19 Headed for Trouble (5 page)

She laughed up at him. “Good crazy,” she told him. “
Really
good crazy.”

He kissed her again, both cursing and grateful for her roommates. If they’d been in her hotel room instead of out here in the hall, their clothes would already be off. And if there was one thing he was certain of, it was that she deserved better than a five-minute fuck, culminating with him running out the door to hail a cab, hauling up the zipper on his fly, shoes in his hands.

But Lord help him, because what he wanted and what he
wanted
were not the same thing.

And she was thinking along the same lines. “Do you want …?”

He waited, sure this time that she was not going to offer him coffee.

“I could …” She cleared her throat. “Come with you to your, um, hotel and … help you pack your suitcase?”

She actually blushed because they both knew damn well that neither of them would pack any kind of suitcase if they went back to his room. Not that he even had a suitcase. He always traveled with his seabag, a duffel that he could just throw everything into—clean clothes and dirty laundry mixed together, because who the hell cared?

But the thing in his chest was swelling even larger. It was way past his throat now. It pushed on the backs of his eyes, making him feel as if—sweet Jesus—as if he might actually start bawling like a baby. Because what she was telling him was …

“You’re that sure about me?” he asked, his voice coming out no louder than a whisper. She nodded. She was.

“Let me grab my sneakers,” she told him now, disappearing to do just that.

Sneakers. With sneakers on her feet, they’d both be able to run much farther and faster. They could get to the Sheraton in enough time to spend
ten
minutes …

“We should wait,” Frank heard himself saying. “I want to wait.”

She was back in a sneaker-clad flash, looking at him as if he were from Mars, so he tried to explain.

“I want to do this right,” he told her. “How about we meet for Christmas? Right back here, in New Orleans.” He could take her to dinner someplace elegant and romantic. Someplace with dancing and champagne. And only then would they go back to the hotel, where they’d make love—slowly, tenderly—all night long.

“I’d love to meet you for Christmas,” she told him. “And you’re right. We
should
wait.”

And there they stood, staring at each other.

Rosie held out her hand.

Frank took it.

And together, Rosie’s laughter wrapping around them both, they ran for the stairs.

It was originally my intention to write only lighthearted stories using popular characters in the Troubleshooters series—and in “When Frank Met Rosie,” I did neither. I mean, Frank O’Leary …?

Not exactly winning popularity contests among readers, probably because the man is dead, killed in a terrorist attack in a hotel lobby in
Over the Edge
.

That’s the book, remember, where SEAL Team Sixteen goes to dangerous Kazbekistan to participate in the takedown of a commercial airliner that has been hijacked by terrorists.

At the time I was writing
OTE
, I purposely chose to kill off Frank for a number of reasons—the first being that someone needed to die. I wanted to make sure that my readers understood how dangerous K-stan was. It’s a fact that SEALs put their lives on the line all the time, as do all of our servicemen and -women. And it’s also a fact that people die serving our country. This was the third book in the series. It was, I felt, time for casualties.

Okay, so I could’ve killed off anyone—it didn’t
have
to be Frank. But it
did
have to be one of SEAL Team Sixteen’s snipers. See, I wanted a reason for FBI agent (and former Navy sharpshooter extraordinaire) Alyssa Locke to actively take part in the takedown of the hijacked plane. As a point-of-view character, I wanted Alyssa to move from her role as observer to that of shooter.

Now, instead of killing Frank, I could’ve killed Duke
Jefferson, who was also a sniper. But I’d only just introduced the Duke in
Over the Edge
. Killing a brand-new character wouldn’t have had the same impact on readers as killing an established one. And thus, I found myself eyeing Frank O’Leary. Frank was the perfect character to kill. (Remember, I made this choice long before I wrote the short story you just read!) I’d used his name in a number of books, but I hadn’t spent much time and page space letting readers truly know who he was. I’d revealed that he was a sniper, and he was laconic, and very little else. Killing Frank wouldn’t have been as devastating to readers as killing off a more established character such as WildCard Karmody would have been. And yet, killing Frank was guaranteed to be way more powerful than killing off a stranger such as the Duke.

