SARASOTA, FLORIDA

MONDAy, JUNE 16, 2003

Roger “Sam” Starrett’s cell phone vibrated, but he was wedged into the rental car so tightly that there was no way he could get the damn thing out of the front pocket of his jeans.

At least not without causing a twelve-car pileup on Route 75.

He had the air-conditioning cranked—welcome to summer in Florida—and the gas pedal floored, but the subcompact piece of shit that had been one of the last cars in the rental company’s lot was neither cool nor fast.

It was barely a car.

Feeling trapped in an uncomfortable place had been pretty much SOP for Sam ever since he rushed into marriage with Mary Lou nearly two years ago, and he waited for the familiar waves of irritation and anger to wash over him.

Instead, he felt something strangely similar to relief.

Because Sarasota was only another few minutes down the road. And the end was finally in sight.

Sam knew the town well enough—he’d hitched down here from his parents’ house in Fort Worth, Texas, four summers in a row, starting when he turned fifteen. It had changed a lot since then, but he had to believe that the circus school was still over by Ringling Boulevard.

Which wasn’t too far from Mary Lou’s street address.

Maybe he should make a quick stop, pick up a few more Bozos, turn this thing into a bona fide clown car.

On the other hand, one was probably enough to qualify for clown car status.

His phone finally stopped shaking.

What were the chances that it had been Mary Lou, finally calling him back?

Nah, that would be too damn easy.

Although, in theory, this should have been an easy trip. Pop over to Sarasota. Pick up the divorce papers that Mary Lou was supposed to have sent back to him three weeks ago. Put an end to the giant-ass mistake that was their marriage, and maybe even try to start something new. Like a real relationship with his baby daughter, Haley, who after six months probably wouldn’t even recognize him. Then pop back home to San Diego.

Fucking easy as pie.

Except this was Mary Lou he was dealing with. Yes, she was the one who’d filed for this divorce. Yes, she’d been compliant right up to this point. But Sam wouldn’t put it past her to change her mind at the zero hour.

And it was, indeed, the zero hour.

And, true to form, Mary Lou was surely messing with him.

Had to be.

Why else would she not have sent the papers back to the attorney after receiving them four weeks ago? Why else would she not return Sam’s phone calls? Why else would she not pick up the phone even when he called at oh dark hundred, when he knew she had to be there because the baby was surely sleeping?

Sam reached for the stick to downshift as he took the exit ramp for Bee Ridge Road, and came into contact with the stupidass automatic transmission.

Six months ago, this entire suckfest scenario would have made him bullshit. Everything sucked. This car sucked, the fact that he had to come all this way for something that should have cost the price of a first-class postage stamp sucked, and knowing that Haley was going to look at him as if he were some stranger really sucked.

But along with his weird feeling of relief came a sense of readiness. Maybe this wasn’t going to be easy, but that was okay. He was ready for it. He was ready for anything.

Like, Haley was probably going to cry when he tried to hold her. So he wouldn’t hold her at first. He’d take it slow.

And Mary Lou, well, she was probably going to ask him to get back together. He was ready for that, too.

“Honey, you know as well as I do that it just wasn’t working.” He tried the words aloud, glancing at himself in the rearview mirror, checking to see if he looked apologetic enough.

But, shit, he looked like roadkill. His eyes were bloodshot behind his sunglasses, and the flight out of Atlanta had been weather delayed for so damn long that he desperately needed a shower.

And he definitely shouldn’t start out by calling her honey. She had a name, and it was Mary Lou. Honey—and every other term of endearment he’d ever used, like sugar, darling, sweetheart, sweet thing—was demeaning.

He could practically hear Alyssa Locke’s voice telling him so. And God knows Alyssa Locke was the Queen of Right.

She’d hated it something fierce when he’d called her sweet thing. So he’d called her Alyssa, drawing the S’s out as he whispered her name in her perfect ear as they’d had sex that should’ve been listed in the world record books. Best Sex of All Time—Sam Starrett and Alyssa Locke, Champions of the Simultaneous Orgasm.

Ah, God.

What was Alyssa going to think when she heard about his divorce?

Sooner or later the news was going to get out. Up to this point, his commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Tom Paoletti, and the SEAL team’s XO, Lieutenant Jazz Jacquette, were the only ones who knew that Sam and Mary Lou were finally calling it quits. He hadn’t told Nils and WildCard yet—his best friends in Team Sixteen. Shit, he hadn’t told his sister, Elaine. Or even Noah and Claire.

