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personal taste in decorations. Everything was standard military issue, from the framed aviation photographs to the blue checkered chairs and the matching lampshades on the sixties-styled side tables. Magazines, all military related, were stacked to precision on a larger table between the chairs.
    Sunlight filtered through vertical blinds and cast a band of dusty haze across the desk, partially blocking his colleague’s face. A memorable scent, spicy and a bit on the androgynous side, lingered in the air. Trident had been there.
    Torpedo appeared neither surprised nor upset to see Eightball. After a moment of stone-faced expression, Torpedo’s face morphed into a display of gratification.
    Damn. Torpedo always spoiled Eightball’s fun. They rarely let him kill anymore. His only joy these days, the element of surprise, had been reduced to rare occasions. And now, Torpedo seemed to take pride in robbing him of that. Was it too much to ask to be able to announce his triumph, as pitiful as it was, once in a while?
    Eightball paused in front of his colleague and tossed a batch of eight-by-tens onto the desk. He laced his fingers in front of him and waited.
    Torpedo scanned the photographs, recent and all of Grace Hendricks. The man’s girl-friendly face, clean-shaven and with Paul Newman eyes, gave nothing away about the thoughts running through his head.
    Eightball hated that. Not the good-looking part—Eightball was all about the ladies—but the part where he could never tell what Torpedo was thinking. That always got on his nerves.
    “They were taken yesterday.” An optimistic patience filled Eightball’s voice. Surely they’d let him go after her now that she’d been located. 
    “She was here?” Torpedo commented, amused. “To see Wayne, no doubt.”
    Damn it. Was nothing sacred anymore? “What are we going to do about him, now that he’s retired?” An order to kill was too much to hope for. Eightball had gotten his hopes up before and it’d all come to nothing.
    “To hell with Wayne.” Torpedo gave a dismissive wave. “I’ve been watching him for eleven years, you don’t think he moved up the ranks from Captain to Lt. Colonel in such a short time on his own merit, do you? He doesn’t know squat.” 
    “What do you want done?” Eightball asked, an obliging gleam lighting his tone. 
    “Find them. See what they’re up to.” Torpedo’s mood remained calm. “But don’t do anything drastic.” He paused, shaking his head. “It may be a false alarm.”
    “Whatever it is,” Eightball said. “We’ll find out.”
    Eightball longed to get back into the job that suited him best. Killing. And this incident might do the trick.
    Hell, they’d been prepared to let him take her out eleven years ago, if she hadn’t disappeared.

CHAPTER 5
    GRACE had trouble wrapping her mind around the visit to Cherry Point. Why had her father’s name been omitted from the military installation’s records? Who had that kind of power?
    She glanced around Eric’s dimly lit living room. The massive fireplace, a remnant from days gone by, persuaded her to think about things she shouldn’t. Like basking in the warm glow of a toasty fire on a cold winter’s night, in the arms of a man she’d given up to the past a long time ago.
    She drew in a breath and caught a glimpse of Eric from the corner of her eye. Busted. He was looking straight at her. An overwhelming fear of two very different sorts—one centered around her father and the other on Eric’s imminent inquisition—set her panic in motion. 
    “What’s on your mind?” he asked, propping his feet onto the coffee table.
    She cut her eyes toward him sitting in the chair kitty-cornered from her, and steered the conversation as far away from her mistakes as possible. “Why do you suppose daddy’s name wasn’t on that list?”
    Eric shook his head. “Try as I might, Gracie, I can’t come up with even a farfetched reason for that.”
    “What do you think we