Chapter Thirteen
I t felt like a heavy metal band was using the space between Sinjin’s ears for a drum solo and his chest as a platform for all their heavy gear.
Yeah, he felt like shit.
Not just from the fragments of nightmares that had plagued his minuscule bouts of slumber last night, but mostly from not going after Isla.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true.
He had opened his door to do just that around sundown yesterday but caught the taillights of her car as she pulled onto Main Street and drove out of sight.
When she hadn’t returned in several hours, he thought about texting her, but after their conversation and the way it had ended, he wasn’t exactly sure what to say or even if he should.
If he’d realized anything from that discussion, it was how different they really were. Isla thought they were similar but all he could see was one glaring difference.
She saved lives.
He took them.
Didn’t matter that it was for Uncle Sam. Didn’t matter that the targets were terrorists, monsters, scumbags, or whatever term society gave them. That didn’t change the fact that they were removed from existence by his hands.
Willingly.
The vow he’d made to his dead mother when he’d found her lying in a pool of her own blood was etched in his heart. Burned into his soul.
He would make the world a better place, a safer place for his sister to grow up in, even if it was slaying one monster at a time.
A vow he’d lived by for twenty years.
Sinjin wasn’t sure he could stop even if he wanted to…and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to…but he was sure he wanted to talk to Isla.
Just after midnight, he’d given up on the tossing and turning and looked out his window, relief quieting some of his disdain when he spotted her car parked in her driveway. She was home, safe and sound. He’d walked to his laptop and flicked it on. Something Isla said had been nagging at the back of his mind. He’d been too focused on what she’d said to notice what she hadn’t said.
…your father put you first…his children first…and didn’t end up in prison or dead…
It had taken him less than two minutes of digging on the internet to fill in those holes. Her father had tracked down her mother’s killer and shot him, but not before getting shot himself. Both men had died at the scene.
His heart had squeezed tightly at the thought of what Isla had gone through when she’d been a young college freshman. No mother. No father. No siblings.
At least he’d had his sister and his vow…and his father to make sure there was a roof over their head and food on the table.
His father…
Sinjin sat up and blinked his mind back to the present. Dawn was streaking through the branches of the large Afghan pine tree in the yard he’d been parked in front of for the past two hours.
Stretching to work the kink out of his neck, he grunted.
After his fishing expedition on the net last night, he’d been too antsy to sit around, and since it was the middle of the night and not the time to go knocking on Isla’s door, he’d jumped in his car and had started driving.
Three hours later, he’d pulled up in front of his dad’s house, the same house Sinjin had grown up in, the one he hadn’t stepped foot in since the day he’d left for basic training.
Not much had changed. The ranch-style house was still small but well cared for. The lawn was cut, and his mother’s lilacs still grew in the backyard that he could see from his car.
A pang squeezed his heart and he wondered what the hell he was doing there.
He was about to start the car when the door opened, and his father stepped out of the house and waved him over.
“You might as well come inside. You’ve been sitting there for two hours. I’m sure you could use a cup of coffee.”
Damn.
He couldn’t exactly leave now, although, until yesterday, he would’ve done just that. Hell, he wouldn’t have been here in the first place. But he was, because of Isla. He owed it to her for being brave enough to confront him, to push him to face his past, and to find the courage to face the truth.
He got out of his car and slowly made his way inside the house, closing the door behind him. Memories from his childhood rushed at Sinjin, gripping his throat, tugging at his chest and squeezing tightly.
Forcing himself to walk down the hallway that led to the kitchen in the back, he noted family photographs of birthdays and holidays of the past lining the wall, as well as some recent ones of his sister and her family smiling and having a good time…but there were also photos of him in the military.
How the hell had his father gotten them?
Sinjin had never even spoken to the guy back then.
“Your sister made me copies of the ones you’d sent her,” his dad said as if reading his mind.
He glanced over to find his father was watching him from his chair at the kitchen table, a small TV sitting on a stand in the corner with the morning news on low.
Nothing had changed since his childhood. And, Christ, the table was the same old octagon piece of crap with the wobbly leg.
