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Authors: Suzanne Brockmann

Tags: #Romantic Suspense

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BOOK: Gone Too Far
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“So.” Elliot glanced over his shoulder toward the other members of Dennis Mattson’s yacht crew waiting for him farther down the dock.
“So,” Gina Vitagliano said, pulling a strand of sea-wind-whipped hair from the corner of her mouth and tucking it back into her ponytail. She was determined not to make this easier for him, the jerk.

Although to be fair, Elliot was the sweetest, kindest jerk she’d ever met.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us,” he said, and actually managed to sound like he meant it. Because he probably
did
mean it.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me, too. I was . . .” Come on, Gina, just be honest. It wasn’t like she was ever going to see him again in her entire life. “I was disappointed that we didn’t get together.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I just . . . I couldn’t. Not after you told me . . .”

“Yeah, right,” Gina said. “Dead horse. I’m glad we were friends, Elliot. Good luck in St. Thomas, okay?”

“Thanks.” His eyes were such a warm shade of dark brown, it was impossible to tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. It was his eyes that had attracted her to him in the first place.

They’d reminded her of Max.

“So what’s your plan?” Elliot asked her.

It was funny, because other than his dark hair and eyes, Elliot looked nothing like Max Bhagat.

Max wasn’t as tall, and he wasn’t the same kind of handsome. He was swarthier—his father had been a native of India. And he was older. He had at least fifteen years on Elliot, twenty years on Gina. And Max was the head of an FBI counterterrorist unit. He was an experienced FBI negotiator who spent his days saving lives.

Elliot was the cook aboard a rich man’s racing yacht.

But, like Max, he’d listened when Gina talked. Or at least he’d listened to a point. But then Elliot had stopped listening, because he didn’t like what she was telling him. He didn’t really want to hear what she had to say.

“I’m going to do it,” she told him now, because this topic was relatively safe and he was listening again. “I’m going overseas. I’ve got a few more things to do for Dennis here in Tampa, and I’m doing that gig at the jazz club down in Sarasota, you know, filling in for a friend. But then I’m flying back to New York to spend a few days with my family, and after that . . . I’m going to Africa. I actually bought the airline ticket this morning.”

Gina still had enough money from the World Airlines settlement. She could kick around for two, three more years at least without having to make any decisions as to what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

“That’s great,” Elliot told her, his voice warm with sincerity. “I think that’s really great, Gina.”

Across the marina, his friends were getting restless. She smiled at him. “You better go.”

“I’ll miss you,” he said, giving her an awkward hug. “I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah,” she said with a laugh, trying to turn it into a joke. “Brave. That’s me. Wonder Woman. Right.”

“I’m serious.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, don’t be. Too many people are too serious. Life’s too short. Didn’t I teach you anything these past six weeks?”

Life was
indeed
too short. And the next time she was thinking about getting naked with a guy she liked enough to get naked with, she wasn’t going to blurt out the fact that she’d spent four days as a hostage of Kazbekistani terrorists on a hijacked airliner. And she certainly wasn’t going to mention being violently attacked and . . .

“Still, when I think about what you went through . . .”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Gina lied. “Go.”

He went, taking his Max Bhagat knockoff eyes with him.

Gina climbed into the rental car and headed back to the hotel, hoping that sooner or later she’d find whatever it was that she was so desperately looking for.

Or that Max would call her again.

CHAPTERFIVE
“You sure there’s nothing I can do?” Noah asked, speaking quietly so that he wouldn’t wake Claire.
“Yeah, I’m sure.” Sam sounded exhausted. “Look, I gotta run.”

“Run where? Come on, Ringo. Call it a day and get some sleep.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Sam said.

“Thanks again for letting me know that it wasn’t Mary Lou,” Noah said.

He hung up the phone and slipped out of bed, heading in his bare feet for the kitchen. The light was on under Dora’s door and he could hear music playing softly. How had he become old enough to have a kid who stayed up later than her parents?

Truth was, it wasn’t old age or fatigue that had put him in bed at such an early hour. It was Claire, making all of those “Gee, I’m tired, I’m going to turn in early” comments out in the living room.

Noah had grabbed Devin, scrubbed his face and brushed his teeth and read him a quick chapter of the latest Lemony Snicket, all in record time, only to join Claire in bed and find out that she really
was
tired.

She’d rolled over and fallen asleep almost immediately, leaving him wide awake and wondering if maybe they couldn’t reschedule that “lunch” for tomorrow.

Now he opened the refrigerator and stared inside for so long, he could almost hear his grandfather’s voice chastising him for attempting to refrigerate the entire kitchen. “If whatever culinary delight you’re looking for isn’t there inside that first minute, Nostradamus my boy, it’s
still
not going to be there five minutes later.”

Noah grabbed a bottle of beer, twisting off the top as he shut the refrigerator door.

He sat on the mismatched stool at the breakfast counter—the creaky one that he’d taken from the kitchen in the assisted living condo after his grandfather had passed—and drank his beer.

He was such a whiny baby. So his wife didn’t want to have sex with him tonight. So she really
was
tired. As Sam/Roger/Ringo would have said, “Big deal, fuckhead.”

