Alyssa hefted the blue-and-white candy-cane-striped bar of metal he’d tossed her, convinced that the best way to help was to stay out of his way. She’d been in his shoes before and the last thing she’d needed at the time was someone tripping her up.
One of the dogs was bigger and uglier than the other, but they both had lots of sharp little teeth. Neither of them took well to being smacked, although the smaller one was meaner and kept coming back for more.
As Sam kept the smaller dog at bar’s length, he grabbed hold of the broken bicycle with his left hand and threw it at the larger dog.
Who turned tail and ran.
The smaller dog was growling low in its throat, ears back against its head, eyes glued to the bar Sam wielded menacingly.
“I don’t want to hurt your dog,” Sam called to Darlene Morrison, who was still inside the tin can. “Call him off!”
The shade at the window moved slightly, and Alyssa knew that the woman was watching.
Alyssa made a show of tossing down the metal bar Sam had given her and taking out her side arm, holding it in a two-handed Hollywood Movie Cop stance—unnecessary but visually effective—drawing a bead directly between the dog’s eyes.
“I don’t give a damn about the dog, but the last thing I want to do tonight is paperwork,” Alyssa called to Darlene. “All we want to do is talk to you. You’re not in trouble. Not yet. But if your dog attacks my, uh, partner again, I’ll shoot him dead.”
“The dog, not the partner, right?” Sam said in a low voice, his eyes fixed on the dog.
Alyssa ignored him. “Once I discharge my weapon, paperwork is going to have to be filed. And as long as I’m stuck filling out reports, you better believe that I’ll charge you with aggravated assault, which, by the way, is a felony in this state.”
“I was just protecting my property!” came from inside. “There’s no law against that.”
“But there is against solicitation,” Alyssa pointed out.
The trailer door squealed open. “Trapper,” Darlene barked. “Inside.”
The dog backed its way to the stairs, and then, with one last look and snarl in Sam’s direction, he slunk into the trailer.
“Step down the stairs, ma’am,” Alyssa ordered the woman. She lowered her gun, but she kept it out and visible.
“You said you just want to talk.”
“We do. But away from the trailer, please.” With that dog securely on the other side of the door. She looked at Sam. “You okay?”
“Yeah. You?”
“I’m fine.” Like she’d done anything more than stand here and watch. How many dogs would have had to come out of that trailer before he’d needed her help?
“What’d you do to Hawk?” Darlene complained as she came down the steps. “Hawkeye!” she bellowed. “Hawk! You get your ass back here, you little coward!”
“He was moving pretty fast when he lit out of here.” Sam reached down and picked up his baseball cap, slapping it on his thigh to shake the dust off of it. “I’d be surprised if he’s back before morning.”
Out in the yard, with the streetlight shining on Darlene, Alyssa could see the family resemblance. And for the first time, she honestly felt sorry for Mary Lou Morrison Starrett, even knowing what she now knew from Clyde—that Mary Lou had gotten herself pregnant on purpose in an attempt to make Sam marry her.
Imagine having a mother who would . . . for scotch. As Sam would say, Jesus.
“I’m Lt. Sam Starrett, ma’am,” he said now to Darlene. “Your daughter Mary Lou’s ex-husband?”
Darlene Morrison made a sound that might’ve been a bark of laughter. “Well, shoot, honey,” she said. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
TUESDAy, JUNE 17, 2003
Tom Paoletti was awake and already pulling on his pants when the door to his room opened.
He’d woken up at the commotion in the hallway. Whoever was out there hadn’t made any effort to be quiet as they entered the building. There were a hell of a lot of them, too.
His first thought was lynch mob. His second was that his team was back and had come to break him free. Both were equally absurd. But it was probably best to have pants on, whatever the situation really was.
Tom checked his watch as he zipped his fly—it was 0612. That wasn’t early at all by Navy standards, but most of the mob that came through his door were wearing suits. He recognized some of them as FBI and searched for Max Bhagat’s familiar face. And came up empty.
