Aimpoint, Candace Irving [best love novels of all time TXT] 📗

Jelly?

That was quick. Hopefully, not because he'd been shut down at the kiosk.

"Hey, Mira—it's Agent Jelling. Can you hold?"

"Just hang up and take it. That's all I've got. I'll check in after I've grabbed a nap."

"Sounds good. Sleep tight." Regan braced herself as she pulled her phone from her ear once more, this time to click over. "Good news?"

"Dunno. You tell me."

No engine rumbling in the background on this call. Meaning Jelly had scored—but the results were too startling for distracted driving.

Oh, Jesus.

John.

It was the only scenario that made sense. She took a deep breath and just said it. "Captain Garrison bought that phone."

"Yep. Got the clerk's confirmation on the photo I showed him—not that we needed it. Don't know too many other talking mountains with that distinctive collection of scars lumbering about town, in uniform or not. But that's not all. The entire ID took ten seconds tops. The remainder of the time, I was fielding another call from Mikel. I forwarded the full report to your email, but the two calls you overheard in that conference room? They're the only two calls that phone has made, and both occurred at the same spot. I'm not sure you're gonna like the location—Klinikum Sankt Joseph."

A hospital?

Well, that didn't bode well, did it? "Jelly—"

"Hang on, Prez. I need a sec."

"No problem." It wasn't as though she had somewhere to be.

She could hear Jelly distancing the phone from his mouth as he rolled down the window of his SUV to greet someone in German.

Regan turned to frown at the close-up photo of a Bavarian pretzel featured on the monthly calendar attached to the wall as she waited for Jelly to resume their conversation. Saint Joseph's. Was Ertonç ill?

Was that why the general had moved his visit forward by a good five weeks? Had a difficult-to-secure appointment opened up? His body language when he'd taken that call had been unusually guarded. Not to mention, returning that call had been the first thing he'd done once he'd dismissed her.

Before she'd even left the room.

If Ertonç was ill, was he trying to hide his failing health from his chain of command? Possibly to preserve his career? It did appear to be all the man had left. If so, it could also explain why John had purchased that phone.

"Okay, I'm back. Apparently, I'm parked in the wrong spot. But I managed to badge my way out of the ticket."

"Excellent. Just don't tell Brooks." Their CO had enough reason to whale on her partner. "But about the calls—" Regan headed out of the kitchenette into the bedroom proper. "Could Mikel tell if they came from a particular area of the hospital?"

Regional medical facilities often covered a lot of real estate. Especially one that treated as many patients as the Klinikum Sankt Joseph. She'd take any help she could get in narrowing down the search radius.

"Yeah, that's the part you're not gonna like. Western-most wing. Only thing there is oncology."

"Cancer?" Well, crap.

As much as she hated to admit it, it fit. The general's features had been drawn during that speech and again during their meeting. In light of those moments at the window, she'd chalked up his wan appearance to a fresh bout of grief. What if there'd been another cause? One that had driven home his loneliness and sorrow as he stared out at that soldier and realized that, no matter how much he'd already lost in his life, he was about to lose even more. This time, his life. Whether she was able to thwart LaCroix's plans or not.

Either way, she was wrong about having nowhere else to be.

"Prez?"

Regan stopped in front of her closet to retrieve Rachel Pace's camouflaged uniform, tossing the ACUs on the still-rumpled covers of her bed. "I'm here. Do me a favor? When you get to the office, tell Brooks I may be awhile."

"Will do. You headed where I think you're headed?"

"Yup." Klinikum Sankt Joseph was half an hour away. She might not have an appointment. But there was an excellent chance Ertonç did.

Forty-five minutes later and a mere fifteen seconds after turning into the hospital's main parking lot, Regan had even more proof that the burner phone was connected to John. It was attached above the left rear bumper of the silver Wrangler parked three feet to her left: a Kansas plate. John's Kansas plate.

He was here, in this hospital.

Intriguingly, General Ertonç was not. Not unless there'd been a last-minute change of plans.

The moment she'd hung up with Jelling, she'd texted Mira about the general's schedule. Ertonç was locked into back-to-back meetings at Hohenfels, then Vilseck, until sixteen hundred that afternoon.

So why was his US Army liaison here at the klinikum and not at his side?

Arranging last minute details for the general's appointment? Or was Ertonç's health worse than she'd feared? Had John arrived in advance to prep the hospital for a pending VIP admission?

John was right; she had connected with Ertonç during those raw moments in the conference room. More than enough to sincerely hope he was okay.

Time to find out.

Uncertain as to what awaited her inside the building, Regan opted to drive the Tiguan into the adjacent lot, taking care to park in a slot that wasn't visible from the Wrangler or the path John would naturally take when walking back to it. With Rachel Pace's headgear firmly in place, she bailed out of the car and headed straight for the ER's main doors. She'd canvass the klinikum floor by floor if she had to, but she would locate John—and then she'd decide if it was prudent to reveal her own presence to him.

Success came sooner than she'd thought, and exactly where she'd feared.

Oncology.

Regan stepped out of the elevators and immediately faded into the antiseptic corridor off her right, edging back deep enough to ensure John couldn't see her—not that he was looking.

The captain stood twenty feet away, on the opposite side of the central-hub nurses' station from where that call had originated. Unlike her, he wasn't bothering