“This, along with a little tape and plenty of this fine gravity that planet Earth provides … I kneel before you,” Izzy told Eden’s other brother as he continued to check his wound, “your walking and talking bag of type O blood.”
“We’ve really got the bleeding under control,” Dan told him.
“It looks like you have,” Izzy said, not to Dan, but to Jenn, who was looking more pale than Danny. “Looks like the bullet missed the artery.”
She nodded, still not completely convinced.
So Izzy looked at her directly, squarely, and said, “We’ll keep an eye on it. If it starts bleeding again, well, we’ve got the tools we need to keep him alive until the helo gets here. Okay? I promise you, he’s going to be fine.”
And this time when she nodded, she actually smiled, too.
“I just spoke to Jenk,” Izzy told Danny. “He and Lindsey and Lopez are heading over to Eden’s apartment—to try to talk to Neesha. She’s still holed up, inside.” He looked at Eden. “She went one-on-one with Todd.”
“She what?”
“We left her Greg’s gun and she kicked his ass,” he told her as he wiped Dan’s blood from his hands on the front of Dan’s shirt.
“Hey!”
“Yeah, what? You’re already a mess. Anyway, it got noisy and now the police and the FBI are out in the courtyard, trying to get her to put down her weapon and come out with her hands up. She wants to wait for us to get home. Which could be a while.” Izzy reached for Eden, pulling her down onto his lap. “Ben, you’re still keeping watch, right?”
“I am,” Ben said.
“Good boy,” Izzy said as he looked into Eden’s eyes. “Because right now? I’ve got to kiss my wife.”
And that he did.
CHAPTER
THIRTY
LAS VEGAS
SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2009
Neesha waited.
Every so often the phone would ring, and she would answer it, hoping it was Danny or Izzy or Eden or Ben, but it was always a lady whose voice she didn’t recognize, and Neesha always said, “No, thank you,” and hung right up.
But then the phone rang, and it was Ben. He was all right—they were all all right, but they were being taken to the hospital. And he wanted Neesha to meet them over there.
He told her that a woman named Lindsey, who looked kind of like Neesha, would come to the door. Neesha should let her in, and she would take Neesha over to the hospital.
And finally, it came.
A knock on the door. A voice, calling from outside. “Neesha? My name is Lindsey. I’m a friend of Ben’s. I have a key, may I use it to unlock the door and come in?”
“Yes,” Neesha said.
And the woman came in, pushing her way around the refrigerator.
She was short, like Neesha, and she had dark hair, like Neesha, and brown eyes similar to Neesha’s. And when she smiled, Neesha was reminded of her mother’s smile.
“Hey,” she said. “I’m Lindsey.” Her hands were empty, and she kept them out and open in front of her. She was also wearing some kind of padded vest that made her look like a baseball umpire.
One of Neesha’s visitors had liked baseball, and always tuned the TV in her room to a game.
“Did you get the pictures I sent to your phone?” she asked.
Neesha shook her head. “I didn’t know how to see them,” she said.
“May I come into the living room?” Lindsey asked. “I can show you …”
“Please close the door behind you,” Neesha said, so Lindsey did before she crossed the apartment, still with her hands out.
She sat on the couch, next to Neesha, taking in the fact of that gun on Neesha’s lap, the same way she’d glanced down the hall and made note of Todd’s body sprawled in front of the bedroom door. She was not afraid, but she was also not a fool.
Continuing to check for Neesha’s permission, she reached for the cell phone and opened it, pushing some of the buttons and … She held it out so that Neesha could see the pictures on the tiny screen.
Yes, that was Lindsey with Izzy and Danny and another, shorter man, and another man with darker hair. “That’s from my wedding,” she told Neesha with a smile. “Izzy and Dan and our other friend, Jay Lopez, they were all best men. My husband, Mark—that’s him.” She pointed to the shorter man who was smiling broadly. “He couldn’t decide who should be his best man, and since he has three best friends, he had three best men. He’s very diplomatic.” She pointed to the dark-haired man. “That’s Jay. He’s outside, with Mark, right now. The three of us will take you to the hospital. With a police escort, of course. But you’ll be in the car with us. And one of us will stay with you, until you feel confident that you’re safe. Is that okay?”
