One Week Later
Marcus found Cade sitting at his usual spot in the bar. He had gone into San Antonio for Brendan Michaels’ bail hearing that morning and Marcus was anxious to hear what happened.
“How’s Sadie?” Cade asked as he slid into the booth.
“She’s good. Nate and his mother are visiting with her right now. She’s making a lot of noise about being ready to come back to work, but Mickey’s already put his foot down about that.”
“You should take her on a trip somewhere, get her mind off of all this for a week or so.”
“Really? Where would I take her?”
Cade chuckled. “When you two are married are you gonna call me up for advice like that?”
“Nope, because I probably still won’t use my phone. I might radio you, though.”
“Take her to the beach. I’ll be she’s never seen the ocean.”
Marcus was surprised, but the idea actually appealed to him. “I’m not sure she’ll go, but if you can spare me I’ll ask her if she’d like to.”
“Yeah, we just have to wrap this stuff up with Dailey, but I think we can handle it.”
“So what happened with him?”
“Well, he’s definitely not much nicer sober,” Cade said with a dry laugh.
Brendan had been arrested the day Marcus and Billy pulled him up off that ledge, but instead of jail he’d been sent to a detox facility for the first few days. “He had a few choice words to say about you…and Sadie…and Laura.”
“Hopefully none of us will have to hear anything he has to say again…at least for a while.”
“The judge denied bail based on him skipping out on probation. The D.A. is charging him with everything he can and before I left I heard they were planning on offering him three years.”
“I guess I should be glad he’ll be off the streets, but three years doesn’t seem like enough.”
“Yeah, but I have a feeling he won’t be back here when he gets out. He got the message that none of us like him much.”
“Good.”
“Has anyone heard from Laura?”
Marcus shook his head. “We haven’t. Sadie told me that she told her to go to California like she planned. She has this idea that Laura just got manipulated by Michaels.”
Cade raised an eyebrow like maybe he disagreed, but he didn’t say so. “Well, I don’t guess the authorities are going to waste much time looking for her. Grady got the collar on Michaels. The best they’d get Laura on is accessory and she probably wouldn’t do any time over it anyway.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.”
Rosa came up to them. “I’m sorry, Marcus, I didn’t see you come in. You want something to drink?”
“I’ll have a glass of that sweet tea, Rosa, please. How’s the little one?”
“She’s pretty darned perfect,” Rosa said with a smile. “Thank you for asking. How is Sadie?”
Marcus smiled. “She’s pretty darned perfect too. Kind of a handful.”
Rosa laughed. “Well, then, she and my toddler have a lot in common. I’ll get that tea. Cade, anything else for you?”
“No thanks, Rosa, I’m good.”
As Rosa left to get Marcus’s tea he asked Cade, “So where is everyone at today?”
“Grant is with Dailey on set, Nate is visiting Sadie as you know, and Billy Joe had some big, romantic date.”
Marcus smiled. “With Rachel?” Rachel was a few years younger than Marcus. They’d gone to school together for most of their life, but Marcus didn’t really know her. She was Billy Joe’s latest.
“Nope. He’s not seeing Rachel anymore. You’re not going to believe this but he has a date with Molly.”
“Molly? Molly Treager?”
Cade laughed. “The one and only.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. You and Billy might be brothers-in-law one of these days.”
“Shut the hell up,” Cade grumbled. Marcus laughed as Rosa brought his iced tea out to him. He thanked her and took a long drink of the cool liquid before speaking again.
“Seriously, though, how long do you think Bobbie’s going to be happy with seeing you on the sly? Women don’t like to be hidden. It’s not good for their self-esteem.”
“I’m not hiding her, and we’re not seeing each other. Damnit, you’re as bad as Mickey. We’re just friends.”
Marcus drained his iced tea and then looked toward the door as it opened. Billy Joe and Molly came in, followed by Molly’s older sister Bobbie.
“Well, here’s your chance to prove it,” he told Cade with a grin. “I think I’ll stop by the movie set and see how Grant is doing on my way home.”
Cade didn’t answer him. He was looking at Bobbie. She had on a short black skirt and her long legs looked like they went on forever. The red blouse she wore was tucked into the skirt and she had on a black belt that emphasized how small her waist was. It also emphasized how large her chest was. If Marcus wasn’t mistaken, it wasn’t the long blonde hair hanging down over her shoulders that Cade was looking at. Her big, brown eyes were on Cade, and Marcus couldn’t help but smile. If Cade thought they were just friends, he was fooling himself. Marcus was an expert on pining away for someone you wanted and he knew he was looking at it. “I’ll call you later and let you know what Sadie says about the vacation.”
