“Brianna’s dad, Hugh Bickles, called the office, hoping to reach you,” the older woman said. “Apparently there’s been a major accident north of Borrego Springs, and all emergency vehicles are tied up.”
“Dawn, this is Chief Jay Lopez. Jay, Dawn—Mrs. Breckenridge—is the school principal.” Carol threw out a quick introduction as she pulled out her keys. But she clearly was hesitating to just hand them over to Jay, instead looking at the other woman. “I don’t have bus duty today,” she started.
The principal nodded. “Go ahead. Drive the chief where he needs to go. The bell’s going to ring in a few minutes. I’ve got your class until then.”
“Thank you, Mrs. B.,” Carol said, and Jay echoed her.
She led the way out of the room, and broke into a run in the empty corridor. “Follow me out this door,” she called, pointing ahead of her. “I’ll get the car, pull it around!”
Carol was kind, beautiful, and a quick-thinker while under pressure. If Jay hadn’t already fallen hard for her, he’d now be total toast.
CHAPTER 6
Eden
“First-time mothers are always late. There’s no way this baby’s ready to make the scene. Certainly not today.” That’s what Jenn had told Eden, in order to let her ride shotgun on this mission of misery.
Freakin’ Greg. Eden’s stepfather was still making life hard for her, even from beyond the grave.
Late last night, when she’d gotten the call from her too-pathetic mother telling her that Greg was dead, Eden’s friend Tracy had immediately volunteered to go with. But that was before Tracy had a three a.m. visit from the Food Poisoning Fairy, and spent the wee hours of the morning sharing intimate secrets with her new porcelain BFF. And shortly after that was when Jenn proclaimed that she, instead, would keep Eden company, because always, no way, certainly not today…
Famous last words, Alex, for three hundred.
“Right about now I’m regretting not letting Ben come with us,” Eden said to Jenn as she helped her into the backseat of the car. Her little brother had gone pale at the news of nasty Greg’s passing, and yet he’d asked to come along. But only one of the Gillman siblings was needed for this unpleasant task, and since Danny was out of the country with SEAL Team Sixteen, it had fallen on Eden’s shoulders.
“Believe me,” she’d told Ben when she and Jenn had dropped him at the high school, “if Danny were home, I’d skip this magic show, too.”
“I was just thinking thank God he’s not here,” Jenn admitted, soggy and sweating and out of breath from that contraction.
Truth be told, it was almost as hot inside the car as it was out on the road. Eden opened up the other two doors, hoping for a cross breeze that didn’t come. She now took inventory of everything in the car’s glove compartment and trunk. The only useful items were an old beach blanket and a small bottle of hand sanitizer. And that was going with a very generous definition of the word useful.
“I mean, Ben would want to go get help,” Jenn continued breathlessly as Eden scanned the road, hoping for an approaching car but coming up empty. “And then we’d have to worry that he was alone on the side of the road, and that he’d bump into some motorcycle gang of white supremacist survivalist skinheads, except wait. He could stay with me while you went to get help…” At Eden’s look, she added, “Well, obviously, in any fight between you and survivalist skinheads, you’d win.”
It was nice to know that Jenn had that much faith in her. But as another contraction started, and Jenn grabbed hold of Eden’s hand and attempted to breathe through it, Eden was hit with a massive wave of overwhelm that she quickly hid.
She knew she could help Jenn deliver this baby, even here in the back of the car. Her sister-in-law was healthy and strong, with nice wide, womanly hips. This baby would probably pop out of her easily—piece of cake. Eden hoped.
But Eden also knew that sometimes babies were born needing immediate medical aid, and she was full-on screaming terrified that this roadside delivery would turn into a horror show, with that baby gasping for air in her arms, God help her. Because there’d be nothing Eden could do to save it.
Her.
This baby was a girl—Jenn and Dan had found that out months ago when they’d had their ultrasound.