And he sure as hell hadn’t told Alyssa Locke.

Who was probably going to think, Thank God I’m in a committed relationship with Max so Roger Starrett doesn’t come sniffing around my door, looking for some play. Max. The fucker. Even after all this time, Sam was still insanely jealous of Max Bhagat. Despite his new sense of relief and hope, he was feeling neither when it came to thoughts of Alyssa and Max.

“How could you fuck your boss?” Sam asked.

Alyssa, because she wasn’t in the car, didn’t answer him, of course.

It wasn’t too tough of a question. Sam could come up with plenty of answers without Alyssa’s help. Because Max was handsome, powerful, brilliant, and, yes, probably great in bed.

Yeah, and who was he kidding with that probably? Max was no doubt definitely great in bed. Sam knew Alyssa, and she wasn’t about to spend more than a year of her life with someone who couldn’t keep up with her sexually.

And as far as the fact that the man was her boss...

She and Max were incredibly discreet. In fact, they were so discreet, there were some people in the Spec Ops community who refused to believe that they actually had an intimate relationship.

But Sam knew better. He’d gone knocking on Alyssa’s hotel room door about six months ago. And, yeah, it was a stupidass thing to do. He and Mary Lou hadn’t even separated back then. He had no business knocking on anyone’s door.

But an FBI agent matching Alyssa’s description—a woman of color, in her late twenties—had been killed that day, and until the news came down that Alyssa wasn’t on the casualty list, Sam kind of lost it.

Except who had opened that hotel room door that he’d knocked on? Well, gee, hiya, Max. Sorry I woke you, man.

And that was it. Game over. It was looking into Max’s eyes that did it. The fucker cared deeply about Alyssa—that was more than clear.

And every day since then, Sam tried—he really honestly tried—to be happy for her.

And as for his own elusive happiness...

Well, he was done feeling sorry for himself. And he was done letting this divorce take place on Mary Lou’s timetable, with Mary Lou running this freak show.

Sam and his expensive new lawyer had worked out a schedule of visits—dates and times that he could see Haley. He wasn’t looking for joint custody—that would be crazy. As a SEAL he went out of the country at the drop of a hat, sometimes for weeks or even months at a time.

He just wanted to be able to see his kid a couple of times a week whenever he was Stateside. Surely Mary Lou would agree to that.

To make it a no-brainer for her, Sam was prepared to give her the deed to their house back in San Diego, free and clear. He’d take care of the mortgage and continue to pay the taxes. Now that Mary Lou’s sister, Janine, had split up with her husband, Sam’s plan was to talk all three of them—Mary Lou, Janine, and Haley—into moving back to California.

Where he would be able to see Haley every other weekend and once a week on Wednesday nights—instead of some pathetic twice a year bullshit.

Surely the idea of a free place to live would appeal to Mary Lou, who, in one of the bigger surprises of a marriage filled with complete surprises, was a total miser when it came to saving money.

So, yeah, Sam was hopeful that he and Mary Lou were going to be able to work this out.

And who knows? Once he did that, the rest of his life could start to turn around, too. Maybe perfect Max had a perfect sister who was beautiful, brilliant and great in bed, too. And maybe Sam and the sister and Max and Alyssa could all double-date.

Yeah, right. Just as Max wasn’t his favorite person, Sam wasn’t Max’s. The chances of them ever socializing—by choice—were in negative numbers.

Traffic in the city was light at this time of the morning. He was literally four minutes from Mary Lou’s door.

Please be home.

Sam had tried calling his soon-to-be ex-wife from a pay phone at the airport, right after his flight had gotten in. It had occurred to him that she was screening her calls and that maybe she’d pick up if her caller ID gave her a number other than that of his cell phone.

Not a chance.

He didn’t leave a message on her machine. He was just going to head over to the house and wait. Sooner or later Mary Lou or Janine would scoop up Haley from day care and come home.

And then he’d do whatever he had to do to get Mary Lou to sign those papers and move back to San Diego.

Hell, if she didn’t want to live in that same house they’d once shared, they could sell it and she could buy another. It didn’t matter to him as long as she lived in the San Diego area. He was going to move into the BOQ on base either way.

Sure, the bachelor officers quarters were tiny, and there was no privacy to speak of. But since it was highly unlikely that he was ever going to have sex again, privacy wasn’t something that he needed.

Sam laughed at himself. That sounded really pathetic—never having sex again—like he was such a loser that no woman would want him.

