“It is what it is,” Tasha told her. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it, but, well.” She laughed a little. “So... you probably know why I’m calling.”
Casey took a deep breath. “Rio,” she said, finally getting it right but hating the feel of his name in her mouth.
“Rio,” Tasha agreed. “He’s worried about you. He told me about the whole nearly-getting-run-over thing—”
“It was an accident,” Casey cut her off. “The driver probably had too much to drink, didn’t turn on their lights—it wouldn’t surprise me if they were texting at the same time.”
“Okay,” Tasha said, and whoever she was, she had enormous self-control because she didn’t sardonically add While most likely juggling knives with his elbows. “That’s certainly possible.” She was good at being easygoing and agreeable. That plus the Navy SEAL husband currently overseas... Anyone else calling on behalf of Rio would’ve gotten an in-their-face hang-up. “But Rio’s still worried. When he gets that way, it’s hard for him to shake loose.”
“Have you... known him long?” What the hell was she doing asking that—and then waiting near breathlessly for Tasha’s answer.
“Actually, yes. I met him back when he first went into BUD/S—SEAL training. My uncle was an instructor back then. Rio was pretty young—just a few years out of high school. He got his college degree after he was in the teams, which is not easy to do, considering their, you know, job description. They tend not to do that anymore—let ’em in without the degree. A lotta guys want to be SEALs and I think you almost need a Masters now, just to get into the program, and yes, I’m kidding. But it is highly competitive. And then to actually get through the training and become a SEAL? You know what they say, best of the best. That’s not a lie.”
“Yeah, I know,” Casey said. “Dave and I’ve been friends since we were kids and I saw how hard he worked. Still, an asshole’s an asshole.”
Tasha laughed. “Fair enough. And... actually, I’m calling because Rio didn’t want you to get spooked. He borrowed my car—it’s a yellow VW Bug—and he wanted me to tell you that he’s parked it out on the street in front of your house. He also wants you to call someone named Ella...? But he didn’t think she’d be available immediately, so he wanted you to know that he’s just gonna hang out. Night watch, he called it. He said you won’t even know he’s there.”
“I don’t want him to do that,” Casey said.
“Yeah, no, sorry,” Tasha said, “he’s not asking permission because just between you and me, he is kind of an asshole—to be fair, most SEALs are. It’s an alpha thing and some of them just can’t, you know, be reasoned with, not without a full power-point presentation, complete with references. You can’t change their minds without hardcore proof that you’re right and they’re not. But on the plus side, Rio’s genuinely kind. An asshole with a heart of gold. I mean, he’s extremely sincere in his assholery and, well, he asked me to tell you that he plans to walk the perimeter—his words. He didn’t want you to see him lurking at the edge of your yard, but not know it’s him, and get scared.”
“How does he even know where I live?” But even as Casey asked the question, she realized, “Because I gave him my address back before I knew he was a lying asshole. Shit.” It was when they were figuring out transportation out to Palm Springs. He’d offered to drive up to Los Angeles and pick her up, but that would’ve been hours out of his way, sending him through raging LA traffic twice. She’d had him plug her address into his GPS to prove her point. “Please,” she told Tasha. “Tell him to leave me alone. I have a security system, I’m perfectly safe.”
“I’ll pass along your message,” Tasha said. “But if you really want him to leave, you’re going to have to talk to him yourself. And just for the record, he was doing Dave a rather impressively massive favor. You really should see their text thread. It’s—”
“Yeah, sorry, no, I gotta go.” Casey did not want to discuss this with a stranger, even a friendly one like Tasha.
“Of course,” the woman said immediately. “I’m sorry. And thanks again for not hanging up on me. Try to breathe, if you can. And I know you probably aren’t interested, but, if you ever do want to talk, well, you know my number now.”
And with that, she cut the connection, leaving Casey alone—with the last man on earth that she wanted to see right now apparently out in her yard, walking the freaking “perimeter.” For god’s sake.
Casey tossed her phone onto the counter next to her wine glass and stomped her way through the entire house, shutting all of the curtains and lowering all of the blinds.
Casey’s house was a sweet little two-story, 1920s era, arts-and-craft bungalow that had been lovingly renovated.
Rio knew quite a bit about this particular architectural style. Back before he’d joined the Navy, he’d been friendly with a Senior Chief who renovated houses for shits and giggles, and this particular time period in California housing was the man’s jam. Rio had done some restoration work—mostly carpentry—for the senior. And it wasn’t really for him, it was more like with him. Rio had learned a lot that summer. Not just about arts-and-crafts style houses with their river rock foundations, gracefully long overhanging eaves, and elite craftsman woodworking inside, but also about how to make it through the SEAL training program.
This house would’ve made the senior’s eyes light up, despite the modern lighting and windows. Whoever had done these renovations had built an addition onto the back, and it completely matched and blended—no 1970s Brady-Bunch-style cataclysm that sat like a weird, ugly growth on so many of these compact little houses in this part of SoCal. And the yard was nice, too. It was carefully landscaped with desert-friendly plantings, with a clean white fence around the entire property, giving it privacy.
Not so much with security, although it would take effort to get over or through the six-foot tall fence. Anyone in the back was there intentionally—no one could simply wander in from a neighboring yard.
As far as true security went, Casey had a decent low-level system in place—complete with a series of cameras. But someone who’d intentionally scrubbed mud across their license plate would surely also know how to conceal their face in the presence of a low-res security cam.
It was, however, better than nothing. And with Rio on guard, she was safe. Bonus was that she hadn’t come to kick him out, even after Tasha called her. Casey had just gone through the house, somewhat ferociously snapping all of the window coverings tightly closed.
After the total goat-fuckery of a very difficult day, Rio was gonna take that as the solid win that it was.
At midnight, minutes after Casey opened another bottle of wine because why the hell not, Jon finally called.
“We’re still working out the details, but the general plan,” he told Casey as she set the new bottle and her glass on her bedside table, pushing it back because now that she’d heard from her brother it no longer seemed appetizing, “is that I’m going to set up a meeting with Frank for late tomorrow night—and go in wearing a wire. Well, not a wire. There’re no actual wires anymore. But I’ll have a device that’ll send a signal and we’ll get the incriminating conversation in an audio file. I’m going to tell him I want to work for him while I pay off my debt. Hopefully we’ll get enough from that one meeting, but if not, I’ll just keep it up until we have something the DA can use against him.”
“Seriously?” Casey said. Maybe she did want another glass of wine. “You’re not just going to risk your life once, you’re going to do it repeatedly...?”
“They’re going to have someone—an undercover cop—go in with me,” Jon said. “I haven’t met them yet. That’s happening early tomorrow morning. Hopefully it’s someone gay and hot, and we fall madly in love. Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen in a situation like this?”
“Only if you’re a character in a book or a TV show,” Casey told him. “Real life doesn’t work that way.”
“Yeah, well, it worked for Dave,” Jon said. “With Luc. I mean, how many SEAL teams have one team member who’s gay, let alone two?”
