“You found ’em. They told me you’d changed, Cally, but damn.” He looked her up and down with open appreciation.

“David?” she asked, blinking. Now she could see it around the eyes. The lack of scars had confused her, but somehow he wore his face as if they were still there.

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have recognized you, either, except there couldn’t be two girls on the island to fit your description.” He goggled at her breasts cheerfully, as if he sensed that he was one of the few people that she wouldn’t have slapped down like a sledgehammer.

“My eyes are up here,” she snapped, but couldn’t hide that for once she found it funny.

“Yup. But I’m enjoying the view.”

She grinned. “I won’t slap you unless you keep me standing out here in the fucking cold.”

“Oh, damn. Yeah, come on in.” He moved back, opening the door wider and yelling over his shoulder. “Hey, Jake. Got an old friend at the door.”

“Old friend, my ass. I would have remembered. Unless you were two or something.” Erstwhile Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Mosovich stepped around the corner out of the kitchen, mumbling around a mouthful of gingerbread.

“He missed the briefing,” Mueller said with a grin.

“Close. Thirteen,” she said.

“Cally?” he squeaked. “Damn, girl. You’ve grown. An’ I’m not just talking up.”

Cally stepped through the black, faux wrought-iron curlicues of Ashley’s storm door. A green mat like coarse astroturf absorbed the inevitable sand grains falling off her sneakers.

She invited herself in and sat in the painted wooden rocking chair, whose gold-colored built-in seat cushions would have been okay without the worn orange terry cloth pillows someone had added for comfort. Unconsciously, she sat on the edge, her weight tilting the chair forward onto the front of its rockers, arms pulled in at her sides almost as if the ugliness of the room and its furnishings could bite her. Ashley was a nice woman, but Wendy’s good taste had clearly skipped a generation.