Neesha looked back into Lindsey’s eyes, but didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure yet if it was okay. “Can I keep the gun?” she finally asked.
“No,” Lindsey said.
Neesha nodded. “I didn’t think so. Will I go to jail?”
Lindsey answered the exact same way, with no hesitation. “No.”
“But I’m illegal.”
This time Lindsey didn’t answer quite as quickly. This time, she said, “Is that what they told you? That you’d be arrested because you’re here illegally?”
Neesha nodded. “I saw on the TV news—all the people who hate me.”
But Lindsey was shaking her head. “Neesha, you were brought here against your will. You’re the victim of a terrible crime—you’re not a criminal. And if you want to? You can help the police and the FBI bring charges against the people who hurt you. You can go to court and testify. But only if you want to.”
Neesha looked at Lindsey. “I want to,” she said.
“Good,” Lindsey said. “The first thing you’ll do is look at some pictures and point out the men and women that you recognize—if there are any that you recognize.”
“I don’t have to look at pictures,” Neesha said. “I can just …” She reached over to the paper and pen she’d been using while she’d waited, after Todd was no longer a threat. It had been a long, long time since she’d had either to work with and at first she was rusty, but then she got better. She handed her drawings to Lindsey. “That’s Mr. Nelson, on the top,” she said as Lindsey flipped through the pages. “And a man called Karl and another called Ron. I haven’t seen them at all in the past few years, so maybe they’re dead—”
“They’re not,” Lindsey said. “Neesha, this is …”
“There’s Jake.” Neesha pointed at her drawings. “And a man named Nathan. And Todd. When he still had a face.”
Lindsey looked back at her. “Now I know why they were so desperate to find you.”
“They stopped giving me paper and pencils,” Neesha told her, “when I was twelve. It was the same year I first … met Todd.”
“God.” Lindsey held up the last page. “Who’s this?”
Neesha pointed to the woman she’d drawn. “That’s my mother,” she said, “before she got sick and died. And the man is her father—my grandfather.”
Lindsey nodded. “We can help you find him.”
“He might not want me anymore.”
“If he doesn’t,” Lindsey said, “he’s an idiot. Whatever happens, though? You’ll be safe. I can guarantee that.” She stood up. Held out her hand. “Why don’t you give me that weapon so we can get over to the hospital, get you checked out. You can say hi to Ben …”
Neesha looked up at Lindsey. And handed her the gun.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Danny needed surgery, because the bullet that had hit him hadn’t exited his leg.
It was supposed to be quick and easy, but Eden knew that Jennilyn was anxious. She and Izzy had volunteered to sit with her in the waiting room, even as Ben was being given a thorough examination just down the hall.
Mark Jenkins had gone to get food from the hospital cafeteria, and had brought it back with him—burgers and salads and fries. Izzy dug
in—they were all hungry—while Eden went to see what was taking Jenn so long in the ladies’ room.
She bumped into Lindsey—Mark’s wife—who was also on her way in to use the facilities.
“Oh, hi, Eden,” Lindsey said. “Neesha’s in talking to Ben, and Lopez is with them. I’ve had a lot of coffee this morning, so …” She made a face.
“It’s been a long night,” Eden agreed.
Jenn was over at the sinks, washing her hands, and she looked up at Eden in the mirror. “You can say that again.”
“It’s been a long one for Lindsey, too,” Eden told her. She looked at Lindsey. “Danny told me about your miscarriage. I’m so sorry.”
Lindsey sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “It still hasn’t really …” Tears flooded her eyes, but she blinked them back and smiled. “The really stupid thing is that I was really scared, you know, at first? At the idea of having this baby. But Mark was so happy and … I just finally started to really get into it and …”
“The really stupid thing isn’t that,” Eden told her as she gave Lindsey a hug. “The really stupid thing is that you miscarried. It’s not fair, and it sucks, and I am so, so sorry.”
