Tall, Dark and Dangerous Vol 1: Tall, Dark and FearlessTall, Dark and Devastating

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Frisco closed his eyes. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “Plugging your fingers in your ears so that you can’t hear it doesn’t change the truth, my man,” Thomas told him, adding a thick layer of sweet, sticky strawberry jam to his sandwich. “I don’t know what she told you, but she wouldn’t’ve let you get so close if she didn’t love you, with a capital L. I don’t know what the hell you did to make her fall for you, but you’ll be the biggest ass in the world if you don’t take advantage of—”

  Frisco’s temper frayed. “I’m not going to stand here and be lectured by some kid!”

  Thomas took a bite of his sandwich and chewed it thoughtfully as he gazed at Frisco. “Why are you always so angry, Navy?” he finally asked. “You know, I used to be just like you. I used to live and breathe anger. I thought it was the only way to stay alive. I was the meanest son of a bitch on the block. I didn’t join a gang because I didn’t need a gang—everyone was scared of me. I was tough enough to go solo. And I was on an express bus straight to hell. But you know what? I got lucky. I got the new teacher for history the year I was fifteen. I was six months away from dropping out, and Ms. S. did something no one ever did before. She looked me in the eye and somehow saw through all that anger, down to who I was underneath.”

  Thomas gestured at Frisco with his sandwich. “I remember, it was the day I pulled a knife on her. She told me to put the blade away and never bring it back to school again. She said I hid behind anger because I was the one who was scared—scared that everyone was right, that I was worthless and good for nothing.

  “I mocked her, but she just smiled. She told me that she’d seen some of my test scores, and from what she saw, not only was I going to graduate from high school, but I was going to be valedictorian.” He shook his head. “She didn’t give up on me, and when I turned sixteen, I kind of just kept putting off dropping out. I kept telling myself that I’d stay for another week, ’cause of the free lunches.” He looked at Frisco. “If I hadn’t lucked out and had Ms. Summerton for a teacher, I would’ve ended up in jail. Or dead.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you don’t seem to realize what was directly under your nose, Uncle Blindman.”

  Frisco used his crutches to propel himself away from the kitchen counter, his movements jerky. “I do know. You’re wrong.”

  “Maybe. But one thing I’m right about is whatever it is you’re scared of, whatever you’re hiding under your anger, it’s nothing compared to the fear you should be feeling about losing Ms. Mia Summerton. Be afraid of that, Navy, be very afraid.”

  FRISCO SAT ON the couch, with his back to the cabinet that held enough whiskey to sink a ship.

  It wouldn’t take much. All he had to do was pull himself to his feet, set his crutches in place and then he’d be standing in front of that very same cabinet. The door would pop open with a pull of one hand…

  Thomas and Natasha were down at the lake, not due to return until late afternoon, when they were all scheduled to leave for San Felipe. But right now there was no one around to protest. And by the time they returned, it would be too late. By then, Frisco wouldn’t give a damn what anyone thought, what anyone said.

  Not even little Tasha with her accusing blue eyes.

  He closed his eyes. He would welcome the oblivion that a bottle of whiskey would bring. It would erase the picture he had in his mind of Mia’s face right before she walked out the door.

  He’d needed to tell her the truth. Instead he’d insulted her avocation and made it seem as if their relationship had been based purely on sex.

  Why? Because he was so damned afraid that she would leave.

  In fact, he knew Mia would leave. So he’d pushed her away before she could leave on her own initiative.

  Very clever. He prophesied his own doom, and then went and made damn sure it happened. Self-sabotage, it was called in all the psychology textbooks.

  Savagely Frisco pulled himself to his feet and set his crutches underneath his arms.

  MIA PULLED HER CAR OVER the side of the road, swearing like a sailor.

  She couldn’t believe that she’d allowed herself to fall into such a classic trap. It had been years since she’d made this kind of mistake.

  For the past few years, she’d been successful—she’d been able to work with and get through to the toughest, hardest cases in the high school. And she’d been able to do that by being thick-skinned.

