Lean on Me by Claudia Hall Christian Page B

they
should.”
    Vince turned to see the door to the bathroom
was still closed. He grimaced.
    “ Can I use yours?” Vince
asked.
    “ Sure,” Alex said. “I have
to go wake Mattie.”
    “ No you don’t,” Matthew
said as he walked down the hall toward them. Vince scooted out of
the room to use Alex and John’s bathroom. Alex turned to Matthew.
“Grace has a four o’clock feeding.”
    Alex hugged Matthew. In Special Forces
training, he’d gone from being her enemy to being her friend. She’d
rescued him twice and won countless mixed martial arts
championships as his partner. When it was time to build a team, he
was the first person she hired. He kissed her cheek.
    “ You ready, Poppa?” Alex
asked.
    “ Excited,” Matthew said. “I
feel like I’m getting back to myself. I’m not healing from a
gunshot, working off an injury, taking meds for
parasites…”
    Alex laughed as he listed his most recent
maladies.
    “ I love seeing you so
happy,” Alex said.
    “ Me too,” Matthew said. “I
was going to help Troy with the boys.”
    “ Good idea,” Alex said. “We
eat in about a half-hour.”
    Matthew raised his hand to Alex. She
retreated down the stairs.
    “ And?” Raz asked when she
reached her workroom on the main floor.
    “ Missing Navy team,
probably SEALs. Missing British team,” Alex said.
    “ The British satellite data
is interesting,” Colin looked up from his computer.
    “ Shouldn’t you be getting
ready to run?” Alex asked.
    “ Did that,” Colin said. “We
only have a few more hours before the police come for Troy. I
wanted to see if I can find anything.”
    “ James suggested he set it
up beforehand,” Alex said.
    “ Do you have Troy’s
schedule?” Raz asked.
    “ Not when he was at the
house,” Alex said. “I think Mattie or Joseph kept his schedule.
I’ll ask. That’s good thinking.”
    “ If this was as well
planned as it seems?” Raz shook his head. “We’ll need a healthy
dose of luck to figure it out.”
    “ We haven’t had it so far,”
Colin said.
    “ Keep looking,” Alex said.
“Remember. We’re the pros. Hector was not a pro.”
    “ Could he have hired one?”
Colin asked.
    “ Sure but no one’s claimed
credit,” Alex said.
    “ That gives me an idea,”
Raz said.
    “ James suggested we call
Cian,” Alex said.
    “ That’s another good idea,”
Raz said. “I’ll do that now. Is he at the bakery?”
    “ Should be,” Colin
said.
    John’s elder brother, Cian Kelly, appeared
in the middle of an awful year a few years ago and was now a member
of the family. He and his best friend, Eoin, went from being IRA
thugs to owning a popular bakery with Colin.
    “ Have the number?” Raz
asked. “He won’t answer the bakery phone while he’s
working.”
    “ I can reach him,” Colin
said. “Should I call?”
    Raz nodded.
    “ I’m going to the map room
to think,” Alex said.
    Raz watched her leave the room and Colin
waved. Smiling at them, she took the stairs down a level to the
room she’d used most of the beginning of the year. Her identical
twin, Max was sitting on a couch. She sat down nearly on top of
him. He gave her a macchiato. As if to combine their brain power,
the twins leaned their identical heads against each other.
    “ What do you think is going
on?” Alex asked.
    “ Missing soldiers? Or
Troy?”
    Alex shrugged.
    “ You’re right,” Max
said.
    “ They feel like the same
problem,” Alex said.
    Max nodded.
    F

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Sunday morning
    October 25 – 5:52 a.m. EDT
    Marine Marathon start, Arlington Boulevard,
Washington DC
     
    Alex threw open the
helicopter door and Matthew jumped out onto Arlington Boulevard.
Vince got out and helped Amelia out. Jimmy stepped out. Colin
followed right behind him. They wore light blue exercise shirts
with a black Vivaldi F on the back and dark Ray-Ban Wayfarer glasses. At her old
teammate Jax’s insistence, the Fey Special Forces Team had run the
big marathons together. The shirts and