by Kaylea Cross
“Fuck”.
“What?” Kyle stopped and hooked the metal chain in place, which secured the door in open position. “Oh shit, pee-ew.” Kyle waved his hand in front of his nose.
“Kyle. There’s a room off some of these units. Has no direct access to the outside.”
Still using his night vision gear, Coop ran toward the small door and pulled a KA-BAR out of his utility belt. He kicked in the door, which splintered into several long pieces. He flipped up his goggles and felt for a light switch on the wall and flipped it on.
Nothing. Bags of feed were stacked waist-high. There was a plastic sink on metal legs and a toilet.
Coop ran outside, worried they’d been at this for too long, and if the gardener was intent on murder, he’d already had ample time.
They entered all the garages that registered heat until they came to one that definitely had a heat source large enough to be two humans.
The images were bouncing around as the heat source was obviously moving. Cooper guessed it could be a couple. He stiffened as Kyle looked over his shoulder and slapped a hand on his back. The door had a keyed lock installed in the door itself.
“Hey boss,” Fredo ran up behind them. “I got this.” Fredo attached a small explosive device to the locking mechanism and everyone retreated several bays to the right and left for protection, plugging their ears. A sharp explosion blew a two foot hole in the metal door.
Cooper hoped to God they were in time. Kyle rolled up the metal quickly and the other three SEALs entered. A light under the doorway to the adjacent room was quickly extinguished.
Kyle slapped the concrete wall with the flat of his hand, indicating it would make good cover in case anyone inside was armed. He kicked the door in as Cooper flipped on the light.
An older Mexican man and a younger woman were disheveled and only half dressed. But clearly Libby wasn’t there. Cooper soon realized they’d just scared the daylights out of a couple that was living in the diminutive space, never expecting to be bothered by intruders.
Fuck, where are you?
Cooper took the scope and now trotted down the row of garages. No time to go after anything other than human size. He made a mental note to keep his other scope in the bag in the future.
Malcolm and Kyle jogged behind, ready to remove any locking devices.
Again Cooper thought he heard talking, arguing even. He smiled. It warmed his heart when he realized it was Libby, he was sure of it. He’d recognize that righteous indignation rising in her voice any day. This time it appeared the noise came from the line of garages on the other side. They dashed over there.
The large orange shadows appeared so fast that it almost caught Cooper off guard. Although faded, there was the unmistakable outline of two people. Neither body was moving, but lay side by side, in prone position. The shadows were further away from the wall, indicating this was a much larger room.
Libby. His heart nearly leapt from his chest.
Again Fredo placed the explosive charge on the keypad entry box, and, as soon as Kyle opened the door, Coop ducked under and was on the flimsy wooden door. He set his thermal scope down and, with one shattering kick, the door shattered. He flipped on the light switch.
What they saw drew an instant retching reflex. Kyle started to cough and backed up. Like a strange set out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, the room had been decorated like a young girl’s bedroom. In pink. It was decorated with Barbie dollhouses and lamps. The bedspread would have been pink, if it hadn’t contained a nude woman’s body covered in blood. A pillow had been placed over her face. Cooper was frozen where he stood. Was this what was to be their fate, after all this? Did he spend his whole life looking for this one woman, only to get there just as she’d been taken away from him forever? He didn’t want to look, but he knew he had to.
He heard Fredo mumbling something behind him in Spanish. The little SEAL backed up and left him alone with her for a private farewell. The stench of death was strong. He expected her spilled blood to smell metallic. This was the smell of decay.
Something else began to kick in. Instinct. The room was too small. He stepped back, surveying the death scene and noticed the pool of blood on the floor was deep burgundy, almost brown and had nearly hardened into thick goo. He heard muffled voices.
Next door! Kyle stepped up and removed the pillow. The graying eyes and chalky white face of the once-beautiful young woman who had her neck slashed from ear to ear was not Libby’s.
“Coop, you better look at this.” Fredo handed him his scope and through the wall he could barely make out the two original heat patterns, still very much alive.
“Through the next one,” Malcolm whispered.
Cooper watched in horror that the images next door were standing, and it appeared an arm was bent out to one side.
They put on their masks and night vision goggles and blew the lock, then Kyle kicked in the door, throwing a small flash bomb inside. Coop kept the light off. They all heard coughing, but couldn’t see a damned thing. Malcolm didn’t have a mask, so they pointed for him to go outside. The thermal scope showed them Libby’s body was near the ground and was not moving.
Coop said a little prayer. No. No. No. He hoped he could get there in time.
The gardener was leaning against the wall near the doorway. If he didn’t have a mask, he wouldn’t last very long in the smoke, but any delay was too much. He had to get to her within seconds.
Then the gardener burst from the room with his arms up, stark naked, his dick dangling in front of him. Fredo promptly kicked him in the groin and the man fell, hitting his head hard on the concrete floor. Fredo spat epithets in Spanish at the man, who was groaning in pain as Fredo continued to kick him. Cooper and Kyle rushed through the doorway and found Libby on the bed. Cooper had her shoulders and Kyle had her feet. There wasn’t time to check out what her injuries were. They brought her outside the garage.
