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“So, what’s Becca Sandoza really like?” Jase asked him as they cruised down the coastal highway, heading north back to Crimson Point. “The media paints her like she’s standoffish and snobbish.”
“She’s not,” Ryder answered. “She’s a total sweetheart, she just hates having her privacy invaded, and the stalker incident this fall made her even more wary.”
“No doubt. Is it weird? Having your best friend engaged to a movie star?”
“It was at first. Not anymore.” Chase and Becca were great together.
And he’d be lying if he didn’t admit thinking about getting together with Danae.
He’d thought about her constantly since last night, after they’d been interrupted at the lighthouse. She had driven him home soon after. He’d kissed her again in the driveway, and the way she leaned into him, the way she melted in his arms had made him want to drag her inside and lay her on his bed, strip her and devour every inch of her.
Somehow, he’d made himself get out of the car and go inside his cottage alone. He’d held off on going to see her earlier, spending the day with Jase instead, and texting her a couple times.
The time apart hadn’t changed anything on his end. He wanted more. But since he would only be here a few more days, he needed her to be sure she was okay with that before they took things any farther.
“How well do you know Danae?” he asked after a lapse in the conversation.
“Pretty well. I mean, not as well as Moll does. Why?”
“Has she dated anyone since her husband died?”
“Don’t think so.” Jase shot him a knowing grin. “Why, you interested?”
Hell yes, he was interested. How could he not be? He hadn’t dated in a while either. Nothing serious anyway, and the occasional hookup. “Just wondering.”
“She’s great. But what about you? How are you doing?”
“Me? Fine.”
“Okay.”
Of course Molly would have said something to him about her concerns.
The incident on Christmas Eve had shaken him. He realized he couldn’t conquer this on his own, and Jase would understand better than most what he was going through. “When you got out of the military, did you ever...talk to anyone? About stuff.”
“Yeah, I talked to Beckett and Carter. A lot.”
“But not a professional or anything?”
“Eventually. But not until after Carter died. Moll pushed me until I finally agreed to talk to a therapist. You wanting to talk to someone?”
He folded his arms, feeling awkward and embarrassed even though he knew Jase wouldn’t judge. It was just hardwired into him, the alpha male attitude of rub some dirt on it and move on.
But he wasn’t moving on. Not really. He was stuck and needed to do something about it before it ruined his life. “Maybe.”
“You could start with telling me or Beckett if that’s easier,” Jase offered. “I promise not to repeat anything to Moll.”
Ryder appreciated that. He stared out the windshield at the darkened, winding road and the bank of fog they were driving through that dropped visibility to twenty yards ahead. It was sort of a metaphor. He felt like he was trapped in a fog bank too sometimes.
It was time to talk about this. And he was comfortable enough with Jase to try. “During my last tour, there was an ambush. I took a squad out to a remote village, acting on perishable intel about a possible bomb-making factory. It was a high-risk mission, because we’d been warned up front that we’d be all on our own, with no reinforcements if anything went wrong.”
Jase made a low sound to let him know he was listening, and it helped Ryder keep going, even though his hands were balled into fists beneath his folded arms. “Command felt the target was worth the risk, and I volunteered to lead the mission on the ground. Helo dropped us at an LZ two miles out. We humped up the mountain on foot, taking our position about two hours before sunrise.”
His heart beat faster, the images vivid in his mind. The green glow of the terrain and distant buildings in his NVGs. The smell of the earth, and the wood smoke from the village fires on the wind. “Everything we’d been told seemed to check out. But it turned out to be the opposite. By the time we reached the target building the enemy had sounded the alarm. They came out of tunnels hidden below the village that no one had known about.”
“Shit.”
Yeah. His muscles were tight as wires, his chest tight as he continued. “We were surrounded and cut off within minutes. I radioed for help and was told it would be at least three hours before they could get anyone to us.” He swallowed. “We took cover and held them off for as long as we could. Took our first casualty within the first five minutes, and after that it turned into a fucking bloodbath.”
“Did you get the reinforcements?”
“Eventually. But by the time the sun came up, it was too late. I was the only one not dead or severely wounded.” It was sheer dumb luck. There was no other explanation.
“Shit, I’m sorry.”
Ryder nodded once, jaw tight, but the awful tension in his belly and chest was lessening a bit now that he’d said it all. Telling someone who had been in combat made it easier.
“There were still a few guys alive when we got to the base hospital. The staff wouldn’t let me near them. MPs dragged me out of the building. Two more guys died before I was finally allowed back in. The other three were busted up so badly they were operated on and immediately shipped to Germany for more treatment. One lost an eye, a hand and his lower leg, and all I needed was some stitches.”
