. She didn’t expect to be. Law enforcement was a twenty-four/seven operation. By now someone would have heard about Tipton. His fellow marines would mourn, speculate, cast blame to the four winds. God only knew what would come out of all this. Who knew what and when. They’d be doing damage control for a while.
    Lani stopped in front of Kenyon’s door long enough to twist the knob. She wasn’t surprised to find it locked too. If the major trusted anyone with a key, it might be Greg. They’d known each other a long time. But Greg wasn’t here yet, though she doubted he’d be much later. If breaking into Kenyon’s office and desk was a royal fuck-up, it was going to be hers, not Greg’s. Kenyon would still be able to trust Greg when it was all said and done.
    She dropped her duffel on the floor, stabbed the end of the tire iron into the doorjamb next to the lock, and pried it open. The door splintered, the crack popping down the hall. That’d bring marines out to investigate. Sure enough she heard, “Ma’am?” as she crossed the threshold.
    Kenyon staged his desk at the far end of the long room and strategically behind the door, so that the open door blocked his desk from view when first walking into the room. Lani’s setup was similar. Hell, all of theirs were in order to better defend themselves. Cops were a paranoid bunch. With good reason. She shoved the major’s leather executive chair aside with her hip. One tug of the drawer revealed the desk locked. She thrust the tire iron into the top drawer of the locked desk just as a head peered around the door.
    “Ma’am?” Corporal Mathias’s eyebrows inched upward on his forehead. “Uhm… Breaking into the major’s desk, ma’am?”
    “Yes, I am.” She pushed the bar down, and the drawer popped open. “Now out. And shut the door behind you.”
    “I…uhm…can’t, ma’am. You sorta broke it.”
    “Then sorta make sure I’m not disturbed…by anyone.”
    His gasp sucked the air out of the room. “Not even master guns?”
    Lani would have laughed had the situation not been so dire. Greg’s rank gave him power. His experience and maturity helped him use it with grace and discretion. She tried her best to follow his example.
    “Did I not just give you an order, Corporal?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” He ducked out, pulling the broken door behind him.
    The precision neatness in Kenyon’s desk drawers freaked Lani out. Everything was well-ordered and in its assigned place. He’d know if anyone had violated his space. A small stack of business cards lay in the tray next to his paperclips. Lani rifled through them but found nothing with Nerine’s cell phone number. She turned to the bank of drawers down the left side of the desk and finally found what she was looking for buried under two