Chapter 14 Eamon
Chapter fourteen
Eamon
Adrill bit screamed through Douglas fir siding at five forty-three in the morning. Marcus worked the ladder outside while Michael fed him cable from below, coordinating patrol units by phone. I watched from the dining room window while the house woke around me.
Behind me, Ma's table had transformed into a command center. Maps. Surveillance photos. Timeline in red marker. Walkie-talkies still in shrink wrap.
"Tell me again why we're not moving him to a safe house." Marcus came through the back door, rain dripping from his jacket.
"Because she's watching his locations," I said. "Every place Mac goes gets added to her map. Here, we control the variables."
"You mean we make ourselves bait."
"I mean, we make this ground ours."
Michael ended his call. "Clairmont's confirmed for tomorrow night. Eighteen hundred assembly, twenty-one hundred breach." He marked his map with tactical precision. "Full team. No mistakes."
Twenty-four hours. Smart—don't rush it and risk everything going wrong.
Ma appeared from upstairs. "Someone needs to eat. Where's Mac?"
"Upstairs. In the guest room." Miles spoke from Graham's chair, tablet on his knee. It was a therapist's assessment, carefully neutral. "Went up about an hour ago."
That wasn't good. Mac paced when anxious. Went silent when shutting down.
I headed for the stairs.
I found Mac at the window, forehead pressed to cold glass. Feet bare. Hair disheveled.
Outside, Marcus's drill hit metal.
Mac flinched—full-body recoil.
"Hey." I kept my voice low. "You doing okay?"
He didn't turn. "How many motion sensors?"
"Twelve exterior. Six more going in."
"Cameras?"
"Four. Covering all approaches."
He nodded. His fingers tapped against his thigh—one, two, three, four, repeat.
"Come away from the window," I said.
"I'm fine here."
"You're backlit. Anyone with a decent scope could—"
He moved fast. Two steps sideways, spine against the wall. Chest rising too quickly.
Damn. I shouldn't have said that.
"I'm sorry—"
"No. You're right." His laugh came out jagged. "Can't even stand in a window."
The drill stopped. Silence rushed in.
"She knows what time I wake up." His voice dropped to barely audible. "What I eat. Which side of the bed I sleep on. She documented everything like I'm a specimen under a microscope."
"You're not a specimen. You're a person targeted by someone unstable. That's on her. Not you."
He looked at me. Red-rimmed eyes. Jaw tight. Those blue-green eyes that photographs had tried and failed to capture.
"How did you do it? After you lost someone. How did you keep going into rooms?"
I thought about lying, but I couldn't do that with Mac. "I didn't. I ran. Took solo contracts where I didn't have to trust anyone, including myself. Worked alone for three years because if I failed again, at least I'd be the only casualty."
"That's bleak."
"It was honest."
"What changed?"
You, I thought. But I couldn't say that.
"I'm still figuring that out."
The drill screamed to life. Mac's jaw clenched, but he didn't flinch this time.
"You should eat something."
He almost smiled. "Has anyone told you you're bossy when you're in protection mode?"
"Frequently."
"Does it work?"
"You're still standing here, so apparently not."
By ten-thirty, Mac had worn a path in Ma's living room carpet. Kitchen to window to hallway. Constant motion.
The mail slot clanked. Mac's head snapped toward it, body rigid.
"Just mail," I said, collecting the envelopes. "Nothing else."
The furnace kicked on. Mac spun toward the sound.
"Furnace. Every twenty minutes."
"Fuck." He pressed both palms against his eyes. "I can't—"
I moved closer. "Mac, look at me."
He dropped his hands. Eyes too wide.
"Name three things you can see."
"What?"
"Three things. In this room."
He blinked. Focused. "The Christmas tree. Ma's chair. The photo of Uncle Graham."
"Good. Three things you can hear."
"Rain. The furnace. Your voice."
"Three things you can touch."
He reached out slowly. Pressed his palm against the wall. "Paint. Rough." Touched the sofa. "Fabric. Worn." Found a ceramic Santa. "Cold. Smooth."
His breathing started to even. Some of the wildness left his eyes.
We ended up sitting on Ma's floor, backs against the wall, like two soldiers after a firefight—checking each other for wounds that didn't bleed.
"I've been there," I said quietly. "After Kyra died. Still happens sometimes. Last week, I cleared Michael's house top to bottom before I sat down for coffee."
"That's your job."
"It was Wednesday afternoon. Michael was making sandwiches. There was no credible threat."
Understanding flickered across his face. "But you had to check anyway."
"I had to check anyway."
Claire arrived at one-fifteen, rain beading on her coat. She took in the tactical maps, the police radio, and her son pacing.
"I'm taking him out."
