8. Doc
DOC
“Take off your shirt.”
Mara says it like an order.
I look at her across the table.
Wolf makes a choking sound behind the bar.
Trigger, who has an ice pack pressed to the side of his head, suddenly looks far too interested in the conversation.
Sheriff Tate closes his eyes.
I suspect he’s reconsidering every decision that led him to this moment.
Mara points at the blood soaking through my shirt.
“You were shot.”
“Grazed.”
“You keep saying that as though it makes the blood disappear.”
“It doesn’t require stitches.”
“You haven’t looked at it.”
“I know what a graze feels like.”
“So do I. Take off your shirt.”
Wolf turns away.
His shoulders shake.
“Something funny?” Mara asks.
“Nope.”
Trigger lowers the ice pack. “I think this might be the best night I’ve had all month.”
“You were hit in the head.”
“I’m choosing to look at the positive side.”
Mara gives him a stare that would make most men reconsider their life choices.
Trigger grins.
Grant would have loved this.
The thought comes without warning.
For fifteen years, memories of him have arrived wrapped in blood and gunfire.
Tonight, some of them are beginning to sound like laughter.
I’m not sure what to do with that.
“Doc.”
I look at Mara.
She points toward my shirt.
“Now.”
I unbutton it.
Wolf finds something beneath the bar that apparently requires his immediate attention.
Trigger whistles.
I look at him.
“Do you want me to check that head injury again?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
Mara pulls the medical kit closer.
“Sit.”
I sit.
That earns me another look from Trigger.
I ignore him.
Mara steps between my knees and examines the wound along my ribs.
Whatever humor was in her face disappears.
The bullet carved a shallow path along my right side. It bled more than the injury deserved, but the bleeding has slowed.
Her fingers hover near my skin.
“This looks painful.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That seems to be everyone's favorite sentence tonight.”
“You said your cut was nothing.”
“I was wrong.”
I glance at the small bandage near her hairline.
“You admitting that should probably be documented.”
“Keep talking, and I’ll use alcohol instead of saline.”
I almost smile.
Almost.
She notices.
Her mouth curves.
There’s something dangerous about Mara Ellis when she smiles at me.
More dangerous than Hampton’s gun.
Because I know what to do with a gun.
I have no idea what to do with this.
She wets a gauze pad and begins cleaning the blood from my side.
Her touch is careful.
Gentler than I expected.
“You really do have steady hands.”
“I told you.”
“Grant said the same thing about you.”
Her hand stops.
“What?”
I should leave it alone.
Instead, I give her something I should have given her fifteen years ago.
A memory.
“He talked about you constantly.”
Mara looks up.
“He did?”
“All the time.”
Something changes in her eyes.
“He never mentioned you very much when he came home.”
“That was probably because he wanted you to believe he spent his deployments doing heroic things.”
“He told me he spent most of them trying to keep Trigger from getting arrested.”
From across the room, Trigger says, “That was also true.”
Mara laughs.
The sound catches me somewhere beneath the ribs that Hampton's bullet missed.
“He told us about the bicycle,” I say.
Her laughter disappears.
“No.”
“The drainage ditch.”
“Doc.”
“Seven stitches under your chin.”
“I was twelve.”
“You told everyone you cleared it.”
“I did clear it.”
“According to Grant, the bicycle cleared it. You didn't.”
Wolf laughs.
Mara turns toward him. “Whose side are you on?”
“Grant’s.”
“Traitor.”
The word comes out playfully.
Then the room changes.
Not because anyone says anything.
Because we all hear it.
Traitor.
Grant.
Afghanistan.
Mara lowers her gaze to the gauze in her hand.
I hate that one word can still steal him from us.
“He told us other things,” I say.
She looks at me again.
“Good things?”
“Mostly embarrassing things.”
“Of course.”
“He kept a picture of you inside his helmet.”
Her hand stills against my side.
“What?”
“You were wearing a blue dress. Your hair was in some kind of braid, and you were missing one front tooth.”
Her eyes widen.
“I was seven in that picture.”
“He said it reminded him why he had to come home.”
The tavern goes quiet.
Mara looks down.
I see her swallow.
“He didn't.”
“He did.”
“I thought Mom lost that picture.”
“No. Grant had it.”
Her eyes shine.
I regret telling her only because I hate being the reason she hurts.
Then she smiles.
Small.
Sad.
Beautiful.
“Thank you.”
Two words.
They hit harder than they should.
“You should have known.”
Her smile fades.
“Yes. I should have.”
That one belongs to all of us.
Wolf.
Trigger.
Me.
We allowed a grieving mother’s fear—and our own guilt—to silence us for fifteen years.
Mara deserved Grant’s stories.
She deserved to know he talked about her.
She deserved to know that when the world around him turned violent and ugly, thoughts of his little sister still made him smile.
“We should have told you,” I say.
Wolf comes around the bar.
“Yes.”
Trigger lowers the ice pack.