Lindsey laughed through her tears as she hugged Eden back. “Yeah, it really does suck, doesn’t it?”
“And everyone goes, well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be and you just want to bitch-slap them,” Eden said, and she felt Lindsey nod.
“Mark’s really upset,” Lindsey confessed. “You know, we’re buying this house, and now he’s talking about just fixing it up a little and turning around and selling it right away. And I know what he means, because it just feels so pathetic and sad.”
“But you can try again,” Eden said, pulling back to look at her. “Can’t you? I mean …”
“Well, yeah,” Lindsey said, wiping her eyes. “Except, we weren’t exactly trying. It was kind of accidental, so …”
“So now you get to try,” Eden said. “I mean, if you want. If you don’t, that’s okay, too, you know? And you move into the house, because you weren’t buying it for the baby—that’s crazy. You don’t buy a baby a house. You buy it for your family. And your family’s just going to be a little bit smaller than you’d thought, at least for a little while. You’ve still got Mark and he’s still got you.”
Lindsey nodded. “You know, you’re right.” But then she laughed. “Am I the only one aware of the irony of this wisdom coming from the crazy woman who ran away to Germany after losing her baby?”
Eden laughed, too, as she wiped her own eyes. “Guilty as charged,” she said. “I was crazy. But I got better. Eventually, it starts to suck a little less.”
Lindsey hugged her again. “Thanks,” she said. “You know, Izzy really loves you.”
Eden smiled. “I do know. And I love him, too.”
“Good,” Lindsey said, “because if you mess with him again, I’d have to beat you senseless, regardless of how nice you are to me.”
“You won’t have to,” Eden said.
And as Lindsey went into one of the stalls, Eden looked over at Jenn, who’d been standing there quietly, by the sink. “You okay?”
Jenn nodded. “I’m just …”
“I know,” Eden said. “The doctor should be out soon. And then you can go in and see Danny.”
“That’ll be good,” Jenn said.
And together they went out and sat with Izzy and with Mark Jenkins. And they were even joined by Ben and Neesha and Jay Lopez and finally Lindsey, who came out of the bathroom right before the doctor appeared and said the words they all were waiting to hear.
“He’s going to be just fine. He’s alert—you can go in to see him now.”
The first thing that Dan said to Jenn when she went into the room where he was recovering from his surgery was, “The doctor said the bullet didn’t even so much as nick the artery. Recovery’s going to be much faster and easier.”
She laughed because she knew that he was thinking about sex, but then she started to cry, because she was just so overwhelmed.
“Hey,” he said, trying to sit up to put his arms around her, but the nurse started making noise, so Jenn came to him, so he could hold her. Even though he was the one in the hospital bed.
“I’m sorry,” she said, but he stopped her.
“It’s okay,” he said, his hands so gentle in her hair. “It’s all right. Everyone’s all right …”
“I know,” she said, “and I’m so grateful. And it’s all working out just perfectly. You know, we missed the meeting with CPS, but even that’s okay, because Ivette and Greg didn’t. Izzy really must’ve had some kind of come-to-Jesus meeting with them, because they convinced the social workers to let Ben live with either you and me or Eden and Izzy, either is fine, so maybe we can share him, you know? He can have a room in both of our apartments, like joint custody, so we can all have some alone time, too. And I was talking to Eden and we figured when you and Izzy go overseas, the three of us can live together, I mean, we’ll try it, you know? It might make it easier. And all the charges against Eden have been dropped, and the FBI is going to help Neesha find her grandfather, and everything’s going to be wonderful, except Mark and Lindsey just want to crawl away somewhere so they can cry, because it didn’t work out perfectly for them. They lost their baby and what if I really am pregnant and won’t that be rubbing their faces in it? I mean, God!”
“Wow,” Dan said. “Okay, I’m glad I opted for the local anesthesia, because if I were on something heavy-duty right now? I’d start crying, too. That would’ve been a mind-bender. But I’m pretty sure I followed. And really, Jenni, I don’t think you’re gonna have to worry about—”
Jenn wiped her face as she sat back to look at him. “I threw up. Before. In the bathroom.”
