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  He followed her gaze with his own. “My wallet. What’s left of it, anyway. They pulled my truck out of the gulley this morning.”

  “That’s great.”

  “It’s a mess. There’s mud everywhere. They don’t think it will even turn over, never mind be drivable again.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  On his way from the barracks to the garage, Andrew had asked Corporal O’Malley about the roads. “Any luck getting them cleared out?”

  O’Malley had chuffed. “We haven’t even started yet. Not really. We’ve got one Bobcat front-end loader and a bunch of guys with shovels and picks. You do the math.”

  Terrific, Andrew had thought.

  “It sounds like I’m going to be here awhile,” he told Suzette.

  “That’s great.” A hint of a smile tugged the corner of her mouth up, then she affected a feigned look of pity. “I mean, that’s terrible.”

  He laughed despite himself. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. And thank you, too, by the way, for the note.”

  “Oh.” He winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “That. I just… I tried to wake you up, but…”

  “I thought it was cute. Kind of charming.” As she walked again, passing him, she added, “I’m making meatloaf tonight.” A coy glance over her shoulder. “Grandma Ada Jean’s recipe.”

  Because the tip of her tongue slipped out long enough to swipe daintily at her lip, a subtle but unmistakably suggestive gesture, Andrew felt the crotch of his jeans grow suddenly and uncomfortably tight.

  “Sounds good,” he said, and because his voice came out sort of strained, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Save some for me.”

  Suzette winked, walking away. “You got it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  He went back to his room and emptied his soggy wallet of its contents, spreading his credit cards, driver’s license, sodden scraps of paper, damp dollar bills and a foil-wrapped condom out on the bedspread to dry. His insurance cards, both auto and health, were pretty much paste. Only one piece of paper had survived relatively unscathed because it had been folded tightly, doubled in on itself along crisp creases time and again.

  Great, Andrew thought with a laugh. It wasn’t funny, but he had to anyway. Because it’s the one goddamn thing in my wallet I would’ve loved to see soaked into pulp.

  He sat on the floor at the foot of the bed and unfolded the page. The blue ballpoint ink his father had used to write the letter had smeared in places but that was because the letter had been crammed in his wallet for five years, and not necessarily because of the moisture. Though it remained legible, Andrew didn’t really need to read it. He’d pretty much memorized it by that point.

  Please try to understand, Eric Braddock had written. Our family has been through so much in the last fifteen months. The last thing I want to do is hurt you or your mother any further. I want her to be happy again, and she wants the same for me. And as hard as it is to admit it, that means no longer being married to each other. I’ve found someone else, someone I want to spend the rest of my life with.

  Andrew crumpled the letter in his hand, tossed it into the far corner. At about that same time, he heard a knock at his door.

  “Who is it?” he called with a frown as he got to his feet.

  “It’s me, Specialist Santoro.”

  “Let me guess.” His frown deepened as he opened the door half-way. Leaning his arm against the jamb, he looked down at her. “You found a scrap yard closer than Long Island.”

  She cocked her brow and hoisted her chin to meet his gaze, then held something out at him, a fierce, forceful gesture. “You dropped this on the floor of the garage. At least, I’m assuming it’s yours. None of the other guys around here could land a girl who looks like that.”

  Surprised, he glanced at her hand and saw she held a damp, wallet-sized photograph, a headshot of a young woman, her dark hair carefully curled and arranged, a sparkling rhinestone crown perched on top of her head.

  “She’s not my girlfriend.” He took the photo from Santoro. “She’s my sister.” Cradling the picture in his hand as he might have a butterfly, he carried it to his bed, placed it with the other contents of his wallet—because it must have fallen out of his billfold as he’d left the garage—and carefully smoothed it flat with his fingertips.

  Hey, Germ.

  He closed his eyes, imagining her again in her hospital bed, so weary and weak, she’d seemed made of glass to him, fragile and fading.

  Hey, Bess, he’d replied, because as a kid, he’d lisped; Bess had been as close an approximation as he’d been able to get to Beth and the moniker had stuck, even all of those years since his last speech therapy session.