“Did your command try to lay the blame on you?” Jase asked in a hard tone.
“No. But I don’t know how to live with the guilt.” And the next part was the hardest to admit aloud. “I got a text from one of my fallen Marine’s widows the other night. A nice one. Then I got shitfaced. Danae showed up while I was passed out.”
Jase winced. “Sorry.”
“I...sort of told her about what happened. But not everything. I don’t want to burden her with my shit.” Didn’t want to put those images in her head.
“I get it. How much are you drinking?”
Again, Molly must have told Jase her suspicions. “Too much lately. That’s why I came out here, to go cold turkey away from everything back home.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“Guess I need to see a pro.”
“Yeah. Beckett had similar issues when he got out too. We all do. War is fucked-up and it always leaves a mark, even if the scars are invisible to everyone else. Beck’s about as stubborn as they come, but even he finally reached out for help. He was referred to a psychologist who’s a four-time combat vet, and really liked the guy, so I’ve seen him too. I can give you his contact info.”
Ryder exhaled a relieved breath. There was hope after all. “Thanks. Can’t hurt.”
“No. And if you—” He broke off suddenly and hit the brakes.
Ryder’s gaze shot to the figure emerging from the fog at the edge of the road ahead. Whoever it was, they were in bad shape and out here in the middle of nowhere.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, quickly undoing his seatbelt and reaching for the door handle. He was out of the truck and rushing toward the person before Jase had even pulled over to park.
As he ran, the person became clearer. A woman in a torn, filthy turquoise jacket, the front of it smeared with blood, and her hands bound behind her as she staggered out of the fog toward them.
Holy shit.
Ryder slowed a few paces away so as not to scare her, holding his palms out as he approached. She was gasping, trembling, more smears of blood on her jaw and cheek. “I’m going to help you,” he said in a low voice just as Jase ran up behind him.
When she stayed put, he gently grasped her upper arm and turned her slightly. Some bastard had clamped her wrists together with tactical nylon restraints. She was clearly in shock, but the blood worried him most.
He scanned her quickly, trying to figure out if it was hers, but didn’t see any obvious wounds. “Ma’am,” he said when she didn’t respond, her gaze unfocused. Next to him, Jase was already on his phone calling for help. “We’re getting help. Are you hurt?”
She stared up at him, shaking, the anguish in her eyes slicing through him like a blade. “They’re dead,” she rasped out unsteadily. “They’re all dead.”
****
One last bit of paperwork and she could go home, take a shower, and then hopefully spend the evening with Ryder once he got back.
Danae typed some notes into the program open on the clinic computer, eager to get this wrapped up. Since it was a small clinic, her duties weren’t just limited to treating animals and helping with tests. She also did admin work and helped Sierra keep on top of the never-ending job of keeping supplies and inventory stocked.
She looked over her shoulder at the sound of the back door rattling, her fingers pausing on the keyboard. The clinic was closed, and she was alone in the back room. Was it Sierra? The lock was tricky, maybe her key was stuck again.
She stepped toward the door, only to jump and bite back a scream as it suddenly burst open. A masked man came through it, his arm wrapped around another man, who was bleeding heavily from his side.
The first man’s gaze locked on Danae. She backed away instinctively, heart in her throat, and it almost stopped beating when his gloved fist flashed up to point a gun at her. She stared at it in shock, a burst of terror streaking through her.
He kicked the door shut behind him and advanced on her. “You’re going to stop the bleeding so I can get him out of here,” he told her in a low, menacing voice, only his mouth and eyes visible, narrowed to slits in the mask holes. “Patch him up, right now.”
He shifted his grip on the wounded man. Now,” he barked when she didn’t move.
She jerked and turned blindly for the supply shelf at the side of the room. He was blocking the back door, and she’d never make it to the other one across the room before he shot her. She was trapped. Had to do what he said, and then hopefully he’d leave.
Her hands shook as she reached for various things on the shelves, accidentally knocking boxes and supplies to the floor.
“Hurry!” he snarled, dragging the bleeding man toward the only flat surface in the staff room—the desk she’d just been working at. He swept an arm across the surface, sending her laptop crashing to the floor and scattering papers everywhere.
Some stupid reflex made her bend to pick some of the papers up. He snarled at her, snatched a crumpled blue receipt from the top of the fistful she’d grabbed. “Move,” he commanded, stretching the bleeding man onto the desk.