He laughed. “Are you shitting me?”
“Maybe it’s a bug. I really didn’t think you could get pregnant that fast.”
“Well, I can’t get pregnant at any speed,” he pointed out.
“You know what I mean.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m good.”
Jenn laughed her disbelief. “That’s your response? That you’re good?”
“Well, obviously I am.”
“Maybe I’m good,” she said. “Maybe I’m just, like, so fertile, we’re going to have twenty kids. Ten sets of twins. One a year for the next decade.”
Dan was unfazed. “Only one a year? We can do better than that.”
She laughed again, and he said, “I meant what I said. I love you. I also meant what I said about leaving the Teams. I think it’s time.”
Jenn shook her head. “You don’t have to do that for me. I know that I was scared when you got injured—”
“It’s not just about that,” Dan told her. “It’s about … Well, you having to leave your job. But if I don’t reup, we can live in New York, and you can keep doing what you’re doing. Your work with that shelter for homeless veterans—Jenni, that’s so important—”
“And what you do isn’t?” she countered. “As important as it is to make sure homeless vets have a place to go, what you do, as a SEAL, keeps regular soldiers out of harm’s way. What you do reduces the need for homeless shelters.” She smiled. “Dan, trust me, I’ll find an important job—something that I love doing—in California. And if I am pregnant, well, I hope I don’t shock you, but if I have a baby? I’m going to want to work, part-time, from home, if I can. At least until, I don’t know, preschool? Like I said, please don’t do this for me.”
“How about if I do it for me?” he said quietly.
Jenn gazed into his eyes, and nodded. “I’ve already given Maria my notice, so … Whatever you do, I think we should stay in California, at least for the short term. Until Ben graduates.”
He looked back at her. “You’re serious.”
“I meant it, too,” she told him. “When I made those vows.”
He drew her in for a kiss. But then he started to laugh. And whe
n he pulled back to look at her, Jenn expected a variation on the “Damn, I’m good” theme.
Instead, he smiled at her with such warmth in his eyes, and he said, “Baby, you have no idea how very much I love you.”
“Actually,” Jenn said, smiling back at him, “I think I do.”
By the time Dan was moved into a regular hospital room, Lindsey and Jenk and Lopez had left to bring Neesha to an FBI safe house, along with the little girl who’d been on the plane.
Jenk and Lindsey were going to be staying with Neesha for a while, until she felt more secure in her new surroundings.
So it was just Eden and Izzy and Jenni and Ben hanging out in Danny-Danny-bo-banny’s room, mocking the contents of his dinner tray, complete with runny Jell-O.
Actually, it was Izzy who was doing the mocking as Eden sat on his lap. Jenn was still looking a little peaked, and Ben was curled up on the other empty bed, taking a nap.
There weren’t a lot of chairs in the room, but that wasn’t why Izzy had pulled Eden down on top of him.
He wanted his arms around her for another few hours. Okay, days. Weeks? Years. Damn, it would be okay with him if they could just sit like this for the rest of their lives.
Of course, having her there made it hard to concentrate on the quiet conversation that Jenn and Dan were having, across the room. Until Izzy heard Dan say, “… two bedrooms—it’s really nice. It’s close to the base, too, and … I talked to Jenk, and he said it would be great if we rented. He thinks it’s unlikely they’ll be able to sell in this market—”
“Are you talking about Jenk and Lindsey’s condo?” Izzy asked. “Because I just talked to Linds, and she said that Eden and I could rent it.”
“No, no,” Dan said. “Uh-uh. We got first dibs.”
Izzy sat up, making Eden grab him more tightly around the neck, which was very nice. “How do you get first dibs? What are dibs, anyway, and why should you get them?”
“Maybe we should flip a coin,” Jenn suggested, ever the voice of reason.
“Flip a coin?” Izzy asked, “for the greatest apartment in San Diego?” as Dan chimed in with, “Ah, babe, seriously, their place is awesome.”
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