At least he knew where his wife and children were tonight. And no one had recently gunned down any of his in-laws in the kitchen of their house.

Ever since seventh grade, Noah had compared his life to Sam’s and found solid reasons to count his blessings.

It had started early on in their friendship, about three weeks after Roger had started coming over to Noah’s house every day after school. And he
was
Roger back then. He didn’t start calling himself Ringo until eighth grade.

It was a Saturday, and he and Roger had made plans to ride their bikes down to the mall. Noah needed a present for his grandparents’ wedding anniversary, and Roger was going to help him pick something out.

Only he didn’t show.

Noah finally rode his bike over to Roger’s house. He’d never been there before, but he knew where it was.

The lawn was freshly cut, and a gray-haired man with a crew cut and a stern face who must’ve been Roger’s father was up on a ladder, repairing the gutter that hung on the edge of the porch roof.

Noah rode into the driveway and braked to a stop. “Good morning, sir. Is Roger home?”

Roger’s father did a double take, then looked at him a good long time. “No,” he finally said, giving Noah the back of his head.

It was funny. Kids were required to be polite to grown-ups at all times, but grown-ups could be flat-out rude to kids whenever they felt like it.

Fuming and indignant, Noah got back on his bike and headed for home.

He didn’t see Roger until Monday, at school.

And that was a shock, because Roger looked like he’d gone head to head with a Greyhound bus. He had a black eye and a swollen mouth and cut lip, and he was walking like his rear end was on fire.

“What happened to you?” Becky Jurgens asked.

“Nothin’,” Roger said.

But Noah knew it wasn’t nothing. He stood there, staring at Roger, thinking of something he’d said, early in their friendship. It was about Walt, about the size of his enormous hands.

“Jesus,” Roger had said, “it must hurt like a bitch when he hits you.”

At the time, Noah had laughed at the absurdity of that. He’d never seen his grandfather hit anyone.

He hadn’t thought twice about it, but now it made too much sense.

Roger’s father had happened to Roger. There was no doubt about it.

But Roger avoided him all day. It wasn’t until after the last bell that Noah intercepted him.

“Why did he hit you?” Noah asked, getting right to the point, sick to his stomach with fear that the reason was one he already knew.

Roger didn’t play dumb. He didn’t deny that his father had beaten the crap out of him. But he did try to shrug it off. “He always hits me when he gets home from a long trip. There’s always something I’ve done that pisses him off.”

Noah went even more point-blank. “Was it because he doesn’t want you to be friends with me? Because I’m black?”

“Fuck him.” Roger spat on the ground. “I’ll be friends with whoever the fuck I want.”

Noah had wanted to cry. But Roger obviously wanted to pretend everything was fine.

Still, they took a short cut through the woods and through neighbors’ yards to get to Noah’s house, instead of walking home on the sidewalk, where they might’ve been seen.

His own father had died in Vietnam when Noah was just a baby. His mother had died about a year later. Of grief, Grandpa said whenever Noah asked, but he knew she’d died in a car accident, after she’d had too much alcohol to drink. Maybe it was grief, or maybe it was just plain carelessness.

Noah could work himself into a “poor little orphaned me” funk when he wanted to, but he knew that, compared to Roger, he had very little to complain about. He had Walt and Dot, both of whom loved him dearly, both of whom would die before they took a leather belt to his backside.

The walk home had Roger gritting his teeth. Noah made excuses so they could stop and rest a few times, and when they finally reached his house, he made Roger settle back on the sofa.

“Wait here. There’s something I want to show you,” Noah told him, and ran to get the top drawer from the built-ins in the formal dining room.

He carried the entire thing back and set it on the coffee table. There was enough stuff in there that Roger wouldn’t have to get up off the couch until dinnertime.

“What’s in there?” Roger asked. “Can I see that?”

Noah knew he was hurting pretty badly because he didn’t even lean forward to reach for the photo that was right on top. It was a grainy black-and-white picture of Walt—miraculously young—standing with a group of men next to a WWII fighter plane. Noah handed it over, pulling the entire table closer to Roger.

“It’s papers and pictures and stuff,” Noah said. “My grandparents saved all their letters from the war. Some of them are pretty funny, and they’re all really cool to read. Grandma was really good friends with Grandpa’s first wife, Mae, and they saved all the letters they wrote to each other, too. Here, check this out. This one’s from Grandpa:
Dear Dot, Whoo-whee!

“It doesn’t say that,” Roger scoffed.

“Does too. Look.” Noah sat next to him on the couch, close enough so that Roger could see the letter, but not close enough to accidentally bump him and hurt him more.

Roger read aloud, slowly, trying to decipher Walt’s cursive.
“We’ve gone up against the Germans and sent them running, weeping for their mothers!
Hah!
Finally, at last, we are part of this giant effort, this huge Allied machine, created to fight the Nazis’ evil.”
He looked up at Noah. “Cool. He writes just like he talks.
Oh, I know how jealous you must be, but it’s such a thrill, one I can’t begin to describe! (One I dare not describe in such detail to Mae.)
So that’s kind of weird. He’s still married to Mae, but he’s writing to Dot?”

