Troop 18 Read online

  Don’t ignore me. Need to talk.

  Headquarters came into view as she thumbed out a quick text to her partner. 618?

  This was their personal distress signal, which had come in handy more than once. Right now, Andy was using it as her own code: if it’s not important, fuck off.

  More like 617 and a half. Call me.

  Andy crossed the street, pushing the speed dial for Jack’s cell phone. “What is it, Jack?”

  “Where are you, Wylie?” Jack said nervously.

  “Just heading into Headquarters, why?”

  “Okay, I just found this out now, and I don’t know everything that’s going on but…but I think it’s going to be fine. In fact I think it’s going to be better than fine.”

  Andy let him ramble, barely paying attention as she caught the heavy doors of the familiar glass building and went inside. The large, open lobby was full of civilians looking lost or annoyed mixing with officers in uniform looking busy or bored. It was much warmer in here, and Andy used her free hand to unzip her storm jacket as she made her way through the crowd. Then she froze, every muscle in her body locking down, her heart thudding to a stop before doubling its pace, her brain frantically trying to make sense of what she was seeing.

  “Jack…” she said into the phone, her voice carrying no weight. He still babbled in the background. “Jack,” she said more forcefully, her eyes never leaving the two figures descending the stairs. “Does this have anything to do with Kate?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because she’s walking down the stairs with Finns right now.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” Jack said quickly. “Call me later.” And then he hung up.

  Andy pushed disconnect on her phone and clenched it in her palm. She was unable to move. Andy scanned Kate, the way she moved, the expression on her face, her achingly familiar silhouette. She noted a new hollowness in Kate’s cheeks, framed by her red curls caught in a twist at the back of her neck. She was wearing an unfamiliar winter jacket, army green with a hood lined in orange fleece.

  They were at the bottom of the stairs now, Kate smiling politely at something Finns had just said. Turning towards the front doors, Kate shifted a black backpack on her shoulders. They were now only twenty feet away. Andy felt her heart give a painful jerk in her chest as Kate faced her dead on. Everything about the way she moved made Andy hurt. As if she could sense it, Kate scanned the busy reception area until she saw Andy. Kate looked her up and down, her brown eyes locking on Andy’s. Andy read her expression: happiness, relief, but above all, caution.

  What does that mean? Andy wanted to yell. She wasn’t sure, so as Finns and Kate approached her, Andy commanded her body to meet them half way and she did the only thing she could think of in that moment. She slammed her guard up, hard. She became still, quieted, tense. Andy forced everything she was feeling into a small ball and clenched it in her stomach. She’d unpack it later.

  “Sgt. Wyles, I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.”

  Andy forced herself to pay attention to the gritty, annoyed tone Finns was using.

  “I’m sorry I’m late. The fog has almost shut down the city.” Her voice had so little inflection, Andy knew both Finns and Kate could see right through it.

  “Well, you picked a hell of a day to be late and a hell of time to decide to find some work-life balance and not answer your phone for three days, Wyles.” Andy thought she could hear a note of nerves in the annoyance. But Andy didn’t have time to think it through because she’d become distracted by the ghost of a smile on Kate’s lips. God, Kate’s lips…It took every ounce of willpower Andy had to drag her eyes away.

  “What’s going on here?” Andy couldn’t stand another second of talking about the weather and her tardiness.

  “Sgt. Wyles, I’d like you to meet the newest civilian member of E-division. Dr. Morrison has just finished signing the papers with Superintendent Heath.” Finns did not sound impressed.

  This didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense.

  “Part time, but permanent,” Kate added. The sound of her voice made the clenched muscles in Andy’s abdomen tremble slightly. It had been so long since she’d heard that voice, the slightly mocking tone, so often at the edge of laughter. Kate wasn’t looking at Andy, though. She’d turned her body, angling it away. Andy couldn’t help but be thankful. Talking to her was so much easier when she didn’t have to see her face straight on: her pale skin, the light flecks of colour in her brown eyes.

