And maybe she had.
He took a deep breath, trying to find the words he would have wanted to hear. "It's not your fault, you know."
"That girl...she trusted me. She counted on me to protect her and I let her down."
"That girl knew the risks of what she was doing and sometimes..." Sometimes you just couldn't control the odds, the obstacles. Sometimes there was no winning no matter how battle-trained you were.
He took a deep breath, willing himself to remember that day. He'd blocked it off for so long, had kept it in the little corner of his mind where he promised himself he'd never visit it.
But if he wanted her to feel better, if he wanted her to know just how much he understood...
"You know why I never talk about the service? Why I left?"
She shook her head, but her gaze didn't meet his.
"Let me tell you," he said, and then he began his story.
The first thing about that day was the music. Will had been in charge of manning the radio in the Humvee after drawing the shortest straw-one of the rare cases where everyone else was forced to suffer while the short straw prevailed. As they rolled through the desert, Will had blared "Poker Face" and sung along at the top of his lungs, occasionally slapping his seat and singing louder when the other cadets complained.
"If I have to hear this goddamned album one more time-" Someone in the back grumbled as they ripped open an MRE and Derrick laughed, holding out his hand for some candy as he steered the tank forward.
It was a dusty day, even for Afghanistan. The way the sand drifted over the land made it nearly impossible to see a hundred feet out, let alone yards or miles. Or maybe he'd just told himself that in the years that had passed. Whatever the case, he couldn't remember the road. Couldn't remember anything but the way the gritty fruit-flavored sugar had tasted on his tongue as he crunched on one skittle after another.
"Fine, fine, if it's that much of a problem, I'll change it." Will rolled his eyes and slid another CD into the player. Within seconds, the Beatles started wailing about being back in the USSR.
"Way to set the mood," Derrick had said, and Will smiled at him.
Will's smile had been crooked. Derrick remembered that. With one jagged front tooth that stuck out a little too far.
He was the youngest of their platoon, a recruit straight out of high school. In a way, the kid reminded him of himself. He was always talking about his kid sister whom he'd left behind, and of a girl back home who'd promised to wait for him. The guy had kept both pictures in a little pocket on the front of this uniform, but Derrick would be damned if he could ever remember which was the sister and which the girlfriend.
They all just looked so damned young.
From the back, the guys called jeers and prayers for Lady Gaga's return.
"Free bird!" One wiseass shouted.
"Ignore them. You got the radio. They can fuck themselves," Derrick said, and Will laughed.
"Thanks." The kid hummed along with the song and Derrick turned his attention back to the road. To where something tiny glinted in the sun so close that he didn't have time to inspect it. Didn't have time to stop.
The explosion was quick and devastating. One second he'd been sitting in his seat, relaxing and listening to Will's off tune crooning and the next he could hear nothing but the long, prolonged sound of chalk scratching on whiteboard over and over again. His ear rang with it, and as he stretched one hand out, he found that he couldn't move it. He could only stare around absently, taking in the wreckage of their convoy.
The Humvee had been flipped over, and few of the men still clinging to the sides of the windows. Their gaze met his and he knew they were alive. He'd thought...
He'd been so stupid.
In that moment, when he saw them, he really thought everyone was safe. That it was a mistake, but he'd been the only one to suffer for it. That he'd be able to manage.
Then he looked in the other direction and saw another pair of eyes, glassy and brown, gazing lifelessly back at him. A snaggle front tooth still prominent in his gaping mouth.
"Will, " he called for the other man, but he still couldn't move. Hell, he could hardly speak. The words grated on his throat and he pushed past the pain to focus on the other man. No, not a man. A boy. A boy who'd died because he'd been too much of a damned fool to pay attention to what he was supposed to be doing.
Derrick shook his head. That image was always the one he woke with-of Will staring back at him, unspoken words still hanging from his lips.
"I was almost up on my contract at that point," he forced himself to say, forced himself to remember that Jade was still here. Listening, expecting.
He cleared his throat and went on, "So when my tour ended I decided to come back to Hawaii and stay for a while. I didn't reenlist. You should have heard how happy my sister was about it. Like she thought she was getting me back after all those years. The thing people don't get, though, is that you don't come back. You never come back. Not really."
Jade was silent, waiting.
"The thing is, though, that even though I should have been paying attention, Will knew the risks of deployment when he signed up for the Army. Just like I did. Just like anyone else. It was the same way with this girl. She knew the risks of talking when she shouldn't. It's not your fault, Jade."
Jade folded her hands in her lap. "It probably wasn't your fault either," she said, almost too quietly for him to hear.
But he did. And he almost smiled.
"I've had a long time to deal with this. It might take awhile for you, too. And I'm not going to lie to you. You might not really come back. But you're going to be okay. That much I can promise you."
"Can you?" Her bright blue eyes met his at last and he held her gaze.
"Yes, I really can. Now let's focus on what's important. This case."
He paused, waiting to see if he'd made the right choice, but there was simply no way to know. No way to judge.
"This case isn't right, Jade," he tried again, gently.
"I know, I know it." She shook her head and slid lower in her seat, wringing her hands as if they might have some kind of answer for her.
"No, I mean...I looked at everything. There's no recent ex-boyfriend. No current boyfriend. The other investigators say there are no clear suspects."
"You know who did this as well as I do," Jade whispered.
"I do...but what I don't understand is how."
"What do you mean? She talked. They punished her for talking."
"But you haven't filed the paperwork. There's no record that she said anything."
"What about the recordings?" Jade asked.
"They always take at least a week to get filed."
"So you're saying there's someone on the inside? Someone watching the tapes?"
"Maybe..." Derrick gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"What?" Jade asked.
"Have you talked to anyone about this case?"
"What?" She furrowed her brow.
"I mean, have you spoken with anyone within the department about our plans or our trip to the strip club."
"No...just Zac, I think."
Zac. Yes. It all made sense if it was Zac, didn't it?
He was so keen to work every angle of the case, to squeeze every little detail he could. And he'd know that he could use Jade for whatever he wanted. Knew she'd be vulnerable to him.
"What's going on?" She asked, her soft voice breaking him from his thoughts.
"Do you think it's possible Zac could be involved here?"
For a moment Jade was silent, then she said, "Zac? You mean like he killed her?"
"Possibly. Or maybe he told someone she informed. Maybe he's the guy on the inside. He's the newest in the group. It would make sense."
"But..." Jade looked blankly out at the road for a moment, then she said, "You know, I think this is about jealousy."
"Jealousy?" Derrick raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah, you're jealous of my feelings for Zac, so you're going to pin all this on him?"
"You have to be out of your fucking mind." He said it casually, but inside his stomach was roiling.
Her feelings for him? As in, her continued feelings for him? Like what they'd done had been nothing to her?
Was he still just a pawn in this ridiculous game she'd concocted? He'd thought...
But it didn't matter what he thought. That wasn't important right now. Right now, what mattered was justice.
"How crazy would I have to be in order to pin a murder on someone because I thought you had the hots for them?"
"That's not really the question at hand, is it?"
"I really think it is." He shot back.
"You know, I'm surprised at you. That you would react like this. If you have feelings for me, you can just come out and say them."
"What, like you would?" He shot back a little too quickly, and she was silent as they rolled into the parking lot in front of the station.