“Where is she? God damn you, where is she?”

“Colonel Conlon was in command of a unit escorting several high-ranking officials from Baghdad to a secure facility when her convoy was attacked by insurgents. Her vehicle and several others were separated from the main body during the firefight.”

Tory struggled to decipher what he was saying. “Separated. Where did they go?”

“The vehicles have been recovered along with a number of casualties. Colonel Conlon’s body was not among them.”

Casualties. Body. A wave of dizziness threatened to take her legs out from under her. Tory sat heavily and pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. She breathed deeply several times and called upon every bit of fortitude she had to think her way through what he was telling her. “So she might be alive.”

“Colonel Con…”

“Reese. Her name is Reese.”

Reese’s father nodded. “Reese and three others are presumed captured.”

“Do you know where she is?”

“Not as of yet.”

“But you are looking for her, aren’t you?”

Tory thought it impossible that Roger Conlon could look any harder than he already did, but his face transformed before her eyes into an unyielding wall of stone.

“Reese is a Marine. We don’t leave our people behind.”

With effort, Tory pushed herself up. “Then you find her, General Conlon. You find her, you get her out, and you bring her home. I’ve had enough of your war. Reese has done her duty, now you do yours.”

For just a second, Roger Conlon looked taken aback. “You have my word.”

“Does Kate know?” Tory asked, feeling hope replace despair. Reese was smart. Reese was tough. Reese would not leave them. She wouldn’t, not when she knew how very much they needed her.

“No. Colonel Con…Reese listed you as her next of kin.”

“I am.” Tory wondered fleetingly what it cost him to say that, but found that she didn’t really care. All that mattered was that he use whatever power he had at his disposal to find Reese. She scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “This is my cell phone number. When you find her, call me. If she’s hurt…” Her voice broke and she closed her eyes. After a second, she went on, “If she’s hurt, I want to know immediately…and I’ll want to talk to the doctors. You make that happen.”

“I’m in constant contact with the officers in command over there. I’ll know the moment there’s news.”

“Good. That’s good.”

“Try not to worry, Dr. King.”

Tory glanced around the room as if she weren’t certain where she was. Then she straightened, and her voice was stronger. “I’ll be at Kate’s for the next few hours. Our daughter is there.” She held Roger Conlon’s gaze. “Regina will be glad when Reese comes home. She misses her. We all do.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t imagine that you do, but I don’t need you to. I just want her home.”

“I’ll see to it.”

Tory waited until Reese’s father had left the room before slumping into her chair. She wasn’t certain who to call. She needed to tell Kate. She needed to arrange for the rest of her patients to be seen. Bonita couldn’t handle them all alone. She could call KT. No, KT was in Boston. Wasn’t she? Pia would know. She pressed her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes. It was so hard to think. Why was it so hard to think?

She opened her eyes and saw the picture of Reese in her desert fatigues. Her hat was tucked under her arm and the wind blew through her hair. She was smiling.

“Oh God, baby, please come home. I love you so much.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Tory knocked on Kate’s front door, her mind a blank. On the drive over, she had tried to think of the right words to say, but none had come. None that would make the message any easier. It had all come down to one simple, unimaginable truth. Your daughter is missing.

She had delivered difficult messages before. I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do. I know this is difficult, but the medicine doesn’t seem to be helping. I wish I had better news… but this was Reese. Reese couldn’t be missing, not when Tory could feel her with every beat of her heart.

The door opened and Tory met Kate’s eyes. “Kate, I…oh, God, Kate…”

Kate pulled Tory into her arms and hugged her. “I know. Roger was just here.”

Tory held on, her eyes closed, her cheek against Kate’s shoulder. She let herself be comforted for another few seconds and then gently pulled away. Kate was pale. “I’m sorry, I should have called to let you know, but I wanted to tell you in person. I didn’t think he’d come here.”

“No, it’s all right. Roger was decent.” Kate held the door wide, recalling the shock of seeing him at her door after more than twenty years. When she’d recognized pain and not anger in his eyes, she’d known immediately why he had come. Before her heart had the chance to break, he’d said, Missing. Not dead. Three words she clung to. “It was good of him to come. If she weren’t his daughter, we wouldn’t even know she was missing. We’d be left to wonder why we weren’t hearing from her until there was some official word.”

