Laying a Foundation: Bonus volume: Includes series prequel, The Groundbreaking (The Love Under Construction Series) (6 page)

February 1996

“EOD Specialist Billings? Can you hear me? EOD Specialist Billings?” Laura tried to make sense of what was going on around her, but she couldn’t. She was cold, really cold, and everything was white. Her head was buzzing, and she couldn’t figure out where the sound was coming from.

“She’s going into shock,” she heard a voice floating somewhere above her say. Then everything got dark.

When she finally woke again, her ears were assaulted by a sound that was so loud it was painful. What had happened to her? Why did she hurt everywhere?

An air medic looked down into her face and saw her open eyes. “EOD Specialist Billings! Hold tight! We’ll be off the ground in a few minutes! Are you in any pain?” he yelled over the sound of the helicopter’s rotors.

“Wha . . . wha . . .” Laura mumbled, but she couldn’t make her mouth form the words.

“We’re flying you out now,” he yelled. “Do you remember what happened? The ordnance exploded. Remember?” No, Laura didn’t remember. She had no idea what had happened.

“We’ll be off the ground in about thirty seconds, but you’ll be fine – eventually.” She heard squawking over his helmet headset, then he said, “Someone wants to see you before we take off. It’ll be just a minute.”

She tried to remember what had taken place, but everything was fuzzy. Then she remembered the sound – like a cannon going off. There was the sensation of flying, and nothing else. She blinked to clear the blurriness in her eyes, and she heard something, someone, nearby.

Sergeant Wagner looked down into her face. “Well, well, well, EOD Specialist Billings! How are you? You gave us quite a scare!” His voice was sympathetic, but there was something in his eyes that scared the shit out of her. “That was some bomb, huh? It threw you fifty feet! I guess you’re kinda sore, huh?” he yelled above the rotor noise, then added, “If you know what I mean.”

She knew exactly what he meant. Bastard. Why was he there rubbing it in? It was bad enough that she’d had the accident. Why did he have to come there and make everything worse, remind her what they’d done to her the month before?

“You know, that blast would’ve killed most people,” he yelled. “No one knows how you managed to live through it. Guess you were just lucky.” He looked down at her, got close to her face, and spoke low so the medic couldn’t hear him. “You won’t be so lucky next time. I don’t make the same mistake twice.” With that, he disappeared from her vision, but she heard him say, “Get well, Billings. The guys are counting on you.” Then she felt the chopper wobble as it lifted off.

Laura’s heart almost stopped. Wagner had tried to kill her. She didn’t know if he’d messed with her body armor or the explosive device, or exactly what he’d done, but he’d done it, practically confessed to it. And there wasn’t one damn thing she could do about it.

She tried to quiet her mind, but she was just too scared, and there was no one she could tell. And if she did tell someone, their life would be in danger too. She was starting to feel panicky when the medic broke into her thoughts.

“Billings, you’re one lucky young woman, but your injuries are still very extensive. We’re taking you to a field hospital, then stateside, and I don’t think you’ll be seeing any more active duty.”

“When are you sending me?” Laura asked.
Oh, please, let it be soon!
, she thought.
Getting out of here is the only thing that will save me.

“You’ll go to the field hospital today and be shipped out tomorrow. In the meantime, try to rest. The trip will be rigorous enough, and pretty painful for you. But you’ll be back in the states – we’re sending you to the naval hospital in Jacksonville, Florida. They’ll take good care of you. Best of luck, Billings.” With that, the medic went back to monitoring her vitals, leaving her with more questions than answers, and no energy to ask.

Laura tried to get her wits together and look herself over, but the only thing she could see was a huge bandage all over the front of her torso. It looked almost like a sheet of bandaging, cut to fit her shape. She didn’t know what was under that bandage, but she was sure she’d find out eventually.

March 2010

“Laura Butler?” Laura rose from her seat and strode across the room toward the man, then followed him to an office down the hall. He pointed to a chair and said, “Have a seat, please.”

“Thank you for calling me for this interview, Mr. Ludlow.” Laura straightened her skirt. “I’ve been wanting to get into the field for awhile. I did very well in the training program and I’ve been hoping you’d find an opening for me somewhere, something that’s a good fit.” She’d passed all of the courses with flying colors and gotten all of her arms certifications. Security work was something she thought she’d like. She’d been looking for a position for too long and was getting really tired of working in the bar at a restaurant. It had been years since she’d had a job where she carried a gun, and she was ready.

“I have to say, Miss Butler, your CV is very impressive,” the placement counselor told her. “I think we’ve found a place for you. We got a call from someone who’s looking to put together a team of security specialists, and he called us looking for candidates. How do you feel about relocating?”

“That would be no problem, sir. I’ve got no real ties to this area.” After she’d recovered, or at least recovered physically, she’d lived in a half-dozen places, with the most recent being St. Louis. She just kept moving around, and she’d taken her mother’s family name, Butler, so it would be harder for Wagner to track her down. “So where would this move be?”

“To Louisville, Kentucky.” Laura almost gasped – her hometown was less than thirty minutes away. “Oddly, one of the reasons the gentleman pulled your information and called us was because he’s originally from southeastern Missouri, and with you being in St. Louis, he felt you might be a good fit, might be more on the same page with him. Are you interested?”

