That was when I saw her… ok, I had seen her before we even got onto the boat, and I knew where she had been almost every minute since. I wasn’t trying, but she was hard not to notice. Flaming red hair, tall, sleek and slender; dressed more for a beachy dinner out than for hanging out in the splash zone for a few hours. She wore filmy pants that were glued to her from the spray, and a wrap around her top that was similarly elegant, but simple. She didn’t look like she belonged there, but her smile rivaled the sun as she looked around excitedly. Like me, it looked like she was on vacation with her family. Her green eyes had drawn me in the first time I saw them, just before we boarded the boat. They were in contrast to her smooth, alabaster skin. She had a delicate nose with the slightest turn up, and pouty lips I thought begged to be kissed. She was simply the single most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. And she was so far out of my league that I knew all I could ever do was admire her from afar.

But in the next moment, what I was seeing was her feet flying up in the air and over the side of the boat. It looked like she had been trying to get her sister to shoot a picture of her with a whale tail in the background… then the boat lurched, flipping her over the side.

I tore off the light shirt I was wearing loose over my t-shirt, and pointed toward her, yelling “Man overboard,” to the captain. In three steps I was diving off the rail next to me, flying over the side of the boat, overshooting her as she floated back along the side of the boat. I saw she had been stunned by the fall and came up coughing salt water before disappearing under the waves again. I turned in the water and dove down to grab her. I wrapped an arm around her, just as I had learned and practiced in Scouts, and kicked toward the surface.

I wasn’t driven by heroism, or even the chance to help specifically her. It was instinct. Had it been anyone else on the boat, I think my reaction would have been the same. There was a person in trouble, and I was able to help.

She struggled in my grip, trying to push herself higher out of the water when we broke the surface. I held her tight, knowing people in her situation often panicked. She elbowed me in the eye as she struggled against the terror of drowning. The strike knocked me back, but I kept my arm locked around her. A moment later I grabbed the life ring that had landed only an arm’s reach away.

“Easy,” I told her. “I have you. Hold onto this. Do you know how to swim?”

She shook her head, her eyes still wide with shock and fear. She looked like she was still trying to figure out what had happened. Her struggling slowed.

“Just relax. I’ll pull you to the boat,” I said to her.

I had to pry one of her hands from me and put it on the ring. As we swam, I felt something brush under me, one of the whales we had been watching. She screamed when she felt it brush her foot. I stopped kicking my legs and pulling the ring, and wrapped my arms around her again. She let go of the ring and clutched to me as if I were the only thing between her and death, and I guess in that moment I might have been… although we were in no real danger from the whales.

“It’s just a whale,” I said quietly. “They won’t swallow us like Jonah. We’re ok. Are you with me?”

She nodded and loosened her grip on me, allowing me to start pulling her toward the boat again after putting her hand back on the life ring. She turned and looked at me, still not totally releasing me, then unloaded the complete contents of her stomach right in my face. I dipped under the water after catching all the vomit and rinsed it away without missing a beat. I had been too shocked to react any other way. Luckily, I closed my eyes and had the presence of mind not to breathe as she puked at me. I tried to play it off and ignore it when I resurfaced. I knew she had to be embarrassed, and I didn’t want to add to her discomfort… just like I wouldn’t want someone to pile on me for something I couldn’t control.

As we got close to the back of the boat a crew member was folding down one of the platforms at the back of the catamaran that they used when people snorkeled, to allow them to more easily climb onto the boat. He leaned down with his hand out. I pushed her to the platform and then helped her from the water as the crewman lifted her up. A moment later I followed onto the platform and up onto the back of the boat, now just as wet as my little brother. Applause broke out from those that were able to see her climb back onto the boat in front of me. She was swept away by her parents and her sister, all crying and hugging her. She looked back at me for a moment and smiled, embarrassment evident… then she was gone.

On the skyride (among other things). And there was a girl that I used to give a ride every once in a while. Those parts of the story are true (and not disclosed in the excerpts posted…).

Everything else just took off from there. The car I usually drove to work was a Triumph Spitfire, and indeed, we did enjoy the drive often sans-roof. It would have been cooler to have had an MGA, but I didn’t. And we really were never more than friends. If she ended up being a spy, that’s news to me… it would be pretty cool, though. I should also note that unless something outrageous happens, I won’t be buying a beach house in North Carolina.

Anyway, I took a bunch of liberties with a few real actions, and built a story around them. I didn’t really know where it was going to end up. As far as I had plotted was that Finn was angry with his cheating wife and planning on a divorce. Beth planned on taking advantage of their old relationship, hoping he knew someone that could get her out of her jam.

I also knew that she needed to fall in love with him, and he needed to have a severe lack of trust in her. How that was going to manifest was still a mystery. But, since I like heroes and heroines, they had to be good people at their core. Not so much for the villainous (ex-)wife. And I like a good conspiracy theory, too… so let’s get that in there.