The lawyer from the JAG office was there, though. Which was not good news. Well, compared to a potential lynching it probably was. But it meant this gang was here to question him. And at 0612 in the morning, that meant sometime in the night they’d received some kind of tip or lead that had them foaming at the mouth.
“What’s going on?” he asked the JAG lieutenant, but the lawyer just shook his head. It wasn’t clear if he wasn’t telling or if he didn’t know, but Tom would’ve put good money on didn’t know.
He made them wait while he took a leak and shaved and put on the rest of his choker whites. It felt like he was dressing for his own funeral. He was picking up all kinds of tension and bad vibes from the various guards and players. The mood in the room was positively spooky.
Then he went downstairs, surrounded by guards who watched him as closely as they might have watched Osama bin Laden. He was escorted into a car, which drove all the way over to the nearby base administration building, where he was escorted inside, into one of the larger conference rooms. There were more FBI in there, but still no sign of Max.
Tom sat down and put his legal pad in front of him on the table. Took his pen out of his pocket and lined it up neatly next to the pad. He’d remembered most of the details of that op where they’d scuttled the downed helo, the op he’d been questioned about extensively just yesterday. He’d re-created his schedule to the best of his ability, accounting for his time from the moment the team had gone wheels up in Coronado to the moment they’d returned. He was ready for this. But the first question completely threw him.
“What is your relationship with Mary Lou Starrett?”
He actually laughed aloud in surprise. Who? “Excuse me?”
“What is your relationship with Mary Lou Starrett?”
Tom shook his head. “I don’t have a relationship with—Are you talking about Lieutenant Roger Starrett’s wife?” Ex-wife by now, wasn’t she? Her name was Mary Lou, wasn’t it?
“How long have you known Mary Lou Starrett?”
Mother of God. What was this about? These weren’t just casual questions.
“I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “I have to think about it. I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure I met her shortly after she married my lieutenant.”
“Do you know the current whereabouts of Mary Lou Starrett?”
That one he answered without any hesitation. “No. I do know she left the San Diego area about six months ago. I believe she went to Florida. Lieutenant Starrett informed me at the time that they were separating and that she’d filed for a divorce. To be honest, I was relieved. It was clear both to me and to my XO that their marriage wasn’t working out and that that was impacting Starrett’s performance as an officer and a SEAL.”
“When was the last time you spoke to Mary Lou Starrett?”
“I’m not sure I ever spoke to her,” Tom said. “I mean, not to say more than ‘Hi, how are you?’ What does this have to do with—”
“We’re asking the questions. When was the last time you saw Mary Lou Starrett?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “I repeat, I didn’t know her. She wasn’t friends with—” Kelly, he’d been about to say, but no way was he bringing her into this. “We didn’t run in the same social circles,” he amended. “I occasionally saw her on base when she came to visit Sam—Lieutenant Starrett.”
“Did you ever exchange written or electronic correspondence with Mary Lou Starrett?”
Jesus Christ. Tom reached down deep for
his patience. He was going to need every ounce that he had. Because this was going to be one goddamn long morning.
Alyssa’s cell phone rang at 0845.
“Locke,” she managed to say, sinking back with it into the motel bed, praying it was a wrong number.
“Are you actually still asleep at quarter to nine in the morning? Or did I totally blow the math?”
It was her partner, Jules Cassidy.
“I’m not asleep anymore,” she mumbled. Jules hadn’t been her first partner straight out of Quantico. But by her third week on the job, after she’d gotten a sampling of potential partners—including two James Bond wanna-bes, four self-important MIBs without Will Smith’s sense of humor, a Gunsmoke revivalist who said, “Let me help you with that, little lady,” at least twice a day, and seven men of the “Partners should be close. Real close. So why don’t we go out and get a drink after work?” variety—she’d found herself requesting, no, begging to be paired up with Jules Cassidy.
Almost unbearably cute, with a pretty face, boy-band hair that he dyed or bleached depending on his mood, and a trim, perfect body that was slight of stature, Jules had spent the first few years of his career with the FBI passing himself off as a teenager, investigating everything from gang-related crimes to drug trafficking. Street smart, intelligent, and loaded with experience and a solid sense of humor, he was everything Alyssa was looking for in a partner.
