CHAPTER TEN
“I’ve got around fifteen minutes before the first official paintball game starts,” Ashley told Colleen, who’d sent her a rather upsetting text.
Sorry to bother you at camp, but there’s been a break-in. Call me when you can.
Thank God—at least—that this urgent problem had nothing to do with one of Ashley’s many clients, nearly all of whom were women seeking both escape and divorce from abusive spouses.
“Please tell me the break-in was at the office,” Ash continued. The law office where she and Colleen worked was in a strip-mall, in a part of town where desperate people often resorted to desperate measures. They’d had break-ins before, and had learned to keep everything of value out and off of their desks, securely locked in a safe.
But Colleen sighed. “Sorry, no, it was your apartment.”
Of course it was. Her immediate neighbors already were chilly toward her for accidentally parking in their “reserved guest spot,” right after moving in. It wasn’t theirs—there was no such thing as a reserved guest parking spot, but… whatever. Ash sighed. “How long did the alarm go off? What time did it go off?”
“Yeah, that’s the big mystery,” Colleen told her. “The alarm didn’t go off. When I went over this morning, to bring in your mail and water your plants…? I found the door ajar.”
“Oh, my God, are you okay? You didn’t go inside, did you?” Ashley asked. She looked up to find that her exclamation had brought Lieutenant Slade out of his trailer. But he stopped short, seeing that she was talking on the phone.
“Bobby and Wes were both with me,” Colleen said. “Just by chance. They went in while I called 9-1-1. Whoever was in there was already gone.”
“Oh, thank God,” Ash breathed, opening the screen door and going into her own RV to escape the SEAL’s watchful gaze. She’d intended to get up the nerve to talk to him during this relatively short break. What was that, that he’d done—all that touching—out on the paintball field just a few hours ago? Was that some kind of Navy SEAL foreplay…? But now that conversation was going to have to wait until after this afternoon’s game, because her freaking apartment had been freaking broken into.
“It doesn’t look like anything was taken,” Colleen reported, “but it’s pretty clear that the place has been tossed—you know, searched…? Drawers got dumped out, and the entire contents of your freezer was in a puddle on the kitchen floor.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” Colleen agreed. “That was weird, although Bobby and Wes seem convinced that everyone knows that everyone hides important things—even money—in their freezers.”
“I had some coconut milk ice cream and a six-month supply of Trader Joe’s frozen green beans,” Ashley lamented. “From when they were on sale.”
“Not anymore,” Colleen said.
“So my TV’s still there? And my computer?” Ashley asked, silently taking a mental inventory of anything of value in her apartment. “All my clothes are still in my closet?”
“Yeah—I hung everything back up.”
“Oh, God, really? My clothes were on the floor…? Is that weird? It feels weird.”
“If I had to guess,” Colleen said, “I’d say the perp was either trying to piss you off or search through all your pockets.”
“For what?”
“You tell me,” Colleen said.
“I have no idea. Crap, I’m almost out of time…”
“Are you really going to play paintball?”
“God help me,” Ashley said. “Yes. I’m on a team—a team, Col. This SEAL World thing is entirely about teams. Oh, my God, what am I doing here? But my team is with Clark and Kenneth and two, no, make that three manly-men douche-nozzle types.”
“Wait, Clark and Kenneth are there with you…?” Colleen’s voice went up an octave in disbelief.
“Yup. Surprise! Daddy sent Clarkie to… God, I don’t even know why he sent him. Maybe to make sure I don’t run off with some Navy SEAL…?”
“Ooh, what a good idea,” Colleen said. “Are there… many Navy SEALs available for running off with…?
“No,” Ashley said. “I mean, I maybe… I mean… I thought Jim was different, but now I’m not so sure…”
“Jim?” Colleen jumped on the name. “Slade? Please tell me it’s Jim Slade! Oh my God, Ashley, he’s great! I was going to try to set you up with him, but you went to New York, and when you came back you were in your never-gonna-date-again phase.”
“It’s not a phase,” Ashley said. “It’s a lifestyle choice. It just makes everything so much easier. I just wish…”
Ash had spent the entire session at the paintball field flashing hot and cold with shock and… something that felt embarrassingly like desire. What was wrong with her?