Finally, as I was writing Sniper, with Warren Chestik as the main character, I felt he needed a place, as well as Heather… I don’t want to spoil her place in the series quite yet.

She took his hand and pulled him into the shop outside of which they were standing. She grabbed a fedora and sunglasses and slipped them onto him, then a floppy beach hat for herself, along with a wrap and big sunglasses. She saw a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and slipped it onto him over his t-shirt, patting his chest and smiling up at him.

“Sometimes a little change is all we need. Let’s grab a drink,” she said, pulling him along in her wake. She quickly paid at the register, then pulled him out through another door. “There is a little place around the corner.”

“The Crow’s Nest?” Finn responded. He knew the place well. The place knew him well, too. Carrie would probably know of the visit and his companion before their butts warmed the seat cushions.

“Yeah. That’s the one. We can sit and catch up. It’s wonderful running into you. I can’t believe my luck. I hope you’ll let me buy you a drink. Wow, seeing you again is everything I could have asked for, but didn’t know I needed.”

They walked along the boardwalk, neither hurrying nor tarrying. His hand found the small of her back. The memory gave her goosebumps. It was solid, yet soft. His touch was comfortable, but there were memories that weren’t as happy. Betrayal. Heartbreak. They turned into the inviting doorway. The temperature dropping as they stepped into the shade, then the conditioned air of the small restaurant enveloping them.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Powers. Table for two?” the woman at the hostess stand asked, her eyebrow arched impossibly high.

“Yes, thank you, Colleen. A booth, please. Maybe in back. Out of the way.” He smiled, knowing what would happen.

“Certainly,” she said before grabbing a pair of menus and leading the pair between the tables, her lips pursed and her steps quick.

And so it begins, Finn thought to himself. Colleen would text Carrie, just as she always seemed to do. He didn’t understand how a woman that hated this whole area as much as his wife detested it, could still build such an efficient intelligence gathering network. Finn’s movements on the island seemed to be tracked; Carrie assuming every visit was a clandestine meeting with some woman with whom he was having an affair. Part of Finn wanted that to be the case now. His face warmed with a blush at the thought of an affair with Beth Campbell.

She slipped into the intimate, secluded booth in the back of the small pub. Finn sitting down opposite her. She ordered a white wine, while he ordered up his favorite beer. When Finn laid his hand on the table, she covered it with hers half a moment later. Looking into his eyes, she examined him again. Finn thought back to the kiss they’d shared. His second to last day of work… the last time they had talked. Then, her anger and hurt the next day… the last time he’d seen her. The pain he had caused.

“What was that about?” she asked.

“Texts are being sent at this moment with the reports of my movements and meetings,” he replied cryptically.

As his feet slowed, he realized how surprised he was that he’d stuck it out with her as long as he had. He picked up his pace again, trying to walk off the emotion. The rage. Finn Powers had never felt the level of anger he felt in that moment.

Nothing I ever did was enough for her, he said to himself. No matter the choice, it was the wrong one. If it was exactly what she asked for, I should have known her words weren’t what she meant. Even though I didn’t ever want to marry her, I did my absolute best… for twenty-five years. Twenty-five torturous years. Two and a half decades of fruitless efforts. Frustration. If it wasn’t for the kids…

He didn’t register the happy, sunburned faces that moved past him in the crowd of vacationers. Visible, yet invisible. He didn’t think about where he was going. He just kept moving. Walking. Propelling himself forward along the boardwalk across from the beach. It had been thirty-one hours since the last straw. Thirty-one hours since he had walked out the front door of their house, climbed into his Jeep and driven away. He hadn’t even had to pack. His bags hadn’t made it back inside the house before he left for their beach house. Scratch that, my beach house. She can have everything else, but not my beach house. And my computer… and maybe my clothes. Screw the rest of it.

Three weeks on the road doing book signings and promotions. He had walked through his front door, the one he painted red for his wife because that was what she said she wanted. The same door she has complained about ever since. He had thought he heard a sound coming from the back of the house. Stepping into the family room, he was confronted with the image of his wife, in her little black dress, the one he’d bought for her. The one he’d complimented her on every time she wore. She was leaning over him, handing a drink to her boss. They were mid-laugh when they both heard him and turned in his direction, her hand in his. Her boss sitting in “his” chair, lipstick smeared on his face.

“You’re early,” Carrie said, her voice flat and emotionless. Her eyes betrayed nothing. “That’s inconvenient.” No embarrassment. No remorse.

“I would have thought you’d be at work, four in the afternoon on a Thursday,” he said.

“So, you were going to sneak in and make a pitstop before another ‘book tour’,” Carrie shot back, tossing air-quotes around “book tour.”

