by Ronie Kendig
She shifted, anxious to be rid of this boxed-in environment and the words, and the confusion. An irritating feeling nagged at her lower leg. “My calf…”
“It’s burned. Second degree, would be my guess.”
“Burned?” She tried not to let the panic douse her. “There was a fire?”
“Your car caught fire. Good thing you dragged yourself free or this might have had a different ending.”
Frankie stilled. Dragged myself? She had no memory of that.
Should she be worried? Was it normal to have missing pieces of memory?
The sway of gravity tugged on her as the ambulance rounded a corner. A few minutes later, it slid to a stop. Beside her, the EMT prepped her gurney as the rear doors opened. Another EMT did something, and she felt the gurney slide forward. She eased into the darkening day amid the bright lights of the emergency room. They wheeled her into the hospital. Frankie couldn’t suppress the fear, the sense of panic. Had she injured herself and she couldn’t feel it?
What would her dad say? And Trace—if she was laid up, would he get away…again?
“Crash victim, female, age twenty-six. Concussion, second-, possibly third-degree burns to her leg. Possible bruised ribs. Right arm is swollen, possibly fractured.”
Frankie lay staring up at the panel lights that swam overhead as they delivered her into the ER. Ashamed and afraid of what she might have done to herself, she closed her eyes. She just wanted justice.
A voice in the distance, in a blanket of black, called to her. “Francesca!” A blur. A large, shadowy blur. Creaks. Cracks. Pops.
Boom!
“Francesca!”
She whimpered, seeing the blaze. The flames. The roaring, crackling flames! Dancing and closing in on her. Hot, so hot! The heat and pain overwhelmed her.
A figure loomed through the flames and warbling plumes of heat. The door swung open. Hands reached for her. Hoisted her out. Spoke to her. Spoke over her cries and moans. Dragged her backward. Out of the searing reach of the fire.
She went down. Images flashing in and out. Trees. Sunlight. A face, shadowy and blurry.
Boom!
Frankie snapped awake.
“You okay?” Her dad stood over her, holding her hand. “You were whimpering. I didn’t want to wake you—they said to let you sleep, but I didn’t want to wake the whole hospital.” The laughter in his voice didn’t reach his eyes, which bore the concern she heard tinges of in his voice.
Disoriented yet again, she breathed a heavy sigh that was filled with relief…and grief. She squeezed his hand. “The fire…”
“They said you got out and collapsed.”
“No,” she whispered over a dry, hoarse throat. “Someone pulled me out.”
“Who?” Her father frowned. “Nobody was there.”
But someone was there.
Trace
Lucketts, Virginia
11 May – 1750 Hours
“She’s a problem.”
Trace gritted his teeth.
“We have to get her to back off,” Boone said, his gaze focused downward.
Searing pain lit through his hand and arm. Trace pushed up. “Augh!”
Boone glanced up. “Sorry.” He went back to applying a liberal dose of burn cream.
Grinding his molars, he stared at the pinked and blistered flesh lathered up as Boone carefully wrapped it. Never would he have left someone in a situation like that, but he’d watched until he saw the EMTs. Backed into the woods till they were on scene and treating her. Then he cleared out before anyone saw or recognized him. Hiding like that went against everything he knew and believed in. But that woman…
Pressure sent a spike of pain through Trace’s arm. He flinched and cursed.
A smile tried to take over Boone’s face. “Sorry.”
“You don’t look sorry,” Trace grumbled and withdrew his bandaged arm.
“Maybe you should’ve left her….”
Trace moved to the kitchen area and drew out a jug of orange juice. Holding his burned hand to his chest, he retrieved a glass then filled it. “You know better. We don’t work that way.” He took a sip then set the glass down. “She’s a pain in my backside, but it doesn’t mean she deserves to die.”
“You know I didn’t mean that. Things would just be a lot easier if she’d get off our backs.” Boone folded his large arms over his chest. “Don’t know why she’s so hell-bent on you being guilty.”
