She wanted to offer to rub it, but she knew he'd think she was hitting on him.

The bitch of it was, he'd be right.

Damnit. Lindsey hadn't seen the man for close to a week. She'd spent large amounts of time with Tracy, the woman of his dreams. Which should have been a total turnoff, since Tracy was an idiot.

Okay, that was mean. Tracy wasn't an idiot. She just had the habit of making some truly idiotic life choices. She really was quite funny, and she did have a good heart, and she wanted so desperately to succeed-it was hard not to like her at least a little. But the woman could not do two things at the same time-to the point that Lindsey was starting to wonder if she wasn't maybe learning disabled.

Still, it was so beyond obvious that Tracy hadn't truly left Lyle. Sure, she'd moved out of his apartment and across the country, but the man was under her skin.

If Mark Jenkins couldn't see that, then he was a major idiot, too.

Lindsey had gone a long way toward convincing herself of that. Until he'd walked in, nearly dropped his box, and smiled at her.

"You know," Izzy said, still holding out his green-and-brown-streaked hands. "This reminds me of a really good johnson joke. Actually, it's more of a johnson story. Right, Marky-Mark?"

Jenk suddenly looked as if he'd been struck by lightning. Surprised and stunned and totally horrified.

"No," he said. "Nuh-uh. Don't even think about-"

"Oh, come on," Izzy said. "You were young. Just a tadpole. It is a great story."

"No, it is not. Zanella, I swear to God, if you start this story circulating again..." Jenk said, but he probably knew there was no stopping Izzy. He turned to Lindsey. "It's not even true. This story. It's, like, like...an urban legend that someone just went and put my name into." He turned back to Izzy. "Find me one person who was there. Just one. You can't, can you?"

"Yeah, that's because you've transferred them all to the East Coast."

"I've transferred them," Jenk repeated. He looked at Lindsey again. "I'm not an officer. Am I an officer?" He didn't wait for her to answer. "No. I'm not even close. So how exactly did I transfer an entire platoon of SEALs?"

Izzy shrugged. "I don't know. The same way you do everything. The same way you set up this little training op."

"I didn't..." Jenk made an exasperated noise. "I may have planted the seeds for the idea..."

"Now he's just being modest," Izzy told Lindsey. "You need something done-a war started, significant troop movements, lunch at the White House...Just ask Jenk. He'll get it done."

"How about a dinner date with Lew Koehl?" Lindsey asked. Oh, God, had she really just said that? What was she, crazy? This was total middle school tactics. Pretending she liked Lewis so Mark would be jealous.

Both Jenk and Izzy were staring at her.

"Are you insane?" Izzy asked. "Because the CO is..." He glanced at Jenk. "Damn. What's the word I'm looking for?"

"Straightlaced?" Jenk supplied.

"That's the polite one. Stuffy applies. I'd also say stiff, but since we were just referencing johnson jokes that might be misinterpreted as a plus," Izzy said. "Bottom line, the man is seriously comedically challenged."

"Yeah, you don't know that," Jenk said. "I think somewhere back there he's got a sense of humor. He's got to have one. Look what he deals with on a daily basis. He's just a very formal person. Very old-fashioned. Conservative. To be honest, I don't think he's Lindsey's type."

"He's definitely never laughed at a johnson joke in his life," Izzy agreed.

"Old-fashioned actually might be kind of nice," Lindsey said, because obviously she had the mental age of a twelve-year-old. "And, you know, I don't have to tell jokes about any part of the human anatomy."

"Oh, I do," Izzy said, and Jenk sighed loudly in exasperation. "Just relax, all right?" Iz addressed his friend. "It's not like I'm telling Tracy. You won't tell Tracy, will you, Linds?"

Jenkins surely knew he was fighting a losing battle, but giving up didn't come naturally. "Zanella."

"Is it funny?" Lindsey inquired, "or just crude?"

"Oh, it's funny." Izzy clearly loved Jenk's discomfort. "And crude. Considering the subject matter. You know what? Here's what I'll do. I'll tell it without using any names."

"Oh, right," Jenk said. "That really works after you already freaking told her it was me." He turned to Lindsey. "Which it wasn't." He took a deep breath. "Will you please just tell Zanella that you don't want to hear his totally fictional story that never happened?"