The more pressing question was, what was wrong with Jim? Somehow—by making penis jokes…? Really…?—Ashley had unwittingly signaled interest in him. Or at least that’s how he’d interpreted the fact that she’d sat at his outdoor table making penis jokes. She’d thought she was being funny—instead he’d heard Come have sex with me. God, she was an idiot.
And she was double the idiot because she’d liked it. His touch. The warmth of his big hands on her body… So maybe she had been saying… that… with those jokes… Except, no, she was pretty sure she hadn’t been. But now that he’d brought up the idea, she’d discovered she didn’t entirely hate it.
And wasn’t that an understatement…?
And really, what did it mean about her, that her immediate response wasn’t completely appropriate indignation about his disrespect, and was instead mixed with the weakened knees and rapid heartbeats of Oh, yes please…?
He was smart. He was funny. And smart and funny always, always trumped hot, although he was that, too…
“You do know,” Colleen said carefully after Ashley’s silence had dragged on a bit too long, “that there are plenty of options that don’t include the long-term. You could run off with, say, some handy, nearby, totally imperfect, too-manly-man Navy SEAL like Jim for a period of time significantly shorter than a lifetime. A night, for example? Or maybe two…?”
“I am aware of that, thanks, but… Should I come home?” Ashley asked.
“What?” Colleen said. “No! Definitely not. I cleaned up the green beans. Also… I don’t want to be creepy, but… it might be better if you’re not here until we find whoever it was who broke in.”
“We, Nancy Drew?” Ashley asked. “You and the Hardy Boys?”
“Me, the Hardy Boys—and the police,” Colleen corrected her. “Detective Booker wanted me to ask who’s got your alarm code, besides me.”
“No one,” Ashley said.
“Really no one else?” Colleen asked. “Not even Clark? Didn’t you give it to him when he and Kenneth came to visit a few months ago?”
“Well, yeah,” Ashley said. “But the system allows me to give temporary codes to visitors, and then reset the system after they’re gone. And I did. I’m not an idiot.” Yeah, actually she was, because her apartment had been broken into, and yet all she could think about was the way Jim had touched her as he’d helped improve her paintball-marker firing stance. That brain-melting warmth of his hand against her stomach… The sparkle of his eyes when he sat outside of his trailer and laughed with her…
“I’m not an idiot either,” Colleen said. “I swear, the detective asked me fifteen different times if maybe I’d forgotten to set it, last time I was over here. I finally called the alarm company who verified that it was set at precisely the time I said I’d set it, thank you very much. And—this is the extra-bad part: they have a record of it being turned off at around oh-three-hundred—three A.M.—last night.”
Three A.M. Usually Ash was sound asleep at three A.M. That would’ve been a really bad surprise… “They should have a record of which code was used,” she told Colleen.
“Yeah, it registered as your regular code,” Colleen told her. “The one I use.”
“And you haven’t given that code to anyone…?” Ashley pushed. “Did you write it down or leave it in the office, or—”
“Nope,” Colleen confirmed. “I mean, maybe I mumbled it in my sleep, but I really doubt Bobby’s the one who broke in to murder your green beans. So, you don’t have some kind of online account, where you keep all your passwords or…?”
“No,” Ash said.
“Is it possible that… someone who, you know, maybe, um, knows you really well might’ve been able to figure out the combination of numbers—”
“You mean Brad?”
“Yes,” Colleen said. “Yes, I mean Brad.”
“You honestly think it was Brad who broke in?” Ashley asked her friend.
“I still had a picture of the two of you in my phone,” Colleen said. “Some of your neighbors have seen him around lately. You know, skulking near your condo door.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly breaking news. Ashley was here in Florida because she’d seen Brad skulking.
“I know you gave him back that giant engagement ring,” Colleen said. “But did he give you, I don’t know, any other jewelry or…?”
“I gave him back everything,” Ash said, and asked again, “You seriously think it was Brad?”
“I’m on the fence, but Bobby and Wes are both convinced. Okay, here’s the next question,” Colleen said. “Who, besides me, has got a key?”
