20
Simmons woke to a dull throb behind his right eye.
For a moment he lay still, staring at the cracked ceiling, listening to the hotel settle around him. The room still smelled stale and a water stain spread across the ceiling tiles above the bathroom, brown and irregular, like a map of somewhere he didn't want to visit.
He remembered Joe dropping him off late the previous night, telling him to rest, telling him he looked like hell, telling him he'd be back in forty-eight hours.
Then the truck's taillights faded into the dark and Simmons had limped into the room alone.
Now morning light leaked through the threadbare curtains, casting everything in a gray-yellow wash. The curtains themselves were a faded floral pattern. His ribs protested when he sat up and the bruise around his eye felt like someone had shoved a warm stone under the skin.
When he touched it gently, the flesh was tight and hot, swollen enough that his vision on that side was slightly narrowed.
He swung his legs to the floor and rubbed his hands over his face, careful to avoid the damaged eye. The stubble on hisjaw was rough. Reacher had been right to leave him behind. Simmons hated that he knew it was true.
He stood slowly, testing his balance. His head felt wrong but not concussed. Just exhausted. The kind of fatigue that came from an adrenaline crash, pain, and not enough sleep. His left side ached with every breath.
He'd had broken ribs before.
This felt familiar.
He reached for his watch on the nightstand. Saw the time. Exhaled.
At some point he would need to check in with Agent Winthrow. She'd expect something useful from him. Not that he had much to offer. He’d put that call off for as long as he could. Hopefully, not until Reacher was back.
He dressed carefully. The shirt went on first. He had to lift his arms slowly, wincing as his ribs screamed in protest. The fabric scraped against the bruises on his torso. Then his shoulder holster, the leather familiar and worn. His jacket went on last, and he had to pause halfway through getting his left arm in, breathing through the pain.
He avoided looking at his reflection until the end, and when he finally did, he almost laughed. The eye was a mess. Purple and swollen, the bruise spreading down his cheekbone in shades of violet and yellow. A smear of yellow along the edges where the blood was breaking down under the skin. His lip was split, scabbed over.
He looked like he'd gone ten rounds and lost all of them.
His hand drifted for a moment to his jacket pocket, feeling the folded paper inside. A note he'd been carrying for two weeks. His girlfriend—ex-girlfriend, technically—had left it in his mailbox. She thought she might be pregnant. She wanted to talk.
The paper was soft now from being folded and unfolded. He'd read it maybe twenty times. Each time hoping the words would change or that he'd suddenly know what to say.
I think I might be pregnant. We need to talk. Call me.
Twelve words. Twelve words that had been sitting in his pocket like a live grenade.
He'd loved her. Maybe still did. But the job had gotten in the way. It always did. Late nights. Canceled plans. Weeks undercover where he couldn't call, couldn't explain. She'd gotten tired of it and he didn't blame her.
And now this.
If she was pregnant, everything changed. He'd have to figure out what that meant. Whether they could make it work or if they were just two people who'd made a mistake.
Today wasn't the day for that. Maybe tomorrow or certainly after this case was done.
He checked his sidearm out of habit. Drew it from the holster, checked the magazine, checked the chamber, slid it back.
He just needed coffee. Something hot. Something to cut through the fog.
He took the stairs down to the lobby and didn’t see a coffee maker anywhere. There might have been one in his room but he wanted something better, if possible.
Simmons stepped outside and the cold Michigan morning air slapped him awake. The temperature had dropped overnight, probably into the low thirties. His breath fogged immediately. Frost still clung to the edges of car windows, thick and white.
The parking lot was nearly empty and the sky was overcast, heavy and gray. The trees at the edge of the lot were bare, their branches black against the pale morning light.
Simmons tucked his hands into his jacket pockets and started toward the diner just up the road. His boots crunched ongravel and frost. Each step sent a dull ache through his ribs. He kept his breathing shallow.