Lindsey made a face. "Well, I guess I could, but...I'd be lying."

"Great. Thanks, Iz. You know how you saved my life? Well, now we're even." He gestured to Izzy. "Go ahead. Tell the story. Ruin our friendship."

"Ruin our friendship," Izzy scoffed. "You'll get over it. You always do." He turned to Lindsey. "This story circulates every few years or so. It hasn't killed Jenkie yet. Okay, here we go. Ready?"

She nodded. This was going to be good.

"So we got this new guy on the team, right? He's a good guy, but he's really young. Extremely green. And about to get even greener." Izzy started to giggle.

Jenk stood up. "You know what? I changed my mind. I've heard this story too many times to be able to sit through it again. Lindsey, it really wasn't me, and I'll see you later-"

"Okay, wait." Lindsey stopped him. "First I have to hear about the wedding. I assume something happened that allowed you to go...?"

"Yeah, we got a twelve-hour delay, so we brought our equipment to the church. Just in case."

"But then we got a twenty-four-hour delay on top of that," Izzy added. "And finally on Sunday, we got a call telling us to stand down, we're not needed. Only, a few hours later, what was it, oh-three-hundred, Monday morning?" he asked Jenk.

"Do you hear some kind of noise?" Jenk asked Lindsey, "that sounds like oxygen being wasted?"

"It was definitely early Monday," Izzy said. "Way predawn. Prolly around three."

"On Monday we got a second call," Jenk continued to ignore Izzy. "This time, we're told it's real. We're definitely going. When you and I spoke on the phone on Tuesday..."

He'd called Lindsey's cell, but he'd only had about thirty seconds to talk, and he'd spent most of it apologizing for having to leave town.

"...I was in Virginia," Jenk reported, "getting ready to head for parts unknown."

"Again," Izzy said. "Hoo-yah, take two."

"We were in Europe, in Germany, before we got that stand down order."

"One thing's sure-something's up in the sandbox," Izzy said.

"It's only a matter of time before we do go," Jenk told her. "Which is why we're rushing to do this exercise now."

Lindsey nodded. "TS Inc has gotten an increase in phone calls from the alphabet agencies." She shot Jenk a look. "And the reason I know this is because I've spent the past four days helping Tracy try to learn how to use the phone system."

The task that Jenk had promised to come into the office to assist with.

"How's she doing?" he asked.

"What has she told you?" Lindsey countered. Did he know that Lyle had come into town several days early, that he and Tracy were having dinner together tonight? God, she was not going to be the one to break that news to Jenk. Or the fact that Tracy had been talking, nonstop, about whether or not Lyle would attempt a reconciliation.

Jenk shook his head. "I haven't spoken to her all week. I haven't even text messaged her. After the word came down that today was our window of opportunity to do this exercise, well, you're lucky I had time for a shower."

Someone had to tell him. God forbid he come into the TS Inc office tomorrow and see Tracy packing up her desk, a big ol' diamond ring on her finger. There'd been a lot of speculation over the past few days that Lyle would play the "Marry me" card to get Tracy back. Lindsey had kept her own thoughts to herself, but she suspected that that had been Tracy's game plan all along.

"It's funny," Jenk was saying. "I thought most of the work would be done over at Tommy's office. I got that wrong."

"See?" Izzy was triumphant. "You did set up this training op, didn't you?"

"Yes," Jenk said. "Okay? Yes. Just tell your story and-No. You know what? I'm going to tell Lindsey the story. Let's just get this over with, and move on, okay? How does it start?"

Lindsey made up her mind. She'd tell Jenk about Tracy and Lyle immediately after the op.

"There's this new guy on the team named Mark Jenkins," Izzy supplied.

"Bite me," Jenk said. "I'm telling it with your name in the fill-in-the-blank slot, see how you like it, dickweed." He took a deep breath. "There's a new guy on the team named Irving Zanella, and he's going out on a real-world op for the first time, and he's scared, but he's ready. It's a simple sneak and peak-get in, get some basic info on the enemy's camp, how many guards are posted, what kind of weapons are in view, get back out."

"He can pretend that it was me," Izzy interjected, "but it was really him. How else would he know so much about the assignment?"

