She barks out a clipped laugh. “We’re all in trouble, Hudson.” She indicates the group of men and women. “That’s why we’re here.”
I run a hand through my hair. She’s right. I shouldn’t get involved. Her file, which Marcus and his team at Bedrock Security pulled for me, says she’s involved with the Street Kings, a small-time street gang in Charlotte.
Whatever she’s into, it’s her own life choices that put her here. Yet I can’t align this bubbly woman, who’s offering to paint a mural at the veteran’s center, with a street gang.
“Maybe I can help?” The words slip out before I can think too hard about what I’m saying. The last thing I want to do is help a lawbreaker. I watch the paintbrush as she moves it up and down. There’s brown paint on her hands and colorful paint under her chipped fingernails. On her pinky finger, she wears a silver ring with a looped design.
Willow stops her painting and turns to look at me. “You’re the last person I’d turn to for help, Sergeant Major.” She huffs a laugh. “You’d have us all in a military prison if you could. Locked in solitary confinement to work off our punishments.”
Her words sting, and I draw back. Do I really come across as that unapproachable?
“I’m not a sergeant or a major,” I mutter.
She tilts head, looking generally interested. “What were you, then?”
I don’t go advertising the fact that I was special forces, least of all a SEAL. “I was a sailor.” I sit back on my haunches. “Just a sailor in the Navy.”
She laughs again. “I doubt you were just anything.”
I’m not sure if it’s a compliment, but at least she’s smiling. Whatever news she got on her phone is forgotten.
I leave her to the painting, but her words play over in my head.“You’re the last person I’d turn to for help.”
Is that how she sees me? I have integrity and values, and I served my country. I’m one of the good guys. Aren’t I?
5
WILLOW
The jangle of my phone alarm pulls me out of a restless sleep. The comforter is tangled around my legs, and I’m sweating through the sheets.
I grab my phone from the bedside table and slide the alarm off. With bleary eyes, I open my email app, but there’s nothing from Tyler.
The bathroom door opens, and Janelle comes through with a towel wrapped around her and a smile that makes her look ten years younger.
“Morning,” she chirps.
It’s not like Janelle to be up before me, but she had good news last night. Her kids contacted her, and she had a long phone call with her daughter, where she discovered she was right about their father trying to turn them against her. Her daughter now has a secret phone that their dad doesn’t know about, and that’s how they’ll communicate from now on.
“You had another bad dream last night.” Janelle squints at me. “Everything okay?”
Nothing’s okay. I don’t know where Tyler is, and someone’s trying to scare me with texts. I can’t remember the nightmare. I never do. But I don’t want to worry Janelle when she’s so perky this morning.
I shrug. “Just a bad dream. No big deal.”
She takes my words at face value and pulls her clothes out of her pack.
Janelle hums as she dresses, and I flop back onto the bed, feeling like someone’s pressing a slab of concrete on my body.
Sleep took a long time to come last night. I must’ve checked my email a hundred times, hoping for a message from my brother.
It’s been three days since he last emailed me. I’m being paranoid, I tell myself. He’s got a job, meeting new people; it’s what I wanted. He doesn’t want to check in with his big sister every day.
But three days.
I refresh the email app. But there’s nothing. I check my messaging app, just in case, and push down the uneasy feeling I get when I see one of the texts that came in yesterday from an unknown number.
We know where you are