So Frank got his pink slip. So to speak.

So there it was, and there I was.

Years later.

Summer, 2006.

And I’m wandering around my office, aware that I’d promised readers that my website countdown to
Into the Storm
, where this story first appeared, would include a collection of short stories featuring Troubleshooters series characters, knowing that sooner or later I’d have to get my butt into the chair in front of my computer and start writing.

But Frank O’Leary wouldn’t stop haunting me. I couldn’t
not
write his story. The man just wouldn’t leave me alone.

It’s going to sound for a second as if I’m completely changing the subject, but I’m not. See, a few years ago, my editor went to France on vacation and visited the site of the most famous D-Day ever—the WWII Allied invasion of the beach at Normandy. She brought photos back with her, and I was struck by the rows and rows and rows of crosses and Stars of David that marked the
graves of the American servicemen who fell in that deadly battle. They stretch out, in a field there in France, as far as the eye can see.

Each one of those markers is a life lost. Each one of those markers signifies a family and friends who mourned the loss of a loved one—a son, a brother, a buddy, a husband—forever gone. It was hard for me not to well up with tears as I looked at those photographs. It’s been more than sixty years since those courageous men died, but I am still grateful and awed and devastated by their sacrifice.

Body counts are part of war. But numbers are cold and hard to comprehend. What does it mean, 9,387—the number of Americans buried so many years ago, in that cemetery in France?

9,387 Americans who never came home. 9,387 lives that did not continue.

9,387 Rosies.

Frankly, I don’t know what makes me more sad—thinking that each and every one of the brave men and woman who have died serving this country had their own Rosie, who grieves for them, or thinking that they hadn’t lived long enough to find their Rosie yet.

So I sat down and wrote “When Frank Met Rosie” because, since we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, there have been many thousands more Franks and Rosies. As of July 2012, as I update this piece, the number of servicemen and -women who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq is 6,527. That number may have grown by the time you read these words. 6,527 should not just be a number that makes us shake our head in remorse as we go about our daily lives. Those 6,527 are people who loved and were loved. They are—each and every one of them—stories cut tragically short.

Frank really wanted me to write his story—the good part. The part that happened
before
he lay dying in helo
pilot Teri Howe’s arms on that hotel lobby floor. Before he knew that that fortune-teller was right—that he
was
going to break Rosie’s heart.

The most important part of Frank’s story was that he didn’t wait.

He ran—at full speed—into a relationship with a terrific woman who saw him clearly and loved him for who he was. Thank goodness for that because, even though he didn’t know it, the blind palm reader hit the nail on the head—he was almost out of time.

Life is way too short, and Frank and Rosie embraced it—and each other—completely.

Since I’ve written his story, Frank O’Leary doesn’t haunt me as much anymore. Oh, he’ll pop in from time to time—he wants me to write a major lottery win for Rosie. And he’s starting to nudge me to introduce her as a character in the main series of books. He’s getting tired of her being so lonely. He also hopes that you enjoyed reading about the start of the very best part of his too-short life.

Sam was hovering.

He’d already made up a multitude of excuses to come into the bathroom while Alyssa was in the shower, and now, while she brushed her teeth, he lurked just outside the door.

She’d scared him tonight.

They took turns when out on assignment. Tonight, Sam had been on lookout, hiding on the hillside, watching for headlights that would announce an approaching car, as Alyssa jimmied the cheap lock on the door to Steve Hathaway’s ramshackle cabin.

The place had been deserted. In fact, this entire part of the county was deserted—they were at least forty miles west of the booming metropolis of New Hope, in northern New Hampshire, population 473 at the height of ski season.

Getting inside that cabin undetected had been laughably easy.

Alyssa now dried her face on the plush resort towel as Sam checked up on her for the twenty-seventh time since they’d returned to their suite here in the ski lodge.