Truth was, women went for him in a major way. In fact, the girl at the car rental counter couldn’t have been more obvious about her interest if she’d used semaphore flags.

“Where are you staying?”

“Are you in town alone?”

“If you’re looking for a good hangout, you might want to try Barnaby’s, down by the dock. I go there all the time after work.”

Hint, hint.

She was hot, too. A strawberry blonde with a lithe, athletic body and a cute little ass. But hot wasn’t enough for him anymore. No, thank you.

Sam was finished with casual sex. He was keeping his pants zipped, which actually wasn’t as hard as it seemed, even after he’d gone for well over nine months without getting laid.

It sounded like a really pansy thing to say, but he wanted more from life than a fast fuck with an empty-headed stranger.

Because, shit, he’d been there and done that—and ended up married to an empty-headed stranger who was pregnant with his child. And hadn’t that been a fun two and a half years of his life?

He wanted sex to mean something. He wanted to be fucked for more than his blue eyes and his muscles and the fact that he was a lieutenant with the U.S. Navy SEALs.

Unless, of course, Alyssa Locke called him up and begged him to come over, get naked, and light her world on fire.

If that ever happened, all bets were off.

Alyssa was neither empty-headed nor a stranger, but during the few nights they’d spent together, way back before Sam married Mary Lou, she’d definitely thought of him as only a temporary plaything, which still stung.

Sam leaned over to look at the numbers on the houses as he turned on to Mary Lou’s street: 458, 460, 462.

Bingo.

Number 462 Camilia Street was a tiny little single-story Florida-style house with a carport that sat empty. There wasn’t a car in the driveway either, nor one parked out in front.

Sam pulled up and sat, air-conditioning blasting, just looking at the house. With flaking paint and shutters that hung in crooked disrepair, it was about half the size of their place in San Diego. The yard was dry, the grass and plants brown, courtesy of the drought that was turning Florida into a desert.

A tired-looking palm tree provided the only shade out front. The door was shut behind the torn screen, and the dark shades on the windows were pulled all the way down and—

What the fuck...?

Sam turned off the engine and got out into the sweltering heat, staring across the roof of the rental car.

Were his eyes playing tricks on him, making those window shades seem to shift and move, or...?

He moved closer to the house.

Holy Lord Jesus Christ Almighty, those weren’t dark shades, those were flies. There were so many of them, they seemed almost to cover the windows.

Oh, fuck! That many flies inside a house could mean only one thing.

Whoever was in there was dead.

At a little after 1000, feeling unsettled, frustrated, and antsy as all hell, Tom Paoletti came in from the garden.

Kelly, still in her nightgown, was at the kitchen counter, cutting up a small mountain of fresh fruit. She smiled, but he could see her concern for him in her eyes. “Is the hibiscus going to make it?”

“Yeah,” he said as he washed his hands in the kitchen sink. “It’s going to be fine.” He glanced at her. “And I’m going to be fine, too.”

She nodded. “I know. It’s just...”

“Hard,” he finished for her as he dried his hands on the towel hanging over the handle on the oven. “Yes, it is.”

He glanced at the kitchen clock: 1006. U.S. Navy SEAL Team Sixteen was now officially wheels up and heading out on a training op.

This wasn’t the first time in the six months since Tom had been relieved of his command that they’d left town without him, but it was the first time he hadn’t been told precisely where they were going.

Which sounded the death knell for his hope of ever returning as Team Sixteen’s commanding officer.

Kelly chopped quarters of an apple into even smaller pieces. “Maybe it’s time to make some... alternative plans for the future.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “Let’s start by setting a wedding date.”

She didn’t stop chopping, the blade flashing in the bright morning sunlight. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Yeah, but as long as we’re making plans...”

“Tom...” She sighed and put down the knife. “Maybe this isn’t a good time to talk about this.”

And here it came. Tom couldn’t help but smile. Whenever he tried to talk about getting married, she would distract him with creative sex.

One of these days he’d finally wear her down and she’d say yes and set a date. But until then, it was pretty much a no-lose situation.

Because despite being a girl-next-door look-alike with her cheerleader-style blond ponytail and her sweet face with those freckles and wide blue eyes, Kelly could be pretty damn creative when it came to sex.

Tom knew that she loved him. There was never a doubt of that in his mind. She just had cold feet when it came to tying the knot. After a failed marriage that had been filled with complacency and a serious lack of excitement, she had every right to be leery.

She rinsed her hands in the sink before coming over to kiss him. “Maybe we should save the heavy conversations for later and just... enjoy our day off.”

