Into the Storm (31 page)

Tracy Shapiro wanted a replay. Or four. Or nineteen. Hello, hello, the places they could go.

Izzy played it casually, nodding instead of grinning at her like a fool. “Makes sense to me,” he said. After all, payback was a tricky thing. It could take a while to really set. To take hold. Besides, Tracy had said Lyle had cheated on her way more than one time. “I mean, why
shouldn’t
you have some fun, right?”

She was frowning at him, a furrow of confusion on her gorgeous brow. “Fun?”

“Or, it doesn’t have to be fun at all,” he quickly backpedaled. “It could be very, very hard work. A strenuous schedule works well for me. Three, four times a day. Twice each night. I’m ready and able and extremely willing.”

Now she was staring at him as if he were a hypnotist, or speaking Japanese.

“I’m quite the conscientious worker,” Izzy continued, resisting the urge to snap his fingers in her face, to see if maybe that would make her blink. Clearly, she was not in a joking mood, or maybe the tequila was clouding the issue, so he brought it to the bottom line. “Just tell me where and when, and I’ll be there.” He sang it for emphasis.
“Don’t you know, baby, yeah, yeah, I’ll be there…”

That was obviously the right thing to do, because she finally smiled. “Sometimes I don’t get your jokes at all,” she told him.

No shit.

Izzy patted the front seat. “Come on, Sherlock, let’s get back to the motel, where I’ll climb into my lonely bed and dream of you.”

He was on a roll with the saying-the-right-thing thing, because after Tracy scrambled into the front, she kissed him. It was the kind of kiss that made him glance at his watch and calculate just how late they’d return to the motel if they got supercrazy and took another condom out for a test run.

But all of his numbers jumped immediately to zero, as if Tracy hit his recalibration button by whispering, “I think I’ve totally fallen for you, too.”

Come again?

Okay, she’d probably meant that in a
sex with you puts the va-va-voom in vermilion, so let’s fuck like bunnies until I return to New York to marry Lyle
way.

But Izzy found himself looking into Tracy’s Disney-blue eyes as she smiled almost shyly up at him.

“I think I’ve been willing to settle for Lyle,” she said, “because, well, you know that expression—the devil you know?”

Izzy nodded.

“Lyle’s the devil I knew,” Tracy said. “But now, God, I can’t believe I found you.”

Um.

“I can’t believe how perfect we are together. It was like…magic.”

He’d put the car into gear, but now he put it back to park and turned slightly in his seat to face her. “The sex, you mean.”

Tracy nodded. Some people got way too intense when they were drunk. Clearly she was in that subset. “The sex is definitely part of it, but I’m talking about all of it. The way you feel about me.”

“The way I feel about…?”

She kissed him again, her fingers in his hair, which really felt very nice despite his unease. And then she said, “Your fate is sealed.”

He’d told her if they made love, his fate would be sealed, and…She’d
believed
him?

Oh, fuck. Izzy caught her hands. “Tracy, whoa. Time out. When I said that, I was, you know, trying to special-deliver your personal fantasy—heavy on the fairy-tale romance with a little tragedy thrown in? Remember when we talked about that?
Moulin Rouge
and
Stay alive whatever you…
” He frantically tried to remember all that he’d said to her.
God, I could fall for you so easily. This is going to kill me…letting you go…
Oh, double fuck. “Babe, none of that was real. It was just a game.”

She struggled to understand. “A game?”

“We were playacting.” At least he had been. “Prince Charming and Princess Tracy. You know. Haven’t you ever done that before? The divorcee and the pool boy? Or the prom queen and the…the cowboy? A little role-playing to make the encounter more exciting?”

“More exciting,” she repeated. She looked as if he’d just killed her puppy.

“You were so tense,” he said, even though he knew he was totally screwed. “I guess I was trying to get you outside of your own head. I mean, shit, I was up for anything, but I thought it would be better for both of us if Lyle wasn’t sitting directly on your shoulder.” There was nothing Izzy could say now to make her think of him as anything but the most loathsome villain. From her perspective, he’d lied to her. Repeatedly. “Tracy, seriously, I thought you understood. I thought…”

How could he not have known that she was taking him seriously? Except, damn, how
could
he have known? The things she’d said back to him had been so totally cornball, he’d been certain she was role-playing merrily along.

