If Aaron was responsible for running the entire place by himself, then there was a chance he’d been too busy to look into what was going on with Jack. In fact, there was a chance—I realized with a shiver of worry—that he didn’t even know anything was wrong. I hadn’t even considered the possibility before.
If I hadn’t been on the video call with Jack, listening firsthand as the alarm had rung out over the sound system aboard the ship, I might not have known anything was wrong. Since Jack had left, the majority of our communication had been via email. He was usually too busy to video chat, or the time difference made it impossible to coordinate. I had no idea how often he spoke with Aaron or even his own family. I’d never asked.
I just hoped I wasn’t about to be the one to give him the bad news.
I sucked in a deep breath and exhaled. “Yeah, this is it.”
Rachel swung into a tight spot near the front entrance and I unbuckled my seatbelt before she’d even cut the engine. I jumped out of the car and made my way toward the front entrance. Rachel caught up at the front doors, and I tamped down my urge to tell her to hurry up. I’d barely swung open the right side of the glass double doors, when Hunter tore off, jerking his leash right out of Rachel’s hand.
“Shit,” Rachel gasped, clutching the hand that had been holding Hunter’s leash. I winced, knowing all too well the pain of a nylon burn. “Hunter, get back here!”
I echoed Rachel’s call and took off running after her as we both chased the brown puppy around the corner. I stopped short when I realized where Hunter had been going and couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh my God, Huntey.”
Sitting outside the side door of the large warehouse building was Princess.
Hunter raced up to her and they exchanged what could only be described as a puppy greeting, touching noses, tails wagging, sniffing each other’s butts and jumping around each other in celebratory circles.
“Hunter!” Rachel scolded.
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “That’s Princess. Jack’s dog. Hunter must’ve smelled her.”
We were still watching the dogs when the side door flew open. “Princess! Get your fluffy ass back inside or I’m gonna ship you off to the middle of the –” Aaron stopped short, recognizing Hunter, and then dragging his eyes a few yards away to where Rachel and I had stopped. “Holly?”
“Hey, Aaron.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. His eyes went from me to Rachel, and I offered the introduction, “This is Rachel.”
Rachel stepped forward and extended her hand.
“Nice to meet you,” Aaron said, shaking her hand. When he released it, he shifted his gaze back to me and cocked a brow. “Was I supposed to be expecting you?”
The fear I’d felt as we’d driven up the hill blossomed in my chest, sending my heart into overdrive.
“Things have been pretty crazy around here the past few days,” Aaron continued, rubbing the back of his neck. “I haven’t been able to keep up with everything, so if Jack sent me something about you coming for a visit, I didn’t realize.”
I licked my lips before cutting a glance to Rachel. “We actually were here to see if you had any information,” Rachel began, picking up where I couldn’t. “Holly thought you might be able to get us some more details, at least more than what they’re showing on the news –”
“News?” Aaron repeated, his blank expression confirming my worst fear.
He didn’t know. How could he not know?
I took a deep breath and willed myself not to cry. “On Saturday evening, I was on the phone, well, Face App with Jack. In the middle of our call alarms went off and some guy came over the speakers talking about an attack. Jack had to go before he could tell me anything about it, and I haven’t heard from him since. I haven’t been able to find much, but there was an attack in Syria, and it was confirmed that in that attack, one of four fighter jets had been shot down.” I stilled, watching Aaron’s face as he reacted to the news.
“Wow, I haven’t watched the news in a while.” He scrubbed his hand down his face and continued, “You’re sure about this?”
“Yeah, I don’t know a lot about what Jack is doing over there. He couldn’t tell me much before he left. But, after the way our last conversation went, it seems like too much of a coincidence. You don’t know anything? If his plane has been shot down—” my voice broke off as the tears that I’d been trying to hold back rolled down my cheeks.
Rachel took a step to close the gap between us and wrapped a comforting arm around my shoulders. She looked from me back to Aaron and said, “Holly thought that since you used to be in the Navy with him, you might have some information. We tried to call before we came up but there was no answer.”