  But as Finns kept talking about Heath overriding Finns’s objections, a sudden thought hit Andy hard in the chest. Kate had moved on purpose, either because she found it just as hard to be this close or because she was trying to make it easier on Andy. Both answers threatened to undo her entirely and only Finns’s harsh voice brought her back.

  “Sgt. Wyles, are you listening?”

  “No,” she said honestly and tried very hard not to see Kate suppress a smile.

  Finns sighed, muttering under his breath. He made sure Andy was looking him dead in the eye before he spoke again. “Dr. Morrison will be joining your team, replacing the Depot medic who has requested a transfer out. My objections have been overruled by Superintendent Heath.” Finns seemed to scrutinize Andy for any reaction to this announcement. But by this time, Andy was numb, barely able to process. “Do you have any concerns about this?”

  Yes. “No,” Andy said quickly, ignoring the voice in her head.

  A very long pause. Andy studied Kate in her peripheral vision, aware of every time she took in a breath or shifted her weight.

  “Fine. You will have to put up with your current medic for the next two days as Dr. Morrison won’t be arriving until Monday morning. Do you have any questions?”

  Yes. Is Kate coming back to me?

  “No,” Andy said again.

  Kate checked her cheap, black plastic watch. “I should get going, I’m almost late,” Kate said, addressing Finns. Andy felt rather than saw Kate pull in a breath as she turned toward Andy. “I’ll see you in a couple of days,” she said quietly, holding Andy’s eyes for a moment, then two, before she shifted her backpack again and walked away. Andy looked after her as she moved through the crowd, pushed open the glass doors, and disappeared into the fog.

  “Sgt. Wyles, tell me now if this is going to be an issue,” Finns said, his voice strained. “I’ll fight Superintendent Heath on this decision. He seems to think you two are some sort of dream team.”

  We were.

  “But you are my priority, not Dr. Morrison. So I’ll ask you again. Is this going to be an issue?”

  Andy looked him in the eye. “No. Can I have two minutes?”

  Staff Sgt. Finns sighed. “I’ll be in my office.”

  Andy barely waited for him to finish the short sentence before she followed Kate through the glass doors. She controlled her pace and fought the urge to look down at her chest where it felt like her heart was beating on the outside, not in. There, just around the building, Kate was looking down, searching through her backpack, the back of her neck exposed.

  “Kate!”

  Kate turned toward the sound of her voice, and Andy could see that look of relief again. And something else, something else that had always been there but Andy could never quite name. Whatever it was, it made Andy feel warm. Andy was standing in front of her now, in front of Kate. Kate. And she was at a complete loss.

  “Can I drive you to work?”

  An utterly inadequate question, of course, after fifty-three days apart. But Kate’s expression said she was still being cautious and Andy took the signal as a warning, warmth or not.

  Kate smiled and held up a bicycle helmet which Andy had seen but not registered.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got my bike. My therapist told me I had to start exercising.”

  Kate was seeing a therapist. She was exercising. She was working at the ER and with the RCMP. She smiled at Andy like it was the most natural thing in the world. Andy c
ollected every piece of evidence, still unsure exactly what she was investigating.

  “I tried to convince her that back-to-back traumas counted as cardio, but she was having none of that.”

  Andy heard the laughter in Kate’s voice and more than anything she wanted to be able to laugh with her or at the very least to hear her laugh again. But instead, the smile was fading on Kate’s lips, replaced by that same cautious look. And something else. Resolve, Andy decided.

  “This isn’t how I planned this, Andy. I really didn’t mean for this to be an ambush,” Kate said softly. “I’ve been trying to call you since last weekend.” Andy watched her fidget. “I didn’t even know you were capable of turning your phone off for three days,” she said, her smile tentative this time.

  Andy stood perfectly still, searching for something to say or ask or tell. Nothing came to mind. All of her attention was focused on a curl that had escaped from the twist at Kate’s neck and was brushing Kate’s jaw. God, she wanted to reach out and tuck that curl behind Kate’s ear, like she had a hundred times in the past. Kate checked her watch again, and Andy knew she had to say something.

