Saving Amber - Zoe Dawson Page 0,1
pumping.
As he got closer, his heart slammed hard against his ribs and his mind froze in shock.
Memories of another freezing cold day assaulted him, the snow splashed with blood.
He stopped at the foot of the slope, unmoving in surprise. He looked down to the ground, his mind clear as a bell, sure of what he was seeing.
So many shots and so many kills and he recognized it in an instant, as if he had been in slow motion and everything just went into real time. Real freaking time.
It hit him like it always did. As if a conscious thought was needed to drive it home every time. He was breathing his way into it like he’d done whenever he’d sniped. Settling his cheek against the stock, quieting his muscles, quieting his heartbeat and lining up his shot.
He was only going to get one shot, and like every shot he took, it had to be perfect, a cold zero.
It was the only truth he knew. It was the only one that mattered, and 2.5 pounds of pressure on the trigger later, a man’s life would leave him in a vapor trail of pink blood and disintegrated flesh. Another millisecond, the shot would sound in the air.
A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his trance. “Sarge…what the hell…damn,” one of his students said on a choking whisper. Then they all crowded around and that terrible heaviness he’d been feeling only moments ago deepened.
As his students all shuffled around, looking at each other, their faces contorting in compassion, shock, pain, and anxiety. He crouched and brushed at the snow-covered face, revealing the fixed open eyes, the lashes thick with snowflakes.
Lance Corporal James Connelly, his missing Marine student, who stared up at a frosty white sky from a face blue and stiff with cold, frozen in death. The kid had been at the top of his game, highly decorated in his tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East, dedicated to the corps with a recent reenlistment, and had been a complete jarhead through and through. One of his best students ever.
He liked this kid.
The body had been almost invisible, dressed in camo and deeply covered in snow. If it hadn’t been for the flap of his jacket caught by the wind, Tristan might have glanced right over him.
He turned the body and saw it. A bullet hole, blood tingeing the snow beneath him.
His conscience kicked him hard and his throat burned from the deep breaths he took to mitigate the guilt that slammed heavy into him like a wrecking ball.
Lance Corporal James Connelly.
One shot, one kill—a cold zero.
Chapter Two
Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) Office, Navy Yard, Washington, DC
“Hey, you okay?”
NCIS Special Agent Amber Dalton cringed at the sound of Beau Jerrott’s voice behind her. Part of the NCIS team, Beau had recently found his true love and was getting married. She loved the guy like a brother, but he’d told her she shouldn’t let Peter…Lieutenant Peter Savich, USN, make her his second priority. A woman should always be number one and if she wasn’t, said woman should move on. There wasn’t anything that Amber hated more than coming in second. But in this case, she hadn’t even been in the race.
She turned around and one look at her face had Beau taking her arm and dragging her to the conference room.
“What happened?”
Her shoulders drooped and she squeezed her eyes closed. “He dumped me right before this Aruba trip. My first vacation in a year.”
“That slime. Why did he dump you?”
“He’s…engaged.” It should have been a little more painful to say it, but it wasn’t. She just hated the idea of spending her vacation alone and mortified that she hadn’t seen the signs.
“Oh, damn,” he murmured and pulled her into his arms, rubbing at her back. “I’m sorry. If it’s any consolation, I never liked that guy for you. He was too…bossy.”
“Oh, really,” she sniffed. “Nothing like you.”
“No, nothing like me,” he said, squeezing her tight and letting her go.
“It’s not the end of the world. There’s—”
“If you say there’s plenty of fish in the sea. I’ll slug you.”
“There’s a silver lining.”
“Nice save.” She punched his arm lightly. “What exactly would this silver lining be?”
“You can go to Aruba and have wild, crazy sex.” He waggled his brows.
She rolled her eyes. Because he was trying to cheer her up, she laughed. “All settled down and that is what you still think about?”
“Guar-an-teed. I have Kinley at home.”
“I don’t jump in the sack with