Old school.
“I served in a unit with her brother, Ryan. He asked in his last letter that I come to Telluride and take care of his sister, Ella.”
She nodded, writing quickly. “May I see the letter?”
“No,” Ella answered. “That’s private and none of your business.”
Danielle leaned forward, locking her hawklike eyes onto Ella. “Your daughter was adopted in July and has since cost our company over a million dollars in care for a condition that was previously known—and immediately treated with a therapy that wasn’t approved by your previous provider. Unless you’d like to pay those bills, I suggest you get me the letter.”
Oh, this woman was a piece of work.
I arched my hips and took the letter out of my back pocket, sliding it across the table to her. “You can’t keep it.”
“You keep it on you?” she asked, looking over her glasses at me.
“I do. When your best friend asks you something like that, you tend to keep it close.”
She opened the letter and read it over, then snapped a picture with her phone.
I felt violated, like she’d just taken a picture of Ryan’s naked soul without his permission. It’s what he would want. He wants his family protected.
And so did I.
“Interesting. So did the unit sanction this mission?” she asked Donahue.
“I’m not sure what unit you’re referring to,” he answered with a shrug.
“I’m well aware of what you do, Captain Donahue. I followed your paper trail, and the deal you made with Mr. Gentry to keep him in that little disability loophole. Did you plan this all out? Keep him on temporary disability so he could pony up the insurance for the little sister here?”
Donahue took a sip of his coffee, and I was shocked it didn’t ice over, he was that cool. “No, but if that was a benefit of my offer, I’m happy to have helped. Gentry was offered temp disability because I have the power to offer it, and he was unfit to return to duty.”
“And those reasons were…” She looked up at him.
“Above your pay grade. Look, I agreed to come here for the benefit of Ella and Beckett, and I have no problem clearing up whatever issue you think there is. But you don’t have the clearance to know…well, almost anything. All that you get to know is that I was authorized to offer him temporary disability in the hopes that he would heal enough to return to active service any time in the next five years. Proper paperwork was filed, and he remains eligible for healthcare. That’s it. That’s all you get from me.”
She adjusted her glasses and set her sights on Ella and me. “So you randomly show up in Telluride to fulfill your dead buddy’s letter request and adopt her kids.”
“Not random, but yes. I fell in love with the kids, just like I did with Ella. When you love someone, you want to protect them. They didn’t have a dad in their lives, and I wanted to be that for them.”
“But you could have simply married Ms. MacKenzie and achieved the same thing, right?” Her gaze flickered between us.
“Then that would have been fraud,” I said as Ella’s hand tightened in mine. “That would have given you a case, though if you went after every young girl who tag-chased GI’s for benefits, you’d be too busy to show up here.”
“I don’t really believe in marriage,” Ella added.
What. The. Hell?
“You don’t?” Ms. Wilson asked, clearly not believing her.
“Nope. I was married to Colt and Maisie’s biological father. He walked out as soon as he knew they were twins. Divorced me shortly after. Marrying Beckett would have been absolute fraud when I don’t have any faith in that institution. After all, what is it when vows mean nothing and a piece of paper binds your life to someone’s as easily as the next one dissolves the bond? It doesn’t mean anything. But adoption does. He has an amazing bond with my children and shares just as much of the parenting duties as I do. He takes Maisie to treatments, he takes Colt to soccer and snowboarding. He built a tree house for them and packs lunches in the morning. Does that sound like fraud to you?”
An awkward silence descended as Ms. Wilson feigned looking over her notes. None of this made any sense. Sure, Maisie’s bills were astronomical, but people adopted kids with high levels of needs every day.
“If we’re done here—” Donahue started.
“I’m not satisfied.” The tone of her voice, the way she flat-out glared at Donahue, made me lean forward and scan the details of her face. This was personal.
“How did you know about the unit?” I asked.
“My best guess is she found out from her sister, Cassandra Ramirez.” Donahue stared her down.
Ramirez. He’d gotten out after he’d lost his arm. From what I’d heard from the guys before I left, the transition hadn’t been easy. In that regard, Ella was right—guys like us didn’t give up the adrenaline rush without a fight. I had search and rescue. Ramirez…didn’t.
She swallowed and tapped her pen on the paper a few times before looking up. “Yes, I’m Cassie’s sister. But that has nothing to do with this investigation.”
Bullshit.
“Sure it does,” Donahue said with a shrug. “You want justice for what happened to him. For the fact that he had to quit before he was ready, and I couldn’t give him the same deal I gave Gentry. Not the money—his medical retirement covered that—but the hope of coming back. That’s why you’re here. It’s not for Maisie, or Beckett, or Ella. It’s for me.”
She cleared her throat and stacked up her folders. “That has nothing to do with this. At all. And I’m sorry, but unless you can provide me with proof that you had any established relationship to this child before her diagnosis, I’m going to recommend your case be reviewed and that all current treatments are put on hold while we investigate further.”
“You can’t do that!” Ella snapped. “They are his children by law. He cares for them, supports them, and acts as their dad in every single way.”
“Funny, because when I happened to run into Colton earlier at school, he told me he didn’t have a dad. And when I asked him about you, he said you were his uncle’s best friend and his mom’s boyfriend, but never once mentioned being adopted by you. Why would that be?”
“You spoke to my child without my consent?” Ella flew across the table, and it was all I could do to get my arm around her waist and haul her back.
“Calm down. It certainly wasn’t part of my investigation. I happened to go by the school to get a few more facts on when Margaret was pulled from school and the emergency contacts changed for Colton, when I happened to see him.”
“Liar.” Ella seethed.
“You overstepped,” I said as calmly as possible. “This entire investigation is an overstep, and when we shut you down you can bet we’ll take it higher than you are.”
“There is a little girl’s life at stake.” Ella spoke in an even tone, but her hand had mine in a death grip. “And you only care about getting back at Donahue.”
“I care that the rules are followed, which these men should have no trouble respecting. The truth is that this man adopted the two children of his now-girlfriend, one of whom needs millions of dollars in treatments, and you haven’t even told the kids they’re adopted. It smells really bad. If it turns out a full Tri-Prime investigation isn’t needed, you’ll have my full apologies, of course. We’re cracking down on fraud this year.”
She was on a witch hunt, and even though what we’d done was perfectly legal, and in no way fraud, she was going to twist it up and throw us into hell while they “investigated.” They could pause the payments on Maisie’s treatments, scans, the upcoming radiation…all of it. Even though we’d be found innocent of any wrongdoing, it would be tied up long enough for Maisie to feel the ramifications.