Over the Edge

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Ah, Christ.” Stan pulled him away from her. “You’re about as threatening as little Cindy Lou Who.”

  “I have a sister,” Gilligan protested.

  “So do I,” Stan said, moving closer and closer, until Teri had to back up to keep him from bumping into her. “Watch me.”

  Her back hit the wall, and still he kept coming, his eyes hard and colorless in the dim stairwell light.

  As he put an arm up on either side of her, pinning her in, his muscles strained the sleeves of his snugly fitting T-shirt. She found herself hypnotized, thinking about his underwear.

  The senior chief wore plain white, no-frills briefs.

  That fit about as snugly as this T-shirt he was wearing.

  It was an image that Teri was going to carry with her to her grave—Senior Chief Stan Wolchonok, all hard muscles and tanned skin and blue eyes and form-fitting white briefs.

  Oh, God.

  She felt him touch her, his chest brushing her breasts as he got yet even closer. It was exactly the kind of intimidating crowding that she hated, and yet he was being careful, she knew, to keep the lower half of his body away from her.

  He leaned forward and she felt his breath hot against her as he spoke, his voice a rough whisper in her ear. “You know you want me.” They were the same words Joel Hogan had said to her in the parking lot.

  He pulled back slightly to look down at her, and Teri stared up at him, unable to speak or move. Unable to breathe.

  For a half second, he froze, too.

  But then he pushed himself away from the wall, away from her. “That’s what I mean, Gillman. As stupidly obnoxious as you can imagine. Come on, do what I just did, and Teri . . .” He looked at her. “Don’t just stand there. What are you going to do when he says that to you? What are you going to say? Have something prepared. Pretend you’re in your helo—that you’ve got that kind of control of this situation, that kind of confidence.”

  Gilligan got close, still dubious. God, he smelled bad, kind of like rotting fish, and Teri started to laugh. This was just too absurd.

  “Okay, good,” Stan said. “Getting laughed at by the woman you’re pursuing is an instant soft-on.” He caught himself. “Pardon the expression.” He cleared his throat. “Now, look him in the eye and tell him to get lost.”

  “Get lost,” Teri said to Dan Gillman. It was easy to sound heartfelt. She wanted both him and Izzy to disappear. She wanted to be alone in this stairwell with Stan. You know you want me. He hadn’t been serious when he’d said that. He was only trying to be . . . what had he called it? Stupidly obnoxious. But his words were so true. She wanted him.

  “My turn,” Izzy announced.

  Teri turned to him, forced herself to meet his gaze. “Get lost,” she said, and Stan grinned, his smile lighting him from within.

  You know you want me.

  Yeah, she did.

  Badly.

  “Got a minute?” Sam Starrett asked.

  “Sure. What’s up?” Max Bhagat looked up from the conference table that had been pulled off to the side of the negotiators’room.

  He was pretending to be cool and calm in his three-thousand-dollar suit, but rumor had it the laid-back control was just an act. Rumor had it that Bhagat’s true nature would be revealed within a day or two. He’d wear a hole in this cheap wall-to-wall carpet from his pacing. He’d stop eating, stop sleeping, that jacket would come off, and his sleeves would get rolled up.

  Rumor had it that Bhagat rarely lost his temper, but when he did—look out! It wasn’t a rumor but a fact that the man was the best negotiator in all of the FBI. He’d do whatever it took to buy the SEALs the time they needed to be as prepared as possible for the takedown of the plane.

  Starrett could appreciate that. He had the utmost respect for the men and women who worked hard to support his team.

  But so far the tangos—terrorists—on the hijacked plane hadn’t responded to any of Bhagat’s radio messages. Every fifteen minutes the man had broadcast a message to the plane. Down the hall, his team of assistants were placing bets as to when he’d get fed up enough to go out on the concrete runway with a bullhorn.

  The silence was unnerving. It was a technique the negotiators themselves frequently used. Now we’ll just sit here and you can listen to yourself breathe and think about all the ways you’re probably going to die. . . .