Oh, baby. Right on schedule. She tasted like strawberries and cantaloupe. And she was definitely naked under that gown.

“Don’t you think?” She reached down into his shorts, her fingers cool and still a little wet.

He answered her with a kiss. Oh, yeah, this was one way to cure that antsy, frustrated feeling—at least temporarily. Except he had quite a few things that needed to be said first.

But then her nightgown went over her head and onto the floor, and she pulled out her ponytail holder and shook her hair free. She was growing it out and the ends curled slightly around her shoulders. It wasn’t quite long enough yet to conceal her breasts—which was fine with him.

It had definitely been awhile since they’d made love here in the kitchen. He loved making love with the sun streaming in from the skylights, with all those counters at exactly the perfect height. It was bright and sunny, even after she crossed the room to close the vertical blinds so that the Hodges, whose backyard abutted theirs, wouldn’t get an eyeful from their deck.

Hello, gorgeous naked woman in his kitchen.

Kelly smiled, too, as she walked toward him, and Tom was well aware that he wouldn’t be here right now if he’d gone out with the team this morning. And while he appreciated this opportunity given to him by staying behind, it didn’t really make his recent realization any easier to deal with.

“Maybe we should both just retire. We can sleep late and then make love all day, every day,” he said.

“Okay.” She levered herself up so she sat on the counter, right next to the cutting board and the piles of fruit.

Oh-ho, this was going to be wonderfully, deliciously messy. She was laughing now, and he was, too. God, he loved her.

And he was wrong—his entire life was easier with Kelly beside him.

There was a knife on the counter that was very sharp. Tom moved it into the sink.

She waited until he was watching to crush a piece of peach, dribbling it into her belly button and smearing it down, even lower, before leaning back on her elbows, right in the pile of melon.

Oh, baby. Talk about delicious.

But Tom didn’t move toward her. There was something he had to tell her first. “I think I might be serious about that,” he said. “About retiring—about me retiring, you know, from the Navy. And if I did, we could have kids, Kel. I could stay at home with them.”

She sat up, an expression of incredulity on her face. It would have been pretty funny if this wasn’t something he desperately needed to talk about right now.

Even more than he wanted to have fruit-flavored sex.

“You want to go from being the CO of a SEAL team—no, not a SEAL team, the SEAL team. The best SEAL team in the world—to being the primary caregiver of an infant?”

“I was actually thinking three,” he said. “Babies. One at a time, of course, but... yeah.”

She was looking at him as if she were ready to whip out her doctor’s bag and start taking his vital signs.

“I really want us to have kids, Kel,” he told her. “I love you, and I’m ready to take our relationship to the next level. I’ve been ready for a long time. And suddenly it seems as if I’m going to have lots of time on my hands, so...”

“But your career—”

“What career?” Ever since six months ago, when he’d ordered his men to take down three terrorist assassins who had infiltrated an open-to-the-public SEAL demonstration at the Coronado naval base, Tom had been pulled off his career track as CO of SEAL Team Sixteen and into the limbo of a Navy desk job.

It would be one thing if he’d been transferred to a position that would allow him active participation in the smooth management of the teams, but as far as he could tell, his new job was meaningless. He did nothing but ridiculous paper busywork that helped no one. Lately he’d started coming in an hour late and going home an hour early, but no one noticed. Or cared.

As long as he didn’t draw any attention to himself. As long as he didn’t make more waves.

He’d been patient at first, as the Navy and the U.S. Government tried to figure out if he was a hero for saving the President’s life—and the lives of thousands of people in that crowd—or a dangerous criminal for violating U.S. law.

The U.S. Military was not allowed to take up arms against civilians. Tom knew that as well as any American. It was written very clearly in a little piece of paper called the U.S. Constitution.

And Tom had, indeed, crossed that line. The Secret Service was responsible for the protection of the President, and the head of the Service hadn’t given Tom permission to act in his behalf. There was a tape of their radio communications that day that spelled it all out quite clearly.

“You need to let us take care of this,” Tom had been told, even though the Secret Service men in the sniper towers still hadn’t located the suspected shooter in the crowd, and the SEALs in the helos overhead had.

But Lt. Sam Starrett, one of Tom’s most trusted officers, had been in one of the circling helicopters. He’d spotted a weapon on the man in question and shouted, “Gun!”

Tom hadn’t thought twice about giving the order to take down that terrorist shooter, or the two others who had started firing into the crowd. Kelly had been there that day, along with countless other wives and girlfriends and children and mothers and...