She was completely naked.
Fredo had located a roll of carpet and had it spread outside near the entrance. Cooper lay her down carefully. Rolling smoke poured from the garage, but harmlessly dissipated into the night above them. He removed his vest and laid it under her head. Holding his small penlight in his mouth he checked her vitals. Kyle laid his jacket over Libby for privacy. She was pale, except for a large welt forming all around her left eye where he must have hit her. Her eyes were dilated. She had a pulse, although it was rapid. He was about to give her CPR when he saw the most wonderful sight of his lifetime. Her chest rose as she gasped in a deep breath.
Chapter Forty-two
Cooper wouldn’t leave Libby’s side. Paramedics came and tried to push him away, but he almost got heavy with the larger one and barked a “no” they would not soon forget. As usual, Kyle was making nice with the local authorities, including Riverton, who looked rather pissed.
“We caught the guy, Clark. I’d have thought you’d be a little more grateful,” Kyle said. The two of them walked off into the night to have a private conversation.
Cooper helped the paramedics remove Libby to the gurney for transport to the hospital.
“I’m fine,” she kept on saying. “Really, I’m fine. You guys don’t have to fuss over me.”
“Baby, that was so close. I’m never going to leave you alone again.”
Libby giggled.
God, how I love that sound!
“Cooper, come here.” She raised her head up and Cooper kissed her. He would have climbed on top of the gurney if the paramedics hadn’t objected. They started pulling him away carefully. No one was going to be able to stop him, but he knew they’d try.
Libby placed her hands on his cheeks as he bent over, following along, hovering over her and the wheeled transport. She rubbed her thumbs over his lips. “I was so stupid,” she whispered, searching his eyes.
God, how he loved this woman.
“No. No baby. You were smart.” Cooper looked at the red and white stiff blanket covering her body, and focused on
her bare shoulders. “Did he hurt you in any way?” He’d asked her this question several times and she’d said no. Cooper just wanted to be sure.
“No. No, and no. Stop asking me that.” She smiled, her eyes sparkling with tears that began to well up. Cooper’s heart lurched. “There was no way in hell I’d let him get that far.”
“That’s my girl, so stubborn. Never met anyone like you before.”
“Thank goodness. You arrived just in time. Coop, I was hoping you’d find me. If I hadn’t been so stupid—”
“Shhh. Be still, baby.” He couldn’t help but kiss her again.
The gurney hit the back end of the ambulance and abruptly stopped.
“Sir, you are interfering with our transport. I’m going to have to ask you to step aside.” The voice was far from friendly. That’s when he realized one of the paramedics was a woman. A very large African American woman.
The other paramedic whispered, “He’s a SEAL, Clojean.”
“I don’t care what the fuck he thinks he is, he’s interfering with my patient. I’ve turned tougher Marines over my knee, stripped down their panties and had a needle in their butt so fast they was still thinking it was Saturday night. Don’t you give me any trouble.”
In the light coming from the rear of the transport, Cooper could see she wasn’t smiling.
He had no intention of giving her any trouble. Coop smirked and allowed her insult to roll off him like water off a duck’s back. He wasn’t in fighting mode anymore. He couldn’t remember a day when he was happier, and he had other things on his mind right now.
* * *
Riverton watched Malcolm and Fredo trash talk each other, racial slurs that would cause a fight anywhere else. A tiny bit of regret bubbled in his stomach as he watched their quiet demeanor, while Kyle directed what things to pick up and where to put them. He wished he’d thought enough of himself to try out for the Teams way back when. These were guys he’d wanted to meet his whole life. Real men. Not political hacks and guys afraid of their own shadow, working toward their pension. Doing the safe thing. These were all-or-nothing guys, and he might have enjoyed it. If he could have made it.
He watched the thermal scope go back into a polyethylene case that held, unless he was totally mistaken, an assault rifle. He drooled over the equipment they had. State of the art everything. And Kyle said Cooper had bought a lot of it on eBay, or overseas in the black markets.
Kyle didn’t open the case very wide, just slipped the scope into its designated spot and fastened the clips silently.
Everything had a spot, Riverton noticed. He watched them even wipe down their goggles. The bottoms of the cases that had been strewn around the asphalt were even wiped clean before they were put back in the BMW. Kyle polished a KA-BAR Riverton was grateful never got used, cause then he’d have had to make a report, and he didn’t want any of these weapons, or these guys’ names, in his report.
Kyle looked up at him, as if answering a question he might have asked if he had been braver. “We don’t do this sort of thing very often, you know.”
“Fortunately, neither do I. Of course, San Diego would be a safer place to live if I could get more of these bad guys off the street. But it’s my job, not yours.”
Kyle laughed and replaced the knife in its holder attached to his utility belt. “Come on there, Clark. Are we ever really off the job? You think if something happened to this great country we’d all claim retirement and let the same people who hired us to defend them perish without a fight?”