  “Your FBI observers,” Starrett said, trying not to sound as hostile as he’d felt just a few hours ago, out on the airstrip, and a half hour ago in the hotel restaurant when he’d gone to get dinner and found that Alyssa Locke was there, too. Everywhere he fucking went, she was watching him. “They’re distracting the hell out of my men. Me,” he amended. “Me and my men.”

  Bhagat just sat there, looking at him coolly, letting him sputter and make noise. Kind of like what the tangos were doing.

  He could imagine what Bhagat was thinking. Was it Alyssa Locke that Starrett had a problem with, or was it her gay partner, Jules Cassidy?

  But Starrett couldn’t explain. As pissed off as he was at her, he’d promised Alyssa he’d never breathe a word to anyone about the night they’d spent together. It was a secret he was going to carry with him to his grave. His very cold and lonely grave.

  “Do you mind if I ask them to observe from a slightly closer proximity?” he asked, and had the satisfaction of knowing he’d surprised Bhagat with his request. “I want to start working with warm bodies on the mock-up—people playing the parts of both passengers and hijackers. You have any objection to Locke and Cassidy getting involved?”

  “None at all,” Bhagat said. “Watch out, though, Alyssa Locke is an extremely accurate shot.”

  Understatement of the century. Along with being drop dead gorgeous and amazing in bed, Alyssa was an expert marksman, a world class sharpshooter.

  “We’re working on getting you an actual World Airlines 747 to use for practice,” Bhagat said.

  “We should’ve had it here this afternoon,” Starrett countered.

  “Hello?” The voice came from the radio, and Bhagat jumped out of his seat.

  “Radio contact!” one of the aides shouted as Bhagat reached for the microphone.

  “Get the senator,” he ordered.

  Another of the aides who’d been dozing in front of the surveillance equipment vanished down the hall.

  “This is World Airlines flight 232,” the voice from the radio announced. Whoever it was, she was young, female, and American. No doubt about it, that voice was pure New York.

  “Flight 232, my name is Max,” Bhagat said, sounding cool and unruffled. “Who am I talking to?”

  As Sam stood there, the room came to life fast. All the empty chairs filled up and the bright overhead lights were switched on.

  “I’m Karen,” the voice said. “Karen Crawford?”

  “Hi, Karen. Are you all right?”

  “Max, you’re not, like, the airport janitor or something, are you? Because that was a really stupid question.”

  The entire room stopped breathing. All of the members of Bhagat’s team of agents turned to look at him. Sam guessed he’d been called a lot of things in his life, but stupid obviously wasn’t one of them.

  He didn’t seem particularly perturbed, but then again, he never did.

  “I’m trapped on a plane with five angry men,” the girl’s voice continued, “who are armed with seven different automatic weapons. Seven. Believe me, I know. I’ve counted them.”

  Max Bhagat smiled. “Make a note, please—we’ve got eyewitness verification that there are five hijackers on the plane, all fully armed,” he said to his team. He was already pacing. “Good job, Karen. Tell us as much as you possibly can, but do it without putting yourself into additional danger.” He thumbed the key to the radio microphone, opening the frequency.

  “I’m an FBI negotiator, Karen,” he said into the mike with his accentless, smooth, FM radio voice. “I apologize for the stupid question. I was hoping you could assure me that you and
everyone else on board—including our hostile friends and the pilots and crew—are all in good health.”

  “Two of the passengers have been injured,” her voice came back, loud and clear. “But I’m okay. They want me to talk to my, well, my father.”

  Senator Crawford must’ve been sleeping on a couch in one of the other rooms. He came in as if on cue, with his hair a mess, Yale sweatshirt on in place of his suit jacket, blinking in the bright overhead light.

  “They know who she is,” Bhagat told the senator, getting right to the point, no niceties. “They’re using her to speak for them. Remember, no promises at this point, sir.” He thumbed the mike. “Karen, we’ve got him right here. He’s anxious to talk to you, too.”