* * *
Jim tried his best not to listen as Ashley told her brother that someone had broken in to her apartment.
“But there was no sign of a forced entry,” she reported to Clark as they all waited, once again, outside of the trailer leading into the paintball field. “How they got in is a mystery.”
Kenneth was sitting in the shade, looking even more pale than he’d looked just a few hours earlier. Jim made a mental note for Thomas King to take a quick look at the kid when he made his rounds.
“I swear,” Clark told her. “I didn’t lose your key last time we visited.”
“If you ever do again, promise you’ll just tell me,” Ashley said. “I’d prefer to change the locks before someone lets themself into my apartment at three in the morning.”
Kenneth spoke up. “I find it hard to believe it’s not Brad, considering.”
Jim couldn’t stop himself from jumping in. “Someone broke into your place at oh-dark-thirty, plus you know your ex has been stalking you, and you don’t think it’s him…?”
Ashley’s eyes flashed with something—surprise? Annoyance? But it was quickly gone. “Brad’s a lawyer,” she said. “While he might’ve been able to guess my password—somehow, maybe, but I really don’t know how, unless he bugged my apartment and listened in while I gave it to Colleen—”
“Has Bob or Wes scanned the place for listening devices?” Jim asked.
Ashley laughed. “I was kidding.”
“Well, I’m not. The Team’s got the gear. Might as well do it.” He took out his phone and fired off a quick text to both SEALs.
“I’m pretty sure Colleen and I talked about my security code while we were in the office,” Ashley countered.
“A location that’s probably even less secure. I’ll tell them to scan over there, too.”
Ashley sighed her exasperation as she shook her head. “So, Brad suddenly turns into James Bond, plants listening devices and… what…? Goes to lock-picking school?”
“No need. Hello, Oswald Q. Locksmith…?” Kenneth pitched his voice lower and did a not-entirely-terrible American accent. “Yes, my name is Brad Hennesey. I’m locked out of my condo, and my fiancé is out of town. What’s that? You only accept cash and it’ll cost eight hundred dollars…? No problem. I’ll meet you there in ten. No need to replace the lock—there’s another key inside, in the junk drawer…”
Ashley swore.
“You keep a spare key in one of your kitchen drawers, like everyone else in the known universe?” Jim asked.
She nodded. And clearly she was thinking what he was thinking, which was that even if Colleen checked to see if that key was still there, the thief could’ve taken it—after being let in by a locksmith—copied it, and already brought it back, so that they’d think it wasn’t missing. “Hello, Oswald Q. Locksmith…? I think I need to change my locks, along with my alarm code.”
“Or not,” Jim said. “Not yet, anyway. If you want to catch this guy—let’s call him Brad just for shits and giggles—you should keep everything exactly the same, but add a few hidden mini-cams to your security set up.”
“It might’ve just been someone looking for some quick cash,” she argued.
“With this kind of sophisticated entry?” Jim asked. “If the window was broken, sure, but… Come on, you’re smarter than that.”
She met his gaze steadily. “I am smarter than that.”
And ooh, she wasn’t talking about the break-in. He was pretty certain she was talking about earlier, when he’d had his hands all over her. But she wasn’t angry, which was… puzzling.
“All right, all right, all right!” Lucky O’Donlon could do a mean Matthew McConaughey, and he was even more jubilant today, because yes, his wife, Syd, was expecting their first baby. It was hard not to smile at his palpable joy. His entire team was behind him as they approached—Team One’s rivals for the first paintball game—which was gonna be a bloodbath.
“Consider it,” Jim told Ashley. “The cameras.”
“I’m considering a lot of things,” she said.
Whoa, wait, what…? But she’d already turned and was rallying their team—at least Clark and Kenneth. But hey, she’d even gestured for Bull and Todd to join them and they’d moved, albeit reluctantly, into a semi-huddle as Lucky’s team went in through the trailer and onto the field.
“The game is elimination,” she told them. “Last team standing wins. We’ve been given this end of the field—the southern half. Lieutenant O’Donlon’s team is heading out right now, to open up the trailer in the northern half. When the buzzer sounds, they’ll start from way up there, while we start from down here.”
