dark ops 3 - Renegade (6 page)

It was his twentieth wedding anniversary, but Lieutenant Colonel Rex Scanlon didn’t need to worry about remembering to buy his wife her favorite candy or cologne. He’d already purchased the flowers, and tonight after work, he would deliver them to her grave.

Rex stepped out of the military hospital elevator and followed the numbers and arrows printed on the wall, leading him toward Chuck Tanaka’s room. The flowers for Heather should stay fresh in his car. He’d picked up the bouquet of her favorite daisies from the grocery store on his way to the hospital. It was all too easy to remember exactly when she died, since it had happened on their anniversary. How damned ironic the number of times he’d forgotten the date while they were married. Now there wasn’t a chance in hell the day would go by unrecognized.

But first, he had another member of his squadron to visit now that he’d finished up with Sergeant Randolph.

A young airman in fatigues pushed a cart full of half-empty food trays past, the rank smell of mass-produced meals clogging the air. God, he hated hospitals and the memories they kicked up. Heather may have gone quickly, but the short time he’d spent outside her room in the ER felt like a lifetime as he’d waited to hear why his wife, forty-one years young, had suffered a heart attack. He’d expected the doctor to come out and explain that they needed to be more careful, eat better, exercise more, reduce stress.

Instead, the ER physician informed him they were very sorry. Heather had died. They’d tried to bring her back but weren’t successful. Blah, blah, blah. The rest had blurred in his mind as he struggled to face a future without his wife. A future as a single father of twin boys just finishing up high school.

Rex stopped in front of Tanaka’s room number and swiped his arm under his nose in hopes of diluting the antiseptic smell.

A chaplain in fatigues stepped out and pulled up short, holding the door half-open. “Oh, excuse me, Colonel. Captain Tanaka is a popular fella right now.”

“He already has another visitor, Chaplain”—he glanced at the name on the uniform to refresh his memory—“Hatch.”

Yeah, he would have remembered the guy’s name if he didn’t spend so much time hiding from him.

The chaplain tucked his day planner under his arm. “He’s allowed two visitors at a time. They probably wouldn’t even complain if he had more. Everyone likes Captain Tanaka.”

Rex’s neck itched. He considered leaving and going straight to Heather’s grave, but he would only have to come back here again, which would mean wasted time when he had a suspicious in-flight incident to deal with. “Tanaka’s a good guy. Have a nice evening, Chaplain.”

He cut the conversation short. Chaplain Hatch probably had a busy schedule, too.

All about efficiency, he could hear Heather’s laughing voice in his head. He could imagine her lifting his glasses off and leaning to kiss him, hear her whispering,
I like that best how particularly efficient you are in the bedroom . . .

He cleared his throat and thoughts. Time to focus on Captain Tanaka and the airman’s recovery. Rex tapped on the door, the light pressure nudging the already cracked door open wider.

Tanaka had a lady visitor.

Good. The guy deserved some female TLC. The women had always gone for the Hawaiian’s charm and what Heather had called Tanaka’s exotic appeal.

Tanaka lay in bed, the head of the mattress upright, his leg in a cast from the latest surgery. Nearly every bone in Tanaka’s body had been broken while he was held captive in Turkey last spring by a sadistic bitch bent on torturing military secrets out of service members. He faced a long road to recovery, but thank God he was still alive to recover.

Doctors couldn’t predict how much mobility he would regain. This could be it for him, but he was alive, and he had all his limbs and his brain, when too many others weren’t as lucky. Still, standing here seeing one of his people suffer, feeling like he’d failed this young man, Rex didn’t much see the luck.

Tanaka looked up sharply, then smiled. “Hello, sir, come on in. You remember Livia.”

Livia? Livia Cicero? No way in hell.

She turned from the edge of the bed to smile.

Oh shit. It most certainly was.

“Well, hello, Colonel.”

There was no mistaking her sultry beauty, made all the more striking by her dusky Italian complexion. Her shoulder-length black hair, sleek and straight, brushed her shoulders. But her mouth, that he remembered most. Who could forget her temperamental, diva, pain-in-the-ass mouth?

He stepped deeper into the private room. “I hadn’t realized that you two know each other.” Tanaka had been a captive when Livia started the tour. “Italy is a long way from Las Vegas.”

He’d met the Italian pop star when he’d been transporting USO performers overseas. The diva had been a regular thorn in his side the whole time, although no amount of prima donna behavior warranted being caught in the crossfire of an attack launched on the USO group. All that aside, what the hell was she doing here, dolled up in her low-cut spangly tank top and overlong peasant skirt belted with some kind of absurd wrestling champion-style knockoff?

Her smile flashed as bright as the rhinestones cinching around her waist. “Nowhere is too far away to visit this special hero.”

Tanaka elbowed up higher, his sweatsuit rather than pj’s attesting to how the hospital had become a home for him. “After Livia recovered from her injuries from the attack on the USO group, she stopped by to see me in one of those ‘rock star visits the troops’ moments.”

Rex felt a stab of guilt at the mention of that explosion in Turkey where people like Livia had been injured. “That’s nice of Ms. Cicero to take time out of her busy career.”

Her glistening red mouth curved into a practiced smile, lips that had blown a pouty kiss for her first album cover. “I did not get to finish my tour with the USO troupe, so I am here to spread goodwill,” she said, her voice throatier than he remembered. She adjusted the flow of her skirt over her legs. “I was actually already coming to this area next week with a British general.”

Next week’s gathering of foreign ally military leaders? The general should have notified them of his Italian “guest.” Bringing someone from a country not on the list raised a red flag in his head. “You’re dating a British general?”