  “What is she, like a homecoming queen?” Santoro asked from the doorway behind him. He hadn’t meant to leave the door standing open, hadn’t realized that he had until she spoke.

  “She was Miss Alaska,” he said, opening his eyes, looking down into Beth’s radiant smile. “Eight years ago.”

  “Wow.” Santoro spoke with an awkward edge to her voice, as if she recognized she had officially become intrusive, but couldn’t find a graceful way to excuse herself from the situation. “You mean she competed in Miss America?”

  “No. She got sick right after this picture was taken. She couldn’t go.”

  “Oh.” She laughed. “I thought that got you brownie points or something with the judges.”

  “She died.”

  “Oh.” Her laughter cut short. “I’m sorry.”

  “Why?” He glanced at her, found her staring at him, her dark eyes round, her brows lifted. “You didn’t kill her.”

  Santoro blinked, the softness in her face abruptly hardening again. “No,” she said. “But that’s what people say, you know, when they find out someone’s dead. It’s called being nice.” Spinning smartly on her heel, she marched off. “You should try it sometime.”

  * * *

  Suzette’s meatloaf turned out to be as good as her fried chicken. The same could be said for the sex that immediately followed. She didn’t stir as he eased his way out of the bed some time later and redressed. The gin and tonic she’d downed with her cigarette had only been a nightcap to top off the countless shots of tequila she’d had in place of any food for supper. His hangover from the night before had remained too fresh in his mind for Andrew to have joined her, but this hadn’t deterred Suzette in the least. And like the night before, she’d eventually passed out, obliviously unconscious.

  As he made his way to the front door, he glanced toward the living room, half-expecting to see Alice sitting in the shadows at the coffee table again, computing the square root of pi. He was almost disappointed when he didn’t.

  He carried his boots in his hand as he ducked out of the apartment, not wanting to clomp too loudly across the hardwood floor and disturb Alice or Suzette. Sitting on the top step leading down to the main floor, he shoved his feet back into the shoes, and cocked his head, listening to sounds of laughter floating up to reach him.

  He went downstairs and saw the lights on in the rec room. The laughter emanated from here, along with the faint sounds of music. Someone had fired up the jukebox.

  Shit. The last thing he needed was for the soldiers to catch him sneaking out of the Moore residence.

  Failure to comply with these instructions will result in your being arrested and charged with felony trespass on government property. He could hear Prendick’s stern voice in his mind.

  Shit.

  He thought about going back upstairs to the apartment and laying low until the soldiers left. They were only allowed an hour of free time in the evenings, two at most, so he figured they wouldn’t be much longer in the rec room.

  But then I’ll be risking getting caught if Moore comes home early. Which would be worse, he wondered—being busted by the good doctor, with whom he’d stand a snowball’s chance in hell of staying out of jail? Or the soldiers, who at least might be sympathetic to him, unders
tanding that he’d been getting laid, for Christ’s sake, not pilfering government secrets?

  “Shit,” he muttered, moving forward, trying to stick to the shadows just beyond the spill of yellow glow coming from the rec room doorway. His plan was simple: slip past the room unnoticed, then cross the foyer, head upstairs and dart into his room with no one the wiser. And it was a good plan, too, one that probably would have went off without a hitch had Corporal O’Malley not walked out of the rec room just as Andrew crept past.

  “Hey, Mister Braddock,” he called with a broad grin, entirely too loud and cheerful.

  “It’s just Andrew,” Andrew replied with a cringe, glancing nervously past O’Malley’s shoulder toward the interior of the rec room.

  “You know how to play eight-ball, Just-Andrew?” O’Malley asked, still with that goofy-looking half-cocked grin on his face. “You know, pool.”

  “Sure,” Andrew said, at a loss, wanting desperately to escape.

  “Great,” O’Malley exclaimed, hooking Andrew by the arm as he turned to call back into the rec room. “Hey, Danny! Looks like the game’s back on. I found you a new partner.”

