Free Storm Season by Erica Spindler Page B

calling in the cavalry, wanting all available personnel helping. Instead, the Senator was counting on two FBI agents and one Coast Guard aircrew.
    “You never answered my question,” Tully said. “What exactly do you suspect has happened?”
    “Agent Tully . . . Tully,” she corrected herself even as she lightened her tone. After all, she was stuck with only him. “If I knew what happened to my family I wouldn’t need the FBI, would I?”
    “You obviously have some idea or you’d simply let the Coast Guard handle it.”
    He glanced over, but her face was turned to the window.
    “I fear there’s nothing simple about this.”
    He noticed her hands. While the rest of her body looked calm and under control, the fingers of right hand twisted and turned her wedding ring, tugging it up over her knuckle only to shove it back down and start again.

Chapter 6
    MAGGIE RIPPED AT THE FLIGHT SUIT’S zipper. Without being told, she knew the man with the rocket launcher on his shoulder was not the only terrorist on board. She needed to disarm herself before they did it for her. Bailey immediately saw what Maggie was doing and moved her body, but she wasn’t just trying to block Maggie from the view of the man on deck. Bailey was also trying to stand in front of the window.
    So someone else was there, watching. Of course they were.
    They’d needed to stay out of sight until the helicopter left. And Bailey’s hand signals were supposed to accomplish that. No wonder the woman was so determined to get them to back off. The choice presented to her must have been to make the helicopter disappear or they would do it with a rocket. But they weren’t versed in Coast Guard hand signals. They had no idea that while Bailey had told her aircrew to back off and that all was fine, she had also told them there was an emergency and that she was in trouble.
    Maggie caught Bailey’s eyes. They darted toward the boat and the window behind her. Then she blinked once, twice, three times. So there were three of them.
    Maggie glanced over Bailey’s shoulder to the man with the rocket then back at Bailey. She didn’t know how to ask if he was included in the three. Before she could figure it out, Bailey gave a slight nod. Then her eyes darted down to the deck floor at Maggie’s feet.
    It looked like an oversized tackle box attached to the deck with metal brackets. A bungee cord kept it shut. Maggie tucked her hands inside her flight suit though she had unzipped it to her waist. Her fingers tugged her shoulder holster free but like her hands, she held it hidden inside the suit.
    When the next set of waves crashed up over the deck, the boat tipped and Maggie went down to her knees, pretending to lose her balance. Bailey teetered in front of her, arms outstretched as she grabbed the railing on one side and the wall with the other. She provided the perfect barricade.
    Maggie grabbed at the bungee cord. She pulled up and slid the holster with the revolver into the tackle box in one quick motion, letting it slam shut. There was no relief watching her only control, her only hope of defense, disappear out of sight. Before she stood back up another wave knocked her back to her knees. She looked up at Bailey and saw the young woman’s eyes trying to get her attention as she tapped her chest. When Maggie didn’t understand, Bailey pricked at the emblem on her dive suit and pointed with her chin at Maggie, then at the tackle box.
    Her FBI badge. Of course. Bailey wanted her to dump it in the box. Maggie’s fingers fished back into her flight suit, found the wallet and shoved it in under the lid.
    The thunderclouds had been roaring overhead with lightning streaks that seemed to crackle. Waves swished and rain pelted the aluminum sides of the boat, making it sound like a tin can being used as target practice for an AK-47. But the sound that drew Maggie’s attention and sent her pulse into a panic was the helicopter leaving. The sound of the rotor wash