Eden let Jenn hang on to one of her hands as she used her other to try dialing her phone again. She’d gotten through to the senior chief once, surely she could do it again. But she couldn’t connect and she couldn’t connect. So she focused on Jenn and the fact that Senior Chief Wolchonok was a very smart—if slightly scary—man.
Still, if anyone had the brainpower to track them here, it was Izzy. And Eden found herself wishing she’d broken the rule and dialed her husband instead.
CHAPTER 7
Lopez
Jay had the front passenger seat pushed all the way back and reclined, so that he could sit in the front with his knee brace on.
As Carol Redmond drove, he worked the GPS on his phone, not only trying to find the most direct road to Obsidian Springs but also attempting to figure out the route that Jenn and Eden might’ve taken. Luckily, there just weren’t that many ways to get there and back, so they weren’t going to have to crisscross the county, searching for the disabled car.
Also, he knew where Eden and Dan’s little brother Ben went to school. Odds were good the two women had headed east directly after dropping him that morning. Which meant they would have taken Route 78 for quite a few miles, before heading north on Obsidian Springs Road.
As they barreled east, as the last remnants of the San Diego suburbs fell behind them and the landscape became desolate and harsh, Carol put her little hybrid into warp drive. She was an excellent driver—confident and sure—and clearly unafraid to push the speed limit. She glanced over at Jay, no doubt because she felt him looking at her, and smiled.
“You ever deliver a baby before?” he asked her.
She shook her head as she turned back to the road. “No. You?”
“No,” he admitted. “I’ve stood by—assisted, but…”
“Not a whole lot of opportunities to practice delivering a baby for a Navy SEAL hospital corpsman,” she noted.
“Nope,” he agreed. “So, it’s been a while.”
Carol glanced at him again. “You scared?”
Jay laughed at her directness. “A little, yeah. This baby’s about a month early. So yes, scared and worried and a little freaked out pretty much covers it.”
Carol nodded. “So our plan should be to get her into the car immediately—get us all moving toward the nearest hospital.” She paused. “Where is the nearest hospital? It’d be good to know that going in.”
Jay was already using his phone’s GPS to find that information—but it was rough going because they were already in some kind of cellphone hell-zone. “Are you sure you’re not secretly a SEAL chief?” he asked.
“Nope,” she said. “But I’ve got a kind of major crush on one, so…”
Oh, be still his wildly pounding heart! “The feeling is quite, quite mutual,” he said.
“Really? Oh! Oh my God,” Carol said, but he didn’t get to hear the rest of whatever she was going to tell him, because his phone rang.
Caller ID presented him with a number he didn’t recognize, and he answered it hoping whoever was on the other end would have more information as to Jenn and Eden’s whereabouts. Coordinates. Coordinates would be nice. “Lopez.” He punched the speaker, so Carol could hear, too.
“Chief!” The voice on the other end echoed oddly, but otherwise was clear. “It’s Jules Cassidy. Where are you?”
“Heading east on 78,” Jay reported, leaning down to scan the sky out both the front and back windshield. “Where are you, sir? And please say in a helo soon-to-be over my head.”
Jules Cassidy was an upper echelon FBI team leader who had quite a few friends in the SpecWar com
munity. If anyone could get a helicopter on short notice, it was Cassidy.
“Sorry, I’m in DC,” Cassidy said. “But I have access to, uh”—he cleared his throat—“well, let’s just say certain communications satellites, and leave it at that. I haven’t quite reached Jenn and Eden yet, but I’m working on it. There is a helo—a commercial one—headed your way, but we don’t have a doctor or even a medic on board.”
Jay checked his GPS and rattled off their current coordinates. “We’re already in the middle of nowhere, still about twenty miles west of the turn off to Obsidian Springs.” He shifted in his seat as he scanned the area. “Plenty of room for a helo to land—the only wires are along the state road.”
“I’ll tell Adam,” Cassidy came back. “What color’s your car?”
“Blue Honda Civic,” Jay reported. “We’ll be the ones pulled over, waving our arms.” He realized what Cassidy had said. “Adam’s in the helo?”