With one last glance at the photos on the wall, he walked over to the table and sat down. “I can’t believe you still have this set. It’s in bad shape.”
His father wasn’t rich, but he knew from the many unwanted updates from his sister that his dad was doing okay and could afford a new kitchen table.
“Your mother had always eyed it up it in the window of the furniture store in town, but we couldn’t afford it when we were first married. I worked a lot of overtime and a second job and surprised her with it on our first wedding anniversary. It’s priceless to me.”
Sinjin hadn’t known that. He sipped his coffee and glanced at the chair next to him. The one with his name carved into it.
“Your sister used to sit there and tell you she could because she didn’t see your name on it.” His father chuckled. “You took care of that.”
Smiling to himself, he shrugged. “It worked. She never sat on it after that.”
“Only when you weren’t around,” his dad grunted into his mug.
Sinjin snorted, staring at the table. It felt strange to sit there as if decades hadn’t gone by. But they had, and so had many unspoken words.
“Go on, son.” His father set his mug down and sat back in his chair. “Say what you came here to say. What you need to say. You’ve been holding it in, letting it fester for too long. It isn’t healthy.”
This wasn’t going to work. He wanted to try for Isla’s sake, but the old hurts, the blind fury, and disappointment gripped Sinjin’s neck in a stranglehold he couldn’t shake.
“Say it,” his father urged again. “Out with it.”
Fine.
“Did you even care that the man who murdered Mom and those other women was out there and going to do it again? You were a cop. You were supposed to protect and serve.”
All the anger and disgust he’d suppressed for decades erupted to the surface. Feeling like a caged animal, he pushed to his feet and began to pace.
His father, however, remained calm and collected and just sat there.
“How could you just let other cops go after the bastard? She was your wife. It was your duty to send her murderer to his maker. And don’t give me the excuse about personal conflict and shit. I know there are ways around it. And it wasn’t even a cop who took the guy down.”
The local papers had said it was a Good Samaritan who’d been passing by and heard the screams of the woman he was attacking in the alley.
“Ever stop to think maybe he hadn’t been just passing by?”
Sinjin stilled, except for the heart rocking hard in his chest. “Wait a minute.” He blinked, trying to get his stuttering brain to focus. No fuckin’ way. Couldn’t be… “Are you saying that Samaritan was you?”
His father sipped his coffee before answering. “Took me several weeks, but I tracked him down. I was off duty at the time, so my buddy at the paper kept my name out of it.”
Fuck. Fuck .
“Holy shit! Dad? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Sinjin brought his fist down hard on the nearby counter. “Why would you let me think you were a coward and didn’t care? All these years, Dad.”
Christ…all these years…he’d had it wrong.
“I had every intention of strangling the life out of that bastard,” his father said, staring unseeingly at the table. “But I swear, I could hear my sweet Evie’s voice begging me not to. Begging me to think of our children. That’s when I released him. Used the woman’s phone to dial 911. I stayed with her, keeping pressure on her stab wound until the police and ambulance arrived. Then I slipped away into the shadows.”
“So did I.” Remembering the desolation, he inhaled and dropped back down into his chair. “Why did you let me?”
His father’s gaze flicked to him. “Because I was still struggling with my choice, Sinjin. I was struggling with not avenging my Evie. Struggling with the fact the maniac was alive and behind bars, although, I’ll admit, I did sleep better after he died on death row.”
Sinjin remembered that day well. He’d just gotten back from a mission with his Delta unit when he’d seen it broadcast on the evening news. Mac, Hunter, and Holden had shown up at his place with several six packs, and he got shitfaced.
“But Evie was right, though,” his father continued. “Sure, I could’ve crushed the bastard’s windpipe, but then I would’ve been behind bars like him. I would’ve lost my children. It wasn’t worth the price, Sinjin. Your mother wouldn’t want me to avenge her, she’d want me to honor her. Family first.”
Family first.
That was his mother’s mantra.
His throat heated and his vision blurred. How could he have forgotten that? He’d burned it into a piece of wood for her birthday the year before she died, for Christ’s sake. Sinjin glanced above the sink to find the plaque was still there.
