SEALed With A Kiss(12)

His commander heaved a sigh. “Listen, Vinny.” Vinny could hear him withdrawing to a private area of his house. “What I’m about to tell you stays between the two of us. Can Lia overhear us?”

Vinny glanced down at Lia to assess how much she was hearing. She’d closed her eyes with her head on his chest, pretending to doze, but he could tell that she was straining her ears to hear, though he was fairly sure she couldn’t. “No, sir.”

“John and I worked together about ten years ago, along with Senior Chief McGuire and Chief Harlan. I was their OIC in a firing squad sent to Basrah to eliminate a high-profile terrorist. We worked under the direction of a CIA case officer, who must have gotten his intelligence wrong because the target wasn’t in the building we hit, just a bunch of families, mostly women and kids. One kid wouldn’t stop crying and the case officer wigged out and shot him. The bullet pierced the kid and killed the mother, too.”

“Jesus!” Vinny exclaimed with disgust for the man’s brutality. If Lia hadn’t been listening intently earlier, he knew she certainly was now.

“Then he threatened to turn the tables on us if we reported him, so we made him a deal. We’d write off the incident as an accident if he promised to leave the Agency. We thought that would be the end of it. But then he went into politics. He’s the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania now, Jay Rawlings.”

“No shit,” Vinny breathed.

“And he’s on his way to becoming the vice president. When John realized that fact, he decided to go back on his word and write an exposé. Now you’re telling me John’s dead.”

It was Vinny’s turn to be shocked into silence. It looked like the SEAL had been murdered—not by teenaged thugs but by a powerful politician determined to safeguard his reputation. “So, what are you going to do with that box, sir?” he finally asked, careful not to mention John’s name, lest Lia put two and two together.

“I think I need to turn it into NCIS and let them investigate. Thanks for telling me about John. I think I’ll make some phone calls now to find out when his funeral’s taking place and where. I’d like to attend it.”

“Well, keep me posted if it’s somewhere in the area.”

“I’ll do that, Vinny. Thanks for the phone call.”

“I’m sorry about the news, sir.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty sobering. I’ll see you soon, Vinny.”

“Have a good evening, sir.”

No sooner had Vinny hung up than Lia’s head popped up. She propped a hand under her chin and searched his gaze avidly. “How well did he know him?” she inquired.

Vinny pretended ignorance. “Know who?”

“The SEAL who was killed, of course. Did they work together?”

Vinny shrugged. “He said he’d worked with the guy back in Iraq.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t look too surprised to hear it. With only 2,500 active duty SEALs worldwide, most SEALs had at least heard of each other. “But he hadn’t been informed of this Stasky-guy’s murder,” she accurately guessed. “Did he mention if he had any enemies?”

“Staskiewicz,” Vinny corrected.

She frowned at him. “Don’t change the subject. What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

He heaved an exasperated sigh and closed his eyes. “You know I can’t talk about certain stuff,” he admonished.

“But this is a civilian matter,” she reasoned, “because Staskiewicz retired from the teams, and then he was killed. The only reason why you couldn’t talk about his death was if it related in some way to—Oh.” She eyed him with dawning comprehension. “Joe thinks his death is related to the work he did in the Navy.”

“I’m not sayin’ if he does or doesn’t,” Vinny insisted.

“I’ll torture you,” Ophelia threatened, pinching the lean flesh of his abdomen.

“You can’t break me,” Vinny replied with confidence. “I’ve been trained to resist interrogation.”

She nonetheless gave it her best shot, going up on her knees to tickle him mercilessly. He bore her attack for as long as he could stand it, then captured her wrists, flipped her onto her back, and rolled up and over her.

“Oh,” she moaned, the color draining from her face. “I think I’m going to throw up.”

He immediately eased his weight off her, watching with worried eyes as she rolled toward the edge of the bed and covered her mouth. “I’ll get a trash can,” he volunteered, springing from the bed to find it.

“No, I’m okay,” she assured him. Breathing in through her nose and out of her mouth, she sat up slowly. “I just think I ate too much.”