Page 2 of Peace Under Fire

He'd tried and failed to recover that message on his own. Time to bring Tex’s magic fingers and kickass computer programs on board.

Of course, the shit of this plan was that Tex knew bull crap when he heard it. Squish would have to explain everything.

Which meant it was fifty-fifty odds whether Tex would call the base psychologist and have him pull Squish in for reevaluation.

He sighed, then flinched as the jackhammer in his head tried to drill a hole through his skull. Maybe he should give in and call the doc about scheduling that MRI.

But first he needed to make this damn phone call. No sense in putting it off any longer.

Forcing his fingers to move, he highlighted Tex’s number. The call rang once—if even that—before it was picked up.

Not a surprise. Tex managed to make himself indispensable to pretty much every spec ops agency in the world—both governmental and private. Rumor had it the dude had even worked with the POTUS a time or two. In Tex’s world, a missed call could make the difference between good men living or dying.

“Squish?” Keegan’s slow, surprised drawl flooded the line. “This is a pleasure. Good to hear from you, brother. How the hell you doing?”

“Five by five.” Phone to his ear, Squish reached for the freezer door and the icepacks.

“Yeah?” Tex said. “You still getting those migraines?”

Squish’s hand fell to his side. He forced a casual tone. “They’re not so bad now.”

“Right.” Tex’s tone dropped straight into skeptical.

Squish scowled and set his jaw. “That’s right.”

How the hell had Tex known about the headaches, anyway? Squish hadn’t been exactly forthcoming about the damn things. And since the dude knew about the headaches, did he know about the even less attractive side effects associated with traumatic brain injuries?

Time to change the subject. “Hey, man. I need a favor.”

“Is this favor about Lucky?” Tex’s voice held double doses of sympathy. “Because we’re still looking for him. We haven’t given up.”

“It isn’t.” Or at least not directly.

He knew Tex had been monitoring the region Lucky disappeared in, keeping an ear out for any chatter about an American who fit Lucky’s general description.

“Oookay…” Tex’s voice turned guarded.

Great. Just great. The guy was already suspicious. Had Tex read his medical report? Did the damn thing mention perceptional paranoia? Hell, the doc sure liked to throw that term around during his weekly checkups.

He opened the freezer door and grabbed an icepack, then forced the request out. “I need you to track down a deleted voicemail.”

Silence drummed down the line, and then, “A voicemail?”

He tried to read Tex’s tone. Suspicion? Surprise? Curiosity? All three? “Yeah. A voicemail. I need to know what it says.”

“You didn’t listen to it?”

He hesitated, his fingers tightening around the icy plastic in his hand. “I listened to it. I need to listen to it again.”

More silence traveled down the line.

“Okay,” Tex finally said. “Who’s it from?”

Squish pushed the name out. “It’s from a woman named Mandy—Amanda—Wilde.” He headed back into the living room, to his scuffed leather recliner.

“Amanda. A woman?” Tex went silent again, before adding quietly, “Why do you need to listen to it again?”

Squish debated how to answer that.

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