Finn reached into his pocket for a moment and pulled out his phone. Before Carrie or Bob realized what was happening, he shot a picture of the pair of them, lipstick and all. “That’s one for the scrapbook.”

“I should probably go,” Robert J. Thomas, Carrie’s boss for the last five years said after an awkward pause. He motioned to rise from the chair.

“No. You stay, Bob. I’ll go,” he said, a barely concealed sneer across his visage. “I’ll send for my things.” Finn turned on his heel and walked from his house… the one he never really liked, but that his wife wanted. He closed the red door behind him, thinking that it had looked so much better when it was green.

Twenty minutes later he was sitting across from the manager of his bank… the one in which he’d kept his “secret account”, opening new accounts and transferring almost everything they had from their joint checking and savings accounts. Aside from his little secret stash, there were “her” accounts and “their” accounts. No longer. An hour after that, his half of the retirement accounts were moved solely into his name. The voice of his attorney permeated the cabin of the Jeep as he effected the rest of the transfers on his phone a few minutes later.

“That should leave him with three,” Scott said quietly.

“Jack, I’m going to shoot up the hall… high… ceiling. One of you can come over here. Then I’ll need cover to break for the bedroom door ten feet up the hall,” Warren whispered.

“Roger that,” Scott replied.

Warren stuck his head out and pumped eight shots from his sidearm into the top of the bedroom doorway at the end of the hall. At the same time, Scott burst across the hallway into the bathroom almost bowling Warren over. One shot rang out in response.

“Two left,” Scott said flatly.

“Ok, Warren… go for your door on three,” Jack said.

A few seconds later, the hallway once again lit up with the sound of gunfire as Warren raced up the hall toward the bedroom, diving to the side when he got to the first doorway.

“I’m in,” he said on the radio a moment later.

“What’s the play, Warren?” Jack said.

They could hear a thudding from the bedroom as they waited for a response from Warren.

“I’m going to go through the wall behind him. I need him distracted… only for a moment. I think I can get the rest of the way through in one hit.”

“Roger that,” Jack replied. Then he yelled out, “Ron March, this is Jack Dixon. What’s your plan? We can still fix this.”

“Go away, man.”

“I can’t do that, Ron. Why don’t you let Vivian go, then we can square everything away. Nobody else has to get hurt today.”

Jack snuck a look around the corner just before another round from the pistol struck the wall just below where his head had been. At the sound of the gunshot, Warren slammed into the spot he’d selected on the wall. As promised, he broke all the way though and emerged in the bedroom.

Ron swung around at the explosion of sound off to his side, seeing the man emerge from the wall, stumbling a couple of steps into the room, then charging him. He shot his last round at the man, point blank. The gun clicked just before Ron was lifted from the floor, losing his grip on Vivian. The man carried him across the room and slammed him into the wall hard enough to break out the sheetrock around two studs.

Jack rushed down the hall, pulling Vivian away and shielding her from the other men with his body.

“Warren, I have her. I have Vivian.”

Scott rushed into the room behind Jack and rolled to the right toward where Warren was pushing Ronald March into the wall, his forearm across March’s throat. He pulled Warren off the other man and dropped March to the floor, cuffing him.

“Warren, I got this. Jack is taking your wife downstairs,” he said.

Warren started running back up the hallway, but stumbled at the top of the stairs, collapsing and then rolling down the hardwood steps.

“Jack, I think Warren is hit,” Scott said into the radio.

At the bottom of the stairs, Jack turned back, releasing Vivian. Warren rolled into a heap at his feet.

“I need medical, right now. Chestik is hit,” Jack yelled for the benefit of the communications person outside. “Warren, I have you, relax, ok?”

He rolled Warren onto his back on the flat part of the floor and started stripping away the gear that prevented him from seeing the extent of the other man’s injuries.

“GSW in the leg, another in the shoulder.” Jack said into his comm. “Vivian, I need you to help me,” he said over his shoulder.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down to kneel next to him. She looked down at her husband but there was no recognition in her eyes… she didn’t seem to understand what was going on.

“Hold this on his shoulder,” he instructed her. “There is something wrong with Vivian,” he said quietly in his comm. “I think she is drugged… she seems out of it.”

A moment later two more men rushed through the remains of the front door to work on Warren. A few minutes after that, he was loaded into an ambulance.

As Scott hauled Ron down the steps, Jack walked up and got in his face. “What did you give her?” he said, his eyes flashing with intensity.

“Nothin’… just a little something to take the edge off… help her to not fight it.”

“What is it?” Jack asked again, each word exploding from him.

“Just a little special K, man.”

Jack turned away. “Female may have Ketamine in her system. She was non-consensually drugged,” he said into the radio.

“Your problems are a lot bigger than they were before, March,” Jack said, turning back. “You should really start thinking about who you can sell out to save your miserable ass.”