And his commander in chief, the United States President.

Tom’s quick order had saved lives—there was no doubt about it. He’d do it all over again, without hesitation. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known that his career was over even as the command to fire was leaving his lips.

Some things were worth more than a man’s career.

He was relieved of his command within the week, and Lt. Jazz Jacquette, his executive officer and a man he’d trust with his life, was given temporary command of SEAL Team Sixteen.

“My career in the Navy’s over and done.” It was the first time Tom said the words aloud, the first time he’d voiced what he’d known to be true for a while now.

The first time he’d told Kelly.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’ve known for months.” He looked at her sitting there, still naked among all that fruit. “I guess I kind of killed the mood. Sorry about that.”

She shook her head. “I had no idea it was... Oh, Tom. Why didn’t you tell me before this? You’re supposed to talk to me about things like that. About... God.”

“I just kept hoping I was wrong,” he said. “I’m sorry. I just...” He shrugged.

She reached for him, and he went into her arms.

“I’m sorry, Kel,” he said again. “I guess I thought maybe if I didn’t say it aloud...” He kissed her and tasted salt.

Kelly pulled back slightly to look at him and to wipe her eyes. “They’re fools for letting you go.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, but—”

“You know, Max Bhagat would hire you in a heartbeat,” she said.

Tom smiled at her ferocity. “You want me to join the FBI?”

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Yeah, Tom, I do. There are a lot of very bad people out there and you’re very good at catching them. If the Navy won’t let you do it as a SEAL, well, you’ll just have to do it some other way.”

“I still want to have kids. Let me rephrase—I want to get married and have kids.”

“Will you give me some time to think about that?”

Like he hadn’t already given her a few years? “Yeah,” Tom said. “I’ll give you twenty minutes.”

She laughed.

“Come on, we could go to Vegas,” he said. “This afternoon. Or we could schedule something small here on base. Betcha I can find someone to marry us tonight. That license upstairs is still good to go.”

On his birthday, Kelly had wanted to get him a new truck with some of the money she’d inherited from her father. Their financial situation continued to be a prickly spot for Tom, who had drawn the line at comingling their funds until after they were married. They were living together, sure, but this was his house and he was paying the bills. Which pissed Kelly off because not only had she received a huge amount of money on her father’s death, but she also pulled in a significantly higher salary as a pediatrician.

But Tom had a stubborn streak, too, and until she became his wife, there would be no ours as far as finances went. And even then, he was going to make her sign a prenup to protect her inheritance.

As part of his birthday negotiation, he’d told her he’d accept her gift of that truck if she went down to city hall with him and applied for a marriage license. They didn’t have to use it, they just had to have it.

So now it was in a file on the desk in his den, ready for Kelly to give in and make this thing between them legal.

“You know, you could give me more than twenty minutes to think about it, and we could spend the day doing something else.” She leaned back into the fruit, eating a piece of melon and licking her finger clean.

O-kay. Tom laughed, both at her amazing lack of subtlety and his own undeniable response. “Believe it or not, I’d really rather go to Vegas.”

She ate a piece of apple. “Really?”

“Really.”

She licked the juice from a chunk of orange. “Right now?”

Tom kissed her. He was, after all, human. “Yes.” Funny how he didn’t sound so convincing anymore.

“Not in five minutes?” She reached for him, unfastening his shorts.

He pulled back. A little. “Five minutes. And then we go to Vegas?”

“Five minutes,” she said, “and then we talk about this some more.”

Talking some more was a step in the right direction. Tom kissed her again, this time not on the mouth, and Kelly’s laughter quickly turned to a moan.

Oh, man, he loved peaches. And he loved knowing just where to touch and kiss her to drive her wild.

After living together for years, with their ridiculous schedules—as a pediatrician, Kelly had to go dashing out of the house at crazy hours even more often than Tom—they’d perfected the art of the quickie.

“Please!” Kelly shifted on the counter, then, oh baby, he was inside her.

And the doorbell rang.

“Shit!” Tom said.

“Ignore it,” she gasped. “They’ll go away.”

But the bell rang again. And again.

And again.

Double shit. Whoever was out there no doubt had seen both of their cars in the driveway.

Kelly, of course, liked it. Devil woman that she was, she got off on the possibility of discovery. She actually enjoyed the idea of people standing on the front steps, wondering where they were, checking their watches, while Tom was buried deeply inside of her.