“Yup,” Cassidy said. “Someone—Tony probably—got through to him on set, out in Coronado. They were filming some kind of aerial shot, and Adam commandeered the helicopter—hang on.” Cassidy was talking on more than one phone at once, and his voice was muffled as he spoke to someone else, probably Adam in the helo.
“Adam’s an actor,” Jay lowered his voice to explain to Carol. “A movie star, really. He’s engaged to be married to one of my teammates, Tony.”
“Gay married?” she asked.
“Yeah, well, I guess… But we just call it, you know, married.”
“Of course,” Carol said quickly. “Right. I wasn’t…I was just checking to see if maybe I misunderstood and there was a female SEAL named Toni in your team, because, frankly, that would be pretty great, too.” She pointed in the rearview mirror. “Is that…?”
Jay turned to look out the back. That little dot on the horizon was indeed the helo. It was a larger bird than he expected, and he could tell just from looking that it was capable of moving pretty fast.
“Pull over,” he said, but Carol had already signaled and was slowing. “I hate to just abandon you out here,” he started, but she cut him off as she put her car into park.
“Nope,” she said as they both climbed out of the car. She opened the back to extract his crutches. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Besides, I don’t want to leave my car on the side of the road, and I don’t want to take up any extra space on the helicopter. Also…” She made a face. “I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to flying.”
“Uh-oh,” Jay said as he tucked his crutches under his arms. “That might be a relationship deal-breaker.”
“About that,” she said, but the helo was already coming in for a landing. Not only did its huge blades make it impossible to talk, but they also kicked up a crapload of dust and dirt.
“I’m kidding,” Jay told her as he gently pushed her back into the driver’s seat. “Thank you again. I’ll call you with an update.” His crutches made it impossible to bury his face in the crook of one elbow, so he simply squinted and tried not to breathe in the dust as he hobbled out to where the helo was gently touching down.
Adam slid open the door and was crouched there inside. He took Jay’s crutches and helped him up and into the cabin. Jay waved one last time to Carol right before the door slid closed, and they were off.
Adam was shouting something about how Jules—he was on a first name basis with FBI Team Leader Cassidy—still hadn’t gotten through to Eden or Jenn, but that the helo pilot was going to follow the road all the way to Obsidian Springs, if necessary.
“Is there a first aid kit on board?” Jay shouted, and Adam pointed toward the back of the cabin.
The medical kit was far from military grade—geared more toward sprains, breaks, burns, and lacerations. It did, however, include a blood pressure cuff, along with tubing and equipment necessary to set up an IV, if one was needed. Other than that, if things went south with either Jenn or the baby, Jay would have to improvise.
But he could do this. He would do this. Dan was counting on him. He took a deep breath in and exhaled hard.
It wasn’t until then that Jay realized his epic fail. He’d forgotten to get Carol Redmond’s phone number. But just as quickly, he realized that wouldn’t be a problem.
He could always get her number from HoboMofo. She was, after all, the Mohf’s daughter’s fifth-grade teacher.
The SEAL chief probably had her on his VIP contacts list.
Jay gently pushed the teacher out of his mind as he went to the windows to help Adam and the pilot scan the shoulder of the road for Eden’s car.
CHAPTER 8
Eden
A truck went by, but didn’t stop.
Eden chased the damn thing, waving her arms and shouting—screaming after it—at the top of her lungs. But whoever was driving was too busy or too frightened to pull over.
“Son of a bitch!” she said, hands on her knees as she caught her breath. “Son of a bitch!”
The heat was brain-melting, reflecting up off the road in an oven-worthy wave as she heard Jenn call out for her. “Eden…?”
She ran back to the car. “I’m right here!” she called. “Asshole didn’t stop.”
“I think…something’s…buzzing?” Jenn exhaled hard, which meant she was feeling the start of another contraction. They were coming closer together now, and lasting longer.