“You picked the shitty end of the field,” Bull muttered.
“It was a coin toss,” Ashley reported. “They got to pick. But I’m okay with it, because we’ve all spent most of our time on this half, and frankly, we know it best. So here’s what we’re going to do: Clark, Kenneth, LT, and I are going to hide. Bull and Todd, you’re our only hope. You stay out there and do what you do best. Eliminate as many of them as you can.”
And there it was. The moment in which Bull and Todd could take Ashley’s words of praise, inspired by a famous female general—You’re our only hope—and rise to the challenge. Join the team.
But Bull remained scornful. “So we’re supposed to sacrifice ourselves, so you idiots can win? I don’t think so.”
Jim felt himself bristle. “You don’t have a choice—”
Ashley cut him off. “If any one of us is the last person standing, our entire team wins.”
“It’s last man standing,” Bull shot back.
“It probably will be, yes. And that last man will probably be the real Navy SEAL,” Ashley said crisply. “I’m good with that.” She looked over at Jim. “We could use your help, LT, finding the best places for us to hide. I have some ideas, but… Anyway, after we’re set, I’ll rendezvous with Bull and Todd and let them know exactly where we are. My thought is that if Clark, Kenneth, the LT, and I are scattered, hidden, across the field, we’ll have two options. Wait for the enemy to come to us, and if we get a clean shot at any one of them, we’ll take it, even if the rest of their team then takes us out. And if we can’t get a clean shot, we’ll wait for Bull and Todd to lure the other team to where we’re hidden, and at your signal, we’ll create a diversion—a distraction that will likely get us eliminated, at least those of us who aren’t Navy SEALs—but will allow Bull and Todd to eliminate the other team members and win for us all.”
It was a basic but pretty brilliant strategy—although the whole suicide-sacrifice approach wouldn’t work in a real life scenario. But this was paintball and dead wasn’t dead. It was merely messy with a bit of a sting.
“I have just a few adjustments to TL’s plan,” Jim said. “I’ll get you settled, but I’ll rendezvous with Bull and Todd. I’ll also stay in the field—”
“Your knees—”
“Are fine,” he said. Ah, Christ… But she didn’t argue—even if that same damn word cloud that he imagined also appeared to her. Still, she didn’t look happy. “We’ll meet at the banyan tree in the southwest corner,” he told Bull and Todd. “Fifteen minutes after the start buzzer sounds.”
Bull started making noise about the game not lasting more than ten minutes, but Jim cut him off with a sharp, “If you’re not there, I’ll assume you’re already dead. Masks on and into the field.” He led the way into the trailer then stood at the door and did his smack-and-yank mask check as the team went out into the yard.
Ashley was last, and this time he didn’t do more than the standard, but she just stood there, looking up at him. “Who checks your mask?” she asked.
“I do,” he said, pulling it down.
But she reached up and smacked-and-yanked anyway—and yeah, he’d forgotten how obnoxious that was. But then she put her hand on his shoulder. It wasn’t even close to the way he’d touched her earlier, but despite that, his heart stuttered—just a little. “Don’t hurt yourself,” she told him quietly. “Don’t push too hard. It’s just a game.”
And with that she went out the door.
* * *
They were barely five minutes into the game, but deep within the heavily brush-and-pine-treed part of the field, when Kenneth passed out.
One second he was moving quietly along the narrow trail, just behind Jim and in front of Ashley, and the next he was crumpling into the scrub.
At first, Ashley thought he was goofing—but almost immediately she realized that while Clark might’ve pulled an idiot move like that, Kenneth would never.
“Jim!” She whispered, but he heard her immediately, and was down in the dirt almost before she was, checking Kenneth—holy crap—for a pulse. “Oh, my God, he’s burning up.” He was radiating heat through his clothes. She turned to glare at her brother. “What the hell, Clark?”
As Jim pulled out his cell phone, Clark crouched on the other side of her, his face panicked through his mask’s plastic shield. “Don’t look at me! I keep going, Dude, you look like shit, and he’s all Celiac, celiac!”
“Celiac doesn’t give you a fever!”
