11. Colin
11
COLIN
I pulled into the parking lot of the local diner. Before leaving work, I’d placed an order for dinner, which I’d share with Lily. It had been another fourteen-hour day, and I was looking forward to a meal, a beer, and spending the night with Lily.
It was good, what we had, but my mission to win her was moving slowly—which was my own fault. Lily and I needed to have the conversation we’d both been avoiding. I was unwilling to give up what was so damn good between us, but I wasn’t being fair to either of us—or to Sofia—by not being clear about my intentions. I still hoped that I’d be able to convince Lily to give a real relationship between us a chance…but there was always the possibility that she wouldn’t want that, no matter what I said. While my heart could take a beating if Lily chose to leave, I couldn’t be reckless with Sofia’s. She was attached to Lily as if Lily were her mother. I saw that bond growing and deepening each day, and the last thing I wanted was for Sofia to suffer another loss. She’d already lost her real mother and any connections she might have had in her native Colombia. I didn’t want to put her through that again.
So the talk between me and Lily was inevitable. I would try to persuade Lily to stay with us. But ultimately, if she insisted, I would let her go sooner rather than later. That would be better than her walking out on us down the road when she became dissatisfied. My mother had done that, gone to the grocery store when I was in the first grade and never came home. I wouldn’t subject Sofia to that.
Or myself, I admitted. I couldn’t live with the idea that the woman I loved might be with me one day and gone the next. And, I’d come to realize in the past weeks, I did love Lily. I loved everything about her, from her dark-rimmed glasses and the pink polish on her toes to her quick wit and easy laugh. I’d been with other women, of course, but I’d never crossed the line between having fun and wanting more. I wanted it all with Lily: a life and family together, more kids, holiday traditions, backyard barbeques. The perfect existence I’d dreamed about back when I was a kid.
But even if I couldn’t have that with Lily, I could at least make her life better by dealing with her stalker problem. My blood pressure had risen steadily when she told me about the conversation she’d overheard between Stout and his companion. Stout wasn’t going to touch Lily while she was with me—not ever, if I had anything to do with it. I’d considered filing a police report, but there wasn’t enough to go on. He hadn’t directly threatened her, and there didn’t seem to be enough grounds for a restraining order. She had no identifying information for the other man and no proof they were speaking about her.
I scrubbed a hand over my face and reached to open the truck door. Through the rain-streaked windshield, I spotted the man I’d seen with John Stout at Lily’s apartment building and again here at the diner weeks ago—the man who’d looked familiar. He was getting out of a late-model American-made sedan.
I took a minute to study the man’s profile, and suddenly it clicked. I knew that face from a mission I’d been on in South America. The man was, or had been, a DEA agent who’d been assigned as a liaison to another SEAL term. I had crossed paths with him two or three times during the mission. Since I had never had a personal conversation with him, for all I knew, the DEA agent was from my hometown.
I decided to wait and watch. After a furtive look around, the DEA agent walked to a gray Camry and got in.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, squinting at the car. Sure enough, John Stout sat behind the wheel. Now, what would a DEA agent be doing with a scumbag like Stout? Was Stout an informant? Was the DEA agent undercover? He was sure acting nervous, his attention constantly darting around the lot.
Was Stout who the agent had been waiting for when I saw him in the diner? There must be some logical reason for a federal agent to be in contact with a creep. Of course, there was a sinister possibility: the agent might be dirty. What if he was the stranger in the conversation Lily had overheard?
Call it a SEAL’s intuition, but I had a bad vibe about this. Moving subtly, I pulled my phone out and took pictures, documenting both men’s faces and their cars. A few minutes later, the DEA agent returned to his vehicle and both men left the area. Only then did I step from my truck. I was still processing what I observed, running analytically through the possibilities.
I didn’t want to blow an agent’s cover or scare off an informant, so I had to tread lightly. But if the guy was dirty, it could jeopardize the lives of those who served honorably. Not acceptable. I wasn’t the type of man to tolerate that.