“We should probably make sure the phone’s working,” he managed to say as the doorbell rang yet again and again. She didn’t argue, so he picked her up, her legs around his waist, and carried her over to the telephone. She lifted the handset.

There was a definite dial tone.

She dropped it back into the receiver so she could use both of her hands to brace herself along that part of the counter.

She was moments from climaxing. She was making all those sexy little noises that he loved—those gasps and moans of sheer pleasure that made him teeter on the edge of his own release.

Whoever had been outside had finally stopped leaning on the doorbell, thank God.

If it had been important, they’d come back.

In fact, he’d nearly dismissed them completely from his mind as he focused on the beautiful, brilliant, gorgeous, sexy-as-hell woman he was making love to—this woman he was going to talk into marrying him right after he made her come.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

Whoever had been ringing the bell in the front had come around to the back and was knocking right on the sliding door.

It startled the hell out of Tom, and Kelly’s eyes opened as he started to pull back from her. “Did I even lock that door?”

“I did.” She locked her legs around him, pushing him even more deeply inside of her.

Wham! Wham! Wham!

And she was coming. She was laughing, but there was no doubt about it—she’d gone over the edge in a major way.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Damn it, now someone else was pounding on the front door, too, and ringing the bell.

Kelly knew him as well as he knew her. She knew just how to touch him to make him come crashing into her—in spite of the crazy soundtrack that was completely freaking him out.

Bang! Wham! Ding-dong! “Jesus, Kelly!”

The rush of pleasure, so fiercely, privately intense, was such a wild contrast to the kitchen’s current Grand Central Station atmosphere.

But then whoever was out front started shouting. “Lieutenant Commander Thomas Paoletti, please open the door!”

Tom started to laugh, and this time as he pulled back, Kelly let him go. She was still laughing, too. As he used the kitchen hand towel to clean himself up, she wiped a piece of fruit from his chin.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he told her as he fastened his shorts. “I’ve got plans for you today.” He smoothed down his hair as he headed for the front door. A quick glimpse of himself in the mirror in the hall revealed that there was no question about it. He looked as if he’d just been having sex with his incredibly hot wife-to-be in his kitchen.

Wife. Man, he loved that word. Today was the day he was going to talk her into getting this thing done.

He opened the door. “What seems to be the problem, gentlemen?”

Damn, it was the shore patrol, the Navy’s version of military police. The two ensigns who stood there were impossibly young and incredibly grim-looking.

“Lieutenant Commander Thomas Paoletti?”

“Yes. Who’s in trouble?” Tom asked. Most of Team Sixteen had gone out of the country. But Sam Starrett had taken a few days of leave in order to finalize his divorce and visit his daughter in Florida. Petty Officer Danny Gillman had stayed behind after spraining his ankle yesterday during a routine jump. And Petty Officer Cosmo Richter was also in town, studying for his chief’s exam.

Out of those three, Tom would bet his money that Gillman was in trouble. Nicknamed Gilligan, he was even younger than these ensigns and still prone to moments of complete boneheaded idiocy.

“Sir, we’ve been ordered to escort you to the naval base,” the ensign on the left informed him. “Please come with us.”

Ordered to...? “What’s this about?”

“We’re not at liberty to say, sir,” the ensign on the right said.

“Well, see, here’s the thing, Ensigns.” Tom stressed their significantly lower rank, but still kept his voice even and easygoing. “I’ve got something very important planned for this afternoon, so unless you can be specific about why I’m needed on base today—where I haven’t exactly been needed in the past six months—I’m going to have to decline your invitation.”

“It’s not an invitation, Paoletti. It’s an order.”

Tom looked up to see none other than Rear Admiral Larry Tucker, the base commander and the bane of his existence, coming around the side of his house. No doubt Tucker had been the door banger in the back. And it had taken him long enough to return to the front. Tom would bet big money that the sleezebag had found a crack in the vertical blinds and had hung back in order to watch Kelly get dressed. Son of a bitch.

She was standing now, in her nightgown, her hair back up in a ponytail, at the end of the hall, where only Tom could see her.

“What’s going on?” she whispered.

He met her eyes briefly, slightly shaking his head before turning to Tucker, forcing his mouth into a smile. “What’s the problem, Admiral?”

“You’re needed on base,” Tucker told him.

“I understand that, sir,” Tom said easily. “My question is why now? As I was telling the ensigns here, I’m a little busy today and—”

“You’re in trouble, Commander. Isn’t that obvious enough?”

Kelly moved closer.

