Headed for Trouble - By Suzanne Brockmann Page 0,11

her face on the plush resort towel as Sam checked up on her for the twenty-seventh time since they’d returned to their suite here in the ski lodge.

“I’m really okay,” she told him.

“I know,” he said.

Sam bent over backward to make sure he never said anything that might make her think he doubted her ability to take care of herself.

Earlier tonight, when she’d pushed open that cabin door, switched on her penlight and gone inside, Sam had spoken into his radio from his perch on the hill.

“Lys, I can’t see you.” He’d worked hard to keep his voice sounding calm, relaxed. Filled with Texas. Because he knew that she knew he dropped his honeyed drawl when he was stressed. “Talk to me.”

She’d flashed her little light across the walls and floors, giving him a running commentary. “I’m in a room with a bed, no other furniture. Just piles of trash—classic love shack. It smells like old socks and mildew, with a dash of overflowing septic tank.”

“Yum.”

“Yeah.” She’d sifted through one of the garbage piles with her foot. It was mostly paper—newspapers, empty food boxes, stacks of junk mail. “Honestly, Sam, I can’t imagine Amanda Timberman being caught dead here. Even for some of Stevie Hathaway’s golden-tan pretty-boy ski-hero booty.”

“What’s in the other room?” Sam had asked.

“Looks like a combination living area and kitchen,” she’d reported, opening up the kitchen cabinets, looking for … what? She wasn’t even sure. “Sink, stove, refrigerator …”

Alyssa pulled herself out of the memory and back to the pristine warmth of the lodge bathroom. “I wish they made some kind of nostril brush—you know, like a toothbrush only smaller,” she told Sam now. “I can’t get that awful smell out of my nose.”

He leapt into action. “Whiskey’ll take care of that.”

She followed him into the other room. She didn’t particularly want a drink, but he seemed so glad to have found a way to help, she didn’t want to stop him.

As Sam opened the minibar, she wandered toward the balcony window, where the pink of dawn was lighting the sky to the east. Glasses clinked, ice tinkled.

“Here.” He handed her a glass. “It’ll make you stop smelling it.” He corrected himself. “Her.” He tried again. “Death.”

Just a few hours ago, during dinner, this had felt more like a vacation than a paid job. It was, at the very least, a silver bullet assignment. She and Sam had been forced to stay in this four-star ski lodge with room service, balcony views of gorgeous autumn sunsets, and chocolates on the pillows.

They’d been assigned to find twenty-five-year-old Amanda Timberman, who’d vacationed at the New Hope Ski Lodge a few short weeks before her disappearance.

Lucas Timberman, the young woman’s father, was a total pit bull when it came to place the blame on Randy Shahar—Amanda’s ex-fiancé. He claimed Shahar, born in Saudi Arabia, had killed his daughter after she’d discovered he was part of an al-Qaeda terrorist cell.

Shahar—who had moved to the U.S. when he was four months old—had come to Troubleshooters Incorporated, hoping they could locate Amanda. A former chief in the U.S. Navy Special Boat Squadrons, he now ran a fleet of whale-watching vessels out of Province-town, Massachusetts.

Timberman’s accusations were bad for business.

As if it weren’t hard enough to be an Arab American business owner after 9/11.

Finding a missing person wasn’t the sort of job that Troubleshooters Inc. usually took on. The company specialized in security—personal and corporate—with a leaning toward counterterrorism. But Tom Paoletti, the former commanding officer of SEAL Team Sixteen who owned and ran TS Inc., was friends with Shahar. Tom had not only taken the assignment, but he’d given it to Alyssa Locke, his second-in-command.

Formerly an FBI agent, and before that an officer in the Navy herself, when Alyssa had taken this job with Tom Paoletti, she’d permanently partnered up with Navy SEAL Sam Starrett.

In more ways than one.

A few months ago, she’d married the man—a fact that still seemed surreal.

That she was married at all was odd enough. But that she’d married a textbook alpha male …

Sam—her husband—was standing in front of her now, looking hopefully at her empty glass. A man of action, he liked having something to do. “You want another?”

“No,” she said. “Thanks, but …”

“Didn’t help, huh?”

She shook her head.

He pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. It always amazed her that someone with such big hands—and an ability to put his fist through a wall when provoked—could have such a light touch. “Another might help you