"I'm sorry I broke your heart," she told him, as what looked to be the SUV with their missing teammates pulled into the motel parking lot. "I'm sorry that an incredible night of great sex wasn't enough for you."

"And I'm sorry that it was enough for you."

The sliver of moon wasn't bright enough to light his face, but the neon Motel-A-Rama sign took up the slack. Jenk was standing there, in that pink-and-green glow, with his pretty eyes filled with frustration and regret. There was probably pity and disdain in there, too, but Lindsey chose not to search for it. Instead, she turned her back on him, heading toward the row of parked cars and trucks.

Where, yes, both Izzy and Tracy were getting out of that SUV.

Izzy went around to help Tracy, his voice carrying even though he didn't speak loudly. "Careful, it's slippery."

She said something back to him that Lindsey couldn't hear, but it sure looked as if she jerked her arm away. The end result was that they both went down.

They were hidden behind the hood, but as Lindsey rushed to help, she could hear Izzy again. "Oh, that's just perfect."

She reached the end of the line of cars to see that...Oh, dear. Tracy had booted, right in Izzy's lap.

"God, I'm sorry," she mumbled, pushing her hair back from her face far too late.

"Did she hit her head?" Jenk was right behind Lindsey. But then he, too, caught the unmistakable and extremely unpleasant whiff of previously-used alcohol. "Zanella, what the hell?"

Tracy was fried on both sides, as Grandpa Henry used to say.

"Come on, Trace. Can you stand?" With Jenk's assistance, Izzy helped her up. "I know what you're thinking," he told Jenk, "but she just wanted a drink."

"Or twenty. Jesus, Iz, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking...give her what she wants?"

With her chunkified hair and glistening chin, this was not Tracy's finest hour. Apparently she wasn't too drunk not to know it, because she started to cry.

Lindsey sighed. She might as well take charge now. "Help me get her to her room." This was going to fall on her anyway. There was no way Lindsey was simply going to let Jenk or Izzy walk Tracy to her door, push her in, and wave good-bye. Sophia was in no condition to hose down an inebriated roommate.

"I just want to state for the record," Tracy announced, as they started to move across the parking lot, "that I didn't do that on purpose."

"Yeah, I know," Izzy said. "And hey, snaps for waiting until you were out of the car. I do appreciate that."

The stairs were trickier to negotiate, but they finally all made it up to the second level.

"I need a shower," Tracy said.

"I got it from here," Lindsey told the two men, neither of whom hesitated to hang back-thanks a million, brave Navy SEALs.

Izzy did, however, call after them. "Tracy, I'm sorry, too. Linds, put her clothes outside the door. I'll run a load of laundry, and, you know, throw her stuff in with mine."

"What did you do to her, asshole?" Lindsey heard Jenk ask the other SEAL as she helped Tracy into her room. "What are you so sorry about?"

"Nothing. Weebs, I swear. I mean, come on. Dude, Tracy Shapiro? Only in my dreams."

Tracy cried even harder.

In the motel room, Sophia was back under the blankets of her bed, wearing a ski cap on her head, reading a book. Her eyes widened as she saw Tracy, but to her credit she didn't make a horrified face.

"I smell," Tracy sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

It was the refrain of the evening.

Tracy was sorry, Izzy was sorry, Jenk was sorry, Lindsey was sorry. Everyone was sorry. She was certain that Sophia, although she'd yet to speak, was pretty damn sorry, too.

Lindsey closed the door behind her and got to work.

CHAPTER.

FIFTEEN.

DARLINGTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2005.

In the morning, Jenk found Lindsey out in the parking lot, in the area where his cell phone had worked when they'd first arrived yesterday. She had obviously managed to get a signal, because she was talking on her phone, and he slowed his steps slightly, not wanting to intrude.

But he only had a few minutes, and he needed to thank her.

Sophia had told him that Lindsey had swapped rooms with her last night. Sophia had gone to Lindsey's room to sleep, while Lindsey stayed and babysat Tracy.

"No," he heard Lindsey say. "No, Dad, it's okay. Really."

She was talking to her father. Jenk was on the verge of clearing his throat to get her attention, when she forced a laugh.

"Christmas is just another day to a writer on deadline, right?" she said into her phone. "Don't worry, I've got lots of friends, I'll...draw names from a hat." She laughed again, but to Jenk it sounded so brittle. "That's right and...Oh, you do? Oh. Okay, then I'll talk to you next week, if not...Yeah, I'm great, yeah...Okay. Love you, too."

She shut her phone, but she didn't move. She just stood there, breathing, her back both to him and the hotel.

"Everything okay?" Jenk finally asked.

Lindsey jumped, looking over her shoulder at him, but then turned away again, to wipe her eyes. "Yeah." She hadn't been breathing; she'd been trying not to cry.

Holy shit. Jenk took a step toward her.

"It didn't sound okay," he said. "I mean, from what I overheard."

When she turned around again, she'd actually managed to fabricate a smile. "Just my weekly phone call to my father."

"During which he canceled your plans for Christmas?" Jenk guessed.

She shrugged, an exaggerated sitcom actor move, complete with what-you-gonna-do-about-it face. "It's not like I wasn't expecting it," she lied.

