Page 33 of Andy

He chuckled. “No, not really.”

“That’s an improvement.”

His laughter grew. She took that as a good sign. He’d complained of laughter hurting when he’d first come home. Now, he was able to chuckle without causing pain. The little improvements made her feel better. He would heal and be able to go back to work. She just hoped it was in a role he wanted. His place was still open for him on the team, but things happened, and if he stayed out of the loop for too long, the Navy would replace him with another guy.

Chapter 18

Andy worried about Mel. He’d made sure he had her location turned on. It was a step in their relationship, one he’d never taken with anyone else, but it still worried him about her safety. He was sure she wasn’t just imagining the weird feeling. That didn’t mean anyone was following her around. Maybe he should place a tracker on her car. A phone could easily be turned off.

He decided against putting a tracker on her car, at least not right now. The people who’d robbed the bank were still in jail awaiting trial. He could rest easy knowing they wouldn’t pull that again.

Sitting around the house doing nothing was driving him mad. He wanted to work out, but the physical therapist kept warning him about doing too much. The doctor had scheduled another brain scan for him, which he didn’t mind too much. This scan might just clear him for light duty. He could go back to work and at least attend meetings, and if they were lucky, he would be cleared to have sex.

It was Thursday, and Mel had Friday off for a bank holiday. He liked that her work was closed for the holidays. His didn’t close. In fact, come the Fourth of July, they would be doing something on base. But it would be more fun rather than just work unless they were called out on a mission. If he was deployed, which wouldn’t happen for a while, it would be business as usual, even on Christmas Day. They would get different food, but everything else would be the same.

There were a few older men who were in the Navy back in 2004 and were near Indonesia on Christmas Day. It had been horrible. But when the job needed you, you had to step up.

He was expecting Mel home at any moment. He resisted the urge to pull up the location finder, but something in the back of his mind made him feel like he should look. She was still at the bank.

He checked the time, thinking that she should have left by now. As he stared at the screen, his phone rang. It was her.

“Mel, what’s up?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

“My roommates. Oh my God.” Her voice shook, and it sounded like she was crying. “They were murdered. The police showed up and—oh God, Andy. Someone broke in and shot them.”

“Crap. I’ll be there in a few.”

“No, I—hold on.”

He heard her talking to someone on the other end of the line as he grabbed his wallet and keys. He checked the back door, making sure it was locked.

“Hey, the cops want me to come down to the station.”

“Wait, do they think you did this?”

“I-I don’t know.”

Panic whipped through him. “Don’t talk to them without a lawyer.”

“Wait, why? I didn’t do anything.”

“Mel, don’t say anything to them. I’m headed that way.”

“No, you don’t have to.”

“Mel, I’m headed that way. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Shoot me the address.”

“Um, okay. I’ll see what they want me to do.”

“Really, I can’t stress this enough, don’t have a chat with them unless you have a lawyer present.”

She was silent for a moment, and he hoped he hadn’t lost her. He’d known a few guys in the Navy who ended up being accused of crimes who were innocent. The ones who talked to the cops without a lawyer present always had a harder time bouncing back from the accusations. The guys who refused to speak to the police without their lawyer had better outcomes.

Of course, there were the guys who’d actually done bad things, but those were few. With almost four hundred thousand people serving in the Navy, there were bound to be a few bad apples. Thankfully, he hadn’t known many of them. There was one guy who’d been a SEAL who lost it one day, but that had been some wild thing that everyone had been shocked about.

Andy’s phone buzzed with information about where the police wanted Mel to go. She said she was driving her car over on her own, so she didn’t think it was that serious. He just didn’t want her to be taken advantage of.

Her roommates being murdered concerned him. If she’d been there, would she have been killed, too? The main reason she was sleeping at his place was because of his injury. If he hadn’t been hurt, would she even be in his bed on a nightly basis?

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