“Uh huh,” Cade nodded but didn’t take his eyes off Bobbie. Marcus left ten dollars for Rosa and headed out. He stopped by and said hello to Molly and Bobbie on his way out. He was happy to see that Molly was looking at Billy Joe the way she used to look at him. Molly deserved someone that wasn’t hung up on someone else. Unfortunately, he doubted that things with Billy Joe would go anywhere. It was rare that he kept a girl more than a few weeks. His longest relationship by his own admission was about two months long. He hoped that Molly didn’t end up hurt, but he suspected that the two of them would have fun together while it lasted.
********
The “set” had been sectioned off with yellow caution tape. It was a piece of the wilderness pretty close to where Marcus lived. He saw Grant before Grant saw him. His friend was watching the filming of one of Dailey’s scenes with his lip curled.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked as he approached his friend.
Grant looked up at him. “Hey! It’s going okay, as long as you don’t mean to say how bad is the movie going.”
Marcus laughed. “You’re not enjoying the performance?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’ll look better on the big screen. I’ve never seen one from this angle before. The acting—well, not all the acting, but Dailey’s…it stinks.”
Marcus was still laughing as he looked over at the actor who, at the moment, was standing in a clearing with a bow and arrows slung over his shoulder. There was a straw target in the shape of a wild boar set up about ten feet away from him just where the trees started. “He’s target shooting?”
“No. That target is his boar.”
“Well, hell, I guess the acting is bad…that straw lump is not even close to pulling off being a boar.”
Grant laughed. “They said they’ll computer generate the boar later. That way no actual animals are harmed during the production of this movie.”
Marcus chuckled and watched for a while. Peter got the bow and arrow ready but just as he pulled back on the quiver, the director called, “Cut.”
Another man, dressed just like Peter and looked a hell of a lot like him, took his place. He looked a lot more comfortable with the bow and arrow. When the director said, “Action!” he let one launch and it hit the fake boar dead center. “Cut” was called again and this time the director told them to break for fifteen. The crew scattered and Marcus watched as Peter headed for a trailer that looked bigger than the house he grew up in. There was a crowd of people, mostly women, gathered around behind the yellow tape and a couple of uniformed security officers, clambering for his attention and autograph. Peter ignored them and pulled open the door of the trailer. Everything happened in rapid succession then. A shot was fired and pinged off the metal door. The crowd screamed and so did Peter. The people outside hit the ground and one of the uniformed officers pushed Peter inside and closed the door behind him. Grant was already on his feet and he and Marcus stood back to back with their guns at the ready, surveying the hills around them as they turned slowly 180 degrees each.
“You see anything?” he asked Grant.
“Negative. You?”
“No…wait! There!” Marcus pointed up to one of the hills to the west of them. All he saw was a flash of color under the hot, afternoon sun, but someone was definitely up there.
“Got it,” Grant said.
“You have the sniper rifle with you?”
“Yep, always.”
“Okay, I’m going to the trailer.”
“I’ll get in position and give you the signal.”
“Be safe.”
“You too.”
Marcus headed for the trailer, bracing himself for another shot. If the sniper was any good he would have already hit any one of the dozens of targets running around the set. The security officers were good and there were several other crew members getting everyone down low and herding them into the surrounding trailers or out into the thick of the trees. Marcus was trying to keep an eye on the hill where they thought the shots came from as he casually strolled across the set. He didn’t see anything else but he had that feeling of being watched. After years of drawing enemy fire, his gut reacted like a sixth sense when someone was looking through the scope of a rifle at him. He slowed his pace, waiting for Grant’s signal, and turned just slightly so he was headed for another trailer, slightly further away. It was pretty obvious what he was doing, he thought. But hopefully this sniper wasn’t a trained killer. He had a pretty good idea that if he was, he’d be on the ground with a bullet in him already. He was close enough to reach out and touch the trailers when his radio chirped. He took a deep breath, pulled out his gun that would never hit anything that far up on the mountain, and he dashed back out into the clearing, shooting up toward the sniper. He kept moving back and forth, and as soon as he emptied his clip and ejected it, what he and Grant were looking for, happened. The shooter on the hill stood up. Marcus could only see a dark shadow but there was definitely the outline of a big gun. He popped another clip into his gun casually. He wasn’t worried because before that sniper could pull the trigger on his big gun, Marcus saw the figure crumple to the ground. He hadn’t heard Grant’s shot, but it had definitely hit its target.
The people left on the set were running around chaotically again but Marcus was pretty sure that the sniper wasn’t getting back up. He pulled out the radio and said, “Good job. Can you get to him from where you are?”
“No, but Marcus…it’s not a he.”
“Oh, shit. Dailey’s stalker went sniper herself?”
“I’m not sure who it is, but it’s definitely a woman. She’s down, but that shot wasn’t meant to be lethal so approach cautiously.”