“Haym took a fall. She needs a scapegoat.” He tossed back the rest of the juice then shrugged. “Lucky me.”
“Was she okay?”
“Breathing, vitals were normal.” Trace didn’t want another death on his conscience, but he was pretty sure Solomon wasn’t in a near-death state. “But she needs to be dealt with.”
Boone grinned.
“Not like that,” Trace said with a chuckle. He knew his buddy too well—Boone wouldn’t want her killed. But she was seriously endangering everyone with her tenacity. Tugging out his phone, he headed to the briefing area.
“What happened to his arm?” came Annie’s voice just before he closed the door.
He hit the general’s number and waited for the call to connect. How many times and in how many ways could he tell the general to get his daughter off their backs without becoming insubordinate?
“I know what you’re going to say,” General Haym Solomon said. “So let me save you the trouble. I’m at the hospital.”
“Then you know what happened?”
“I can imagine.”
Trace felt obliged to ask, and curiosity—his own peace of mind—demanded he follow through. “Is she okay?”
“Bruised ribs, burned calf, and a concussion, but she’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry. I hope she recovers quickly.”
“Thank you.”
Silence gaped. As it lingered, Trace hesitated taking the conversation in the direction it needed to go. This man was not only his commanding officer but a friend. A friend with history. They’d been through the fires of combat, steel sharpening iron.
“Sir, if I hadn’t seen her following…”
“But you did…thank the Lord.”
Trace rubbed his forehead. “I admire her tenacity, but Zulu is an area she can’t be tenacious with.”
“She won’t get to you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about, sir. The girls—the team. They’re in enough danger, and they’re being hunted.” Trace lifted his head and exhaled. “What if the killer takes a bead on your daughter, sir? What then?”
“I hear you, Colonel. But let’s tone this down a little.”
“Tone it down?” Trace stretched his neck. “From what? From a flipped, burning car to…what? Lead in the head? Because if she keeps looking in places she shouldn’t, one day she’s going to look in the wrong hole—and it’ll be the wrong end of a sniper rifle.”
“Give me time to grieve and worry over her, will you?”
Trace slumped against the table, defeat clinging to him. “Sorry, sir. I just think…she needs to be stopped. You’ve promised us you’d take care of this.”
“Come Monday morning, she won’t have a job.”
Trace lifted his head.
“She’s being put on leave. Suspension of all security clearances until further notice. It’s the best I can do, and believe me, that’s taking more political capital than I had. I’m owing some serious favors.”
“I wish we could just convince her I’m not guilty, not the way she thinks I am.”
“Frankie’s like her mom in that once she gets an idea in her head, it takes an act of God to convince her otherwise. Hang on,” he said, then the phone went muffled for a while. After several long minutes, Trace wondered if the general had forgotten about him.
“Okay, I better go,” the general finally said. “By the way, how’s the burn?”
Trace hesitated. How’d he know about that? Did his daughter remember Trace hauling her semiconscious form out of the car?
General Solomon sniggered. “She said someone pulled her from the burning car. I figured it had to be you.”
“Not sure what gives you that idea, sir.”
Another chuckle. “Your character, Colonel Weston. Your character. We’ll be talking….”
Trace ended the call and sat against the table. He needed progress. Some serious progress on solving this thing. They were having their backsides served to them on a silver platter by someone determined to end them.
“Hey,” Boone said, pushing into the room, a laptop in hand. “Check this out.” He slid it onto the table and palmed the surface. After he loaded a video, he straightened.
Trace glanced down and bent toward the screen. A news reporter talking to…
“Samuel Caliguari.”
“In the full interview, he promises not to give up till he finds her. That he believes there’s something bigger than a kidnapping going on.”
Anger rumbled through Trace’s gut. Whoever had blown the covers on Zulu created a windfall of trouble. First Solomon’s daughter. Now this guy.
Boone stabbed a meaty finger toward the monitor. “That right there is a problem. A big Navy SEAL problem.”
