laire knocked on Noah’s office door as she came into the room. “Ready?”

“Hey,” he said. “Can you give me fifteen more minutes, baby?” He looked up into his wife’s face. “Five,” he amended. “Five more minutes?”

“You sure you have time for this?” She sat down on the couch across from his desk and crossed a pair of legs that were still just as fine as they’d been when she’d caught his attention back in tenth grade.

She’d gotten dressed up. Skirt, silk blouse, heels. Heels. She was wearing makeup, too. She always wore a little, but today she had more than gloss on her lips. She was actually wearing mascara.

And high heels.

Noah was a little crunched today, timewise. But he was crunched every day. And with two jobs, two kids—one a teenager, God help them—they hadn’t managed to schedule a date night for four months. Claire had suggested lunch and he’d actually put it onto his schedule.

But now he realized that this wasn’t just lunch. This was lunch. As in, he was gonna get lunched.

“Yes,” he said absolutely. “I have time for this.”

His intercom buzzed, but Noah hit the Talk button. “Maddy, hold my calls. Claire and I are taking a long, long lunch today and we’re leaving in approximately four and one-half minutes.”

Claire started smiling when he said that second long, and he knew he wouldn’t be back in the office until three thirty, when she had to go pick up Dora and Devin from day camp.

“This one sounds important,” Maddy’s voice came back. “It’s someone named Sam or Roger or Ringo—he wasn’t too clear on which one it was—and he says to tell you it’s an emergency, that Mary Lou’s dead?”

“Oh, dear God!” Claire sat forward, her hand on her heart. She gestured toward the phone. “Speaker phone! Speaker phone!”

Noah pushed the button. “Hey—”

“Ringo, it’s Claire.” She spoke right over him. “I’m here, too. What on earth happened?”

“I’m not sure.” Roger Starrett’s—he’d been calling himself Sam since he’d joined the SEALs—voice was clipped and tight. “Mary Lou and Haley came here to Sarasota about six months ago, to stay with her sister. We’ve been, um, separated. We were waiting on a divorce.”

Divorce? Noah met Claire’s eyes.

Did you know about this? she mouthed.

He shook his head. Noah hadn’t had more than a “Hi, I can’t talk right now” conversation with Sam in far more than six months.

“I lost touch with her about three weeks ago,” Sam continued, “and came out to see what was up and...” He cleared his throat. “I found her body in the kitchen of her sister’s house. I’m pretty sure she’s been there for just about the full three weeks.”

“Where’s Haley?” Noah asked.

Sam cleared his throat again. “I’m, uh, getting ready to go back in there to look for her.”

“Oh, dear sweet baby Jesus,” Claire breathed, tears in her eyes. “Do you really think...?”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “Look, I’ve called the feds—the FBI—and they’re on their way, but I was wondering... well...”

Ah, Ringo, Ringo, Ringo. Apparently it was still harder than hell for him to ask for help. Even with a dead wife on the kitchen floor. “Where are you?” Noah asked, hoping he could make it easier.

Sam rattled off an address not too far from Noah’s office.

“Hang on,” Noah said. “We’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Max.” Alyssa Locke came out of her office in obvious intercept mode.

“Not now,” he said, even though he took a deep breath as she came close to him. She always smelled impossibly good. “I’ve got fifteen calls that need to be returned two minutes ago.”

Lieut. Comdr. Tom Paoletti, the former CO of SEAL Team Sixteen, who was a colleague—no, a friend—had just been brought in for some serious questioning related to last year’s Coronado presidential assassination attempt/terrorism case—a case that was extremely high priority for Max’s superiors.

They wanted it solved. No kidding. Max wanted it solved, too. But not badly enough to start tossing around some ridiculous conspiracy theory that would implicate a fine, upstanding, and completely patriotic naval officer with an otherwise impeccable record.

With the breaking news about the al-Qaeda tapes—the confirmed knowledge that there were still terrorist cells with the ability to do a crapload of damage all around the world—this was definitely not the right time to start pointing fingers and pulling one of the best Spec War commanders in the Navy out of the game.

But no. Why be smart when you can make newspaper headlines and maybe gain some public recognition points? Election day, after all, was coming.

And so the word had come down to Max that Tom Paoletti had been brought in for questioning regarding those weapons the terrorists had used, the ones everyone assumed had been smuggled onto the Navy base at least several days in advance of the assassination attempt. Because of the seriousness of the potential charges against him, Tom was going to be held under guard for an undetermined amount of time.