  “What?” Andrew blinked, then shook his head even as O’Malley dragged him across the threshold. “Hold on. No. I didn’t—”

  His protest cut short once inside the rec room, where he faced twin pool tables, one of which stood conspicuously vacant. Several soldiers had gathered around the other, most out of uniform and in the T-shirts, sweatpants or jogging shorts worn for physical training.

  Not Danny, Andrew realized in surprise. He hadn’t pictured Santoro in his mind as someone who went by Dani.

  Wow, he thought.

  He hadn’t recognized her at first. Her hair, normally up in a ponytail or bun, hung down to her shoulders in loose, dark waves. Her grey T-shirt hugged the trim curves of her torso, the emblazoned ARMY lettering standing out against the slight swells of her breasts. Her black shorts revealed tanned, toned legs, generous hips and a slender waist beneath.

  Wow, he thought again.

  “Good news.” O’Malley slapped Andrew heavily on the shoulder that left him stumbling forward. “Just-Andrew here said he’d partner up with you.”

  “Great,” Dani said, although the look on her face suggested she thought it was anything but.

  When Andrew tried to sputter in protest, O’Malley leaned close, speaking into his ear. “Look, this is really important—the grand championship finals between the E-3s and E-4s. Me and Dani, we’ve worked our asses off these past few weeks to get to this round, only to find out my squad’s got maneuvers tonight. I can’t hang or I would. It’s just two more games. You two smoke them.” He nodded to indicate two of the soldiers standing near the pool table. “Then those two.” Another nod. “That’s it.”

  “But I—” Andrew began, shooting a pleading look at Santoro.

  O’Malley clapped his shoulder again. “Consider this your chance to be military material. A gift from me to you.”

  “Great,” Andrew said. Some fucking gift.

  “Thanks.” To Dani, O’Malley leaned forward, holding out his fist. When she did the same, he knocked his knuckles into hers. “Kick some PFC ass for me.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “PVC?” Andrew asked as Santoro led him back to the pool table.

  “PFC,” she corrected. “Stands for Private First Class. They’re E-3s, ranked beneath E-4s like me and O’Malley.”

  “Oh.” Feeling uncomfortable and intrusive, Andrew stood somewhat behind her as she offered introductions. He wanted to say something to her, apologize for being such a dickhead earlier when she’d brought back his photograph of Beth, but she wouldn’t give him the chance.

  “This is Greg Taylor and Nick Jones.” She pointed to the pair closest to the table, who each leaned against the pool cues they held and awarded Andrew affable nods. “We’re playing them first. Then if we win, we’re up against Tweedledee and Tweedledum over there, Matt LaFollette and Mike Turner.”

  She flapped her hand at the other two soldiers. One of them gave him a short, curt wave, while the other nodded once.

  “You ever play before?” Santoro asked, chalking up her cue stick.

  “Uh.” Andrew shrugged. “Sure.”

  When she tossed him the little, well-worn cube, he fumbled, then dropped it on the floor, leaving a bright blue smutch on the linoleum. She rolled her eyes. “Great,” she muttered within his earshot. “This should be fun.”

  She leaned over and beat him to the punch, just as he, too, reached for the fallen chalk. “Okay, listen,” she said, her brows narrowing. “Nick just broke. They’re solids. That means we’re trying to hit the balls with the stripes on them…” She mimed holding a ball in her hand, painting a stripe around its diameter. “…into the pockets.” Now she pretended to plunk the invisible ball into an equally invisible hole.

  “Thanks for that,” he said dryly.

  “Just try not to scratch and stay out of my way,” she said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Ten minutes later, Andrew leaned across the table, his arm extended, his fingers fanned out to bridge his cue. “Corner pocket,” he said, leveling his sites on the eight ball near the far end of the table. Pausing conspicuously, he glanced over his shoulder at Dani Santoro, his brow arched. “It’s okay to hit that one now, isn’t it? Even though it doesn’t have…” He relaxed his grip on the back of cue long enough to twirl his index finger in a circle. “…a stripe around it?”