“We thought we were honoring your mother’s wishes.”
Mara tapes fresh gauze over my wound.
“You were.”
“That doesn't mean we were right,” Wolf says.
She looks at him.
For a moment, I think she’ll argue.
Instead, she nods.
“Maybe we were all doing what we thought Mom needed.”
“What about what you needed?” I ask.
Her gaze comes back to me.
“No one asked.”
The answer hurts.
I don’t look away.
“I’m asking now.”
Something passes between us.
Quiet.
Fragile.
Real.
Sheriff Tate clears his throat.
“I hate to interrupt whatever this is becoming, but we still have an armed fugitive somewhere in my county.”
Mara steps away from me.
Too quickly.
The absence of her warmth leaves my skin cold.
“What do we know?” she asks.
Deputy Collins has joined us at the table. He opens a notebook.
“Roadblocks are in place on Highway Thirty-Seven and the county roads. We found the second motorcycle abandoned about six miles east of town.”
“Hampton changed vehicles again,” Mara says.
“Looks that way.”
“Blood?”
“Some on the handlebars. Nothing after that.”
“He planned medical supplies,” I say.
Everyone looks at me.
“If Hampton knew he might have to fight his way out, he would have prepared for an injury. Bandages. Hemostatic gauze. Maybe antibiotics.”
“You think he treated the wound himself?” Tate asks.
“I would.”
Mara gives me a look.
“You are not our standard for normal behavior.”
“Fair.”
Trigger snorts.
Sheriff Tate points toward him. “You should be at the hospital.”
“So should Doc.”
“I don't need a hospital.”
“Neither do I.”
Mara looks between us.
“Oh, good. There are two of them.”
Wolf mutters, “Wait until the others get back from their mission.”
Silence settles again.
This time, it doesn’t hurt quite as much.
Sheriff Tate spreads photographs across the table.
“We also searched Mara’s mother’s property again. No sign Hampton left anything behind.”
“He said he spoke to Mom after Grant died,” Mara says.
Tate looks up sharply.
“He what?”
“He went to her house. Told her Grant had gotten involved in something he didn’t understand.”
“When?”
“He didn't give me an exact date.”
Tate’s expression hardens.
“I never knew about that.”
“Mom probably didn't tell anyone.”
“Your mother told me when a salesman refused to leave her porch.”
“That salesman tried to sell her aluminum siding.”
“She already had brick.”
“That was her point.”
Mara almost smiles.
Then she looks toward Grant’s journal.
“If Hampton went to Mom after Grant died, maybe that's when she realized the journal and lockbox were dangerous.”
“Assuming she had the lockbox by then,” I say.
Mara nods.
“She would have gone through Grant’s belongings after his death.”
“But if Grant mailed something home from Afghanistan, we need to know when it arrived.”
Sheriff Tate reaches for his phone.
“Fifteen-year-old postal records aren't going to help us much.”
“Maybe we don't need them,” Mara says.
She looks at Wolf.
“You said Mom came here the day after the tavern opened.”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Wolf leans against the bar.
“She knew who we were. Didn't need introductions. She told us she remembered us from the funeral.”
“And?”
“She asked whether we'd come to Eagle River because of Grant.”
My attention sharpens.
Mara hears it too.
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth. We didn't even know she lived here until after we got the building.”
“What did she say?”
Wolf thinks.
“She looked relieved.”
“Anything else?”
“She asked whether anyone else from the unit knew we were here.”
I sit straighter.
“Who?”
“She didn't say.”
“Did you ask?”
“Of course.”
“And?”
“She said something like, ‘If Doc comes, tell him I did what Grant asked.”
The room goes silent.
I stare at Wolf.
“What?”
His expression changes.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
“I thought you did.”
“Why the hell would you think that?”
“Because she used your name.”
I stand so quickly that pain burns across my ribs.
I ignore it.
“What exactly did she say?”
Wolf closes his eyes, reaching back through years of memory.
“I'm trying to remember.”
“Try harder.”
Mara touches my arm.
“Doc.”
I force myself to stop.
Wolf doesn’t deserve my anger.
None of them do.
Finally, he opens his eyes.
“She said, ‘If Colin Shaw ever comes looking for Grant’s things, tell him I did what my son asked me to do.’”
My heart pounds.
Mara stares at him.
“Why didn't you ever tell me that?”
“Because your mother immediately made me promise I wouldn't.”
“Wolf.”
“I know.”
He rubs a hand over his face.
“At the time, it sounded like grief. Your mother had just discovered our team from Grant’s old unit had moved into her town. She was upset. She made us promise to leave you out of anything involving his death.”
“But she specifically mentioned Doc.”
“Yes.”
I turn away.
Grant’s mother knew I might come looking.
Which means Grant told her something before he died.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
Mara reaches for the journal.
“Mom didn't destroy the evidence.”
“No,” I say.
“She separated it.”
I look at her.
The journal in the cedar chest.
The lockbox moved somewhere else.
The key left with Mara.