If the theory proved true and Tom did have terrorist connections, they didn’t want him out and about. Of course, when the theory was proven to be just more senseless crap, they would have taken away the freedom of an innocent man for weeks, maybe even months, and completely destroyed his career.

The thought of it made Max’s teeth hurt. This was America, for God’s sake, not Nazi Germany. Still, terrorism created fear. And fear could bring out the collaborator in even the most liberal politicians.

“I heard about Tom,” Alyssa said.

“Then you know why I can’t talk to you right now.” Max put his briefcase down beside his desk and bumped his mouse so that his computer’s screensaver would disappear. “I have to make those phone calls.”

Seven new emails. Six of them marked “Urgent.” He glanced up at Alyssa. “Close the door behind you on your way out.”

She closed the door, but when he glanced up again, she was still in his office. If this were a porno flick, she’d lock it, too, flash that smile that always gave him a cardiovascular workout, and start taking off that designer suit she was wearing in a slow striptease. They’d have sex, right on his desk.

Yeah, right. Real life was never as good as the movies.

Instead, she folded her arms across her chest and announced, “Sam Starrett called about ten minutes ago.”

Fuck.

Funny how U.S. Navy SEAL Lt. Sam Starrett’s favorite word was the first thing to pop into Max’s head whenever the man was so much as mentioned.

First things first. “Are you okay?” he asked Alyssa.

He managed to keep his voice even and matter-of-fact. And not sounding at all as if his blood pressure had just gotten high enough to make it possible for him to orbit the moon should he so much as pass gas.

“Yes.” She looked okay. She seemed as calm, cool, and collected as she always did. Which of course meant nothing because she was as good a liar as he was. “He called because—”

But that yes was all Max needed to hear. “Nine o’clock,” he said, then amended it as he looked at the pile of files Laronda had put on his desk. “Make it ten. Your place. I’ll bring the pizza and beer. We’ll talk about it then, okay?”

“Someone killed his wife.”

Oh, fuck indeed. “Someone,” Max repeated.

She knew where he was going. “Not Starrett.”

He had to laugh even though none of this was even remotely funny. “Yeah, you’re impartial.”

“I thought the same thing at first. But it wasn’t Starrett.” She was convinced.

Whatever Sam Starrett had said to her had been effective. God damn it. Max didn’t need this right now. Tom Paoletti didn’t need this right now.

“Mary Lou—his wife—has been living in Florida,” Alyssa continued. “In Sarasota. He went to see her and found the body. He said she was shot, right in her kitchen.”

In her kitchen, in Sarasota. Which was right down the Gulf coast of Florida from Tampa. Which was the last place on earth Max should go and the one place he was dying to be.

He was being good and had been staying far from Tampa. Crap, going on eight months now he’d been goddamn perfect when it came to Gina Vitagliano, and now this. Somewhere, God was laughing His ass off at him.

“Sam and Mary Lou had separated,” Alyssa told him. “Did you know about that?”

Holy fuck, as Starrett would say. “No,” Max said. “I didn’t.” How come he didn’t know? This was something he should have been told.

She was looking at him hard. “Are you lying?”

He laughed. “Alyssa. Please. Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know, Max,” she said. “Why would you lie?”

No, thanks. He was not going there. “So why did he call you?” he countered. As if he didn’t know.

“He didn’t. He called Jules.”

Which was virtually the same as calling Alyssa. She and her partner were extremely close, and Starrett knew it.

“He’s going to be looked at as a suspect,” Max said, telling her something that she already knew. Husbands and ex-husbands were always high on the list in murder cases.

This was terrible timing. This was all Tom Paoletti needed—one of the top officers in SEAL Team Sixteen under suspicion of murder. It made the entire team look bad, like they were all killers and criminals.

If one member of a SEAL team could kill his wife, then another could sell weapons to terrorists. Damn it, it was even worse considering that Starrett had been the first to spot the weapon in the crowd on the day the President had nearly been shot. The conspiracy theorists would have a field day with this—saying that of course Starrett saw the weapon because he knew where to look.

Forget about the logic as to why, if he were involved, Starrett would ID the shooter, thus preventing the man from taking out his presidential target.

