Mary Connell was worried. He'd only been gone three months, but she was worried none the less. Danny McCoy, her best friend since she could remember the guy that saved her from her father. And now he was with his fellow marines at the war. Sure he said he was coming back and she believed him, she trusted him, but there was this voice somewhere in the back of her mind. It told her that he might not come back alive; he might arrive back here in a body bag and he would never know. He would never meet his child, the last night he was here, kept replaying in her head she had forgotten to take for the last three days and he hadn't used any protection and now, she was pregnant.


Ed Deline sat in his office. He was thinking about Danny, when his phone rang. He picked it up to find it was his contact with the Marine Corp.

"Ed, I thought you should know, before the news hit the papers. Five marines have gone missing. Lt. Danny McCoy was one of them."

"Oh, God! Uh, thanks!" Ed hung up and prepared for the hardest meeting he would ever have to hold.


Two hours later in his office stood his daughter Delinda; his bet pit boss Nessa; his head valet Mike; his casino host Sam and Mary.

They were all silent. They all had a tinkering feeling they knew what this meeting was about. "Two hours ago, I got a call from someone at the Marine Corps. Five marines have gone missing, Danny was one of them."

They all sat and stood there staring at Ed, none of them knowing what to do or say.