Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(63)

Selena went straight down to the bunker when she got back from Addy’s appointment. She came out of the elevator and crossed through the weapons room to the ops room. Only Max and Greer were in there.

Greer looked up. “Hiya.”

Selena nodded at them. “Yeah. Got a question.”

He grinned. “We got answers. So I guess that works out okay.”

“You checked out Doc Beck, right?”

Max exchanged looks with Greer, who answered. “Yeah. He was on a list of potential dates that Ivy was going on before she and Kit hooked back up—’bout the time you started with us. He had us check him out. No red flags.”

“Before they got together?” She smiled, thinking that drama would have been something to see. “I was busy with Casey then. When I started, there was none of this Omni shit. We were tracking foreign and domestic terrorists. Did you recheck Beck after that all started?”

“Why do you have a sudden issue with the doc?” Max asked.

“I just took Addy in for her lady checkup. Ran into him. He acted funny when I mentioned her name…like he knew about her.”

Max shrugged. “Well, Owen’s big news in this town. His girl would cause a stir.”

“I never mentioned Owen. None of us talk about him with civilians. Addy’s never left the house. How would he know she was his girlfriend? Unless…”

“Unless?” Greer prompted.

“Unless he’s Omni. When he saw her eyes, he was all over her, examining them, asking her how she felt. Addy said they were fashion contacts, but he immediately knew they changed with her mood. How would he have known that? Maybe from the GYN who examined Addy, but I doubt they’d had a chance to chat so soon after her exam.”

“Fuck. Me,” Max snapped.

“Yeah, we’ll dig into him more,” Greer said, turning back to his computer and clearing the screen.



Owen had been gone forever, Addy thought, though she knew it had just been a few days. She and Troy had settled into a nice routine with his classes. She’d been reading and rereading Owen’s letters. They were both sword and panacea. It hurt her to read how much he hurt after losing her. As recently as a few weeks ago, in his most recent letter, his emptiness was as great as it had ever been.

One of his letters had mentioned Selena. He’d kissed her, then set her free. His words had seemed sad to acknowledge that after Addy, no woman could quite measure up.

Part of her wished he’d found comfort, somewhere, anywhere. Mostly, she was glad he hadn’t—and how unfair to him was that?

She thought about how he’d behaved at her house, kind despite her standoffishness. Patient, too. The exact opposition of Cecil. Addy packed the last of his letters away and left her room, wandering absentmindedly into Owen’s. She didn’t have an open invitation to go there, but it wasn’t locked, and she needed very much to be near him just then.

It was the first time she’d been in his room. His space didn’t look like the rest of the household. Its furnishings weren’t Western influenced at all. More like Eastern. His bed was a simple platform style. Single floating bamboo shelves flanked either side of it. Both had lamps. One had a Bonsai tree. Instead of the dresser, armchairs, and table set that her room had, the only other furniture in his room were a pair of mid-century teak chairs that were angled for a person sink into the upholstered cushions.

The walls were painted in a soothing shade of pale green. There was no carpet in his room. The floor was oak. A large, white rug of woven cotton was on this side of his bed. On the wall above the bed was a large piece of art that looked to have been made from shells and stones and other media, giving it a three-dimensional appearance.

Addy had had no idea that Owen liked the clean lines of Asian decor. Truthfully, she knew very little about him at all.

She needed to get some air. There was a set of doors near the stairs. One led into the gym, the other to a portico that ran alongside the gym building.

She went outside. The morning was bright, and though it was cold, the sun was warm. She saw Eden and Angel come from the corner of the gym building and go across the lawn. They waved to her. Looked like they’d just come from a run. At the end of the portico, she stopped. Leaning against one of the support pillars, she crossed her arms, admitting how wretched she felt. How long had it been since she’d known any joy at all? Any not shadowed by fear.

Maybe it was her recent visit to the doctor that had stirred things up in her. She knew she’d sustained scars from her time with Cecil. It was like a bit of him would always be with her.

“Hey!” Rocco said, startling her as he came around the corner of the gym.

“Hi. Sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

He waved that off. “We just finished our run. I was doing some cooldown exercises.” He frowned. Maybe her eyes were some weird new color. “You okay?”

She nodded, then shook her head. God, she didn’t know Rocco at all—she didn’t want to break down in front of him. “Just thinking about things.”

“You know, sometimes it helps to talk about stuff.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “I learned that the hard way.”

“How?” She’d much rather hear his story than tell her own.

“Stuff happened in Afghanistan, over a lot of years. I lost a wife and an unborn baby. I wasn’t dealing with it very well.”