Logic and people who subscribed to conspiracy theories were often strangers to each other.

But okay. Here they were. There was a dead wife on the kitchen floor and a good man—Paoletti—already under suspicion of wrongdoing. Max had to go down to Sarasota and make sure that Starrett had a strong alibi and was no longer a suspect before the news about this murder leaked to the media. And if it turned out that the SEAL really had killed his wife...

Tom was royally screwed.

Max flipped through his date book, checking his schedule on his computer, too.

Alyssa knew what he was doing. “You can’t go,” she said. “You have that meeting tomorrow morning with the President.”

“Where’s Jules, again?” he asked. Alyssa’s partner, Jules Cassidy, had taken several days off. But that was before all hell had broken loose.

“His mother’s getting married today,” Alyssa said.

Shit. “Call him in.”

“He’s in Hawaii,” she informed him. “Even if you could be that cruel, it’ll take him a full day to get to Sarasota.”

“I want someone down there who knows Starrett,” Max said shortly, “and I’m not sending you.”

The moment the words left his lips, he recognized how stupid and petty and childish he was being. This wasn’t about him wanting to protect Alyssa from the emotional pain of seeing a former lover. This was about jealousy. It was fear that if she got anywhere within twenty-five miles of Sam Starrett, she’d never come back.

Alyssa was just standing there, watching him with those eyes that could see through all his layers of crap.

Max stood looking back at her, wishing that he could snap his fingers and make everything go away. Mary Lou Starrett would spring instantly back to life. Tom Paoletti would still be CO of Team Sixteen. The World Trade Center towers would still be standing. Terrorists everywhere would be thwarted at every turn.

And Gina...

In his perfect, finger-snap-generated world, Max had never so much as met Gina Vitagliano. If he hadn’t, he and Alyssa Locke probably would’ve been married for a year by now, and his life would be tidy and serene and blissfully satisfying, his meager hours away from the office spent with a woman who was a perfect match for him in every way. His life would be orderly—instead of this current train wreck of near-howling frustration and chaotic anxiety.

He picked up his telephone. “Laronda, Locke needs to get to Sarasota ASAP. And schedule a flight for me for late tomorrow morning, after eleven, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

Max hung up the phone. “I’m sorry if I was—”

Alyssa touched him. She never touched him in the office, but now she touched his arm—just a brief squeeze. “I’ll be okay.”

She thought he didn’t want her to go because he was worried about her.

He was a total shithead.

Max broke his own rule for what was or was not appropriate for the office between himself and a subordinate, and as usual, when he broke a rule, he completely detonated it. He pulled her hard into his arms and held her tightly.

She was soft and warm and, yes, she smelled too good. Somehow, over the past year, this woman had become outrageously important to him—she’d become his confidante, his best friend. It would hurt like hell to lose her.

In fact, he might very well never stop bleeding.

“Be careful.” It was such an inadequate thing to say, but it was all he could manage.

“I will.” Alyssa kissed him, her lips soft against his cheek before she slipped out of his grasp. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She gave him one last smile and this time she shut the door firmly behind her.