Riverton thought about that for a while. “It’d be one hell of a fight,” he murmured.
“That it would. But not today. Today we go back to the Scupper and sit back and have a few brews.”
Riverton raised his eyebrows.
“We get our women to come pick us up so we get home safely.” Kyle’s white smile glowed in the moonlight.
“Actually, I was thinking I might ask you if I could join you. You’ll be one short, with Cooper otherwise occupied.”
“That can be arranged. You sure?”
“As a heart attack.” Riverton watched Kyle laugh. “What’s so fuckin’ funny?”
“A SEAL ride-along. That’s a first.” He could see Kyle was feeling very pleased with his comment as he went to load up the remaining equipment.
Fredo was pissed off he had ripped his pants on one of the shards of door and half-heartedly blamed it on Malcolm, who protested the affront.
“Well then I won’t fix you up with my sister, Fredo. Besides which, she’s only about a foot taller than you are.”
“That doesn’t bother me in the slightest. There aren’t many pretty girls my size. None of my dates complain, either.”
The security guard was laughing at the two of them. He’d brought a pedestal lamp that plugged into his cigarette lighter, making the area bright as noon. In addition, the police photographer was flashing pictures of the corpse, the room where Libby was held and the surrounding area.
The guard turned to Riverton. “I like these guys.”
“What guys?” Riverton asked.
“These SEAL guys.”
“Son, you saved the day, didn’t anyone tell you that yet? You’re about to become a hero.”
“Excuse me? What about these guys?”
“They were never here.”
Chapter Forty-three
Cooper couldn’t remember being so nervous. The sun was setting on the ocean from atop the grand master suite that had cost him a month’s pay. But this was going to be an important night. The rest of the Team had their celebration last night. Cooper had sneaked into the hospital room and spent the night in bed with Libby. He’d been tossed out twice, but still managed to get back in. Finally the nurses let him stay.
She was just being held for observation, and Coop talked them out of needing a monitor, telling the nurses a lie that he was an intern, on his way to becoming a Naval physician.
She had asked him afterwards if that was what he wanted to do, be a doctor.
He said, no. He wanted to get naked and inside her as soon as possible.
She seemed to like that idea just as much. Maybe better.
But tonight was the candlelit dinner he had never done before. He wanted everything to be how she would like it, just for one night. He would have to be honest with her, that his salary didn’t allow for these kinds of extravagances.
But tonight he wanted to show her what he could do. How he wanted everything in her life to be perfect. How he loved her.
Room service brought strawberries dipped in chocolate and a bottle of lime mineral water. There were chilled shrimp salads in the refrigerator. The rare steaks were in their heated cart, along with the twice-baked potatoes with cheese and the veggies. He knew all these things were her favorites. He’d have liked cornbread and some fresh peas, like at home, but some day. Maybe they’d go back to his home and build a little house on that land he loved. Raise a ton of kids.
If she’ll have me.
This suite had a fireplace he’d lit. Bay was stretched out in front of it. He noticed the dog seemed to be comfortable no matter where they were together. Just being together was all he wanted. If Coop were a beach bum, Bay would sleep outside on the sand under the stars right along with him.
He hoped Libby would feel the same way.
There was a light knock on the door. He lit the candles he’d bought, dimmed the lights and opened the door.
Libby stood in the hallway, wrapped in a velvet coat buttoned all the way down to below her knees. Her black eye had gotten bright blue and he had to laugh inside, but didn’t want to show it.
“Well, madam, I can see you like it rough.” He was about to bust a gut not to burst out laughing.
She gave him that wide smile he loved so much.
“You said you liked long kisses and great sex, sailor. That’s why I’m here.”
“Is it, now?” He stepped forward and led her into the room, closing the door behind her. “Can I take your
coat?”
“You can try,” she said winking at him as she walked into the room.
Even from behind, and underneath the cloak of velvet he could see her hips move, the beautiful, round curves of her perfect ass sliding against the fabric, teasing him. Cooper’s reaction was immediate. He walked up to her, drew her into his arms and sank into the wonderful scents of her flesh, the taste of her neck, the way her hair brushed against his cheek. They swung back and forth, looking out over the shining bay, while he rubbed his hands up and down her thighs and bottom, needing to feel her warm skin under his palms.
He was wearing jeans because Libby had said she liked him in blue jeans and white shirts, so that’s exactly what he wore. No shoes. She turned around and looked up and down his body and dreamily smiled back at him.
“I’m not as formally dressed as you are, I was just thinking we’d be staying in—” he couldn’t finish his sentence because she had reached over and grabbed his balls and squeezed them through the blue denim.
“It’s perfect.” Her other hand unbuttoned his shirt, carefully spread it to the sides and she lay her head against his bare chest.
“It is perfect, isn’t it, Libby?”
She turned her face up and rested her petite face and chin on his sternum. “Yes, Cooper, it is. About as perfect as it gets.”
He hesitated and inhaled.
“What’s wrong?” she frowned.