  She’d looked countless angry, hurt, and painfully frightened young men and women in the eyes. She’d let all of their harsh, insulting, sometimes shockingly rude words bounce off of her. She’d met their outbursts with calm and their verbal assaults with an untouchable neutrality. They couldn’t hurt her if she didn’t let them.

  But somehow she’d let Alan Francisco hurt her.

  Somehow she’d forgotten how to remain neutral in the face of this man’s anger and pain.

  And, God, he was in so much pain.

  Mia closed her eyes against the sudden vision of him on the night they’d taken Tasha to the hospital. She’d seen him sitting on his bed, bent over from pain and grief, hands covering his face as he wept.

  This morning Alan’s darkest fears had been realized. He’d admitted—both to himself and to her—that he wasn’t ever going to get his old life back. He wasn’t going to be a SEAL again. At least not a SEAL on active duty. He’d come face-to-face with a harsh reality that had to have shattered the last of his dreams, crushed out the final flicker of his hope.

  Mia knew Alan didn’t love her. But if ever there was a time that he needed her, it was now.

  And she’d let his angry words hurt her.

  She’d run away.

  She’d left him alone and on the edge—with only a five-year-old child and several dozen bottles of whiskey for comfort.

  Mia turned her car around.

  FRISCO STARED AT the bottle and the glass he’d set out on the kitchen counter.

  It was a rich, inviting amber color, with an instantly familiar aroma.

  All he had to do was pick up the glass and he’d crawl into that bottle for the rest of the afternoon—maybe even for the rest of his life. He’d forget everything that he wasn’t, everything that he couldn’t be. And when he woke up, dizzy and sick, when he came eye to eye with what he’d become, well, he’d just have another drink. And another and another until once again he reached oblivion.

  All he had to do was pick up that glass and he’d fulfill his family legacy. He’d be one of those good-for-nothing Francisco boys again. Not that they’d know any better, people had said, the way the father sits around drinking himself into an early grave….

  That was his future now, too. Angry. Alcoholic.

  Alone.

  Mia’s face flashed in his mind. He could see her beautiful hazel eyes, her funny smile. The hurt on her face as she walked out the door.

  He gripped the edge of the counter, trying to push the image away, trying not to want what he knew he couldn’t have.

  And when he looked up, there was that glass and that bottle, still sitting on the counter in front of him.

  Hey, why fight destiny? He was pegged to follow this path right from the start. Yeah, he’d temporarily escaped by joining the Navy, but now he was back where he’d started. Back where he belonged.

  At least he’d had the integrity to know that Mia didn’t deserve to spend her life in his personal hell. At least he had that much up on his old man.

  Man, he loved her. Pain burned his stomach, his chest—rising up into his throat like bile.

  He reached for the glass, wanting to wash away the taste, wanting not to care, not to need, not to feel.

  I thought you were a SEAL. I thought you didn’t quit.

  Mia might as well have been standing in the room with him, her words echoed so loudly in his head.

  “I’m not a SEAL anymore,” he answered her ghostly presence.

  You’ll always be a SEAL. You were when you were el
even years old. You will be when you die.

  The problem was, he’d already died. He’d died five years ago—he was just too stubborn and stupid to know it at the time. He’d lost his life when he’d lost his future. And now he’d lost Mia.

  By choice, he reminded himself. He’d had a choice about that.

  You do have a future. It’s just not the one you thought you’d have back when you were a boy.

  Some future. Broken. Angry. Less than whole.

  I know you’re going to do whatever it takes to feel whole again. I know you’ll make the right choices.

  Choices. What choices did he have now?

  Drink the whiskey in this glass. Polish off the rest of the bottle. Kill himself slowly with alcohol the way his old man had. Spend the rest of his miserable life in limbo, drunk in his living room, with only the television for company.

  He didn’t want that.

  You’re strong, you’re tough, you’re creative—you can adapt.