  “You’ll be up in Clearwater on Monday?” Andy said, her voice carrying none of its usual weight. It didn’t even sound like her.

  “Yes, in the morning. Staff Sgt. Finns says I need to be on-site, is that right?”

  Andy nodded, not quite able to believe she was having this casual, work place conversation with Kate, standing in the parking lot at Headquarters. “Check in at the main house, and they can radio up to camp for me.”

  “Okay,” Kate said softly, keeping her eyes on Andy. That look had always twisted inside Andy, made her heart pound loudly in her chest. “I should really get going. I took all three weekend shifts from Craig so I could head up next week.”

  “Then I’ll see you Monday.” Andy’s body warmed at the thought of knowing she’d see Kate again in less than seventy-two hours.

  Kate smiled and settled the pack on her back before climbing on her bike. One last look at Andy, and then she pushed off and pedalled away. Andy watched Kate disappear into the fog, hearing the unseen traffic on the road and the muted conversations between invisible officers. Andy gave herself one last minute to look longingly, pathetically after her. For someone who had spent her whole life pursuing strength, Andy could not explain how she had fallen for someone who made her feel so incredibly, wonderfully weak. Andy took a quick, sharp breath, shook her head, and went back inside to try to convince her supervisor this was not going to be the disaster he so obviously feared.

  It took a lot of convincing. Andy was distracted for the first half of their meeting, pacing Finns’ small office. She was still dissecting Kate’s words, Kate’s expressions, her motivations. In her head, Andy followed Kate from Headquarters to Vancouver East Hospital, worrying about her biking in the fog. She was considering calling the ER, thinking she could check in with the desk clerk to make sure Kate had arrived safely when Finns’s voice intruded abruptly.

  “Enough, Wyles! Pull yourself together.”

  Andy stopped in her tracks and took a moment to try to consider what Finns was seeing right now. It wasn’t pretty, that was for sure. Andy sat heavily in one of the chairs, clasped her hands together, breathed in slowly once, let it out slowly once. Control, control, control. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t be sorry, just focus. Tell me what’s going on with your Camp Depot. I’ve got a report to write for the COs. Thank God they can’t see you right now. They’re nervous enough as it is.”

  This brought Andy up sharply. No matter what was going on with Kate, no matter how important, she couldn’t do anything about it right now. And this was a promise she’d made to Lincoln, so she had no choice but to honour it by giving it her undivided attention. “Okay, what do you need to know?”

  “Start with the location. Any safety issues or concerns?”

  Andy focused and gave Finns all the information he and the COs needed to know. Andy talked and Finns took notes, occasionally stopping to ask a question or clarify a point. After half an hour on the basics, Finns wanted to know about the cadets themselves.

  “First impressions,” Finns said, when Andy objected that she’d barely spent any time with them. “What do you see?”

  “They have a leader, Cadet Prewitt-Hayes, but my gut tells me someone else or possibly more than one person is influencing the group. They’re very in tune with each other, and from what the instructors are telling me they’ve been like that from the beginning. The death of their troop mate somehow cemented that bond.”

  “Similar backgrounds?”

  “Not at all,” Andy said. She’d wondered the same thing. “Foster kid, college kid, high school drop-out, varsity athlete, second career, small engine mechanic, farmer…”

  Finns held up his hand. “I get the picture, thank you, Sgt. Wyles.”

  Andy grinned. “They click, that’s clear. They look out for each other, they have the exact troop mentality of brotherhood and sisterhood that Depot works so hard to build and maintain. They should be the shining example of everything Depot tries to create in a troop.”

  “But they’re not,” Finns said pointedly.

  “They’re not because they’re hiding something, and, at this point, they will go to any lengths to maintain that secret.”

  “Including the threat of having their contracts revoked,” Finns said, and Andy nodded. “I don’t get it, Wyles.”