As a bonus, he was gay. Flamboyantly, out of the closet, shock-your-grandmother gay.
He was the perfect partner, and he’d become a close friend. “Are you calling from Hawaii?” she asked. It had to be, what, close to 0400 there.
“I’m on a red-eye somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico,” Jules reported. “Cruising at thirty thousand feet. And spending forty dollars a minute to talk to you on one of these ridiculous phones that are attached to the back of the seat in front of me.”
Alyssa opened her eyes. “You’re not supposed to be back until . . . Friday?”
“Yeah, well, I got a call yesterday from Laronda, saying the boss wanted me back in ASAP—first flight out after Mom’s wedding, that is. Isn’t Max a romantic fool? But people in my family don’t do things like get married without the largest possible dose of high drama. Mom skipped out two days ago, Phil went chasing after her, and they ended up tying the knot in Tokyo. Why Tokyo? Don’t ask. Was I at the ceremony after traveling thousands of miles to be with them? Not even close. They weren’t coming back, so I hopped the next flight out. Which is why I’m calling you. Can you pick me up at the airport, pretty please, schnookums, at ten-fifteen?”
“Jules, I’m not in D.C.”
“No shit, Sherlock. I’m flying into Sarasota. I understand our little mutual friend Sam Starrett’s been causing some trouble in the Sunshine State.”
Alyssa sat up. “You’re coming to Sarasota?”
“Me and George and Deb and Yashi and Frannie and the new guy, what’s his name,” Jules told her. “Even Laronda’s on her way down.”
She turned on the light. “Why on earth . . . Everyone’s coming to Sarasota? What’s going on?”
“Hmmm. The mystery thickens. I thought you’d be able to tell me.”
“I’m not in Sarasota,” Alyssa told him. “I’m in Gainesville. Sam and I drove up here last night.”
“To talk to the car dealer.”
“Yeah. That’s on the morning’s agenda. How much do you know about what’s gone down?” she asked.
“Dead ex-wife baking in the kitchen for three weeks . . . whoops, it’s not the ex—it’s a dead sister-in-law,” Jules recited. “BOLO sent for both Mary Lou Starrett and Clyde Wrigley, Wrigley found. Mary Lou apparently pretended she was her sister and sold her car lock, stock, and barrel to some ‘We Pay Cash for Your Wreck’ establishment in Gainesville three weeks ago and maxed out her credit card at the Orange Park Mall, outside of Jacksonville. Unless you know more, I think I’m completely up to speed on that funfest. So let’s get personal now, Alyssa, my pumpkin. You and Sammy drove to Gainesville and stayed where last night? You know I love Roger Starrett like a brother, but . . . are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Separate motel rooms,” Alyssa said.
“Thank God,” Jules said. “Because if you’re going to break Max’s heart, I at least want to be in the same state when he gets the news. You know, so I can provide comfort.”
“You know, the only thing funny about that was that I know it’s costing you forty dollars a minute,” Alyssa said.
Jules knew damn well that Alyssa and Max were not—and never had been—involved. He’d believed the rumors for a while, but then he’d started to notice little things. Like Max never touched her. Ever. Even the times they’d all three gone out for Chinese food after hours. Even the times Jules had dropped by Alyssa’s apartment to find Max over, watching the baseball game.
And when Jules had asked her outright, Alyssa hadn’t been able to lie to him. She’d never been able to lie to him. And yet, even knowing all that, Jules was still rooting for Alyssa and Max to get together.
“Seriously, sweetie,” Jules said now. “Was it smart to spend four hours in a car with Sam Starrett, who I’m going to kill for not telling me about the divorce? Did you know I spoke to him on the phone just two weeks ago? He said nothing. So, okay, news flash—he’s single again. Red alert! Run away! Don’t get into a car with him again! Didn’t your father and I teach you anything? I mean, great sex is great sex, and I’m the last person who should be shaking my finger at you for wanting to get some, but there must be a list of eligible bachelors a mile long—including Max—who’d be more than willing to do the horizontal cha-cha with you, without shredding your heart in the process.”
