vent in the crawl space between the ceiling and the eaves….
But then she heard it again. It was definitely a muffled whimper.
Syd’s fingers closed around her phone as she reached with her other hand for the light switch on the wall by the door. She flipped it on.
And there, huddled in the corner of her living room, her face bruised and bleeding, her clothing torn and bloody, was Gina.
Syd locked the door behind her and dialed 911.
CHAPTER ONE
ALL EARLY-MORNING CONVERSATION in Captain Joe Catalanotto’s outer office stopped dead as everyone turned to look at Lucky.
It was a festival of raised eyebrows and opened mouths. The astonishment level wouldn’t have been any higher if Lieutenant Luke “Lucky” O’Donlon of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad had announced he was quitting the units to become a monk.
All the guys were staring at him—Jones and Blue and Skelly. A flash of surprise had even crossed Crash Hawken’s imperturbable face. Frisco was there, too, having come out of a meeting with Joe and Harvard, the team’s senior chief. Lucky had caught them all off guard. It would’ve been funny—except he wasn’t feeling much like laughing.
“Look, it’s no big deal,” Lucky said with a shrug, wishing that simply saying the words would make it so, wishing he could feel as nonchalant as he sounded.
No one said a word. Even recently promoted Chief Wes Skelly was uncharacteristically silent. But Lucky didn’t need to be telepathic to know what his teammates were thinking.
He’d lobbied loud and long for a chance to be included in Alpha Squad’s current mission—a covert assignment for which Joe Cat himself didn’t even know the details. He’d only been told to ready a five-man team to insert somewhere in Eastern Europe; to prepare to depart at a moment’s notice, prepare to be gone for an undetermined amount of time.
It was the kind of assignment guaranteed to get the heart pumping and adrenaline running, the kind of assignment Lucky lived for.
And Lucky had been one of the chosen few. Just yesterday morning he’d done a victory dance when Joe Cat had told him to get his gear ready to go. Yet here he was, barely twenty-four hours later, requesting reassignment, asking the captain to count him out—and to call in some old favors to get him temporarily assigned to a not-so-spine-tingling post at the SEAL training base here in Coronado, effective ASAP.
Lucky forced a smile. “It’s not like you’ll have trouble replacing me, Captain.” He glanced at Jones and Skelly who were both practically salivating at the thought of doing just that.
The captain gestured with his head toward his office, completely unfooled by Lucky’s pretense at indifference. “You want to step inside and tell me what this is all about?”
Lucky didn’t need the privacy. “It’s no big secret, Cat. My sister’s getting married in a few weeks. If I leave on this assignment, there’s a solid chance I won’t be back in time.”
Wes Skelly couldn’t keep his mouth shut a second longer. “I thought you were heading down to San Diego last night to read her the riot act.”
Lucky had intended to. He’d gone to visit Ellen and her alleged fiancé, one geeky college professor by the name of Gregory Price, intending to lay down the law; intending to demand that his twenty-two-year-old baby sister wait at least another year before she take such a major step as marriage. He’d gone fully intending to be persuasive. She was impossibly young. How could she be ready to commit to one man—one who wore sweaters to work, at that—when she hadn’t had a chance yet to truly live?
But Ellen was Ellen, and Ellen had made up her mind. She was so certain, so unafraid. And as Lucky had watched her smile at the man she was determined to spend the rest of her life with, he’d marveled at the fact that they’d had the same mother. Of course, maybe it was the fact they had different fathers that made them such opposites when it came to commitment. Because, although Ellen was ready to get married at twenty-two, Lucky could imagine feeling too young to be tied down at age eighty-two.
Still, he’d been the one to give in.
It was Greg who had convinced him. It was the way he looked at Ellen, the way the man’s love for Lucky’s little sister shone in his eyes that had the SEAL giving them both his blessing—and his promise that he’d be at the wedding to give the bride away.
Never mind the fact that he’d have to turn down what was shaping up to be the most exciting assignment of the year.
“I’m the only family she’s got,” Lucky said quietly. “I’ve got to be there for her wedding, if I can. At least I’ve got to try.”
The Captain nodded. “Okay,” he said. That was explanation enough for him. “Jones, ready your gear.”
Wes Skelly made a squawk of disappointment that was cut off by one sharp look from the senior chief. He turned away abruptly.
Captain Catalanotto glanced at Frisco, who worked as a classroom instructor when he wasn’t busy helping run the SEAL BUD/S training facility. “What do you think about using O’Donlon for your little project?”
Alan “Frisco” Francisco had been Lucky’s swim buddy. Years ago, they’d made it through BUD/S training together and had worked side by side on countless assignments—until Desert Storm. Lucky had been ready to ship out to the Middle East with the rest of Alpha Squad when he’d received word that his mother had died. He’d stayed behind and Frisco had gone—and gotten his leg nearly blown off during a rescue mission. Even though Frisco no longer came out into the field, the two men had stayed tight.
In fact, Lucky was going to be the godfather later this year when Frisco and his wife Mia had their first baby.
Frisco now nodded at the Captain. “Yeah,” he said. “Definitely. O’Donlon’s perfect for the assignment.”
“What assignment?” Lucky asked. “If it’s training an all-woman SEAL team, then, yes, thank you very much, I’m your man.”
There, see? He’d managed to make a joke. He was already starting to feel better. Maybe he wasn’t going out into the real world with Alpha Squad, but he was going to get a chance to work with his best friend again. And—his natural optimism returning—he just knew there was a Victoria’s Secret model in his immediate future. This was California, after all. And he wasn’t nicknamed Lucky for nothing.
But Frisco didn’t laugh. In fact, he looked seriously grim as he tucked a copy of the morning paper beneath his arm. “Not even close. You’re going to hate this.”
Lucky looked into the eyes of the man he knew better than a brother. And he didn’t have to say a word. Frisco knew it didn’t really matter what his buddy did over the next few weeks. Everything would pale beside the lost opportunity of the assignment he’d passed up.
Frisco gestured for him to come outside.
Lucky took one last look around Alpha Squad’s office. Harvard was already handling the paperwork that would put him temporarily under Frisco’s command. Joe Cat was deep in discussion with Wes Skelly, who still looked unhappy that he’d been passed over yet again. Blue McCoy, Alpha