Max gave himself a little time—at least ten or fifteen seconds—to regain his equilibrium before he got on the phone and started making those calls.!!!December 1, 1943!!!Dear Mae,!!!I wanted to write this letter on Thanksgiving, to wish you and little Jolee a Happy Day, but I was high over the Rockies, transporting a plane to California.!!!It was a brand-spanking-new North American P-51D Mustang. (I know, I know, this means nothing to you! Suppose instead that I say that a Mustang moves at 435 miles per hour—what a thrill to fly that fast!) This plane had been used for training out in Iowa, and, boy, this baby could fly. I had some fun, all right. I was sorry to land at my final destination in (CENSORED).!!!I was sorrier still when I caught sight of a newspaper and saw the casualty lists from Tarawa.!!!That news from the war in the Pacific has made us all somber, I’m afraid, and it didn’t seem as if there was much this year to be thankful for. I know you miss Walt very much, and I’m sure he must be missing you and the baby dreadfully.!!!Still, I wanted to let you know that regardless of this wretched war, I myself have much to be thankful for this year, and high on my list is my friendship with you and Walter. It’s occurred to me as I’m sitting here that I never told you the details of how it was that your husband came to bring me to your house that night more than a solid year ago.!!!So here goes. I hope it will make you laugh, or at least lighten your heart.!!!I was flying a clunker of an old P-40 from Memphis to the airfield in Tuskegee. That’s always the scariest job—taking up an aircraft that has just been pulled out of mothballs. Forget the normal checklist—I nearly overhauled the engine, checking to make sure that thing wasn’t going to fall out of the sky with me inside.!!!But despite my makeshift tune-up, this P-40 developed a bad case of the hiccups when I was about 130 miles outside of Tuskegee. I pushed on, hoping I’d make it those last few miles. I knew that if it got worse, I could always look for a place, a field or even a flat stretch of road, to set that puppy down.!!!But I didn’t want to do that. After landing somewhere other than an airstrip, taking off again would be a pain in the you-know-what.!!!I turned on the radio to let Tuskegee know that I was having some problems and—I swear to you—the switch came off in my hand. There wasn’t much I could do to fix it. I could only sit back and fly.!!!But then there it was—the airfield. Right in front of me. I said a quick prayer of thanks. (That “God is my copilot” thing is no joke!)!!!I flew by the tower, signaling that my radio was out and that I needed to land immediately.!!!They gave me the go-ahead, using flags to signal me back, and I turned to come around and land the plane.!!!Only that P-40 stalled on me. It coughed, and it choked, and then I was in this large piece of metal that was falling fast—too fast—toward that landing strip.!!!I swear to you, my life—all twenty-eight pathetic years of it— flashed before my eyes. I remember thinking about that too-handsome captain I’d met two weeks earlier in Albuquerque. I remember thinking that I should have danced with him. (And yes, dearest friend, I am being euphemistic when I use the word dance. Oh, how I love to shock you!)!!!But I wasn’t ready to go to my heavenly reward, and I used every trick in the book, and made up a few brand-new ones, to get that engine turning over again. I still don’t know exactly how I did it, but I did. I came within thirty feet of the ground, and by now I was going way too fast to land, so I pulled up, hard, and went around again. This time, though, I didn’t stall. This time, I brought that POS-40 in and landed it, neat as a pin.!!!So there I was, climbing out of that plane, shaken to h*ll and white as a sheet, thinking that I’ve got to go change my drawers. I was ready to kiss that dusty ground and spend about a week in church.!!!Only this man, this tall Negro man, comes running over to me, spitting fire.!!! “What in Sam H*ll kind of flying is that?” he shouted at me in his clipped Yankee northern accent. “How dare you fly so recklessly here! Not only did you endanger the lives of everyone on this airfield and yourself, but you came d*mned close to destroying this plane! We don’t have half as many P-40s as we need, and you nearly turned this one into a crumpled piece of metal, ready to be dragged to the scrap pile!”!!!You know me, Mae my dear, and it didn’t take long for my terror to turn into anger. And so I lit back into him, shouting over him as I pulled off my leather flight helmet. “I nearly died flying this piece of sh*t! That engine stalled on me when I went into that first turn, and let me tell you, Jack, landing that plane in one piece was a miracle similar to turning water to wine, and now I’m getting chewed out by a mechanic? I demand to see your commanding officer, and I demand to see him now!”!!!Well.!!!He’d stopped shouting and now this tall Negro man was staring at me, at my messy, blond, and very female hair. And as I stared back at him, I realized he outranked me by about a mile. This was no enlisted mechanic. No, this man had lieutenant colonel clusters on his uniform, and it said “Gaines” above the pocket of his shirt.!!!I looked down at the paper I was holding, and indeed, the name of the CO to whom I was to deliver this plane was Lt. Col. Walter Gaines.!!!He was clearly as stunned to see a pilot who was a woman as I was to see a lieutenant colonel and commanding officer who was not white.!!!I did the only thing I could think of to do in this situation. I snapped into a sharp salute and said, “Lieutenant Colonel Gaines, I beg your pardon, sir.”