“Bullshit,” she said. She had tears in her eyes, but she was fighting to keep them back. “
That’s
what you meant when you said that it wasn’t just bullshit—that you’d remember tonight forever. Unlike the rest of what you told me, which
was
bullshit. Oh, my God.”

“Tracy, I am so, so sorry—”

“What was your fantasy?” she asked. “You said something about it…It was something about me not taking off your sweater, right?”

“You naked, me not,” Izzy admitted. “You know, full-service treatment from an incredibly hot naked woman. I think it’s probably got elements of love slave and master.”

Tracy nodded. “Of course. Silly me for not realizing. Although, you know, I suspect it’s also got
elements
of you not wanting me to see your horrible rash.”

His laughter was clearly not welcome.

“Or your two-inch toothpick of a penis.”

He shot her a look. “Hey, now.”

She wouldn’t look at him, focusing on tying her sneakers, her movements jerky with anger. But anger was good. It was better than those big blue eyes brimming with tears and hurt. “God, I’m stupid. I actually thought I’d done something right for a change, that I’d found someone special, but you’re not. You’re just like Lyle. Only with way less money.” She glared at him. “If you so much as breathe a word about any of this to anyone, I will—”

“I won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

She snorted at that—clearly his promises weren’t worth much to her anymore. “And if you think you’re
ever
touching me again,” she told him, “you are
so
delusional.” She fastened her seat belt. “I have to go back to my room now.”

Good idea. Izzy put the SUV in gear.

“We’ve got to wake up Tom,” Lindsey said, following Jenk into the motel parking lot.

“It was somewhere over here,” Jenk said, holding his cell phone out and open, like Mr. Spock with his tricorder on
Star Trek,
exploring the class-M planet Nocellzonius. “I actually got a signal this morning. When we first arrived.”

After discovering Tracy was MIA, Lindsey had gone to the room that the receptionist shared with Sophia, while Jenk had knocked on the doors of some of the usual suspects among SEAL Team Sixteen.

Going through Tracy’s personal belongings had been somewhat…interesting. But she and Sophia had found nothing obvious cluing them in to Tracy’s whereabouts, such as a journal entry with the words,
I can’t take this anymore. I’m going back to New York
underscored, with four exclamation points.

Tracy didn’t have a journal.

She did, apparently, have a slight fungal problem. As well as questionable taste in music, and a brightly colored shower-safe aid to assist her in self-entertainment.

And yet she’d gone to seek entertainment elsewhere. With Izzy Zanella, apparently, who was also still conspicuously absent.

That conclusion, taken straight from the Detecting 101 textbook—if two people were missing late at night from a low-budget New Hampshire motel, chances that they were together were high—made Jenk extremely pissy.

He had been jealous at the thought of Lindsey with Izzy, but he was mondo-mega-jealous of
Tracy
and Izzy.

Every time he opened his mouth it was Tracy this, Tracy that. Tracy, Tracy, Tracy.

“I understand the reasons why we train for situations in places where phone and radio coverage is nonexistent, but why do we actually have to go to the fucking dark side of the moon?” Jenk now vented his frustration as his cell phone continued not to work. “Can’t we just hand over our radios and cell phones and promise not to use them? I mean, yeah, okay, when it’s just the team, fine. But when civilians are involved…?”

“I’m getting concerned that Izzy might’ve had some trouble on the road,” Lindsey said. Tracy had left her room without her winter coat, wearing little more than a sweatshirt over her pajamas. “If Tracy’s with him, and they broke down—”

“If Tracy’s with him,” Jenk said, “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

Apparently, he was no longer self-censoring his language around her. “You know,” she said, her own temper sparking, “nothing quite says
I love you
like
I’m going to fucking kill him,
so frankly, I don’t know why you bothered to come pounding on
my
door before, oozing with jealousy. Unless it’s Izzy you’re obsessed with…”

Jenk laughed. “Yeah, Linds, I’m gay. That’s our big problem here.”