  “Lincoln was right. You have to see this troop in action. They read each other’s minds, it’s uncanny.” Andy was thinking of the troop as they made supper in the mess hall the night before. They seemed hyper aware of each other, even when joking around about making a meal. Andy had expected the stress of trying to keep a secret with that many people would result in every member looking out for the others, watching to see who would crack. But it was so unconscious with this group, Andy wasn’t sure they were even aware of it.

  Finns eventually capped his pen and gathered his notes, lining them up neatly with his desk ledger. Andy checked her watch. Almost four o’clock. If she left now, she’d get back to the B&B before midnight, assuming the fog had dissipated.

  “Okay, that’s good for now. Superintendent Heath himself will be up sometime the middle of next week for inspection. I’ll warn you now, whether you’re in his good books or not, he’s going to need to have something to take back to the COs.”

  “He can take back anything he wants, but I’m not going to push the troop just so he has something to put in a report. The TO himself gave me the go ahead to run this thing as I see fit, so that’s what I’m going to do,” Andy insisted stubbornly.

  Finns held up a hand. “You’re wasting your breath, Wyles. I’m merely pointing out that Superintendent Heath will want more than the basics and a tour of the camp next week. Lincoln trusts you’re on the right course and so do I.” Finns stopped and cleared his throat. “I also trust you will know when to call it quits if things start to head south. Either with the camp, the cadets, the instructors, Dr. Morrison, or yourself. I’m trusting you know when to call it a day.”

  Finns held her gaze and Andy sat still, withstanding the scrutiny.

  “Yes, sir.” She considered herself warned.

  “Good, then go. Get back to camp.”

  Before she was even at the stairs, Andy had her phone out, calling into her voicemail. Eleven voicemails, seventeen texts. Most of those were Jack, most of them today. She was almost back at the Yukon by the time she heard Kate’s message. Her voice was nervous, hardly like Kate at all.

  “Hi, Andy, it’s me. It’s, uh, Monday. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a couple of days. Maybe you’re screening…” Andy heard Kate stop and take a breath, then plough on. “Anyway, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Well, of course there is, there’s about a hundred and sixty five thousand things I want to talk to you about, but one of them is time sensitive. So…I’m hoping you’ll call me. I’m at
home tonight.” A long pause, nothing, then a click to end the message.

  Andy replayed the message three times, sitting in the cold Yukon. She barely noticed. She was trying to decode Kate’s words, her tone, the glaring uncertainty in her voice. How could she be uncertain? How could Kate not understand Andy had ached for her every second she’d been gone? It suddenly seemed like a very good idea to start the engine of the truck, drive over to Van East and sort this out right now. Tell Kate she loved her, pull Kate into her arms and hold her, to protect her from anything hard or uncertain or painful.

  No.

  Andy glared out the windshield, her jaw tight, her shoulders strained. No. She’d run interference for Kate too many times. Andy had tried to coax, encourage, give space. She’d tried so hard to find the right words, and failing that, to not say anything at all. None of it had helped. In the end, she’d watched Kate turn in on herself. She’d become diminished and far away. Andy clenched the steering wheel with one hand, a flash of hot anger rising up from her stomach into her chest. She couldn’t help it as all the things she’d said and done wrong lined themselves up in her head. That was the uncertainty in Kate’s voice. Andy couldn’t stop herself from thinking she’d help put it there.

  Andy recognized the feeling of being stuck, the mental loops of self-loathing and doubt. Then she remembered Finns’s words, the warning and the command to pull herself together. Turning the key in the ignition and setting the heater to high, Andy jammed her phone in the hands free unit and dialled her partner. Maybe it was time for some of Jack’s unending optimism.

  *

  Andy listened to the pounding of seventeen pairs of feet behind her, surprised at how little noise this many people could make in the forest. She was leading Troop 18 on an early morning run and the air was damp and cold, the kind that worms its way under your clothes and sits on your chest. Didn’t matter. Andy knew she would be warm in ten minutes as her bright green running jacket trapped the heat against her body. She was angling them up into the mountain, aiming for a look-out she’d found her first morning alone up at camp. The fog had eased off in the night, settling into a more typical December damp, but at least now the view was clear.