!!!I’d been trying to be a part of this man’s Army Air Corps since 8 December, 1941, and I can tell you that although I was a first lieutenant, I was only a WASP, and men weren’t allowed to salute me because I’m a woman. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t salute higher ranking officers if I wanted to. And I wanted to make it clear to your husband that my mistake had been from ignorance, not insolence.!!!Lieutenant Colonel Gaines gave me an answering salute and a smile.!!! “I’m glad you managed to land safely, Lieutenant Smith,” he told me. “You say you stalled when you turned?”!!! “Yes, sir. She was temperamental the entire flight, but she completely quit on me a little earlier than I wanted her to.” I took him over to the plane, and we messed around with engine for quite some time.!!!While we did that, I told him about the Women’s Auxiliary Ferry Squadron (that’s what it was called back then; it wasn’t until last summer they started calling us Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs), and that due to the shortage of male pilots, the Army Air Corps was making use of female flyers for such home front assignments as equipment transport and delivery. In turn, he told me about the Tuskegee experiment—that due to the shortage of white male pilots, the Army Air Corps had begun pilot training for exemplary Negro men. He was the commander of a squadron made up entirely of colored pilots. What an opportunity! I was envious because there was a chance they’d see action, while it was clear that I never would.!!!As we checked that engine, it was also clear to me that Walter Gaines knew as much about airplanes as I did. And I knew that I’d impressed him as much as he’d impressed me.!!!Walter shook my hand as I climbed onto the bus that would take me to the white part of the air base, and he said, “That was some good flying today, Lieutenant.”!!!That made me feel proud, because clearly he was a well-educated man and a skillful pilot himself, and that should have been that. End of story.!!!Except later that day, in the early evening, I was sitting on a bench outside of the officers’ mess on the white part of the base, and who should come walking along the dusty road from the colored airfield but Lt. Col. Gaines.!!!He was taking his time because it was a hot summer evening. He lifted his hand to me in greeting, but he didn’t walk any faster.!!! “Waiting for the bus into town?” he said when he moved into calling distance.!!!I stood up. “Yes, sir.” I was supposed to catch a flight back to Chicago, but I’d come in a little late, and the next plane wasn’t leaving for three days.!!!I’m sure he noticed my flight bag, because he said, “You might have difficulty finding a room in town. It’s college graduation tomorrow.” He smiled at me. “On the other hand, there’ll be parties and celebrations going on. You should probably plan to stay back here on base tonight, though.”!!! “Well, now,” I said. “That creates something of a problem, sir, seeing as how I’ve just been informed that there’s nowhere here on base for a female pilot to be billeted.” I laughed, making light of it. “I’ll just have to throw myself on God’s mercy—find a church in town that has cushions on the pews.” This was not the first time this had happened to me, and I knew for a fact that Walter must have had similar experiences.!!!D*mn, standing there talking to me, he—a lieutenant colonel—couldn’t even sit down to wait for the bus because the bench was marked “Whites Only.”!!!I took my flight bag and moved over to the other bench, the one with peeling paint, so we could both take a load off.!!! “You know,” Walter said, as he looked at me, “you’re welcome to come home with me.”!!!And oh, Mae, you know me! My brain always finds the nastiest explanation for anything. Or maybe I was still thinking too much about that missed dance with that captain back in New Mexico, because I remember sitting there, staring at Walter in total shock, thinking he’d just invited me to...!!!Well. You know Walt, too. He’s a very smart man, and it didn’t take him long to figure out where my thoughts had flown, just from looking at the expression on my face. I’m sure my cake hole was hanging open!!!!Walter quickly apologized. I swear, the man began backpedaling so hard, it’s a wonder he didn’t end up three counties away.!!!After he was done clearing his throat, he said, “I can say with complete certainty that my wife, Mae, wouldn’t be adverse to your occupying the bed in our guest room.”!!!Me, I’m sitting there, relieved as all h*ll that I haven’t just been propositioned by a lieutenant colonel.!!!But I hadn’t yet answered, and the bus was approaching, and Walt said, “Unless, of course, you’d prefer to stay in the church.”!!!And I knew what he was really saying was “Unless like some of the ignorant folk around these parts you have some kind of problem staying in the home of good, honest, and upright colored people.”!!!I looked him in the eye, and I said, “I would not be adverse—in fact, I would be most delighted, sir—to sleep in a real bed in your guest room. Are you sure your wife won’t mind?”!!!He gave me a smile. And he said, “I’m positive she’ll enjoy the company, Lieutenant.”!!!And that, dearest friend, is how I came to meet you.!!!I’m out of space and must rush to get this letter in the post.!!!You and Walt and precious Jolee are always in my thoughts and my prayers. I hope your health is improving—you must think strong thoughts! I’ll try to stop in and see you soon.!!!Happy Thanksgiving!!!!Love,!!!Dot