“He’ll find her, won’t he?”

“Yes,” Kate said firmly as she led Tory through the living room to the kitchen. “He will.”

Jean sat at the kitchen table with Reggie dozing on her lap. Her eyes were red rimmed but resolute. “Hello, honey.”

Tory lifted Reggie into her arms and rubbed her lips against the silky hair, wondering at the innocence of childhood. “Hi. How are you doing?”

“Fine, considering. Roger didn’t shoot me, which was what he threatened the last time he saw me.” Jean kissed Tory’s cheek. “Reese is going to be all right. Don’t think for a second that she isn’t.”

“I know,” Tory said thickly. She said the words because she had to believe them, but how could any of them be sure?

“Have you eaten?” Kate asked briskly, caressing Jean’s shoulder on the way to the refrigerator. “We’re not going to know anything for a little bit, and no one is going to get sick while we wait.”

“I can’t right now.” Tory shifted Reggie onto her hip. “Would you mind awfully if I went home for a while? I have some calls to make and I’d just like to be around…Reese. Us.” She smiled just a little unsteadily. “Does that make any sense?”

“Perfectly.” Kate gave her another hug. “Is there anyone you want me to call?”

“Would you mind finding Bri and asking her to meet me at the house? Just tell her I need to talk to her.”

Jean went to the kitchen phone. “I’ll do it.”

“Thanks. And I’ll call you the second I hear anything,” Tory said, gathering the bright yellow plastic tote with Reggie’s things.

As soon as Tory arrived home she put Reggie down to finish her nap and called Pia. She had just hung up after explaining what had happened and asking Pia to call KT when a cruiser slammed to a stop in the driveway and Bri bolted from the vehicle. Tory steeled herself to repeat the news that she knew was going to cause unbearable pain.

“What’s wrong?” Bri said as she burst through the door, her eyes automatically scanning the room as if expecting an intruder. Her right hand rested on the butt of her holstered automatic. “Jean said you needed to see me right away. Is the baby okay?”

“Reggie’s fine.” Tory put both hands on Bri’s forearms and said gently, “Something went wrong with a mission that Reese was on, and she’s missing, honey. Her father just told me a little while ago.”

Bri stiffened. “Missing. Jesus.” Her eyes went a little wild. “Oh, Christ, Tory.”

Then, before Tory had a chance to offer the comfort she had planned along with the now-familiar, if empty, words of reassurance, Bri gathered Tory into her arms and held her against her chest. She stroked her hair and murmured, “Don’t worry. She’ll be okay.”

Bri wasn’t as tall as Reese or as muscular, but there was no mistaking her power now. The gesture was so different than the maternal embrace that Kate had bestowed and so much like the automatic protective response Reese would have made that Tory nearly broke. There had been so few people in her life that she had leaned on. KT, so long ago, and Reese. The two women in her life she had loved with all she was. The only two she had ever trusted completely; the only two whose strength she had ever accepted when her own had faltered. Now, it seemed, there was another.

“I am so damn scared,” Tory whispered.

“Yeah,” Bri murmured, seeing no point in pretending she wasn’t, too. She kept her arm around Tory’s shoulder and guided her to the sofa, where she continued to hold her even after they were seated. When Tory leaned her head against her shoulder, Bri experienced a swell of pride and terrible affection. She wanted to make Tory’s hurt and fear go away so badly she ached. She’d never felt this need to care for any woman other than Caroline, and even though this was different, she understood that it was love. “What happened?”

Tory told her what little she knew, realizing there were questions she should have asked that she hadn’t been able to think of when Reese’s father had been in her office. All she’d been able to think of then was that Reese might be hurt. That someone, for reasons she would never be able to understand, had wanted to kill the woman she loved. There was no way for her to understand that, to rationalize it, or to ever accept it, because she could not fathom anything, beyond protecting her child and Reese, that she would kill for. Beneath her confusion and pain, she was furious at the insanity of it.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t ask…” Tory trembled. “All I could think was that Reese…” She searched Bri’s face, wondering if she’d been right about the strength she’d imagined. Bri met her inquiring gaze calmly, her blue eyes dark with worry but steady. So steady. “I feel so helpless. Waiting. Not knowing if she’s hurt.”