  As Starrett watched, Senator Crawford nearly grabbed the microphone from Bhagat’s hands. “Karen, honey, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Daddy. You know, I almost didn’t make this flight. In fact, my friend . . . my friend Gina, she didn’t make it on board. Someone picked her pocket and stole her passport and they wouldn’t let her on the plane. I know her parents must be really worried about her, but they don’t have to be, because she’s not on the flight. She’s still back in Athens and—”

  The look on the senator’s face was almost comical. “Who the hell—?”

  Bhagat almost knocked the man over in his haste to get the mike away from him. For a guy in a suit, he could move pretty fast.

  “Hey! I don’t goddamn know who that is,” Crawford continued hotly, “but she’s not Karen. She’s not my daughter. And I would appreciate a little more consideration—”

  “Peggy, notify the American consulate in Athens,” Bhagat barked orders right over him. It seemed as if the rumors of Bhagat’s legendary temper were all true. “Karen Crawford’s probably there right now, trying to get a replacement passport. Get her to safety, quickly and quietly—no media. Not one reporter finds out about this. If she shows up on CNN, I will go there myself after this is over and personally escort everyone in the Athens office to hell, is that understood?”

  It clearly was. “Yes, sir.” Peggy hauled ass out of the room.

  Max Bhagat turned his glare back onto Crawford. “Another outburst like that, and senator or president or God—I don’t give a gleaming goddamn who or what you are—you will be out of this room.”

  That, too, was understood.

  Still, Crawford bristled. “Are you threatening me?”

  “Do you really care?” Bhagat shot back at him. “This young woman—and I believe she just told us her name was Gina. George, get me the passenger manifest from World Airlines, fast—she just managed to inform us that your daughter’s not on that plane. Glory alleluia, it’s your lucky day. Your daughter is safe. But whoever the hell Gina is, she’s someone else’s daughter, and she’s taking a real risk here. If the hijackers find out she’s not Karen, they’ll kill her. I don’t doubt that. Now, when you get back on this radio, sir, you remember that. And you keep her the hell alive.”

  Nine

  “Back off,” Teri said, but this time Izzy kept coming. The SEAL was built like a professional linebacker, and with the streaks of black camouflage still on his face, he looked faintly savage.

  At the senior chief’s request, he’d been playing it as skeevy as possible, leering, grabbing at her ass, and muttering faintly obscene suggestions for a solid ten minutes now.

  Frankly, she wasn’t well enough acquainted with him to know whether or not he was a genuine creep or just a really good actor.

  With Gilligan, Stan had been standing right behind her, close enough so that she couldn’t back up without bumping into him. Close enough so that she couldn’t get caught up in the make-believe and actually start feeling afraid.

  But now he’d moved away, and when Izzy came toward her, she felt a swift tug of real fear. Rationally, logically, she knew she wasn’t in any danger. Stan was six feet away, tops. Still, the look in Izzy’s eyes made the hair on the back of her neck go up. This was why she didn’t hang out in bars.

  “Okay, so what do you do now, Teri?” Stan asked.

  Get louder. Sound like she really meant it. Stand her ground, don’t back away, chin high, eyes hard.

  Izzy reached for her, and she smacked his hand. “Back off!” she said again, and this time her voice rang out, echoing in the hotel stairwell.

  And Izzy retreated. “Ouch.”

  “Good,” Stan said, briefly touching her shoulder with approval.

  “Yeah, like this has anything to do with real life,” she countered, her elation fading as quickly as the warmth from his hand. She sank down to sit on the stairs.

  He turned to Izzy and Gilligan. “Thank you, gentlemen, for your help.”

  “Any time, Senior Chief.”

  “See you later, Teri.” Gilligan gave her a smile and Izzy winked as the two men headed down the stairs.

  Teri sighed. Clearly she’d intimidated them. Not a bit.

  Stan came over and sat beside her on the same step. He was careful to keep a lot of space between them, same as when he’d sat next to her on his bed. Sometimes it seemed as if every guy in the world crowded her—except the one she wanted to get close to.

  “When it’s real, I freeze,” she told him.

