Epilogue - Sera
Sera
Six Weeks Later
“The Bureau sent two agents,” I said. “Suits, government sedan, the whole production. Walked into the sheriff’s office like they owned the building.”
Lark wrapped both hands around her mug and leaned forward. “What did Lachlan do?”
“Played the small-town sheriff to a T, from what I understand. Travis said he wouldn’t be surprised if he went all Andy Griffith on them.”
Lark chuckled. “I could see that.”
“He offered them coffee, sat them down, answered every question like he had all the time in the world and nothing to hide.” I took a sip of my latte.
Lena Williams at Deja Brew had learned my order three weeks ago, which still felt like a minor miracle.
Someone in this town knew how I took my coffee.
“They asked about Travis specifically. Former CIA, connected to the original Kindt operation. Fit the profile of the Ghost on paper.”
“And?”
“And Lachlan told them exactly what everyone else in Garnet Bend told them. Travis is agoraphobic. Never leaves his house. The man gets groceries delivered and hasn’t been seen in town in three years.” I set my mug down. “Which, until recently, was basically true.”
“How many people did they talk to?”
“At least a dozen. The woman at the grocery store who handles his delivery orders. The guy who services his propane tank. A couple of the Resting Warrior guys. Every single person said the same thing, almost word for word. Probably would’ve talked to you, too, if you hadn’t been off delivering that service dog. ”
Lark’s mouth curved. “Small towns protect their own. Especially against big city cops who don’t give a damn about us.”
“Helped that no one had to get their story straight. They were just telling the truth.”
I’d grown up in a suburb where the neighbors couldn’t pick each other out of a lineup. Garnet Bend operated on a different frequency entirely. And I was finding I liked it more and more. I was part of their inner circle now.
“Without physical evidence tying Travis to anything, they had nowhere to go. The case file is still technically open, but Lachlan says the energy behind it is gone. They got Kindt, and his operation is gone. That’s what mattered.”
“And you?”
This was the part I’d been working up to. Not because it was hard to say, but because saying it out loud made it final.
“I resigned. Before they could fire me.” I turned the mug in my hands.
“I told Pratt I’d accessed the operational dashboard because I hadn’t heard from him in a while, and I was worried.
Kindt was dangerous, I knew the operation was active, and I was afraid something might have happened to Pratt.
” I shrugged. “It was close enough to the truth that he believed it. But unauthorized access to an active operation from a contractor terminal? That was never going to end well.”
“You’re okay with it?”
“I’m more than okay with it. I spent three years in a cubicle trying to get people to listen to me. Nobody listened until it was almost too late.” I picked up my latte again. “So… meet the newest member of Warrior Security.”
Lark’s face lit up. “Seriously?”
“Comms, data analysis, operational support. Basically what I was already doing, except now the people I work with actually read my reports.” I couldn’t help the smile. “Travis is going to try active team missions. With the guys, in the field.”
Lark set her mug down slowly. “He’s going outside. Voluntarily. Repeatedly.”
“The hives haven’t stopped. The tremors still come. But he’s managing it. He drove into town twice last week.” I paused. “It’s not that the agoraphobia went away. It’s that he decided what’s out here is worth what it costs him.”
Lark reached across the table and squeezed my hand. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.
We sat with that for a moment. The coffee shop was quiet at this hour in the afternoon, just us and an older man reading a newspaper by the window and Lena restocking pastries behind the counter.
I’d started coming here with Lark every few days, and it had become something I looked forward to in a way I hadn’t expected. A friend.
“How are the babies?” Lark asked.
“Thriving. The white one figured out how to open the pantry door. The gray one has claimed Travis’s keyboard as a personal sleeping surface. The black one hides behind the server rack and bats at cables that are worth more than my car. We still need names for them, though. It’s a process.”
She smiled. “Keeping all three was definitely an interesting choice.”
“How could we not? Travis pretends they’re an inconvenience. Last Tuesday I found him asleep in his chair with the gray one on his chest and the other two tucked against his leg.”
Lark grinned. “I knew it. I knew the moment I dropped them off.”
“You know everything. It’s very annoying.”
“It’s a gift.” She stirred her coffee. “Have you told your parents? About Travis?”
One thing I’d learned about Lark. She had a way of circling toward the thing you weren’t saying and landing on it with the gentleness of someone who understood that some questions had sharp edges.
“Last week. Video call. My mother needed about forty-five seconds of silence, which is a personal record for her.” I traced the rim of my mug. “She said she needed time to process it. My father asked if I was happy. I told him yes. He said that was enough for him.”
“Mom didn’t take it so well?”
“She’ll get there. It’s complicated for her. Naomi is still the center of a lot of things in that house.” I looked at my hands on the table. “But I’ve stopped apologizing for being happy. That took me a while, but I got there.”
Lark studied me for a moment. “Good.”
“Naomi would’ve had opinions about it. Loud ones.
She had opinions about everything.” I said it with a smile that felt different from the ones I used to wear when I talked about my sister.
Softer. Less guarded. “But I think she would’ve come around eventually.
She loved Travis. She loved me. She would’ve wanted us both to be okay, even if the path there would’ve driven her crazy. ”
“Family,” Lark said, and something in the way she said it made me think she understood more about complicated family than she let on. “They can be a… mess.”
The bell above the door chimed.
Lark’s gaze shifted to something over my shoulder, and a slow smile spread across her face. I turned.
Travis stood in the doorway of Deja Brew. Dark jacket, jeans, his hair pushed back from his face. He looked like a man who’d walked into a coffee shop, which was exactly what he was. This was also the most extraordinary thing I’d ever seen him do.
The bruising from six weeks ago was gone.
The stiffness in his left side had faded to something only I would notice.
But his jaw was tight, and I could see the tension in his hands, the fists he’d made and then released as he scanned the room.
His body cataloging exits, sight lines, every face in the space. The wiring that never turned off.
He found me. The jaw loosened. Not all the way, but enough.
I raised my mug. “There’s a latte with your name on it. Well, my name on it. But I’ll share.”
He crossed the room and stopped at our table. Lark was already standing, pulling on her jacket.
“I’m being summoned. I can feel the animals from here.” She hugged me, tight and quick. Then she looked at Travis. “Take care of my friend.”
“I plan to.”
Something passed between them, a look I couldn’t fully read from my angle. Then Lark was gone, the bell chiming behind her, and Travis slid into her empty chair.
“How are the hives?” I asked.
He pushed his sleeve up. Faint pink welts along the inside of his forearm, already fading. “Present but manageable. I’m choosing to interpret that as progress.”
“It is progress.”
He stole my latte and took a sip. Made a face. “This has sugar in it.”
“That’s because it’s mine, not yours.”
He took another sip anyway. Set it back in front of me. Then he reached over and took my hand.
“Are you ready? I don’t want to rush you.”
“No, I’m done. Had a good time gossiping with Lark, but I’m ready to go home.”
“I want to take you somewhere first.”
“We’re not going home?”
“Not yet.”
He led me out the door.