“I’m really okay,” she told him.

“I know,” he said.

Sam bent over backward to make sure he never said
anything that might make her think he doubted her ability to take care of herself.

Earlier tonight, when she’d pushed open that cabin door, switched on her penlight and gone inside, Sam had spoken into his radio from his perch on the hill.

“Lys, I can’t see you.” He’d worked hard to keep his voice sounding calm, relaxed. Filled with Texas. Because he knew that
she
knew he dropped his honeyed drawl when he was stressed. “Talk to me.”

She’d flashed her little light across the walls and floors, giving him a running commentary. “I’m in a room with a bed, no other furniture. Just piles of trash—classic love shack. It smells like old socks and mildew, with a dash of overflowing septic tank.”

“Yum.”

“Yeah.” She’d sifted through one of the garbage piles with her foot. It was mostly paper—newspapers, empty food boxes, stacks of junk mail. “Honestly, Sam, I can’t imagine Amanda Timberman being caught dead here. Even for some of Stevie Hathaway’s golden-tan pretty-boy ski-hero booty.”

“What’s in the other room?” Sam had asked.

“Looks like a combination living area and kitchen,” she’d reported, opening up the kitchen cabinets, looking for … what? She wasn’t even sure. “Sink, stove, refrigerator …”

Alyssa pulled herself out of the memory and back to the pristine warmth of the lodge bathroom. “I wish they made some kind of nostril brush—you know, like a toothbrush only smaller,” she told Sam now. “I can’t get that awful smell out of my nose.”

He leapt into action. “Whiskey’ll take care of that.”

She followed him into the other room. She didn’t particularly want a drink, but he seemed so glad to have found a way to help, she didn’t want to stop him.

As Sam opened the minibar, she wandered toward the
balcony window, where the pink of dawn was lighting the sky to the east. Glasses clinked, ice tinkled.

“Here.” He handed her a glass. “It’ll make you stop smelling it.” He corrected himself. “Her.” He tried again. “Death.”

Just a few hours ago, during dinner, this had felt more like a vacation than a paid job. It was, at the very least, a silver bullet assignment. She and Sam had been forced to stay in this four-star ski lodge with room service, balcony views of gorgeous autumn sunsets, and chocolates on the pillows.

They’d been assigned to find twenty-five-year-old Amanda Timberman, who’d vacationed at the New Hope Ski Lodge a few short weeks before her disappearance.

Lucas Timberman, the young woman’s father, was a total pit bull when it came to place the blame on Randy Shahar—Amanda’s ex-fiancé. He claimed Shahar, born in Saudi Arabia, had killed his daughter after she’d discovered he was part of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell.

Shahar—who had moved to the U.S. when he was four months old—had come to Troubleshooters Incorporated, hoping they could locate Amanda. A former chief in the U.S. Navy Special Boat Squadrons, he now ran a fleet of whale-watching vessels out of Province-town, Massachusetts.

Timberman’s accusations were bad for business.

As if it weren’t hard enough to be an Arab American business owner after 9/11.

Finding a missing person wasn’t the sort of job that Troubleshooters Inc. usually took on. The company specialized in security—personal and corporate—with a leaning toward counterterrorism. But Tom Paoletti, the former commanding officer of SEAL Team Sixteen who owned and ran TS Inc., was friends with Shahar.
Tom had not only taken the assignment, but he’d given it to Alyssa Locke, his second-in-command.

Formerly an FBI agent, and before that an officer in the Navy herself, when Alyssa had taken this job with Tom Paoletti, she’d permanently partnered up with Navy SEAL Sam Starrett.

In more ways than one.

A few months ago, she’d married the man—a fact that still seemed surreal.

That she was married at all was odd enough. But that she’d married a textbook alpha male …

Sam—her husband—was standing in front of her now, looking hopefully at her empty glass. A man of action, he liked having something to do. “You want another?”

“No,” she said. “Thanks, but …”

“Didn’t help, huh?”