She shrugged. “He’s a friend of the family. It’s nice publicity for both of us to be seen together. And the visit gave me the perfect opportunity to look in on another dear friend while I am at a loose end—”

“Loose ends,” Rex corrected automatically, even though she possessed an overall fluency in English. Only through idioms and her sexy accent did her nationality show.

“Yes, yes, loose ends.” She nodded, fluttering her perfectly manicured nails through the air.

Tanaka scratched his knee just above his cast. “She’s looking into performance options in Las Vegas.”

“Shhhh.” She tapped her full lips. “My agent says that is a secret.”

Laughing, he winked at her. “Sorry about that, but if it’s such a secret, why did you tell me?”

Her face went somber. “You’re obviously a very good secret keeper.”

Tanaka had proven that during his weeks in captivity. The air went darker and thicker than the antiseptic smell coating the air.

Rex moved closer, stopping at the foot of the bed, where crutches rested. “Ms. Cicero, how are you doing since the accident?”

“I am well.” She sat straighter, her skirt a bold psychedelic splash of color against the stark white linens.

“Glad to hear it.”

“You sound as if you do not believe me. If you wish, check me over, Colonel.” She paused to inch her flower-child skirt up provocatively. “I will be glad to show you any healing injuries.”

Yeah, this was the same troublemaking woman he’d met last spring. “I’m sure they’re lovely legs, but I’ll pass. We wouldn’t want to give Tanaka over there a heart attack.”

She cocked her head, long chandelier earrings brushing her shoulders. “Thank you for the sweet compliment.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“I know.” Her smile broadened.

He’d considered her high-strung, and he still did, but that didn’t stem the guilt over her being hurt on his watch. If-onlys were a pain in the ass, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts.

If only he’d found Chuck sooner.

If only he’d discovered the mole faster.

If only he’d insisted those damn entertainers abandon the tour the minute he’d smelled trouble.

Except it hadn’t been his call to make.

She patted Tanaka’s hand on the bed rail, gripping the metal bar as she rose slowly. “I need to go. You enjoy your visit with the colonel.”

Livia leaned to kiss the airman’s broad forehead, her tank shirt hitching up and revealing a creamy patch of skin along the small of her back. The tiniest edge of a tattoo peeked out, but not enough for him to determine the design.

Rex blinked twice and averted his eyes, but not soon enough to avoid something stirring inside him, something he’d been too grief-numb to consider in a year—heat. And he resented the hell out of the fact, because it reminded him that even if in some strange universe he could reach out and touch this woman, it wouldn’t be as good as what he’d lost.

Livia straightened from the hospital bed, her shirt sliding back into place. Rex stepped away, opening the door to speed her exit.

He stayed silent, holding the door wide, as she gathered the crutches. Hey wait. The crutches were hers?

Rex clamped his slack jaw shut. He’d assumed . . . Ah hell. He was off his game today. It had to be because of Heather, certainly not due to some flirtatious woman who toyed with men for kicks.

He cleared the door as she passed, fanning a wave.

“Good-bye, Colonel.”

He watched her thump-thumping down the hospital corridor. She had on two shoes, no cast or braces that he could see. It must be something to do with her left knee, bent and bearing no weight.

He didn’t think that her injuries in the explosion could have been worse than what he’d been initially told. Surely if there had been more to her accident, the star-hungry paparazzi would have reported it.

Must have been something that happened afterward—a simple sprain maybe, probably from rehearsals.

He turned back to what had really brought him here—a morale visit to Chuck Tanaka. “So she comes to see you often?”

Damn it. So much for forgetting about Livia and focusing on Tanaka.

“She came to visit me back at the start when I was still pretty messed up, said she felt bad about what had happened to me.”

“None of it was her fault.”

“I understand she wasn’t to blame, but apparently she feels guilty about some outing where she left against security’s advice.”

She had come close to blowing the whole undercover operation when she left the American air base in Turkey against lockdown orders. “I’m sure she’s here out of more than guilt.” Rex was done talking about Livia. “So, Captain, what’s the next step with your rehab?”

“The docs say I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

Tanaka didn’t look ready to leave.

“That’s great news.”

“I’ll have outpatient rehab for a while, until, well, until I stop getting better. With some determination, I should be back on a surfboard by summer.” His stubborn jaw set, Tanaka stared at the cast on his leg, swallowed hard, then looked back. “Straight up, they don’t know if I’ll fly again.”

Rex gripped the end of the bed and kept the sympathy off his face that Tanaka wouldn’t welcome. Pity sucked ass.

From the first look at Tanaka after they’d rescued him from his brutal captor, Rex had suspected Tanaka’s flying days were done. No one could take a beating that bad and come out whole again, inside or out. But that didn’t mean Tanaka was finished, damn it. “We do a lot of things in our squadron that don’t require flying. We have need of your skills and knowledge. There’s a place for you as long as I have a say.”

“Thank you, sir.” Tanaka nodded, but the shadows in his eyes said well enough that nothing could replace the sky.

“No thanks needed. Just doing my job and making damn sure you do yours. The air force has a lot of money invested in you.” He clapped Tanaka on the shoulder.

“Roger that, Colonel.”

A light tap sounded on the door. Tanaka winced. “That would be my physical therapist. He’s running late today because of some emergency. Gotta admit, I almost hoped he wouldn’t show. The dude’s a real sadist, but he’s persistent and seems to know what he’s doing.”

“I’ll let you get to it then.” Rex backed toward the door, mission complete here, although his day was far from over. He had a crash investigation gearing up and a testing project on temporary hold, racking up lost dollars by the second.

But first, he had an anniversary date to keep.

The next morning, Mason slipped on his shades against the piercing Vegas sunlight in the hospital parking lot.