Always Faithful Read online

  * * *

  * * *

  ALWAYS FAITHFUL

  by

  CATHERINE SNODGRASS

  & BRYNDIS RUBIN

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  http://www.amberquill.com

  * * *

  * * *

  Always Faithful

  An Amber Quill Press Book

  This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Amber Quill Press, LLC

  P.O. Box 50251

  Bellevue, Washington 98015

  All rights reserved.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  Copyright © 2002 by Catherine Snodgrass/Bryndis Rubin

  ISBN 1-59279-004-6

  Cover Art © 2002 Trace Edward Zaber

  Rating: R

  Layout and Formatting

  Provided by: ElementalAlchemy.com

  Published in the United States of America

  Also by Catherine Snodgrass

  & Bryndis Rubin

  Ice Princess

  Judging Ellie

  Dedication

  To Peter

  for the premise

  and Les

  for the support.

  Prologue

  * * *

  Staff Sergeant Rowan McKinley studied the steel warehouse building from every angle she could see. Since her only viewpoint was from Charlie’s battered old truck, that wasn’t easy. The security lights being out made it doubly hard. There wasn’t another person around or any sign of another vehicle. No activity whatsoever. Everyone and everything was tucked away for the night, as it should be at midnight.

  She glanced at the man beside her. Night kept her from seeing his face clearly, but she knew it would be lit with excitement. For lack of a better term, she could almost smell the testosterone in the air. Or was that beer? She’d swear he’d been drinking, even if she didn’t want to admit that to herself.

  As for herself, it was all Rowan could do to keep from shaking. What in the world had she been thinking to come here? She was a legal specialist, not an MP, not CID, and certainly not NCIS. Her stubborn determination to prove herself right had gotten her into this mess. A dangerous mess at that. And if Charlie had been drinking, she was even more stupid to get into a vehicle with him.

  Rowan wiped her sweaty palms on her camouflage trousers. Her heart pounded so hard she’d swear he could hear it.

  Where were her priorities? She had a child to think about. Why should she care if someone was stealing government property? She’d reported her suspicions to anyone and everyone who would listen. Why in the world couldn’t she have left it at that? She’d done her duty.

  But, no. Like a modern-day Don Quixote, she had to go tilting at windmills. All things considered, her sanity was just as questionable as that foolish old coot’s.

  She studied the hulking white building once more. No guards walking their posts. It looked quiet enough, safe, despite the lack of security lights. It should have put her at ease, but it only set her nerves on edge.

  "Charlie, I don’t like this. It doesn’t seem right. I think we should leave."

  He chuckled and gave her a playful slug in the arm. "You’re being silly." Drawing his pistol, he slid from the truck and silently made his way to the building.

  Easy to be brave when you’re a walking giant.

  Rowan frowned. The door wasn’t even locked. Now that was odd. Too easy. A trap? Possibly. And Charlie was too gung-ho or too inebriated to notice, or maybe he embraced the challenge, the danger, the rush.

  Rowan glanced around. Here she was a sitting target.

  She searched the floorboard debris of to-go cups for something to use as a weapon. Nothing, not even a floor mat. For one brief second she considered cranking the engine and getting out of there. Rowan dismissed the cowardly plan. She would not leave Charlie. They were safer together.

  Curling her fingers around the doorknob, she shoved her shoulder against the truck door. It groaned as it opened, announcing her presence to anyone who might have doubted it before.

  Crouching low, Rowan ran to the building and ducked inside. Darkness enveloped her. Pitch black. Smothering. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. Panic clutched at her stomach. In vain she fought the claustrophobia, the overwhelming fear, the need to battle her way free, and the urge to scream out her frustration.

  Arms wrapped around her midsection, she stood frozen and lost. She heard scuffling off to her right. There was a blur, a sense rather than sight of movement. Then pain shattered through her head.

  Chapter 1

  * * *

  Always faithful. Semper Fi. Captain Phillip Stuart shook his head at the term. Faithful didn’t include forcing yourself on young girls, or stealing cash out of your platoon buddies’ lockers when they were out at sea on a training mission.

  What had the Marine Corps come to? Thieves, murderers, and rapists. The lot of them should be taken out and shot.

  Of course, doing so would put military lawyers out of a job. Heaven forbid the little slime balls didn’t get a fair trial. Phillip was eternally grateful he no longer dealt with defense cases.

  Shifting slightly on the hard courtroom chair, he straightened his papers and listened to the continuing drone of the defense attorney’s voice as she pled her client’s case. He didn’t know why she bothered. The look on the jurors’ faces indicated they had already found him guilty. It didn’t matter what extenuating or mitigating matters she threw out, her client would go to jail for a very long time. He shifted again and let the squeaking wooden chair show his annoyance.

  Laura Cushing shot him a glare from where she stood before the members. Good…he’d broken her concentration. Not easy to do. She was a tough opponent. But this long, drawn out trial stretched all their nerves to the breaking point.