  Adapt. That’s what being a SEAL had been all about. Sea, air or land, he’d learned to adapt to the environment, adapt to the country and the culture. Make changes to his method of operation. Break rules and conventions. Learn to make do. But adapt to this? Adapt to forever walking with a cane? Adapt to knowing he would remain forever in the rear, away from the front lines and the action?

  It would be so hard. It would be the hardest thing he’d ever done in his entire life. Whereas it would be so damn easy just to give up.

  It would’ve been easy to give up during Hell Week, too, when he’d done the grueling training to become a SEAL. He’d had the strength to keep going when all around him strong men were walking away. He’d endured the physical and psychological hardships.

  Could he endure this, too?

  I know you’ll make the right choice. And he did have a choice, didn’t he? Despite what he’d thought, it came down to the very basic of choices.

  To die.

  Or to live.

  Not just to be or not to be, but rather to do or not to do. To take charge or to lie back and quit.

  But dammit, Mia was right. He was a SEAL, and SEALs didn’t quit.

  Alan Francisco looked down at the whiskey in his hand. He turned and threw it into the sink where the glass shattered and the whiskey trickled down the drain.

  He chose life.

  MIA’S CAR BOUNCED as she took the potholed dirt road much too fast.

  She wasn’t far now. Just another few miles until the turnoff that would lead directly to the cabin.

  Determinedly, she wiped the last traces of her tears from her face. When she walked back in there, when she looked Alan in the eye, he was going to see only her calm offer of comfort and understanding. His angry words couldn’t hurt her because she wouldn’t let them. It would take more than that to drive her away.

  She slowed as she rounded a curve, seeing a flash of sunlight on metal up ahead of her.

  It was another car, heading directly toward her, going much too fast.

  Mia hit the brakes and pulled as far to the right as she could, scraping the side of a tree as the other car went into a skid.

  She watched it plunge down a sloping embankment, plowing through the underbrush and coming to a sudden jarring stop as it hit a tree.

  Mia scrambled to unfasten her seat belt, fumbling in her haste to get out of her car and down to the wreck.

  It was almost entirely hidden in the thick growth, but she could hear someone crying. She pushed away branches to get to the driver’s side door, yanking it open.

  Blood. There was blood on the man’s forehead and face, but he was moving and…

  Dwayne Bell. The man in the driver’s seat was Dwayne Bell. He recognized her at the exact moment she recognized him.

  “Well, now, it’s the girlfriend. Isn’t this convenient,” he said in his thick Louisiana drawl. He reached up to wipe the blood from his eyes and face.

  Natasha. The crying sound came from Natasha. What was she doing here…?

  “Dammit, I think I must’ve hit my head on the windshield,” Dwayne said.

  Mia wanted to back away, to run, but Natasha was belted into the front seat. Mia couldn’t simply just leave her there. But maybe Dwayne had hit his head hard enough to make him groggy…. Maybe he wouldn’t notice if…

  Mia quickly went around to the other side of the car. Tasha already had her seat belt unfastened and was up and in Mia’s arms as soon as the door was opened.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, smoothing back Tasha’s hair from her face.

  The little girl nodded, eyes wide. “Dwayne hit Thomas,” she told Mia, tears still streaming down her face. “He fell down and was all bloody. Dwayne made him dead.”

  Thomas…? Dead? No…

  “I screamed and screamed for Thomas to help me—” Tasha hiccuped “—but he wouldn’t get up and Frisco couldn’t hear me and Dwayne took me in his car.”

  Thomas was unconscious maybe, but not dead. Please God, not dead. Not Thomas King….

  Moving quickly, Mia carried Natasha around the car and up the embankment, praying Dwayne was too dizzy to notice, hoping that if she didn’t turn around to check, he wouldn’t—

  “Where you going in such a hurry, darlin’?” Dwayne drawled.

  Mia froze. And turned around. And found herself staring down the muzzle of a very big, very deadly-looking gun.

  Dwayne held a handkerchief to his forehead, but his gun hand was decidedly steady as he hefted his bulk out of the car.

  “I think we’ll take your car,” he told her with a gap-toothed smile. “In fact, you can drive.”

