Page 56 of SEAL Mates

Blake

I was just coming in from the search. Shower. Change. This has been my routine for the last couple of days. I had shut up shop, with only Roger dealing with emergency cars, whilst Ben and I were in the search. The problem was that every single day we were losing hope and Alec was acting weird. I would have thought with all the shit going down, he would be present, not be doing a disappearing act.

“Trust me brother, there’s a reason for my lack of appetite, but every day that girl was out there I just found I lost my appetite more and more.

Nothing had hit me like this, then again it was only one and not the end of the day, yet I already felt down about it all. I needed to keep my spirits high, it was the way I’d survived the Navy and the only way I’d coped with being partially deaf.

“Alec, is that you?” I asked as I walked past his room and noticed not only was his door open, but someone was in there as the sound of the TV echoed in the hallway.

I pushed the white door open, and stepped on the wooden floor, I was happy but then stunned to see not only was Alec in his room, but he was half-naked and watching tele. It was a sight I rarely saw and I could only think of one thing, that it was bad news.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

He sat up, and he had a big smile on his face. His eyes were shining even though they were dull, as if he hadn’t slept the whole time this had happened, that’d been clear when he’d sent me messages at silly times. Times, he would usually be tucked up in bed at.

“It’s over.”

As I walked into his room, I felt as if I was crawling in, because I was walking so slowly.

“Over? So, why the fuck do you have a big smile on your face. Shit, what happened?”

I slumped on his bed, and he put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. One that let me know, it wasn’t bad news, but good news.

“Blake. We found her. It’s all over. She’s with her parents. It’s all going to be okay?”

I shook my head, thinking that this was big news. Fucking fantastic, but I had so many questions running through my head, before I could answer them, Paula marched into the room.

“I just saw your text Alec. I mean, it’s fantastic. How? When? I have so many questions,” she cried out as she ran to the bed, and sat next to me.

“I’m so excited right now. I can’t even sit,” she jumped right up. The same shadows that I had under my eyes were present in hers too.

As she said text, I remembered one thing I wasn’t good at was keeping track of my phone. It was my weakness. Alec had told me about it a million times, I should keep an eye on my phone, but I never did. There was an obsession about it, that everyone craved being with their phone all the time. When we were in the Navy we couldn’t be running around with our phones, and I’d kind of picked up since then.

“Well, I knew that it had to be someone that she knew and someone who knew the town. The problem was it wasn’t my field looking for missing kids. Nor this type of case, so I called in this investigator who knew his shit. The guy was a bit freakish, but good.”

Alec broke, to make sure that we could keep up with the conversation, Paula was pacing whilst listening and I was just staring at Alec waiting for him to get to the punchline.

“Get on with it!” I blurted out, seeing as he wasn’t getting to the part, the one word I wanted to hear. Not only was Stacey back home with her parents, but unharmed too.

“It seems that Louisa had an affair. Some ex-SEAL who had PTSD and wasn’t in a good way. He’d been coming to our meetings, visiting town. Talking to Stacey, and with the help of Zeck the detective, we found not only him, but Stacey unharmed with him.”

“How?”

Alec sighed, as if he was trying to figure out at what point they were on to him.

“Little things, like he’d been buying little girl’s clothes, toys etc. And it was out of the blue for him, so the store owner called and told us about it. Then, he was supposed to go to a meeting. One of the guys said that he could hear a child or someone whimpering in the background as he spoke to him on the phone. Yet, he’d used the excuse that it was the tele. And the guy he was talking to didn’t believe him. “

I didn’t know if Alec was missing out names to protect the guys or because Paula wouldn’t know them. Either way, I stood next to Paula, as I got off the bed.

“Sorry guys, I’ll get to the point. I’m fucking exhausted it’s been a stressful few days.”

I tilted my head to the side in agreement as Alec stretched over and took the bottle of water from the side of the bed.

We didn’t say a word, as he drank and neither Paula nor I moved as if our feet were stuck in quicksand. Unable to move and trying to think of what to do next.

Alec finished drinking and then put the bottle down.

“Right,” he said facing his walls, and not us. As if he was trying to remember what he was talking about and every detail to retell it to us.

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