  After a few closing words, Laura sat down, looking satisfied with herself. She was good. He was better.

  Phillip stretched to his full six-four and flexed his shoulders. With all the stealth of a jaguar stalking its prey, he approached the center of the courtroom.

  Intimidate the witness. Impress the members. That was half the battle. A deep breath, a casual glance toward his opponent’s table, and then…

  He attacked, going straight to the heart of the case. He dissected Laura’s defense point by point, pulling apart the pieces with the precision of a surgeon. He let his words drift into the minds of those military members seated as jury. Then with the same lack of speed, he resumed his seat. The chair groaned under his weight.

  Phillip sliced a glance at the defense table. The accused sat there, a fresh-faced young man all of nineteen. His big hands were clasped on the table before him as if in prayer. It set Phillip’s teeth on edge. What right did he have to pray? Those young girls begged and prayed before he forced himself on them. Had he listened?

  Laura snapped to her feet and marched forward to take his place. It was no use. All the golden words she summoned could not save her client. Phillip knew it, and she knew it. And, after thirty minutes of deliberation, the members of the jury and the rest of the courtroom realized it, too.

  Phillip listened to the sentence with smug satisfaction. Twenty-five years at Leavenworth. That’s what he called justice, although castration might not be a bad idea either.

  In the back of the courtroom, one set of parents cried, while the others, those
of the victims, sighed with relief. The accused…the guilty let his head drop. It was the only display of emotion he showed. No tears. No regrets. He didn’t flinch. Phillip fought the urge to demand if the man felt any remorse for anyone but himself.

  Once the judge left the courtroom, the prisoner escort came in. Then the young Marine started bawling. Yeah, he had regrets—that he’d been caught. His father refused to look his way while his mother rushed to his side. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug he refused to return.

  Rather than watch the guy be hauled away in shackles, Phillip celebrated his victory with a cigar on the back steps of the military justice building. How many times had he reflected on past and future glories in such a way? Lately, though, the battles more often than not left his stomach sour.

  There wasn’t much he hadn’t heard over his career. Most of it sickened rather than shocked him. Now, prosecuting the rabble of the Marine Corps tired him. Time to climb the next rung on the ladder.

  After graduating law school, he’d thought the way shone clear, focused, his career path set. He shook his head. Of course, his goals had been regimented at the time. They were all he had. A means to forget.

  Unfortunately, they were still all he had. And Phillip wasn’t sure he wanted those same goals anymore.

  The door opened behind him. A rush of cool air brushed over his shoulders and back then stopped when the door closed. Phillip knew without looking that it was Laura. He could smell her perfume—that elusive scent which evoked memories of a long-ago time and someone else he wished he could forget.

  She dusted off the step and eased down beside him, careful not to snag her hose on the concrete steps. Resting forearms on knees, she stared ahead.

  "Congratulations. Another victory for the great and powerful Phillip Stuart."

  He chewed on his cigar and absorbed the view of the gray mountains surrounding Camp Pendleton.

  "Sarcasm, Laura? How unlike you."

  "Cut the crap. That boy didn’t deserve twenty-five years in prison, and you know it."

  "Please save me the she-asked-for-it speech. You didn’t have to listen to the sobs each and every time those girls told their story. Don’t tell me it was faked every time. I know better."

  She tilted her head his way. "Come on, Phillip. He’s only nineteen—still a teenager himself. It was consensual. Daddy caught them, and she cried rape. If that girl shed tears, it was only because she got caught. This has been nothing but a witch hunt. With an excellent cast of performers. The girl’s past conduct showed that."

  "Irrelevant. And the forensics evidence proved their story."

  "It proved they had sex. There was no evidence to support assault of any kind."

  "We’re not talking about one girl here. We’re talking about six. There’s no way you’re ever going to convince anyone all six of them are lying. Get your bleeding-heart head out of the sand, Laura. We’ve had this discussion before. It’s over. Case closed."

  "Obviously, but have you asked yourself this? When you were nineteen, can you honestly say you could resist the charms of a willing sixteen-year-old?"

  He leveled a frosty stare her way.

  Laura gave an exaggerated wince. "What was I thinking? How dare I suggest you would be less than perfect?" She slowly shook her head and gave a soft, humorless laugh. "You are the most handsome man I’ve ever met. Mister Perfect. Aristocratic features. Golden hair. Poster Marine all the way. But you’re dead inside. You have no feeling, no compassion. Your eyes are the coldest gray I’ve ever seen—like a frozen pond in the dead of winter. I pity the woman who winds up with you."

  He blew a puff of smoke into the air. "I take it, then, that you’re saying it’s really over between us?"

  She gave a small, bitter laugh. "Don’t flatter yourself. And don’t play that game with me. It’s been over for quite some time now. It was never anything more than an occasional dinner with a friend as far as I’m concerned."