Jenk grimly ignored him as Lindsey tried not to laugh. "They're in the middle of the jungle," he continued with the story, "just collecting information, blending with the scenery. Turns out they need to stay longer than they'd anticipated, so they settle in, tear open some MREs, have a little chow. About an hour later, the new guy, Izzy, goes, 'Damn, I didn't bring my Magic Markers. I don't even have any extra cammie paint.'"

It wasn't me, Izzy mouthed to Lindsey, from behind Jenk, who elbowed him without missing a beat. "Ow!"

"And the chief looks at him and, you know, tries to reassure him," Jenk said. "'Zanella, you're fine.' His paint's a little muddy from sweat, but that's no big deal. The chief doesn't know what this kid means by his Magic Markers, though. What, is he going to make a sign or maybe write a letter home? You never know with the new guys. But this is not the time or place for lengthy conversations.

"But Izzy goes, 'No, chief, really, I gotta take a crap, but I didn't camouflage my ass. I didn't think we'd be gone this long, so...' And the chief is like, 'What?'"

Lindsey, knowing full well what was coming, started to laugh.

"Yeah," Jenk said. "You guessed it. Turns out, back at the base when they were gearing up for this op, some cruel bastards tell Izzy that he's got to use paint on every part of him that's going to peek out from beneath his uniform-including his...johnson. Especially his johnson, because he definitely doesn't want that to get shot off, right? And they tell him, as far as that piece of his anatomy is concerned, it's easier just to use permanent markers. That way he doesn't have to keep drawing on himself every time he's going out into the world. So there he is, with a jungle cammie print-apparently he did a very good job of it-on his unit, for like, two months."

"Gillman! Zanella! Lopez!" On the other side of the Quonset hut, the senior chief was handing out gear.

"I thought it was more like four months," Izzy said. "But, hey, you should know."

Jenk gritted his teeth. "Rumor has it, if you look really close, you can still see a trace of it. Even after all these years."

"If that's the case," Izzy said, his hands on his belt, "I can prove right here that it wasn't me."

"No, thank you," Lindsey said quickly.

"It's an urban legend," Jenk said. "Go to Fort Bragg, and you'll hear a version where the new guy is an army grunt. Go to Eglin Air Force Base and the story takes place during pilot SERE training. It didn't happen. It's fiction."

"Zanella!"

"Later, babe." Izzy was gone.

Jenk looked imploringly at Lindsey. "You believe me, right?"

She didn't get a chance to respond before the senior chief bellowed for him. "Jenkins!"

Jenk didn't move as quickly as Izzy had, walking backwards so that he could still talk to her. "I probably won't see you until the rescue."

"In that case," Lindsey told him, "you won't see me until the exercise is over. Team Sixteen's not going to win this thing, remember?"

He laughed, supremely confident. "Prepare to be disappointed."

"Back at you," she said. "You know, I couldn't help but notice that you didn't volunteer to prove that that story's not about you."

Something may have sparked in his eyes. Or maybe it was just a combination of the setting sun and wishful thinking on her part.

"I don't feel the need to prove anything," he said. "Besides, I'm too old-fashioned."

Now, okay, that was flirting. Wasn't it?

"Lindsey," Tom Paoletti called. "It's time."

The intentionally motley-looking collection of TS Inc operatives had their equipment. They were ready to vanish with their hostage-her-into the desert.

When Lindsey glanced back, Jenk was still watching her walk away, and her heart actually skipped a beat.

LOCATION: UNKNOWN.

DATE: UNCERTAIN.

She used to have a name.

Beth Foster.

She sometimes said it aloud in the darkness, just to hear something besides the sound of her own breathing, the endless drip of the water, the occasional squeaking of his feet on the kitchen floor overhead.

Sometimes she said all of their names. Connie Smith was the latest. It was the scent of Connie Smith's blood, metallic and sharp, pooled on the concrete floor, that hung in the dark basement air, making her stomach churn and her head ache.

Alive. Alive. Her heart still beat. Her own blood was safe in her veins. Most of it, anyway. Alive. Alive. Alive.

And Connie Smith, Lord Jesus save her soul, had gone to a far better place.

"Connie Smith," she whispered.