“I’m not going to sleep with Sam Starrett,” Alyssa said. But how many years had it been since she’d uttered those very words to Jules, and then gone ahead and done just that? She could hear his skepticism now, in his silence. “I really mean it this time. I didn’t mean it the last time I said it. But now . . . It’s not going to happen. There are too many bad feelings between us.”
“Uh-huh,” Jules said in his best noncommittal therapist voice.
“I mean, yes, sure, he’s been dogging me—in fact, he’s been pretty up-front about it—but I’m not going there again. You know, if the idea of a relationship with a white redneck macho he-man Navy SEAL asshole wasn’t already completely crazy, now the man comes with an ex-wife and a daughter vying for his time. I don’t need that. I don’t need Mary Lou calling up at all hours of the night because her tire’s flat. I don’t need to go scouring the countryside, looking for her every time she turns up AWOL. And I don’t need Haley hanging around every other weekend—because you know sure as hell Sam will get called out, and he’d be like, ‘Hey, Lys, you don’t mind watching the baby for a day or two until Mary Lou can pick her up, do you?’ No. No, no, no. This is not the life I want.”
“Well,” Jules said. “That’s good. I guess. But if that’s the case, I can’t figure out what you’re doing with him in Gainesville.”
“He’s freaking out about Haley. Oh, Jules, I can’t even think about the possibility of Sam’s daughter being dead. He keeps asking me if I think she’s still alive, and I don’t know what to say. How do you ever recover from something like that?”
“The same way you recovered when your sister died. With the help of your friends,” he said.
“But losing a child . . .”
“Hey,” he said. “We don’t know that Mary Lou hasn’t taken Haley and gone on vacation. She may not even know that Janine was killed.”
“Oh, she knows,” Alyssa told him. “The reason we drove up last night was to go to Waldo, just north of here, to talk to Mary Lou’s mother, Darlene. Who, in her spare time, when she’s not working her job selling frozen yogurt at the Gainesville rest stop—southbound—is the town whore. I kid you not. Talk about freak show. FYI, the going rate for a hand job in Waldo is a bottle of scotch.”
“Oh,” Jules s
aid. “I don’t want to know how you know that.”
“When we asked if she knew where Mary Lou and Haley were, Darlene told us that Janine called her, just about three weeks ago, to tell her that Mary Lou was dead.”
“Hello!” Jules said.
“Yup,” Alyssa said. “Darlene admitted that she was skunked when she got the call—she’s pretty much always skunked—so she couldn’t say for absolute certain that it wasn’t Mary Lou pretending to be Janine. Apparently, the two sisters sounded alike, especially over the phone. And maternal contact wasn’t high on Darlene’s daily to-do list, so it wasn’t like she spoke to them often enough to know the difference. Whoever called Darlene said that she was Janine, and that Mary Lou was dead, and that she was going to Alaska. She didn’t mention Haley at all.”
“Alaska,” Jules repeated.
“To make a fresh start.”
“My bullshit meter is clicking wildly.”
“No kidding,” Alyssa said. “But wait, there’s more. We’re not the only ones who’ve come calling, asking about Mary Lou. Darlene told us that two men stopped in about a week ago. She told them exactly what she told us.”
“Zounds,” Jules said. “Mary Lou knows that someone’s looking for her, possibly to do to her what they did to her sister, and she’s using her mother to spread disinformation.”
Zounds? “Yeah, that was our take on it, too.” Alyssa’s cell phone beeped. “Shoot, that’s my call waiting. I’ve got to get this.”
“It’s probably Ma-ax, checking up on you-oo.”
Alyssa hung up on Jules, clicking over to the other call. “Locke.”
“Missy, where have you been?” It was Laronda, Max’s administrative assistant.
Everyone thought Max’s elite counterterrorist group ran super efficiently because of his brilliant leadership skills, and maybe that wasn’t so far from the truth. Because Max had found Laronda—a single mother of two teenage boys—in the typing pool, back when he was fresh out of Quantico, and whenever he’d moved upward, he’d made sure she’d moved with him.
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