“Cell service appears to be down,” Jim announced as he reached to take the Team Leader’s bag from Ashley’s shoulders.
She wriggled to get free of the strap, shooting him an incredulous look. “Seriously…?”
Jim already had the walkie-talkie out and on, antenna up. “This is why we carry—” He interrupted himself. “Slade to King, do you copy, over? Come in, Corpsman King, over. Hospital corpsman needed at the paintball field, over.” He turned up the volume before handing the device to Ashley. “Push this to keep calling for him. Be brief—say over, let him answer. Come on, we’re gonna get Kenneth back to the trailer.”
Ashley immediately got to work. “Team One needs medical assistance, over.”
But before Jim could somehow pick Kenneth up, he roused, his eyes fluttering open as he moaned.
“Hey, kid,” Jim said, his tone as gently matter-of-fact as if they’d run into each other on the way to the mess. “What’s going on?”
“Hurts,” Kenneth gasped.
“Where?” Jim asked.
Kenneth’s response was to curl into a ball and vomit. Ashley and Clark were both far enough away, but Jim’s pants got covered.
He didn’t even flinch. “Well, okay,” he said in that same quietly calm voice. “I’m gonna go with abdominal pain. Let’s get you to the trailer, see if we can’t rouse some assistance via the landline.”
A landline! In the trailer! “I’ll run ahead,” Ashley told Jim. “Give me your cell phone. Sir. In case cell service comes back.”
“Code to unlock is one oh one oh one oh,” he said as he slapped it into her hand. “Go!”
And with that, she was off at a run.
It was probably just a bad case of the flu. Or even food poisoning. And why wasn’t Thomas King answering, damn it?
It took far less time to get back to the open clearing by the trailer because she wasn’t attempting to be quiet. Still, she managed to completely surprise a cluster of men from Team Three who must’ve run at full speed down one of the trails along the fence line to get so deeply into Team One’s territory so quickly. They’d already hunkered down along the length of fencing that was used for target practice, although they all leaped to their feet when they saw her.
And, like an idiot, she ran toward them. “Oh, thank God, you guys, we need—” help.
She didn’t get the word out before they all—there were three of them—raised their markers and opened fire.
Sting was not the word she would’ve used.
Punch was more like it.
Of course, she was heading swiftly toward them, moving well into the verboten three meter no-fire zone. And she did get hit with three pellets at once, all aimed at her center of gravity. And nearly all of the shooters went for overkill with a double pop, so she didn’t just get hit once, she got hit again and again.
Ashley hit the ground and the walkie-talkie went skittering out of her grasp. But there wasn’t any time to curl into a ball—ow!—or deride herself for not immediately shouting Hold your fire! She just scrambled after the walkie-talkie even as she hauled herself back onto her feet.
“Hey, you’re dead, you’re supposed to stay down,” one of the men said, and what the hell? It wasn’t some random member of Team Three, it was Bull Edison. And Todd Grotto was standing right beside him.
Sure enough, most of the paint on her shirt was red—her own team’s color. Only one of the pellets that had pummeled her was Team Three’s yellow.
“Team One is having a medical emergency,” Ashley managed to gasp out—those punches to her chest had made her voice sound breathless. “You—Roger!” The Team Three man who’d helped to “kill” her was an older guy—some silver-haired bigwig CEO named Roger Something who was also a marathon runner. “Cell phones are down, and we’re having trouble reaching Lieutenant King. Run to the main building—see if he’s there. It’s Kenneth, the skinny kid from the UK? He’s having intense abdominal pain—he passed out. Bull and Todd—what the hell? Don’t answer that right now. Because frankly, I don’t really care. Just run back along the trail and help LT and Clark get Kenneth to the trailer.”
All three of them just stood there, staring at her.
So she clapped her hands at them. “Move! Now!”
Todd cleared his throat. “Bull and I cut a deal with Team Three. So if this is some kind of set-up or trap—”
“If it is,” she cut him off, “it’s illegal, it won’t count, because I’m dead.” She pointed to her paint-splattered shirt. “Exhibit A. Okay? Go!”
With that, they went. And Ashley went into the trailer to attempt to reach Lieutenant King via landline.