Geri Krotow - Navy Orders

He glanced at her and not for the first time was blindsided by her huge eyes. Her chestnut-brown hair floated around her face in a pretty cloud of spikes and curls. Her gaze, a sexy blue laser, conveyed so much more than her words ever had—at least to him.

He put his gaze firmly back on the road.

“If we need to work together on this, we need to agree to have each other’s back.”

“That’s a given, Miles. But it’s not about us—it’s about seeing that Petty Officer Perez is treated with respect and dignity.”

“Come on, Roanna. You’re naval intelligence. Do you really believe everything is as it looks?”

“I saw you watching the commodore,” she said, and he felt her shrug next to him. “He’s not the best I’ve ever worked for, either, but certainly not the worst. Either way, he’s our boss. We have orders.”

“To get to the truth. The truth may not be what he wants to hear.” He needed to keep his misgivings to himself; he sounded paranoid. The collateral damage of a life spent expecting an explosion at every turn.

She sighed as if she’d read his mind.

“This isn’t a Hollywood movie, Miles.”

“No, it’s not, Roanna. It’s for real—and we need to be on the same page. For Petty Officer Perez, for his family and for each other.”

* * *

ROANNA HELD ON to the handle above the passenger’s side window as Miles drove them to the area known as West Beach. They’d learned that AMS Perez’s body had been discovered by a dog walker early that morning.

“Good thing they found him while the tide was still out.”

“You’re not kidding. An hour or two later and he would’ve been shark bait.” Miles was a guy all the way.

“That kind of comment’s not necessary, is it?”

He flashed a glance at her, then brought his attention back to the road.

“No, but it’s important that we stay detached enough to do this right. Neither of us knew him that well, correct?”

“You heard what I said to the commodore. I was talking to Perez about switching rates, just yesterday afternoon.” Hours before he took his last breath. “But no, I didn’t know him that well.”

“He’d understand that we’re doing what we need to do to keep our sanity.”

Ro didn’t reply because that meant looking at Miles and whenever she caught a glimpse of his profile she got that funny hitch in her chest. Not from discomfort, but from realizing how natural, almost familiar, it felt to be with Miles.

She was even getting used to her body’s hormonal response to him, damn it.

“You have to admit this is pretty funny, Ro.”

“How so?”

“It’s taken a death for you to come to your senses about spending more time with me.”

She bit her lip and gazed straight ahead.

Just focus on the case in front of you.

She peered at the house numbers.

“Up there, that’s the one, isn’t it?” The sun had burned off any remaining morning fog, which was common on Whidbey Island. The house stood at least two hundred feet back from the road, and Ro knew the island well enough to know that the backyard led to a precipitous cliff a hundred feet above the stone-strewn beach. All the homes along this route backed up against the cliffs.

“Let’s check it out.”

They weren’t headed to the house—it served only as a landmark as it was the first home on the road, next to a large open area that residents used for picnicking and whale-watching. Ro was grateful she’d worn her uniform skirt with oxfords today. She usually preferred pumps with a skirt, but since she’d been putting in a lot of running miles her back was sore and she needed the lower-heeled shoes. Her pumps would never have survived tramping through gravel and across the windblown timothy grass to the edge of the cliff, not to mention the rocky shore.

There were still a handful of LEA agents wandering around the beach four or five feet below them. She and Miles needed to climb down the rough path to the tide line. This was the lowest point of the western island, punctuated by tsunami warning signs.

The LEAs were distinguished by reflective vests and evidence collection kits. A small area had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape.

“What will we tell them we’re doing?” They needed to be in concert with their story if they hoped to appear credible. “We can’t say we’re investigating officers, not really.”

“No, but we can say we’re with the wing and we’re here to help.” Miles reached over and squeezed her hand. It was a brief, warm reassurance, but her reaction was so electric Ro felt as if he’d just kissed her. She glanced around to see if anyone else had seen his gesture.

“Relax, Ro, it was a friendly squeeze. Not a public display of affection. I’d never put your career at risk with a PDA. You aren’t affected by my charms so we’re good, right?” His flirting made her want to sneer at him. Kind of.

You’re starting new today. Remember?

“Um, yes.” She took in the scene in front of them one more time before she turned back to Miles.

“Let’s go.”

They started the climb down to the scene of AMS1 Perez’s untimely death.

* * *

RO HAD NEVER seen a dead body before. Except for at her great-aunt Ruby’s funeral, during which her seven-year-old self wondered why Aunt Ruby’s eyebrows weren’t their usual dark color. They’d seemed so odd to her, all thin and high-arched, giving Ruby an expression of extreme surprise. Even as a little girl she knew that someone at eternal rest probably didn’t look so startled. That was before she’d learned the nuances of eyebrow pencils. In retrospect Ro had figured out that the funeral parlor’s cosmetologist had mistakenly assumed that Aunt Ruby’s eyebrows should match her beauty parlor bleach job.

The sight of Petty Officer Perez wasn’t as bad as she’d expected, not at first. At least that was what she told herself. There wasn’t any blood; that much she could see from several paces out. Except for his face, he was clothed. As they approached his body and moved around it, she decided that first impressions were overrated.

The angle of his head was at once unnatural and revolting. It signified death as clear as any pool of blood would have.

As if a huge sasquatch had taken his head and twisted it around, his head faced into the beach gravel while his body faced skyward. She saw mostly the back of his head, but the large, black beach rock kept his head tilted at just the right angle to see his face with its bulging eyes in their final death stare.

Vomiting in public while in her uniform wasn’t an option, but she really wanted to. She averted her gaze and took deep, practiced breaths through her nose. Navy training paid off in so many different ways. How would she have guessed that learning to control her panic while doing swim qualifications in the helo dunker would keep her from throwing up at the sight of a dead sailor?

“First time seeing it this raw?” Miles’s voice wooed her back from the edge of her panic.

She let out a short gasp.

“Not all of us are in the field as much as you.”

“Not all of us sit behind computers and analyze data as much as you.”

His sharp words startled her. Anger replaced shock.

“Please don’t slip into your Cro-Magnon persona now, Warrant. You actually had me thinking that maybe you respected me as a partner in this investigation.”

“I respect hard facts and someone who knows what facts I need.”

The fact that they were actually sparring over the difference in their military occupations while Petty Officer Perez’s body lay yards away catapulted Ro from nausea to anger.

“You didn’t have a problem with my career choice when you asked me out.” There, that would shut him up.