“Our problem,”
she said, “would probably be solved if we just got the keys to one of the other trucks, and—”

“
Our
problem,” he said, snapping his phone shut, “is that you care about me. I’ve been watching you grind your teeth every time I mention Tracy’s name. I’ve been doing it on purpose, you know. Just to watch you squirm. You
are
jealous.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” she said, “like you’re completely fine with the idea of Tracy and Izzy—”

“No, you’re right, I’m not fine,” he fired back at her. “Have you talked to Tracy? Because she’s going back to Lyle—it’s not a question of if, but when. Izzy acts like he’s a player, but I really don’t think he is. I mean, he pretends to be an asshole, but I’ve seen the way he looks at Tracy. If he hooks up with her, she’s going to do to him what you did to me, and he’s going to get his heart broken.”

“I didn’t break your heart,” Lindsey said, and as the words left her lips, she realized how stupid she sounded.

“Oh, well, good,” Jenk said. “I was worried that you might have. I’m glad to get a more accurate read on what
I’m
feeling—from someone who’s too terrified to feel anything at all.”

“Hey, I’m not the only one with intimacy issues,” Lindsey countered hotly. “If I broke your heart, well then, you’re guilty of giving it away much too soon. What are you, fourteen?
Dear Burger King cashier girl, I know we’ve only spoken once, but when you told me ‘$4.68 please,’ I knew you felt it, too—this bond that ties us together. A love to last throughout all time.
”

“Great, Lindsey. Make a joke.
That’s
real mature.”

And there it was. Salvation in the form of headlights out on the road.

“I’m sorry I broke your heart,” she told him, as what looked to be the SUV with their missing teammates pulled into the motel parking lot. “I’m sorry that an incredible night of great sex wasn’t enough for you.”

“And
I’m
sorry that it
was
enough for you.”

The sliver of moon wasn’t bright enough to light his face, but the neon Motel-A-Rama sign took up the slack. Jenk was standing there, in that pink-and-green glow, with his pretty eyes filled with frustration and regret. There was probably pity and disdain in there, too, but Lindsey chose not to search for it. Instead, she turned her back on him, heading toward the row of parked cars and trucks.

Where, yes, both Izzy and Tracy were getting out of that SUV.

Izzy went around to help Tracy, his voice carrying even though he didn’t speak loudly. “Careful, it’s slippery.”

She said something back to him that Lindsey couldn’t hear, but it sure looked as if she jerked her arm away. The end result was that they both went down.

They were hidden behind the hood, but as Lindsey rushed to help, she could hear Izzy again. “Oh, that’s just perfect.”

She reached the end of the line of cars to see that…Oh, dear. Tracy had booted, right in Izzy’s lap.

“God, I’m sorry,” she mumbled, pushing her hair back from her face far too late.

“Did she hit her head?” Jenk was right behind Lindsey. But then he, too, caught the unmistakable and extremely unpleasant whiff of previously-used alcohol. “Zanella, what the hell?”

Tracy was fried on both sides, as Grandpa Henry used to say.

“Come on, Trace. Can you stand?” With Jenk’s assistance, Izzy helped her up. “I know what you’re thinking,” he told Jenk, “but she just wanted a drink.”

“Or twenty. Jesus, Iz, what were
you
thinking?”

“I was thinking…give her what she wants?”

With her chunkified hair and glistening chin, this was not Tracy’s finest hour. Apparently she wasn’t too drunk not to know it, because she started to cry.

Lindsey sighed. She might as well take charge now. “Help me get her to her room.” This was going to fall on her anyway. There was no way Lindsey was simply going to let Jenk or Izzy walk Tracy to her door, push her in, and wave good-bye. Sophia was in no condition to hose down an inebriated roommate.

“I just want to state for the record,” Tracy announced, as they started to move across the parking lot, “that I didn’t do that on purpose.”

“Yeah, I know,” Izzy said. “And hey, snaps for waiting until you were out of the car. I do appreciate that.”

The stairs were trickier to negotiate, but they finally all made it up to the second level.

“I need a shower,” Tracy said.

“I got it from here,” Lindsey told the two men, neither of whom hesitated to hang back—thanks a million, brave Navy SEALs.

Izzy did, however, call after them. “Tracy, I’m sorry, too. Linds, put her clothes outside the door. I’ll run a load of laundry, and, you know, throw her stuff in with mine.”

“What did you do to her, asshole?” Lindsey heard Jenk ask the other SEAL as she helped Tracy into her room. “What are you so sorry about?”

“Nothing. Weebs, I swear. I mean, come on. Dude, Tracy Shapiro? Only in my dreams.”