“She treasured it, son.” His dad’s voice was raw with the same emotions swirling through him.
When the man stood, Sinjin rose too and let the guy pull him in for a tight hug. “I never wanted to disappoint you, Sinjin. I just wanted to honor your mother.”
He swallowed and hugged his father back. “I see that now, Dad. I’m sorry. I wish I’d realized it sooner. I’ve been such an ass. I’m sorry.”
“You always were stubborn like me,” his dad joked, drawing back and swiping the tears from his face like Sinjin. “It’s a cross we bear.”
Nodding, he chuckled and retook his seat, feeling as if a seventy-pound load had disappeared from his shoulders. He knew not everything was fixed, that he and his father still had a lot of years and baggage to get through, but they were definitely on the right path and in a much better place.
“So, what made you come to see me?”
“Not a what, a who.” Warmth seeped into his chest and eased the stiffness from his shoulders and spine. “Isla.”
“Ahh, yes. Isla,” his dad said, and it took Sinjin a second to remember that she’d gone after his father and had talked to him. “She’s a good woman, son. Her eyes tell a story, though. She’s been through our hell, hasn’t she?”
He nodded and told his father about the mall shooting and about her father.
His dad closed his eyes a moment then opened them. “Never more grateful that I listened to your mother. Just sorry that Isla’s father couldn’t see past his grief.”
Sinjin nodded then frowned when his phone vibrated in his pocket and the ringtone echoed through the kitchen. Maybe it was Isla. His frown turned upside down…until he saw Hunter’s name on the screen.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, unease already clamping down on his recently vacated shoulders.
“Turn on the TV,” his buddy said.
Sinjin glanced at the screen behind his father and his heart lurched as the live feed of the Harland County Hospital and Active Shooter headline on the ticker at the bottom of the screen.
“Wait, it’s Sunday,” he said to Hunter, placing him on speaker because his damn hands were shaking. “Her clinicals are on Fridays. Isla is at home working on her assessment. I’m in El Paso. Can you go get her and take her to ESI?”
The place was built for lockdown. No one could get in once Carter’s protocols were put into place. Well, no one except maybe him…and Hunter, but that was due to their extra training from the colonel.
“I’ll use my dad’s phone and tell her you’re coming,” he said, already reaching for the phone his father held out to him.
“Don’t bother,” Hunter replied. “She is at the hospital, Sinjin. Lyndsey told us. Apparently, she went there to pick up a recommendation or something. We’ve got all the women up in Carter’s fortress. Gabe is on the scene, of course. So is Mac, and I’m heading there now.”
And he was three fucking hours away.
“Wait. Can you have Mac fly his bird to El Paso to get me?” His boss was an ace when it came to helicopters, and even owned a beauty that ESI used for certain jobs.
“No need,” his dad said, rising to his feet, phone back in his hand. “Station has a chopper. We’ll get you there. You’ll get to your woman.”
“Okay,” Hunter said, having heard the conversation. “Then I’ll see you when you arrive.”
Sinjin took his friend off the speaker and shoved the phone to his ear as he raced out the door behind his father. “Hunter, get eyes on the shooter. You know what to do.”
“Roger that,” his buddy replied before the line went dead.
He didn’t care who took the person or persons out, he just wanted to get to Isla. This wasn’t about slaying monsters. No, it was about keeping Isa safe.
That line of thinking was new, and it was thanks to her.
Damn, he should be there with her. Why hadn’t he waited on her doorstep last night? Then he would’ve been with her this morning and possibly would’ve gone with her to the hospital.
“Don’t play the what ifs , son. They’ll eat you up. You know that.” His father’s voice came through the headset as they flew toward Harland County a little while later. His father rode shotgun next to the pilot while Sinjin sat in the back, chomping at the bit, feeling helpless. Useless.
He was grateful his father had pull and good friends in the department. And a chopper waiting for them when they arrived.
He knew the man was right about playing the what if game.
Sinjin also knew that nothing was going to keep him from getting to Isla.
Hang in there, Isla , he silently willed. I’m coming.