“Between him and Solomon…” Shaking his head, Trace dropped into a chair.
“I think it’s worse,” Boone countered, his gray eyes lit with fire. “This guy is a SEAL. They’re trained to—well, to do what we do. West, we gotta get a leash on this guy, or he could very well bring this whole thing down. Then the girls will be sitting ducks.”
They’re already sitting ducks. That’s what it felt like. That’s what he felt watching three of them get taken down.
“How?” Trace didn’t mean to be confrontational. He pushed to his feet and paced. “You said it—he’s trained much the same way we are. What am I supposed to do? We’ve already shut down as much as we can. They aren’t looking for Annie.”
“But he’s looking for her. Couple his squid tendencies with a man in love—”
“Love?” The word punched a hole in Trace’s gut.
“West, anyone can see it in his eyes.”
So much had changed in five years. Then the girls were young, ambitious, and not looking for beaus or to settle down. Today two of them had relationships that compromised good sense. Téya going off on that wild chase to see her Amish boyfriend. Trace scratched his head over that one. Téya had been the hardest-hitting woman he’d known, with enough drive and determination to knock any of his Green Beret buddies off their feet. She wasn’t a Wonder Woman type. Téya had been more Lara Croft. Refined but no woman to mess with. Annie was a little softer, a little more focused, but just as tenacious.
“If we could get him on our side,” Boone mumbled.
Trace scowled.
Hands up in surrender, Boone shrugged. “He has the skills and he knows how to use them. Just saying it’d work in our favor instead of against us.”
“No.” Trace executed the idea before it had a chance to take on a life of its own. No way would he have a Navy SEAL breathing the same air, protecting the same girls, especially not Annie. “His attention would be divided. He’d be too focused on Annie, not enough on the others.”
A gentle knock preceded a, “Hey, I…”
Trace pivoted, slapping the laptop shut at the same time he faced Annie as she entered. But by the look in her eyes, he’d been too late.
Annie
Lucketts, Virginia
11 May – 1820 Hours
“What is that?” Annie’s heart beat in cadence with a war march. She saw it—a reporter talking with Sam. And he looked ticked. Handsome, but ticked.
“Annie, did you need something?” Trace asked, standing with his hands on his belt. So like when he wore ACUs and a tac belt. Except he had the addition of a bandage on his left forearm and hand.
Anger stirred within the second she realized he would try to hide it. Try to dismiss it. “What was that, Trace? And don’t tell me ‘nothing.’ I saw you two.” She glanced at Boone, who kept his head down as he sat in a chair, forearms on his knees. “Neither of you looked happy. And right now, neither am I. Tell me what it was.”
Braced for a standoff, Annie held her ground. Trace’s green eyes held hers. She saw a lot there, a lot more than most people would see.
His anger—but there was a lot of that since they’d been hit. His dislike—she’d talked to him as an equal, not as her superior. Truth of it was, she wasn’t sure where she stood on the organization chart considering she’d been Ashland Palmieri, not Lieutenant Annie Palermo, for the last five years. His frustration—things were clearly out of control and there didn’t seem to be any tendrils to grab onto to bring this mess back into something manageable. But there was something else there, something she couldn’t sort.
Annie stepped into the room, letting the door close behind her. She folded her arms. “What is that? Was it a video?”
Trace slid his gaze to Boone then gave a curt nod. “Sam’s doing interviews.”
Annie blinked. “Interviews? About what?”
“You.” Image of calm, cool collection, Trace leaned back against the table, the laptop behind him. When they’d first met, he terrified her because she could never read him. Experience taught her how to read him. “He’s stirring up trouble about your disappearance.”
Sam…stirring up trouble. “That shouldn’t surprise me.”
“But it should concern you.” Trace gave her that look, the one that knotted the line between his eyebrows. “If he keeps this up…”
Outrage spiked through her. What? What was Trace going to say? “Then what?”
