19 Headed for Trouble by Suzanne Brockmann Page B

opened the bathroom door.
    The phone rang again, and Joan DaCosta, the wife of SEAL Team Sixteen’s Lieutenant Mike Muldoon, picked it up out in the living room.
    As the news of the downed choppers spread, friends and relatives were calling him to find out details and offer their support. But it had quickly gotten overwhelming. “I’m sure Alyssa’s all right. I’m sure she’s fine,” they reassured him. But they wanted him to say it back to them, too.
    And truthfully, as optimistic as he usually was, in this case, he wasn’t sure about anything. And no one
really
wanted to hear how he was scared shitless, and that this sitting still and waiting for news was driving him freaking nuts.
    No one, that is, except for Joan and Savannah and Meg, the long-suffering wives of his three best friends from his days as a Navy SEAL.
    Meg Nilsson—Johnny’s wife—had been the first to arrive. She’d just opened his front door and walked inside his house, God bless her, announcing, “Hey, it’s only me. I didn’t ring the bell—I didn’t want you to think I was someone bringing you bad news.”
    She’d brought her two daughters—Amy, a teenagerfrom her first marriage, and four-year-old Robin, who had Johnny’s eyes.
    Amy possessed a maturity and sensitivity far beyond her years. She’d ushered both Robin and Haley outside, where she kept them occupied and entertained. Even now, hours later, Sam could hear their laughter from the backyard.
    Shortly after Meg arrived, Chief Ken “WildCard” Karmody’s wife, Savannah, pulled into the driveway. Mikey’s Joan was right behind her.
    They’d each given him a hug and told him they weren’t going to let him go through this alone.
    “Joan’ll let me know if it’s Jules on the phone, right?” Sam asked now, as he went back into the kitchen, where Meg and Savannah were sitting together at the table.
    At first glance they seemed to be unlikely friends.
    Savannah was a high-powered attorney who had just made partner and opened a law office in San Diego, after years of a bicoastal marriage. She came from money and worked not because she had to, but because she wanted to. Sam suspected that, if and when the time came to start a family with Kenny, she would throw herself into it with the same wholehearted devotion.
    Kind of the way Meg did. A brunette to Savannah’s elf-princess blonde, Meg Nilsson worked part-time from a home office. Her standard uniform was very different from Van’s lawyer clothes—T-shirts and shorts, sneakers on her feet—better for chasing after little Robbie.
    And yet Savannah and Meg
were
friends. They both loved their husbands—who willingly traveled to war zones and other places that were hazardous to one’s health.
    They both knew that their husbands might be injured or even killed in the line of duty at any given moment.
    They knew what it felt like to carry around that anxiety, to live for those overseas phone calls that usuallycame in the middle of the night:
I’m sorry it’s so late, but I have cell service—it’s weak, but it’s there—and I’m not sure when I’ll get it again …
    Four days ago, before the helo crash, he’d gotten a call like that from Alyssa. And for five minutes while he spoke to her, he could breathe again. She had been safe, and he knew it.
    For those five minutes.
    It ended far too quickly, and as soon as he hung up the phone the anxiety came screaming back.
    Alyssa was scheduled to be away for just a short amount of time. SEALs, however, often went out for months. Sam absolutely couldn’t imagine living like this for more than a few weeks.
    “Jules said it would be a while before he called again,” Meg gently reminded him.
    “Have you tried cleaning the refrigerator?” Savannah suggested. “I’ve found it helps a little if you just keep moving.”
    Sam sat down, wearily rubbing his forehead. Jesus, his head ached. “I did the fridge the night Alyssa’s flight left,” he said on an exhale. “Then,