Ma looked up. "Claire, I don't think—"
"One hour." Not a request. "He needs to breathe."
Mac stopped pacing. "Mom, I'm fine here."
She stared at him and saw past his performance to the fracture lines underneath.
"Get your shoes, Cormac."
Michael appeared on the stairs. Looked at Claire. "Actually, that's probably good. He needs something that isn't this."
"One hour," I said. "Any sign of trouble, we're back immediately."
I drove Mac and his mother to Beacon Hill. It took twenty-three minutes. I monitored my mirrors. A red Honda and a white pickup—neither pinged as threats.
Claire's studio smelled like earth, rain, and cedar. North-facing windows. Potter's wheel center stage.
She handed Mac an apron. Fixed the straps when his fingers fumbled.
She pulled a brick of clay from the shelf. Set it on the work table with a solid thunk.
"We'll start with wedging. You remember how?"
Mac worked the clay, pressing and folding.
Claire watched. "You're forcing it. Feel the resistance. When it pushes back, yield."
He tried. The clay fought him.
"Cormac, breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You're holding your breath and muscling through."
Mac exhaled hard—the clay split.
"Shit."
"Language."
She covered his hands with her own. "It happened because you're fighting it. Like this. Press. Feel where it wants to give."
Together, they worked it smooth.
"See? It remembers when you stop fighting."
Mac carried the clay to the wheel. Set it down off-center.
He pressed the pedal with his foot. The wheel began to spin. His hands pressed in and down.
The clay wobbled. Lurched.
"You're overthinking. Stop trying. Feel it instead."
His hands pressed harder. The clay jumped. Mac over-corrected.
The whole mass collapsed.
"Fuck." His hands shook. "I can't do this."
"You're doing fine."
"I'm failing. At the most basic—" His voice cracked. "You taught me this when I was eight."
"Cormac." Claire stepped up and placed her hand on his shoulder. "Look at me."
His eyes were wet.
"It's only clay. If it doesn't work, we start over. That's all."
"I don't know how to start over. I only know how to try to be perfect until it breaks."
We were all silent.
Claire stared at her son as if she were seeing him for the first time.
"I taught you that," she said finally. "When your father died, I needed control. So I taught you what my mother taught me. Discipline as devotion. Excellence as proof of worth." Her voice wavered. "I taught you wrong."
"You taught me what you knew."
"That doesn't make it right."
She moved to her own wheel. Selected a perfect bowl she'd thrown earlier. Precise symmetry. Elegant walls.
Then she picked up a wire tool and separated it from the bat. Next, she crushed it between her hands. The clay collapsed. She destroyed all that perfection in seconds.
Mac stared. "Mom—"
"It was perfect," Claire said calmly. "Perfect shape and ideal walls." She held the ruined clay. "And now it's not. And the world didn't end."
She looked at her son.
"Sometimes things break, Cormac. Sometimes we break them ourselves. And they're still clay."
She cupped his face with clay-stained hands. "And you're still you. Whatever shape you're in right now—broken or whole or somewhere in between. You're still worth keeping."
Tears trailed down his face.
"I don't know how not to be perfect," he whispered. "If I don't get everything right, I'm—"
"Human? Allowed to struggle? Allowed to need other people?"
"Weak."
"No." She spoke with absolute certainty. "You are not weak. You are exhausted. There's a difference."
Mac trembled.
Claire pulled him into a hug while he fell apart in her studio, surrounded by the smell of earth and rain and all the broken beautiful things that could still become something else.
After, Mac tried again. On the sixth attempt, the clay finally centered. Not perfectly—still wobbling—but centering. Walls forming. Uneven. Amateur. But rising.
The bowl that emerged was terrible by any technical standard. Different thicknesses. Uneven rim.
Mac stopped the wheel. Stared at it.
"It's terrible," he said.
"It's honest," Claire corrected. "And I'm going to fire it."
"Why?"
"Because you made it. And it's enough."
At her car, Claire looked at me. "You care for him."
Not a question.
"He's my client," I said automatically.
"That's not what I'm saying."
"Yeah," I admitted. "I care about him."
She nodded. "Good. He needs people who see him, not only the baseball."
When we returned to Ma's, I immediately saw what was new.
Footprints in mud beside the living room window. Fresh—maybe an hour old. Leading from the sidewalk to the window. Then back.
Someone had been standing right there. Close enough to see inside. Close enough to count heads.
The footprints were small—women's size seven, maybe eight.
I called Marcus. "She was here. At the house. Today."
Back inside, Mac sat at the kitchen table. Clay still darkened his fingernails. He was steadier than before we left.
Dorian arrived with Rowan and Thai takeout. Alex stood behind Michael at the laptop—they'd driven up from Oregon that morning.
The house was full of noise and life.