“He’s putting your life in danger, Annie. Téya and Nuala’s, too,” he said, nodding beyond the room to where Téya and Nuala stood watching them. “All of us. If he digs, if he shouts loud enough, someone’s going to listen. You’ll never be safe from the assassin’s bullet.”
“We’ll never be safe as long as we don’t know who we’re running from,” Annie shot back.
Lips tightened, Trace just watched her.
That’s when it hit her. “Is Sam in danger?”
Trace still didn’t answer. Didn’t respond. Just stared.
“It’s not an unrealistic question, Trace. You saw what happened to Téya’s boyfriend and grandmother. What if something like that happens to Sam or to Jeff.”
Boone raised his head. “Jeff?”
“The Green Dot’s owner. A good friend—he’s a good man, Trace. They both are, and I’m not going to—”
“You’re not going to what, Annie?” Trace’s expression darkened. He’d never liked threats or perceived threats.
His words were a good signal that she was getting too emotional. And of course she was. She’d been a civilian for five years. She let Sam in, only to end up back here, yanked out of his arms and life with no possibility of reconnecting until they stopped whoever was behind it. “Look,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I just don’t want him to get hurt.”
“I thought you were worried about the sub shop owner, too.”
“I am.” Her heart skipped a beat when she thought she recognized the green-eyed monster in his gaze. Their team commander had never been emotional. To the contrary—he often came across as coldhearted.
“He has to be dealt with.”
Case in point.
“Let me talk to him.” As soon as the words were out, Annie knew how they’d sound. How Trace would respond.
He laughed and stood. “Right. I just spent every last resource and connection hauling you back here to keep you alive, but you want to walk out in the open for a chat with your boyfriend.”
Annie drew up at his words. At the ferocity. Rankled, partially by her own foolishness and the other part because of Trace’s raised voice.
“No. You’re not going out there. You’re safe here.”
“I’ll be safe talking to Sam—”
“Do you seriously believe that?” His face reddened as he leaned toward her. “Wer
en’t you with him when the sniper tried to slam some lead through your skull?” Nostrils flaring, he walked to the other side of the table, pacing. “No, you need to stay here.”
It was hard to hear. Harder to hear the way he said it. But she knew he was right. Knew going to Sam was a risk.
Only when Boone shifted did Annie remember there was another person in the room. He stood and walked to the door. Then looked at Annie. “He’s a SEAL. Sam will be fine.”
“If Trace doesn’t kill him first,” she muttered, half joking.
Boone gave a nod then looked to the team commander and left.
Trace blew out a breath. Shook his head. “We’ve erased your identity in and around Manson. You don’t exist there anymore.” Back to her, he touched the table with two fingers. “I called in some favors, and I’m sure nobody will admit you were there.”
“Except Sam. And what you’re doing—that will just make Sam more determined to find me.”
Trace gave her that stern-browed scowl again. “For his sake, I hope that’s not true.”
Hating to talk to his back, she swung around in front of him, staring up at those green eyes that once held powerful sway over her. She didn’t trust herself to touch him. Or close the limited gap between them. “Trace, please. What do you want? Would you walk away from this? For the last five years after we were set up, did you walk away from trying to find out who did this?”
“It’s different. They hit my team. Hurt my team. Broke laws. Murdered. It got real personal.”
“For Sam, it’s personal, too. Because of me.” It’d taken her two years to let the guy in, to open up and accept that she liked him, too. Her past, her relationships, and Misrata had kept her heart and feelings locked in a box. She’d never been prone to emotional outbursts or typical female hormonal rages, but after Misrata, she was even more disciplined in guarding her feelings.
His gaze met hers then ricocheted off. “I don’t have any options, Annie. He could get us all killed.”
She touched his arm. When he stiffened, she lowered it. “Can you wait? Just…wait for him to—”
“Get bored and give up?” Trace narrowed his gaze at her then pointed to the laptop. “Does that look like a guy who’s going to get bored?”