  FRISCO KNEW SOMETHING was wrong. The woods were too quiet. There was no echo of laughter or voices from the lake. And he’d never known Tasha to be silent for long.

  The footpath down to the water wasn’t easy to navigate on crutches, but he moved as quickly as he could. And as he neared the clearing—out of force of habit—he drew his sidearm from his shoulder holster. He moved as silently as he could, ready to drop his right crutch should the need arise to use it.

  He saw Thomas, crumpled on the beach, blood on his face.

  There was no sign of Tasha—or anyone else. But there were fresh tire tracks at the boat drop. Whoever had been here had gone.

  And taken Tasha with them.

  Frisco holstered his weapon as he moved quickly toward Thomas.

  The kid stirred as Frisco touched him, searching for a pulse. He was alive, thank God. His nose was bleeding and he had a nasty-looking gash on the back of his head. “Tasha,” he gasped. “The fat man took Tash.”

  The fat man.

  Dwayne Bell.

  Took Tasha.

  Frisco had been at the cabin, wrestling with his demons while Dwayne had been down here kicking the living daylights out of Thomas and kidnapping Tash. Guilt flooded him, but he instantly pushed it aside. He’d have time to feel guilty later. Right now he had to move fast, to get Tasha back.

  “How long ago?” Frisco tore a piece of fabric from his shirttail and used it to apply pressure to the back of Thomas’s head as he helped the kid sit up.

  “I don’t know. He hit me hard and I went down.” Thomas let out a stream of foul language that would’ve made a SEAL take notice. “I tried to fight it—I heard Tasha screaming for me, but I blacked out. Dammit. Dammit!” There were tears in his eyes. “Lieutenant, she’s scared to death of this guy. We gotta find her and get her back.”

  Frisco nodded, watching as Thomas forced away his dizziness and crawled to the lake to splash water onto his face, washing away the blood. The kid probably had a broken nose, but he didn’t so much as say ouch. “Can you walk, or should I get your car and bring it around?”

  Thomas straightened up, wobbling only slightly. “I can walk.” He felt his pockets and swore again. “The fat man took my car keys.”

  Frisco started up the path that led back to the cabin. “So we’ll hot-wire it.” He looked back. “Tell me if I’m going too fast for you.” Now that
was a switch, wasn’t it? “You know how to hot-wire a car?”

  “It’s something we’re taught in the SEAL teams.”

  “Shoot,” Thomas said. “I could be a SEAL.”

  Frisco looked back at him and nodded. “Yeah, you could.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “I NEED YOUR HELP.”

  Frisco looked out the open car window, up at Lt. Joe Catalanotto, the Commanding Officer of SEAL Team Ten’s Alpha Squad. Cat looked like he was ready to ship out on some high-level security training mission. He was dressed in fatigues and a black combat vest and wore his long dark hair back in a ponytail.

  “Right now?” Cat asked, bending slightly to look inside the car, his sharp gaze taking in Thomas’s battered appearance and bloody T-shirt.

  “Yeah,” Frisco said. “My sister’s kid’s been snatched. Sharon got herself in too deep with a drug dealer. He’s the one that took the kid. I need help finding him and getting her back.”

  Joe Cat nodded. “How many guys you need?”

  “How many you got?”

  Frisco’s former CO smiled. “How’s all seven of Alpha Squad?”

  Seven. Those seven were the six guys Frisco had served with—along with his own replacement. That was one man he wasn’t looking forward to working with. But he nodded anyway. Right now he needed all the help he could get to find Natasha. “Good.”

  As Frisco watched, Cat slipped a microthin cellular phone from the pocket of his vest and dialed a coded number.

  “Yeah, Catalanotto,” he said. “Cancel Alpha Squad’s flight out. Our training mission has been delayed—” he glanced up at the cloudless blue sky “—due to severe weather conditions. Unless otherwise directed, we’ll be off base as of 1600 hours, executing local reconnaissance and surveillance training.” He snapped the phone shut and turned back to Frisco. “Let’s pay a visit to the equipment room, get the gear we need to find this guy.”