“They were all friends,” Noah told him. “Grandma was a pilot—a WASP, they called ’em. It stood for Women Airforce Service Pilots. Before World War Two, women didn’t do much of anything besides stay at home and take care of the house and kids. Then suddenly we were at war, and all the men joined the Army or Navy, and there were all these jobs that
some
one needed to do. So women stepped forward and said ‘I can do that.’ Grandma knew how to fly. Her first husband was a flier during World War One, and after he died, instead of selling his plane, she taught herself to fly it. Pilots were needed—even just to transport planes from one place to another in the United States—and she was one of the women who could do that. That’s how she and Grandpa met. She was delivering a plane to his air base. She told me she and Grandpa didn’t fall in love until a few years after Mae died.”

“Yeah, what’s she going to tell you? That she was messing around with a married man?”

“No,” Noah said. “That’s not what happened.”

“Okay,” Roger said.

“It’s not.”

“I said okay.”

“You said okay like you didn’t mean it. There’s letters and diaries and all kinds of stuff in here—there’s three whole drawersful—that prove—”

“I believe you,” Roger said. “Read the rest of that thing. I want to hear about how he killed all the Nazis.”

“Well, he doesn’t go into detail about—

“Just read it, Nos.”

Noah cleared his throat.
“You should have seen the faces of the crews of the bombers when we landed and they found out that the pilots of their fighter escort—who had fought like the devil and not lost a single plane to the Nazis on that trip into Italy and back—were Negro men.

“We’re damn good, Dot. That isn’t false bragging but the truth—our record is remarkable. True, we’ve flown only three missions, but each time all of the bombers have returned untouched. The bomber squadron COs have started to ask for us by name—a true double victory.

“I’m beyond proud to be part of this. It’s true there is still much to overcome. My men—all officers—are billeted in places not fit for animals, while the white officers live in fancy hotels. Segregation is SOP, and disrespect is rampant.”

“What’s SOP?” Roger asked.

“It’s a military acronym. It’s stands for standard operating procedure. And segregation is when white people and black people are kept apart. Like, here’s a bathroom for white people only, and here’s another bathroom—usually smaller and dirtier—for
colored folk
.”

“That sucks,” Roger said.

“Yeah. And it’s weird reading these letters, too. All of them—Mae and Grandma and Grandpa—call black people Negroes or colored. At the time that was what African Americans were called—it wasn’t meant to be derogatory. It was pretty shocking the first time I read it, like, ‘Whoa, Grandma, were you a racist, calling Grandpa colored?’ But she’s probably the least racist person I’ve ever known. The words are just words. She once told me if when you grow up, everyone points to the sky and says ‘Blue,’ then you call the sky blue. But if the sky turns around and tells you that it prefers to be called azure and that being called blue is derogatory, then you make sure you stop calling the sky blue. Even if you’ve been doing it all your life.”

“My father uses a word that’s worse than those,” Roger said. “I get the shit kicked out of me if I use any four-letter words in the house, and then he uses
that
word, like that one’s okay with God.” He shook his head, like a baseball pitcher shaking off a catcher’s signal. “I don’t want to talk about him. Read the rest.”

“But when we’re in the sky, and those dastardly Germans are trying to shoot down both us and the bombers we’re protecting . . . Oh, don’t those bomber pilots think of us as equals then!
That’s it. He says, you know,
Write back soon, God bless and stay safe, write and tell me how Mae is feeling
—she was sick a lot—
sincerely, Walt.

“You know, your grandfather told me to call him Uncle Walt,” Roger said. “You think that’s okay? I mean, instead of Mr. Gaines?”

“I’m sure it’s okay,” Noah said, “if that’s what he told you.”

“He was a real hero in the war, wasn’t he?” Roger asked, shifting on the sofa and wincing despite his attempts to hide how much his backside hurt.

“Yeah,” Noah said.

Roger was silent then, just looking at the picture of Walt and his squadron. “I’m proud to know him,” he finally said. “And I’m proud to know you, too.”

Noah wanted to cry. He knew that Roger didn’t want to talk about his father, but he had to ask, “Is he going to hit you again, just for coming over here?”

“I don’t know,” Roger said, but it was obvious he was lying.

“Maybe, you know, you shouldn’t come here when he’s home,” Noah said. “You said he wasn’t home that often—”

“I like coming here.” Roger was trying hard not to cry now, too. “I
hate
him.”

“I do, too,” Noah said. “You know, when I turn eighteen, I’m going to join the Navy. I’m going to become a Navy SEAL, and then I’m going to come back to Fort Worth and scare the hell out of your father. I’m not going to kick his butt—that would be lowering myself to his level.” That was something Grandpa was always saying.
Don’t lower yourself to their level.
“But I’m going to scare him so much he messes his pants!”

Roger started to laugh at that, but almost immediately he was crying. Oh, he was pretending that he wasn’t. He kind of turned away and curled up into himself and tried to cover his face.

BOOK: Gone Too Far
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