Marcus smiled. A woman that knew how to use an automatic rifle was just as lethal as a man. They’d run across more than one of those during their time in the SEALs too. But Grant always took issue with shooting a woman, even if she tried to kill him first. “Okay, thanks.”
Marcus finished reloading his gun and started climbing up toward where the sniper was set up. She was up about three hundred feet and as Marcus hiked, he could see the tracks from where she’d come up before him. He was almost to the top when he heard a female voice, strained and obviously in pain, say, “Don’t come any closer. I don’t want to kill you.”
“I’d rather you didn’t kill me either,” Marcus told her in return.
“Then stay back.” She sounded like she could hardly get enough air into her lungs to speak and she was grunting in between words. She was hurt badly.
“I can’t help you if I stay back.”
“You don’t want to help me.”
“Sure I do. You think if we wanted you dead, you’d still be here talking to me? You were just hit by one of the best and most lethal snipers that the U.S. Navy had ever seen. Trust me, you came closer to death when he pulled that trigger than you ever will again.”
“Just go away and leave me alone.”
“Then how will you get down this hill?”
“I’ll just die here. I don’t care.”
“Really? You’d die for the likes of Peter Dailey?”
She grunted loudly this time. Marcus knew she was bleeding out. She had to be getting weak. Either she’d pass out soon and he could get to her, or he’d just have to rush her. If he didn’t, she was going to die from blood loss. “Peter loves me.”
“Yeah? How do you feel about him?”
“I love him too.”
“Hmm, I’m not judging the way you do things here but I have to say I never had a woman that claimed to love me shooting at me with an automatic rifle.”
“I’m not ever going to have him as long as he’s alive. It’s our souls that belong together. If I help him shed his mortal body and then I shed mine, our souls can be together forever.” Marcus could hear the sounds of sirens off in the distance and maybe even a chopper. If he didn’t talk her down off of here in a matter of minutes, that choice would be taken out of both of their hands.
“What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it’d just be nice to know what to call you while we’re talking. I’m Marcus.”
She was quiet for several long seconds before saying, “Whitney.”
“That’s a pretty name.”
“Don’t,” she grunted out. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not, Whitney. Listen, I know a lot about unrequited love. But you want to know something?”
“I think you’ll tell me either way,” she said through gritted teeth.
“The woman I’ve been in love with for decades told me that she loved me for the first time yesterday. So, Whitney, there is always hope.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Why what?”
“Why did it take her decades?”
Marcus thought about his answer carefully before saying,
“Sometimes we just don’t know that we’re meant to be together until something big happens. She got hurt and I thought she was going to die. I rushed to be by her side. I would have moved heaven and earth to be with her. I’ll bet when Peter Dailey finds out you’re hurt, wild horses won’t be able to keep him away.”
Again, silence. Then, as the sound of the chopper got closer and the sirens began screeching onto the set one at a time, she said, “I hope so. Is that chopper here for me? Are they going to shoot me?” Suddenly she didn’t sound so brave about dying and meeting Peter on the other side. It was funny how people talked so tough until the moment arrived.
“Yeah, and they’re not going to be as nice as my friend the sniper was, I’m afraid. You have a decision to make, Whitney, a big one. Are you ready to die today? If you are, then all you have to do is stay up there with that gun. If you’re not, then let me help you, please. Maybe Peter is the man for you and maybe he’s not, but you won’t ever know if you don’t live another day.”
Marcus waited as the chopper got down so close that he could hardly stand upright. He wasn’t worried that they’d shoot him. He trusted Grant with his life and he knew that his friend and teammate would have already let them know what he was there for. It seemed like a long time passed before he saw the gun. The woman tossed it in his direction and it came rolling toward him down the hill. Marcus went over and picked it up and tossed it further down the hill before looking up at the chopper. He signaled at them that he was going up and they continued to hover, just in case. By the time he reached the woman, she was unconscious and in a pool of blood. Grant had shot her in the shoulder but she’d been bleeding for a while. Marcus pulled off his shirt and knelt down next to her. As he made a tourniquet for her shoulder he looked at her face. She was a beautiful woman. She was probably twenty-five or twenty-six years old with dark hair and big, pouty lips. He shook his head and sighed. What was it that made a woman like her—or Laura—think they had to do anything, even risk their own lives, for a man?
Once he got the bleeding to stop he signaled to the chopper again. They communicated with him then over the loudspeaker as they lowered the stokes. Within minutes Marcus had her strapped onto it and they were on their way to the hospital with her. As he made his way down the hill back toward the movie set, he bent down to pick up the sniper rifle. This job was finally over. He usually hated the ones the most that he had to leave home for and stay gone for weeks, but this one would go down as one of his least favorites. Now he couldn’t wait until this movie crew packed up and went back to Hollywood where they belonged. He’d had enough glitz and glamour to last a lifetime.