  But the remorse in her eyes told a different story. He had regrets, too. He’d wanted her to be the one to erase the memory of another. To make him love and care and see goodness in the world once more. In the end she, like the few other women he’d dated the last nine years, fell short of that need. She had been a stand-in, nothing more. Comparing Laura to…

  No. Don’t go there. It hurt too much. It always did. If he lived to be a hundred, he doubted the pain and bitterness would ever die.

  Phillip looked away to give her some shred of dignity. Or was it to hide the remorse seeping to the surface like a festering wound?

  Laura pushed to her feet and slipped quietly inside the building.

  He ground out his cigar on the cement steps and returned to his office. Victory no longer tasted sweet. Behind his gray metal desk, some stability returned.

  His gaze drifted around his office, taking in the mementos of his career with the Marine Corps. His Amphibious Warfare School awards, the jump school medals in their rosewood frame, a souvenir shirt commemorating his time served in the Mediterranean aboard the USS Boxer. If there was an opportunity, he took it. Anything to further his career. Somehow it still wasn’t enough. Even though his career flourished, he felt an emptiness he could not define.

  The small picture of his family shoved into the corner of his desk caught his eye. The four Stuarts stood together at his graduation from Naval Justice School, looking uncomfortable. His father exuding aristocratic disapproval. His mother and sister Claudia smiling uncertainly as the camera caught them in such an atypical family moment.

  They never understood why he had to do it. Why he turned his back on the Stuart fortune. And Phillip hadn’t bothered to explain. The year before, Claudia came to the same realizations as he. Like her brother, it had taken a broken heart to open her eyes.

  He turned the picture face down. On second thought, he shoved it in his drawer under a pile of paperwork. With everything else going through his mind, the last thing he needed to resurrect was his relationship with his family—particularly his father.

  "Excuse me, sir?" His clerk stuck his head in through the office door. "There’s a package for you. It just arrived from the Commanding General at Twentynine Palms. Must be important because they made sure I signed for it."

  Phillip tore his gaze from the closed drawer. "Thanks, Corporal."

  He shut his mind to his family and accepted the bulky envelope. Once the door closed, he rummaged through the desk for his platinum letter opener, a concession from his father upon graduation from law school. Phillip kept hoping someone would steal it.

  Then why keep the damn thing? The answer came too quick. It was a trophy. A reminder of what his father was and what Phillip prayed he would never be.

  With a flick of his wrist, he sliced open the envelope. The contents slid out onto the desktop, bold type near the middle of the page leaped out at him.

  …the accused, Staff Sergeant Rowan A. McKinley, requests your presence as independent military counsel…

  Rowan! Phillip’s face drained of color. His gut twisted. Breathing was out of the question.

  Odd, when he had been thinking of her only minutes before. But then, when didn’t he think of her?

  Beautiful, talented Rowan McKinley, the one woman he held up against the others. The one who hadn’t bothered to return his heart before she walked out of his life.

  What the hell was she doing in the Marine Corps? More importantly, what had she done to need the services of a Marine defense attorney?

  Time stopped as he grappled for the stack of papers, or maybe it took a giant step back. In either event, Phillip couldn’t put two coherent thoughts together. Before he could read on, the door to his office flew open. The tanned, inquiring face of his best friend and fellow attorney, Captain Zachary Taylor, poked around the doorjamb.

  "I got a call from a friend of mine at the base in Twentynine Palms. There’s been a murder involving a staff sergeant, some woman by the name of—"

  "McKinley," Phillip muttered.
r />   Afraid Zach would see the true depth of his feelings, he kept his gaze locked on the papers. "The case has been offered to me."

  Zach lunged for the papers, snatching them out of Phillip’s grasp. "Well, aren’t you Mr. Popularity. Let’s have a look-see."

  He scanned the request form, eyes widening appreciatively. "Why you, Phillip? You’re not a defense counsel. This staff sergeant could have any military attorney at that base, or even a civilian lawyer…providing she could afford one."

  Zach glanced up before Phillip could mask his feelings. The teasing stopped as Zach’s deep brown eyes narrowed with suspicion. He knew Phillip too well. A definite downfall in having a best friend.

  "What is she to you?"

  "What was she, you mean." Phillip met Zach’s steady gaze with one of his own. "She was once the most important person in my life." His mouth twisted and he whispered, "The bitch."

  Zach tossed the papers back to the desk. "That’s funny. I’ve known you for over eight years, and you’ve never mentioned her."

  He dropped into the chair across from Phillip, resting his feet on the edge of the desk. "Why the big secret? What’s the story?"

  Phillip sighed and copied his friend’s position. Zach’s ability to focus upon and unearth information was uncanny. Now those relentless abilities focused in his direction. He forced a deep breath and sketched out his turbulent history with Rowan McKinley.

  * * *

  Rowan drew her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them in an effort to control her shaking. Nine hours of confinement in this tiny cell, and she still hadn’t been allowed to speak with or see anyone. Not that they would listen to her anyway.