Struggling to stay calm, Danae hesitantly moved closer and got her first look at her patient, who didn’t have a mask on. He was young, maybe in his mid to late twenties, with short, dark hair and a few days of growth on his face. He was still conscious, but barely, his light green eyes unfocused, mouth slack.
Panic welled up. She was a vet tech, not an ER doctor. “What do you want me to—”
“Stop the fucking blood before he bleeds out,” the first man snapped, lifting the pistol to aim it right at her head.
Her insides shriveled as she gingerly approached the wounded man from the other side of the table, too many thoughts flooding her brain all at once. There was no way for her to escape without risking getting shot. No one around to hear her if she screamed for help, and the staff room didn’t have a security camera. Nobody knew what was going on. Nobody was coming to help.
She licked her lips, frantically gathering her racing thoughts and focusing on the task at hand. She needed to seem calm even if she wasn’t. Couldn’t risk doing anything to aggravate this situation or set the man off. “Pull his shirt out of the way,” she said, surprised her voice wasn’t shakier.
The man pulled the hem of the shirt upward, revealing what had to be a gunshot wound through his friend’s lower ribcage. And she noticed a heavy black tattoo on the back of the gunman’s wrist, moving up from his concealed hand to disappear under the sleeve of his jacket.
She pulled on surgical gloves and pushed the rising tide of fear aside, forcing her brain into work mode. Just do what you can to stop the bleeding. “Turn him so I can see if there’s an exit wound.”
“There is, and it’s bigger.”
The visual verified what he’d said. And a sudden, sinking sensation took hold. “He’ll have internal damage. I’m not a veterinary doctor, I’m a tech, and he needs surgery. Even if I stitch up the wounds, it won’t—”
“You stitch him up right the fuck now, or I’ll put a bullet through your head.”
God... She thought of Finn, of never seeing him again, and a new wave of terror broke over her. “Just...calm down, okay? You’re scaring me, and I can’t thread the suture needle when my hands are shaking like this. Put the gun down.”
He lowered it slightly but didn’t put it away. “Exit wound first,” he ordered, turning the man farther onto his side. The wounded guy groaned and started to squirm. “Stay still. She’s going to help you.”
Trying to keep her hands steady, she injected the edges of the wounds with lidocaine first, then cleaned up the edges and prepped the suture needle. It took her three tries to get it threaded with the needle-driver, and all the while more blood was spilling onto the surface of the desk, spreading out in a pool. The sight of blood didn’t usually faze her, but right now her stomach was churning.
It took eight stitches to close the exit wound, and four for the entry. By the time she was done, the man was barely conscious, his breathing choppy. She didn’t know how much blood he’d lost in total, but he was in really bad shape.
“Give him something for the pain, and then something for infection, just in case,” the man holding the gun ordered.
She grabbed some hydromorphone and Amoxicillin from the shelf, prepped syringes for both while guessing at the dosage for someone the patient’s size and injected him. Then she packed gauze pads on both wounds and taped them in place around his ribs.
“That’s the best I can do,” she said, stepping back. What would he do now? Leave. Please just leave, she prayed. “But he needs to go to the hospital.”
He fixed her with a hard stare, and the angle of his head allowed her to see the color of his eyes for the first time. Pale green, like the other man. Were they related?
Then he raised the weapon at her again, and every drop of blood in her body congealed, a scream of denial building in her throat. He was going to shoot her dead here in the middle of the staff room, even though she’d done everything he’d told her to.
No!
Her mind emptied of everything except for one, excruciating thought.
Finn. Her sweet boy. He was about to lose her too. Was about to be totally alone, with no parent to take care of him.
As she braced for the gunshot and the hideous pain, headlight beams flashed across the thin blind covering the square window in the door leading to the rest of the clinic.
The gunman cursed and shoved the gun into his waistband to grab the wounded man, lifting him over his shoulder. Danae spun around and darted into the closet. She flipped the lock and squeezed under the shelf in the far corner, cowering there in terror while her heart thundered against her ribs.
She jumped when the back door thudded against the wall a moment later. Then there was no sound except the pounding of blood in her ears over the sudden silence.
She didn’t dare move yet, hardly dared to breathe as she waited there, covered in a film of cold sweat. Agonizing seconds ticked past, each one a small eternity.
Still no sound from the staff room. Had he left?
Gathering her nerve, she carefully unlocked the door and cracked it open a fraction of an inch to peer into the room. It was empty, the back door standing open, framing a dark rectangle of the parking lot. The only sound coming from outside was the restless churn of the ocean in the background, then came the squeal of tires from somewhere up the street.
Sagging with relief, she darted from the closet, found her purse lying on the bloodstained floor, and fished out her phone to call 911.
