Always do.
Liar.Call me if you need backup.
I just might have to do that.I set the phone down and scrub a hand over my face.I've been out of the Army for six months.Retired at thirty-three after taking shrapnel to the leg in Kandahar.The wound healed, but the limp did not go away.Not enough to disqualify me from service, but enough that I knew my days of running operations were numbered.
So I got out before they could force me out.
I moved to this town in western Virginia because it was quiet.Because nobody knew me here.Because I needed space to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with the rest of my life now that I wasn’t a Ranger anymore.
I've been here two weeks, and I have spent most of that time staring at the wall and listening to my neighbor pace at three in the morning.
The security consulting job starts next week.It's decent money, and it'll keep me busy.But it's not the same.Nothing is the same.
Except the instincts.
Those have not gone anywhere.
And right now, every instinct I have is telling me that Carla is in danger.
I hear her television turn on through the wall.Volume low.Some crime show, from the sound of it.She's trying to distract herself.
I know that trick too.It doesn’t work.
I grab a beer from the fridge and drop onto the couch, but I don’t turn on my own television.I just sit there in the quiet, listening.
She doesn’t move for a long time.The television drones on.I can hear the faint murmur of voices, the occasional swell of music.
Then, around eight o'clock, I hear her get up.Footsteps moving toward the door.The locks turning.All three of them.
Is she leaving?
I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved.I cross to my door and look through the peephole.
She's not leaving.She's standing in her doorway, looking up and down the hall.Checking.Making sure no one is out here.
After a moment, she steps back inside and closes the door.The locks slide back into place.One.Two.Three.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I've known this woman for two weeks.Spoken maybe ten words to her before today.And now I'm standing at my door like some kind of stalker, watching her through the peephole.
But I can still see the look in her eyes in that parking lot.
Someone hurt her.
Or someone is trying to.
And I've never been good at walking away from that.
I go back to the couch and finish my beer, but I don’t relax.I'm listening.Waiting.
Around midnight, I hear her moving again.Pacing.The familiar pattern of footsteps that I've heard every night since I moved in.Back and forth across her living room.Twelve steps one way.Twelve steps back.
She's not sleeping.
Neither am I.
I get up and move to the window again, scanning the parking lot.Nothing.No black Ram.No suspicious vehicles.Just the usual lineup of beaters and sedans that belong to the other tenants.