  Without looking back at the table, he made the shot, sinking the eight in the pocket he’d predicted, thus winning the game for them—and all without the other team having even had the chance to take a shot.

  “You ran the table,” Santoro observed as Greg Taylor and Nick Jones slinked away, muttering together and shooting dark looks in Andrew’s general direction.

  “I did?” Andrew feigned innocent obliviousness while the next two players, Matt LaFollette and Mike Turner chalked their sticks and racked the balls.

  “Where’d you learn to play like that?”

  Dropping her a wink, he said, “North Pole.”

  On the next game, he let her take some shots, primarily because he was curious to see if she was any good. She turned out to be surprisingly so, particularly considering she was short enough for her stature to have been a possible handicap when it came to making long shots. He discovered something else along the way that had been hidden beneath the drab and unflattering uniform—Dani Santoro had a great ass. And when she bent over the pool table, stretching out her arms to take aim, the dark cotton of her shorts stretched tight, the bottom hem riding up just enough to make the crotch of Andrew’s jeans feel uncomfortably tight.

  “Go ahead, Santoro,” one of their opponents, Turner, said as she lined up a shot. “Put it up the little tramp’s ass.” Leaning against the nearest wall, his arms folded across his chest, he dropped a conspicuous sideways grin at his partner, LaFollette, who then guffawed.

  Santoro glanced up from her cue, her brows narrowed. “Real funny,” she said, and whatever the private pun was, it clearly bothered her. Even though she redirected her attention to the table, she missed the shot, the nine ball glancing off the bumper and narrowly skating past the pocket.

  “Little tramp’s ass?” Andrew said, curious, his brow raised.

  “It’s nothing.” Santoro glowered at Turner again.

  “It’s a Langley-ism,” Turner offered helpfully, though this meant nothing to Andrew.

  “Like I said. It’s nothing,” Santoro said, still frowning. With this, she turned, handing her cue stick to Andrew. “I’ll be right back. I need to hit the latrine.”

  Andrew couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t alone in not-so-surreptitiously checking Santoro out as she left the room.

  “Man,” LaFollette said, sucking in a hiss through his teeth. “How’d you like to tap a piece of that?”

  “Watch it, man,” Turner said. “Don’t let O’Malley hear you say shit like that.
”

  The two privates laughed.

  “You mean, the two of them…they’re together?” Andrew asked.

  LaFollette laughed again. “Yeah. In O’Malley’s wet dreams.”

  “He just wants to,” Turner said.

  “He’s been trying to get in her pants since the day he got here,” said LaFollette. “Langley said he was the only guy he’d ever seen who was pussy-whipped without getting any pussy.”

  The two soldiers laughed again.

  “Langley?” Andrew said. “The guy who came up with ‘put it up the little tramp’s ass?’” Apparently Langley was a veritable fount of such colorful phrases.

  “Yeah. Grant Langley. He was A squadron’s leader. Hand-picked by Prendick. They all were.”

  “Santoro’s always been pissed off about that,” Turner told Andrew, leaning forward and speaking in a low, conspiratorial tone. “Said he didn’t deserve it. She was just jealous, if you ask me.”

  “He got sent home a month or so ago along with the rest of his squad. Captain Peterson, too. They all came down with Rocky Mountain spotted fever.” LaFollette shook his head, looking somber. “That’s some nasty ass shit.”

  Rocky Mountain spotted fever? Andrew thought in surprise. That’s the big secret about what happened to Lieutenant Carter, the guy who had my room before me? Everyone else had, to that point, seemed so tight-lipped about Carter and his whereabouts, that he found himself nearly disappointed with the banality of the truth. The forests all around them were teeming with deer ticks. Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease and other ailments transmitted through their bites should have been considered both a common enough concern and unextraordinary risk.

  “Hey, man.” Turner walked around the table toward Andrew, slipping an iPhone off a carrying clip on his waistband. “You ever here of a camel spider?”

  “Oh, yeah, show him,” LaFollette said, grinning.