Sophie gave her a warm smile. “As long as you’re okay. I can see how hanging with all of us could be a bit much. We’ve all known each other for so long. But we were all really happy you were there. I hope you’ll join us again.”
“I’m glad I finally got to meet everyone.”
The elevator came to a halt, and the doors opened.
They stepped out and started down the hallway when Holly hurried up behind them, her heels clicking on the floor.
“Hey, Laura! Hey, Sophie!” She fell in beside them, a colorful Altuzarra sweater and tight black Rag & Bone pants hugging her perfect curves, suede Prada pumps with three-inch heels on her feet. “I can’t believe that hunky SEAL is a friend of yours, Laura. If you tell me the two of you have slept together, I’m going to be
“Holly!” Sophie glared at her.
But that didn’t seem to deter Holly one bit. She looked at Laura’s face. “Oh, my God! You have!”
Laura had overheard enough conversations between Sophie and Holly in the newsroom to know that Holly had no filter. But how was Laura supposed to respond to that? Fortunately she didn’t have to say anything, as Holly went on.
“I’ve never met a SEAL before. I think it must take so much courage to do what he does. Five months ago he was almost killed, and he still wants to go back.”
Laura’s step faltered. “Almost killed?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Sophie asked.
“No.” He hadn’t even hinted.
But Holly and Sophie knew all about it. As they made their way toward the I-Team’s corner of the newsroom, the two of them told her how Javier and his team had been caught in an ambush, how he’d been shot four times and had barely survived. Now, he was eager to return to active duty.
“I don’t even want to go back to places where someone has been rude to me, like restaurants or department stores,” Holly was saying. “I can’t imagine wanting to return to a place where men were trying to
Neither could Laura. “It takes a special kind of man to do that job.”
She set her handbag down on her desk, sat, and booted up her computer.
“So he didn’t tell you any of this?” Holly sat on Sophie’s desk.
Laura knew what Holly was really asking. She was trying to figure out if Laura and Javier were still connected. “He was concerned about me and didn’t talk about himself. But I’ll ask him about it tonight. We’re having dinner.”
Laura spoke the words with an odd sense of satisfaction.
And then it struck her.
She was.
Javier had told Holly and the others things he hadn’t told her.
She’d been so busy talking about herself that she hadn’t asked him how he’d been these past three and a half years. Clearly, she wasn’t the only one who’d suffered.
Holly heaved an exaggerated sigh. “The good men are always taken.”
LAURA HAD HEARD stories like Ted Hollis’s before, but few had been so graphic—or so wrenching. His job through three tours of duty had included cleaning blood and human tissue from inside vehicles damaged by IEDs so that those vehicles could be repaired and put back into service. The gore he had seen was the stuff of horror films. Midway through his third deployment, he’d had a nervous breakdown and had spent three weeks in a military hospital before being shipped stateside again. Though post-traumatic stress had all but rendered him nonfunctional, he had yet to get treatment and was self-medicating with alcohol.
She’d been speaking with him for almost an hour. His story was one of the most compelling she’d heard so far. She felt sick for him.
“It’s the nightmares that bother me most,” he said. “They feel so real. When I wake up, I don’t even know where I am. But I suppose you know your share about nightmares, don’t you, Ms. Nilsson?”
She did, but she wasn’t accustomed to discussing such things with strangers. Then again, she was asking Mr. Hollis to bare his wounds for millions of strangers in the form of the newspaper’s readership. It seemed only fair to answer.
“Yes, I do.”
“I’ve read the articles about you and watched your interview with Diane Sawyer. I’ve always wondered what frightened you the most. The daily rapes or the idea of having your head cut off.”
Laura’s pulse picked up. She reminded herself that she was dealing with someone who needed treatment, someone who was probably trying to empathize with her, one trauma victim to another. “Mr. Hollis—”
“I think maybe being raped every day would be worse than being dead.”
That wasn’t how it had been for Laura. “I . . . I was more afraid of having my head cut off. I wanted to survive.”
“I’m sorry. Was that too personal? Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. I guess I wouldn’t know. I’m a man. I’ve never been raped. It must be pretty horrible.”
“Mr. Hollis—”
A loud
She was knocked sideways, her head striking the edge of her desk, one word flashing through her mind before she lost consciousness.
JAVIER FOLLOWED NATE through the garage toward the mudroom, his stomach growling. It was just after nine in the morning, and he’d already been up and working for four hours with nothing more than coffee in his gut. “So Wilson starts handing out soccer balls to every kid in the village. One kid drops his ball in the dirt, kicks it, and accidentally hits Wilson square in the nuts. That dawg hit the dirt like he’d been shot.”
Nate gave a sympathetic groan. “No good deed goes unpunished.”
“Man, I felt for him, but I couldn’t quit laughing.” Javier took off his gloves, parka, and boots, and made his way toward the scent of eggs and bacon that was wafting toward them from the kitchen.
“Tell me you’ve got fresh coffee, old man,” Nate called to his father.
But Jack wasn’t in the kitchen, bacon sizzling forgotten on the stove. They found him in the living room together with Megan, who looked wide-eyed and pale.
“What is it?”
On the television screen was an image of flames and smoke.
Jack glanced over at them, his face grave. “VBIED. It happened just a couple of minutes ago.”
Megan turned to her husband. “Someone car-bombed the newspaper.”
Adrenaline gave Javier a good hard kick, breath rushing from his lungs.
“Any casualties?” Nate’s gaze was fixed on the flames, his jaw tight.
Jack shook his head. “No word yet.”
“I’ve tried Sophie’s cell phone and can’t reach her.” Fresh tears gathered in Megan’s eyes. “Marc’s on his way there with SWAT, but he hasn’t been able to reach her either. Oh, Nate, I’m so afraid for her—and for all of our friends there.”
Javier turned back toward the mudroom.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Nate called after him.
“I’m going to find Laura.”
Nate followed. “How did I know you were going to say that?”