Eden held out her hand for Jenn to grab. “Buzzing?” The moment she said the word, she realized that she’d set her phone to vibrate when they’d gone into the morgue. And she hadn’t turned the ringer back on.
Damn it!
Keeping her grasp on Jenn’s hand, she reached into the front where she’d put her phone into the plastic cup holder. She touched the screen and… God, there were about fifteen missed calls. All from the same number.
She quickly hit return call and put the phone to her ear, but nothing happened. She tried again as Jenn panted the word shit from between clenched teeth. Again, nothing.
But then Jenn said, “Uh-oh,” and Eden looked down to see a tinge of red staining her sister-in-law’s maternity skirt. Oh, God! That was blood.
“I think that’s normal,” Eden lied as another contraction gripped Jenn, and she did what she promised Jenn she wouldn’t do—she dialed Danny’s cell.
CHAPTER 9
Izzy
Izzy was heading over to where Mark Jenkins was still babysitting Dan when it happened.
He wasn’t close enough to hear, but he saw Danny shifting slightly in his seat in order to pull his phone out of his pocket. He saw Dan frown, and then Izzy read Dan’s lips as he said, “That’s weird. It’s Eden.”
Izzy started running as Dan put the phone to his ear.
“Hey, Eden, is everything okay?” Dan said, but then pulled the phone away to look at it as Izzy skidded to a stop in front of him. “Huh. Maybe she butt-dialed me.”
CHAPTER 10
Eden
Eden was incredulous. Jenn had batted the phone out of her hand.
“It was working,” she said. “I finally had a connection!” But when she picked it up, it was back to zero bars. “Damn it!”
“I’m fine,” Jenn snarled. “I’m. Fine.”
“Yeah, you’re not,” Eden told this woman who, after Izzy, was her very best friend in the entire blessed world. “I was lying about the blood, Jenni. It’s not okay, and I no longer give a shit about mission ready.”
“But I do.”
“I get that,” Eden said. “But I need you to think, just for a moment, about the possibility that you’re not okay. You’re not fine. And I want you to think about Dan, coming home, and you not being there to meet him.”
Jenn was shaking her head.
“This,” Eden continued, gesturing toward Jenn, “is now officially a life-and-death emergency. And if, for whatever reason, we can randomly get through t
o Dan’s overseas burner phone out in Wherever-the-hell-he-is, then that’s what we’re going to do.”
It was then that Eden saw it—movement. A car. Way in the distance. Approaching along the shimmering heat of the road.
Except it was moving faster than a car. And it wasn’t on the road, it was above it.
“Chopper!” Eden said, but then realized she’d used the Army nickname. “Oh my God, Jenn, it’s a helo.”
For some reason, the Navy called helicopters helos, and this helo that was approaching was definitely courtesy of members of the U.S. Navy. Thank you, thank you, Senior Chief Wolchonok!
As Jenn pushed herself up to look out the back window, Eden’s phone rang. It was that same number—that one that had tried over and over to call her when her phone was stupidly set on silent.
“Thank you so much,” she said, uncaring as to who was on the other end. “The helo is here.”
“Hey, Eden. It’s Jules. Cassidy. I guess Adam and Jay found you. About time you answered your phone, sweetie.”
“Jay Lopez is really on that helo?” Eden had to shout above the rapid-fire sound of the blades as it landed in the desert, sending clouds of dust into the air. She quickly closed the car doors on that side, so that Jenn wouldn’t choke.
“He is,” Jules said, and Eden quickly relayed that to Jenn who nodded forcefully through another contraction, even as Eden put the beach blanket up and around Jenn’s head. “We’ve got both an OB-GYN and a pediatric specialist standing by to assist him via phone, in case that baby doesn’t want to wait for you to get to the hospital.”
“Thank you, but I need both hands free,” Eden said and cut the connection, jamming the phone into her pocket.
Jenn was already pushing herself out of the car, but Eden held her back. “We’re gonna carry you to the helo,” she told her friend. “Don’t want to accidentally dump the baby out onto the desert.”
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