Tom laughed, but on the inside, his stomach had gone into an instant knot. No. This couldn’t be happening. Not today...

But why not today? And, of course, Admiral Tucker would choose to be present at this humiliation. From the moment Tom had been assigned to command SEAL Team Sixteen, Tucker had had it in for him.

Hauling the shore patrol out here to escort Tom onto the base... It was so unnecessary. A phone call would have brought him in.

“Actually, no, Admiral, it’s not obvious,” Tom said, with more of an edge to his voice than he intended. “Since I haven’t done anything wrong, it never crossed my mind that I might be in any kind of trouble. If I’m being arrested, sir, I deserve to know the charges being brought against me. What is it that I’ve allegedly done?”

“You’re not being arrested, Commander,” Tucker said. “At least not yet. You’re being brought in for questioning.”

Not yet. “If this is about the assassination attempt in Coronado six months ago, I’ve said everything I can say about that.”

“Well, goodness me,” Tucker said. “Look at that. Apparently you remember at least one incident in which you did something wrong. I wonder, Commander, if there could be others.”

Tom turned to Kelly. “I have to go in. I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “I’m going with you.”

“No,” he said. “I’ll be home in a few hours.” He turned to Tucker. “If you’ll excuse me, Admiral, Ensigns, I’m going to take a quick shower and put on my uniform.”

Tucker shook his head. “You’ll have to skip the shower, Commander. You’ve already kept us waiting long enough.”

“I’ll be out shortly,” Tom said curtly, purposely leaving off the sir, but when he went to shut the door, one of the ensigns put his shoulder against it.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to accompany you inside, sir.”

God damn. There was questioning and then there was questioning. What did they think? That he was going to run away?

“Do I need to call a lawyer?” he asked the kid, half in jest, as he led the way back to the bedroom, where his uniform was hanging in the closet.

“Well,” the ensign answered seriously, “you just might want to do that, sir.”

Mother of God. What exactly did they think he’d done?

Sam went around the back of the house, looking for the kitchen door and praying that he was wrong, praying that Janine, Mary Lou, and Haley had gone to visit Mary Lou’s mother in northern Florida, and that an animal—a raccoon or a skunk—had gotten into the house and, trapped there, had died.

But, Jesus, there were flies covering every window, even in the back of the house. Especially in the back. Whatever was dead in there was bigger than a skunk.

Sam knew he shouldn’t touch the doorknob in case there were fingerprints on it. He had to call the authorities.

Except he didn’t know for sure that anyone was dead.

Yet the fact that Mary Lou hadn’t returned his call for three weeks—three long weeks—suddenly seemed telling. He’d assumed that she wasn’t calling him back—not that she couldn’t.

Please, God, don’t let her be dead.

He lifted the clay flowerpot that sat on the back steps—Mary Lou’s favorite hiding place—and sure enough, there was a key beneath it.

The lock on the kitchen door was right on the knob, and he knew he could unlatch the door by inserting and then carefully turning the key. He didn’t need to touch the knob and therefore wouldn’t add to or subtract from any fingerprints that might be there.

The lock clicked as it unlatched, and he gagged. Jesus. Even just the inch or two that he’d opened the door was enough to make his eyes water from the unmistakable stench of death. Sam quickly pulled the collar of his T-shirt up and over his nose and mouth and swung the door open.

Oh, God, no.

Mary Lou lay facedown on the linoleum floor—although, Christ, she’d been lying there so long in this heat, she probably didn’t have much of a face left.

Sam couldn’t bring himself to look more closely.

He saw all he needed to see. She was undeniably dead, her brown hair matted with blood and brains and, shit, maggots. She’d taken what looked like a shotgun slug to the back of her head, probably while she was running away from whoever had come to the kitchen door.

Sam stumbled outside and puked up his lunch into the dusty grass.

FBI agent Alyssa Locke answered the phone in her partner’s office. “Jules Cassidy’s desk.”

There was a pause before a voice that sounded remarkably like Sam Starrett’s asked, “Where’s Jules?”

No, it didn’t sound remarkably like Sam. It sounded pathetically like him.

Because she was decidedly pathetic.

What in God’s name did she have to do to get that man out from under her skin for once and for all? She saw and heard him everywhere. She couldn’t so much as see a blue jeans ad in a magazine without thinking about his long legs and his—

“Who’s calling, please?” she said, scrambling to find a piece of paper and a pen on Jules’s black hole of a desk. Her fault for coming in here in search of a file, her fault for picking up the phone instead of letting Jules’s voice mail take the message.

