Logan checked his phone for the third time in an hour. Still nothing from Mara. Not unusual exactly. She'd warned him she'd be busy with work this week. But usually she'd send at least a quick text. A good morning message or a random photo or something to let him know she was thinking about him.
Three days of radio silence was starting to feel wrong.
He tried calling again. Straight to voicemail. He hung up without leaving a message. There were already four from him sitting in her inbox. No point adding another one.
"You good?" Bulldog asked from across the team room. They were supposed to be reviewing training scenarios for the new guys but Logan's attention kept drifting to his phone.
"Yeah. Fine." Logan set the phone down and tried to focus on the tactical map in front of him. "Just haven't heard from Mara in a few days. Probably just buried in whatever project she's working on."
"She does the same kind of work we do, right? Rescue operations?" Bulldog pulled up a chair. "Maybe she's deployed somewhere. Out of communication range."
"Maybe." But Mara usually gave him a heads up when she was going dark. A text that said "working" so he'd know not to worry when she didn't respond. The fact that she hadn't sent that message was what was eating at him.
"You want to take a break? Go call her again?" Bulldog's tone was understanding. He knew what it was like to be dating someone whose work made regular communication impossible sometimes.
"No. She'll call when she can." Logan forced himself to focus. "Let's get through these scenarios. New guys need to be ready for next week's training op."
They worked for another two hours. Logan kept his phone on the table in front of him, screen up, volume on high. Just in case. When it finally buzzed, he grabbed it so fast he almost knocked over his coffee.
Not Mara. Just a notification from his bank about his credit card balance.
He set the phone back down with more force than necessary.
"Logan." Bulldog's voice was quiet. "Maybe you should try her team. Quinn, right? The one Beth knows? See if she's heard anything."
"I don't want to be that guy. The worried boyfriend calling her work because she hasn't texted in three days. That's clingy. That's not giving her space to do her job." Logan ran a hand through his hair. "Besides, what am I going to say? Hey, is Mara okay? She hasn't called me and I'm freaking out? That makes me sound pathetic."
"It makes you sound like someone who cares." Bulldog stood up. "Look, I'll reach out to Beth. See if she can check with Quinn. Casual. Just asking if everything's good. That way it doesn't come from you directly."
Logan wanted to say no. Wanted to be cool about this. But the knot in his stomach that had been building for three days said otherwise. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks."
Bulldog left the room to make the call. Logan stared at his phone like he could will it to ring. Like if he wanted it badly enough, Mara would call and everything would be fine. She'd laugh and apologize for going dark and explain that she'd been in the middle of something intense and couldn't get to her phone.
That's how it would go. That's how it had to go.
Bulldog came back fifteen minutes later. His expression was neutral but his eyes told a different story. "Beth's trying to reach Quinn. She'll let me know when she hears something."
"Okay." Logan went back to the tactical maps but the symbols might as well have been hieroglyphics for all the sense they made. His mind was elsewhere. On a woman in Louisiana who did dangerous work and who hadn't called in three days. On all the things that could go wrong in the kind of operations Mara ran. On the possibility that something had happened and he was sitting here in North Carolina completely useless.
The afternoon dragged. Logan went through the motions. Briefed the new guys. Ran through training scenarios. Hit the gym with Risk who didn't ask why Logan was pushing harder than usual. Everyone on the team knew he'd been different since meeting Mara. Lighter. Happier. The fact that he was now tense and distracted told them all they needed to know.
Evening came and still no word. Logan was in his quarters trying to decide if he should try calling again when there was a knock on his door. He opened it to find Ghost standing there with an expression Logan had seen before. The one Ghost got when he had bad news to deliver and didn't know how to say it.
Logan's stomach dropped. "What happened?"
"Can I come in?"
"Just tell me."
Ghost stepped into the room anyway and closed the door behind him. "I heard from Beth. She got in contact with Quinn."
"And?" Logan's voice came out harder than he intended. "Is Mara okay?"
Ghost was quiet for a moment too long. That silence told Logan everything he needed to know before Ghost even opened his mouth. "There's been a situation."
"What kind of situation?" The words felt like they were coming from someone else. Like Logan was watching this conversation happen to a different person in a different room.
"Mara's team was running an operation. Rescue op in Iraq. Things went sideways." Ghost met Logan's eyes. "She's missing, Logan. Her team lost contact with her during extraction. They found evidence she was taken."