  “I thought I saw you do that a couple of times,” Stan said easily. “But then you snapped out of it. That was good. That’s what you have to practice doing.”

  She had frozen at least once. When Stan had used his body to push her back against the wall. When he’d stood so close that she was pressed against the solid muscles of his chest. Her own body temperature had gone up several degrees simply from the proximity of his heat.

  It wasn’t fear that had frozen her in place.

  She’d been speechless as well as unable to move. Dry mouthed from desire.

  “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your help,” Teri told him now, “because I do. It’s just . . . different when it’s real.”

  “So you’ll practice,” he said matter-of-factly. “Until it’s not different when it’s real. Until it’s no big deal—just another jerk to put in his place.”

  He was tired. He tried to pretend he wasn’t, but he reached up with one hand to work out the stiffness in his neck and shoulders.

  If she weren’t such a coward, she’d offer to give him a backrub. Instead she just sat there, watching him, admiring his eyes and his arms and the way his T-shirt clung to the muscles in his chest. Thinking that even though he wasn’t conventionally handsome, he was possibly the most attractive man she’d ever met. Thinking about his underwear. Wishing she had the nerve to touch him.

  But he’d tried to set her up with his best friend. Surely that was a sign he wasn’t interested in her in a touching kind of way.

  He met her gaze, looking at her as intently as she was looking at him. What did he see?

  An exhausted coward with messy hair and tired eyes. And yet Teri didn’t want to stand up and call it a night. She wanted to stay right here, on this step, next to this man, for as long as she possibly could.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” Stan asked her.

  Her heart tripped, yet she managed to sound normal as she answered. “Okay.”

  If there were a God, Stan would ask her to go back to his room with him. But, really, she knew he wasn’t going to ask that. The way he was sitting—his body language—couldn’t scream friend any louder if he tried.

  “What’s your goal in the Navy?” Stan asked. “What do you want from your career?”

  That wasn’t personal. That was easy. “To fly. I just want to fly.”

  He nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Just to fly. Yeah, you told me that was a priority for you since you were a kid. You went after it, and you got it pretty quickly. No fear. But there’s really more to your goal than that, isn’t there? If you really just wanted to fly, you’d still be a pilot for Harmony Airlines.”

  He was right.

  “Okay, I guess I want to fly for missio
ns like this one,” she said slowly, thinking aloud, “where I get to work with people I respect. With people who respect me.”

  He nodded, seeming to think that was a good answer. “How about your personal life?” he asked. “What are your goals there?”

  Teri didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Do you want a family?” he went on. “And it’s okay if you don’t—not everyone does. I mean, I don’t. What would I do with a wife and kids? Christ. How do you sustain that kind of relationship if you’re gone all the time, you know?”

  “But your house is perfect for . . .” Kids. She tried again. “You have such a great house.” God, that was a stupid thing to say.

  He laughed. Apparently he thought it was pretty stupid, too, but his laughter was teasing and warm. Inclusive. “Yeah, but last time I checked, having a great house—and it’s a bungalow, by the way—wasn’t one of Navy Life magazine’s top ten reasons to get married.”

  “It needs furniture,” she found herself saying. God, she was embarrassed she’d brought it up in the first place, but she was unable to stop sounding stupid. What was wrong with her?

  She wanted him to kiss her. She always got stupid when she was with a man she liked enough to want to kiss.

  This was too weird. She couldn’t get up the nerve to call this man by his first name, yet she wanted . . . Maybe it was hero worship, like the crushes she’d occasionally had on her teachers in school. Maybe it was all part of her ongoing quest to find approval. Maybe she was misinterpreting her emotional need to connect with a father figure for . . .

  She snuck another glance at Stan’s near-perfect body. Long legs, lean hips, trim waist, big shoulders and arms.

  No, what she was feeling was in no way daughterly.

  Stan was still smiling, the lines around his eyes crinkling, making him more than merely attractive, making him decidedly handsome. Drop dead gorgeous with those warm, warm blue eyes and those straight white teeth and those lips . . .