"That's crap, and you know it," he said. "Because this is, what? Only the second Christmas since your mother died?"

Her smile didn't falter. "Wow, you really pay attention when people talk to you, don't you?"

Lindsey had told him she was just a kid when her mother first got sick. "How many years did you do that?" he asked her now. "Keep smiling for your mother's sake?" Putting a positive face on a bad situation, always being cheerful and upbeat, must've become her default mode.

But she just laughed.

"Lindsey, you don't have to do it anymore," Jenk told her. "She's gone. You're allowed to look sad when someone asks you about her passing."

"Wow, Dr. Mark, isn't it a little early in the day for psychoanalysis?"

She started to walk away, shaking her head, but his temper flared. She was still fucking smiling, and he just could not let this or her go.

Jenk blocked her path. "Hide what you feel-or better yet, don't acknowledge that you feel anything at all. That's much easier, huh?"

She gave him a big, exaggerated sigh. "I had a long night. Will you please just...back off?"

"Last Christmas must've really sucked, huh?" Jenk said. "Your first holiday without your mother? And now your dad's hiding-probably because he can't stand to be near you and your everything's okay, we can just pretend Mom's gone to Bermuda attitude." He snapped his fingers at her. "Come on, Linds, let's hear you make a joke now. Where's the snappy comeback? Make it a good one-don't disappoint me."

But her smile had finally vanished. "That was an awful thing to say," she whispered.

He'd pushed too hard and gone too far. It was obvious that she actually believed it might be true, that her father couldn't stand having her around, and Jenk's anger instantly evaporated.

"Look, I was just trying to hit a nerve, which I've obviously done," he told her. "I'm sure it's not about you-his canceling your plans. I mean, she wasn't just your mother, she was his wife and lover, and it's gotta be incredibly hard for him, too." The look on her face made his stomach hurt, and he couldn't help himself. He reached for her. "My point is that you're allowed to feel sad. When your mother dies, you're allowed to-"

Lindsey sidestepped. "You must really hate me," she said as she hurried back toward the motel.

"I don't," he said, following. "Will you just wait? Come on, slow down."

"Just stay away from me."

He caught her arm. "Lindsey-"

She spun to face him. "Stay away from me!"

And, terrific, there Commander Koehl was, out by the SUVs, putting on his gloves. Lindsey's shout had most definitely caught the commanding officer's attention.

She ran for the motel, and this time, as Koehl watched, Jenk stayed put. "You're allowed to grieve," he called after her again, "and you're allowed to show it."

Lindsey didn't look back as she dashed up the stairs and unlocked the door to her room.

"Oh, yeah," Jenk said, in a voice she couldn't possibly hear, particularly after she'd slammed the door behind her. "And thanks for helping Tracy last night."

This was supposed to be fun.

Scrambling around in the woods, playing the terrorist equivalent of the big bad wolf, kidnapping their own little Florence Nightingale, and creating challenges for the rescue team was supposed to be amusing.

Yet Dave had never seen Izzy Zanella as quiet and subdued as he was this evening. During their drive to this cabin-part of what had once been a thriving Girl Scout camp a dozen miles north of the haunted hunting lodge-Izzy had been positively silent.

There was trouble brewing in Afghanistan. Team Sixteen's CO had received a heads-up phone call earlier in the day, advising him as to the impending likelihood of the SEALs being called in. It was possible that that news had created Izzy's extra-crunchy coating of grim.

Their exercise had been delayed while several temporary sat towers were installed. Despite the fact that they'd come to this remote part of New England to train without any communication devices, they'd all come out tonight with radios or-for the civilians among them-their cell phones in their pockets. The alternative was to cancel the exercise, hang at the motel, and wait for the phone to ring and the SEALs to deploy.

Still, Dave was betting Izzy's mood was less than effervescent for other reasons.

"Can I get you anything?" Izzy asked Tracy now, as she sat in a straight-backed chair near the cabin's roaring fire, pink mittens still on her hands, her arms belligerently crossed.

She shook her head as she continued to study her sturdy white nurse's shoes-part of her costume, intended to make her escape more difficult through the darkness of the woods. "No, thank you."

Izzy stood there for several long moments, glancing over to where Dave was listening to the rest of their mock terrorist cell-Decker, Gillman, and Lopez-trying to second-guess when and where and how the rescue attempt would come.

Izzy lowered his voice, but Dave's ears were quite good. "Look, we're not going to have a chance to talk when-"

"Thank God," Tracy said.

"I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry-"

"Don't, okay?"

Izzy turned away, but then turned back, his voice sharper now. "You know, I tried my best to deliver exactly what you wanted-exactly what you asked for. I'm sorry I was too good for you."

Tracy made an insulted sound, and probably would have said far more than he wanted to hear if Dave hadn't stopped her. "Prisoner! No talking."

She closed her mouth, attempting to incinerate Izzy with her eyes, as he slammed out the door. "Checking the perimeter," he announced.

Decker looked at Lopez. "Go with him."

Lopez followed.

There was going to be no better time than this, so...

Dave wandered toward Tracy. "You warm enough?" he asked, as Decker glanced over at them.