Monica was going crazy.
The chief of security and his team were still interviewing people, but they hadn’t called in either her or Papa Doc. Whatever theory they were pursuing, apparently they were interested mainly in talking to enlisted crew.
To her the truth was so obvious it practically screamed itself.
When Kris called Papa Doc “a classic male chauvinist, fucking racist, and unreconstructed homophobe,” she’d hit it right smack on the nose. It was no secret, either, everyone in the air wing knew it. And wasn’t that a precise description of the kind of person who would seek out these particular victims? Talk about finding for X! Add on a history of assault (even if unproven), plus that hostile encounter between the two of them the night Kris disappeared, and wouldn’t you have enough to warrant an arrest?
She thought about asking Scott, but they hadn’t spoken since she told him to “back off,” and she was sure he’d want nothing to do with this conversation.
She itched to tell someone about Papa Doc’s alleged date rape, to give up Alan Rickards’s name. Rickards knew something, she’d seen it in his eyes. The man was a loose thread; one good yank and the whole sweater would come unraveled.
But did she dare? She had no way of knowing whether whoever she told would keep her confidence. Whistle-blowers were supposed to be protected—but this was the military: short of high treason, there was no sin greater than ratting out a superior officer. She would be gambling her career.
Besides, even if nobody revealed what she said, if they hauled Rickards in for questioning immediately after talking to her, wouldn’t it be obvious that it was Monica who’d steered them his way?
And anyway, who would she tell? The chief of security was too close to Scott—and as much as she wished she could, she couldn’t trust him. Could she trust Master Chief Jackson? She didn’t know. He was already skeptical about her testimony from their brief interview.
Monica lay on her bunk, running her fingers over the patches and seams of Kris’s quilt, which she had quietly pilfered and slipped into her own locker just minutes before the warrant officers arrived for their wordless sweep.
August 31. It was just a number, she told herself, the end of one calendar month and start of another. Still, somewhere in the course of that month, Kris had been stolen away, and now the month itself, the last month in which the two of them had been here in this stateroom together, talking and laughing, was zipping itself shut. Like a body bag.
“Shit fire and save the matches,” she muttered.
She threw aside the quilt and hopped down.
Two minutes later she was knocking on the door to an office she’d never visited before. “Come in,” said a voice from inside. “It’s open.” She turned the handle and stepped inside.
“Can I help you?” said Commander Gaines.