If Wagner knew she’d grown up in the Louisville area, he might look for her there. Or maybe he’d think that was the last place she’d go because it would be too obvious. She felt like she was pondering iocaine powder in the movie
The Princess Bride
. This move would put her closer to her family; that would be nice. Maybe she could pull herself together enough that they’d want to be around her. “Does he want to interview me too? Because I could go there.”

“No. Oddly enough, he said if I found someone suitable that I was to just send you there and he’d hire you on the spot. I’ll give you his contact information if you want the job.”

“Yes sir!” Laura almost shouted. Mr. Ludlow handed her a sheet with the information. On it was the name
Steve McCoy
 – her new boss. “Thank you. I’ll call him as soon as I get home.”

April 1975

I
n the waiting room of a community hospital in Sikeston, Missouri, the tall, lanky teenage boy sat alone, his hands shaking. “Steve?” When the nurse called his name, he rocketed up out of the chair and hurried toward her.

“Now, honey, she won’t be with us long, but you can hold her and talk to her until she goes. I know this is hard, but the doctor said you told him that you wanted to do it, so just be brave, okay?”

She took him into the hospital room and pointed to a chair. “Just have a seat right there. Vanessa, honey, Steve is here. I’ll be right back with her. Just sit tight.” She turned and shuffled out of the room.

Steve looked around. Plain white walls, plain white floors, plain green curtains. Vanessa lay in the hospital bed with her face turned away from him.

He moved to the side of the bed and began stroking her hair. “Hi.” She didn’t turn to look at him or say anything. “How are you feeling?”

“How do you think I feel?” the girl spat at him. “I’m fifteen, I’ve just had a baby, and the baby is dying! So how do you think I feel?” she snarled. He reached up again to stroke her hair, but she slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me! My life is ruined! My mom and dad are making me move away, and no guy will ever want me again.”

Steve didn’t know what to say to make things better, so he sat back down in the chair and waited. In a couple of minutes, the nurse came in with a bundle. “Here you go, honey. Just talk to her and hold her. And call me if you need me.” She handed him the bundle, then pulled the call button from the bed over to his chair and left the room again.

Steve opened the blanket and looked in. There, in the folds of the blanket, was a baby – his baby. He knew what they’d told him, that her brain was so underdeveloped that it couldn’t make her heart work and she only had a few hours, but she looked perfect. Reaching in with his free hand, he drew his finger under her tiny palm but, unlike most babies, she didn’t grasp it. She just lay there, still and quiet, barely breathing. He noticed that she felt cooler than he’d thought she would.

Standing, he crossed the room back to the bed. “Vanessa, do you want to hold her? We’ve only got her for a little while. Don’t you want to see her and talk to her?”

She sat up in the bed, her face a mask of pain. “No! I do not want to hold or talk to that thing! Take it away!” Plopping back down in the bed, she sobbed quietly. Still not knowing what to do, he went back to the chair with his dying daughter.

“I know what they’re telling us, but I don’t care. Your name is Sarah and I love you.” He kissed the small, soft cheek. “I may only be sixteen, but I really do love you and your mommy, and I would’ve been a really great daddy to you.” Steve spent the next two hours telling the pale, still child about all of the things he’d planned to do with her, like taking her fishing and shopping, about the birthday parties she would’ve had and the pretty dresses he would’ve bought her. The chair wasn’t a rocking chair, so he just rocked forwards and back, holding her and staring down into her face.

Too soon the nurse came back into the room. She pulled the blanket open farther and put a stethoscope against the fragile-looking chest, then moved it around and around, listening carefully, then gave her head a sad shake. “She’s gone, honey. I need to take her now. Do you have a preference for arrangements?”

“Arrangements?” he asked, confused.

“You know, a funeral or something?”

“I don’t have any money for that. What do I do?” he asked the nurse, trying hard not to cry.

“Well, the county will bury her for free. She won’t have a stone or anything, and it’ll be in the pauper’s cemetery, but at least you’ll know where she is. Do you want us to put that on the forms?”

“Yes, please,” he told her as she took the bundle from him.

He stopped her just before she made it out the door, and pulled the blanket open one more time, then leaned in and laid a gentle kiss on the tiny, cold forehead. “Bye-bye, sweetheart. Daddy loves you.” The nurse sniffled and pulled the blanket closed, and she was gone.

June 1991

We’re sorry, but you do not fit our needs at this time. However, we’ll keep your application on file in our office in the event that we have a position more suited to your skillset at a later date.

Another one. Steve was running out of options. All the years he’d worked to put himself through college and law school, all the studying, all the letters he’d sent out, and not one bite. Worse yet, he was going to have to tell Sherry that he’d been turned down again, and that wasn’t going to go over well. He’d held the envelope until he got to work, hoping against hope that it was good news. Tearing it in half, he threw it in the trash.

He rifled through his pockets; thirty-five cents. Maybe he could find a cheap cup of coffee somewhere for lunch. His clerk’s position at the St. Louis County courthouse didn’t pay squat, and he was getting desperate. The phone rang and he picked it up. “Clerk’s office, Steve speaking.”

“Steve,” he heard Sherry say, “can you talk?”

“Not really. Can it wait?”

“Steve, damn it, it’s waited for two weeks. We’ve got to talk. What about tonight?”

There weren’t any more excuses; he’d run out. “Okay. Seven? I can be home by then.”

“Okay. Don’t flake out on me, Steve. This is important.”