There was the sound of air being exhaled hard, then, “Alyssa, it’s Sam. Starrett. Can you please put Jules on the phone? Right now?”

Holy God, this time it really was Sam.

“Oh,” she said, temporarily startled into silence. Why on earth was Sam calling Jules?

“Look,” he said in that Texas drawl that she’d always found either infuriating or sexy as hell, depending on her state of mind. “I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but I’ve got a fucking bad situation here and I need to talk to Jules right fucking now. So put him on the fucking phone. Please.”

Whoa. A triple fucking. Even in the best of situations, Sam had a sewer mouth, but something definitely had him rattled to make him that profane.

“He’s not here,” Alyssa told him. “He’s out of the office and he won’t be back until Friday.”

“Fuck!”

“What’s happening?” she asked, sitting down behind Jules’s desk. Aha, there was a brand-new legal pad buried among his junk. She pulled it free. “Is this call business or...?”

She uncapped a pen as Sam laughed. It was the laughter of a man who didn’t find anything particularly funny right now. “God damn it. Yes, it’s business.”

“Where are you?” And no, she refused to let her heart beat harder at the thought that he was here in D.C. That was just indigestion from drinking too much coffee on an empty stomach.

“Sarasota,” he said.

“Florida.”

“Yeah. I’m at Mary Lou’s sister’s house. Alyssa, I’m really sorry, but I need your help. I need you to call someone in the Sarasota Bureau office and have them get over here as quickly as possible.”

“What’s going on?”

Another loud exhale. “Mary Lou’s dead.”

It was a good thing she was sitting down. As it was, she had to hang on to the desk. “Oh, my God. Sam! How?”

“A shotgun slug to the head.”

Oh, dear Lord. Oh, Sam, no. Alyssa had suspected that things weren’t particularly good between Sam and his wife, but... “Was anyone else hurt?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I came outside to... Well, shit, you know me well enough. I got sick. Big surprise. But I... I have to go back in there to look for Haley and...” His voice broke. “Jesus, Lys. I’m pretty sure Haley’s in there.”

“Whoa,” Alyssa said. She leapt to her feet, pulling the phone as far as it would go as she went to the office door. “Wait. Just wait a second, okay, Sam? Don’t move.”

Laronda was in the hall. Alyssa covered the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Has Max left for lunch?”

“About an hour ago. He should be back in about fifteen minutes.”

“Shit.” Fifteen minutes wasn’t good enough. “Is Peggy in her office?”

“She’s gone, too.” Laronda was eyeing her with curiosity. “Everyone’s out but George. You want George Faulkner?”

George was still new to the team and had even less experience in this type of situation than Alyssa did. She shook her head. It was up to her to talk Sam down from whatever emotional ledge he was on. “Get me the head of the Florida office in Sarasota.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Alyssa went back to Jules’s desk, speaking into the phone. “Sam, are you still with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere. Don’t go back inside. Just... just sit down, okay? Are you sitting down?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Where’s the shotgun?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It was so bad in there, I didn’t think to look—”

“Sam, I’m going to call and get you help, all right? But you cannot go back into that house. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Yeah, I do, but—”

“No buts. You sit still and you talk to me. I need you to make sure that you are nowhere near that weapon when the authorities arrive. Is that clear?”

On the other end of the phone, Sam was silent.

“Sam?”

Nothing. Oh, God, please don’t let him have put down the phone.

The intercom buzzed. “Manuel Conseco from Sarasota on line two,” Laronda’s voice said.

“Sam, you’re going to need to give me the street address.”

Sam laughed. “You think I killed her,” he said. “That’s really nice, Alyssa. Jesus.”

“Are you saying you didn’t...?”

“Fuck, no. What kind of asshole do you take me for?” He laughed again in disgust. “Apparently the kind who would shoot his soon-to-be ex-wife and leave her dead in the kitchen. Thank you so very much.”

Soon-to-be ex-wife...? “I thought it was an accident.”

“With a fucking shotgun?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you said—”

“It’s 462 Camilia Street,” Sam said flatly. “Sara-fucking-sota. Mary Lou didn’t return my phone calls for three weeks so I finally came out to see her—to finalize our divorce. I’m pretty sure she’s been dead all that time, and I haven’t searched the rest of the house, so I haven’t found Haley’s body yet. Call whoever you need to call so that the feds get here first. I don’t want the local police fucking up the investigation.”

“Sam,” Alyssa said, but he’d already cut the connection.