Chapter 1 #2
Just get through the fifty minutes.
Doc should have one of those sofas you could lie down on. I was sick of sitting up and staring at the fuck-ugly painting that took up the majority of the wall behind his chair. It was just blotchy squares of blue paint forming some kind of patchwork.
There was nothing else to stare at in here.
Doc had no diplomas or medals on his walls, even though he had plenty to brag about. He was, what, in his mid-forties or thereabouts? A boy wonder who’d advanced quickly through high school, premed, and med school. But then, 9/11 had changed his plans. Coach had mentioned a Purple Heart.
Most of all, Doc had a master’s in being a pain in my ass.
“Are you seeing colors again, Bo?”
I flicked him a glance. “Huh?”
“After your brother’s death, you told me that you’d stopped registering colors, scents, and details around you.”
Oh.
Fuck if I knew.
I scooted farther down in my chair and rested an ankle over my knee.
Half an hour left?
“I’m more present,” I said. I wasn’t gonna let him take away my ready status. “I even pay attention when Alex talks.”
“What about Kristen?”
I made a face and folded my arms over my chest. I’d rather not talk about her. There wasn’t much of a point anyway.
“Same old,” I answered. “She says she can’t feel my emotions—whatever the fuck that means.”
“Could it be that she might feel you’re…closed off? Numb?”
I blew out a breath.
“You’d have to ask her,” I said. Then I eyed him and felt the need to make something clear. “I’m ready to work, Doc. I don’t gotta be 100% blissed out to do a good job. And there’s gotta be a loophole in the whole…you can’t take on more than one case at a time. Coach and Shira benched me from Mogadishu.”
“Well, you’re too close,” he said matter-of-factly. “It was only last week you admitted you’re still angry.”
“Of-fucking-course I am.” I straightened in my seat again and felt annoyance sizzling through me. “You would be too if you’d witnessed your brother getting shot in the head.”
I clenched my jaw and looked away.
God.
I couldn’t close my eyes to take a single breath anymore. Every time I tried to rest or sleep, I was transported back to the docks in Mogadishu. The clammy heat that’d stuck to my skin that night, all the containers around us, the moonlight, and then— I flinched as the shot went off in my head. The sound had bounced off the containers, and my brother had fallen to the ground.
“Bo, your anger is entirely natural and justified,” he said. “And you’re right—if I were in your shoes, I’d be murderous.”
Then…what was the problem?
“There you go.” I shrugged.
He sighed and gave me a patient look. “We don’t put a gun in the hand of a murderous person.”
What the fuck? I sat forward and felt a rush of anxiety settling in my chest. “Are you changing my status? You fucking cleared me, man.”
“I’m making an addition,” he amended. “For the time being, you’ll only get low-risk and domestic assignments. You will have a ton on your plate with the recruits anyway. We can reevaluate in a few months?—”
“A few months?!” I yelled and shot right out of the chair. Holy fuck, the anger that tore through me almost set me on fire, but it wasn’t half as maddening as the ever-composed expression on Doc’s face.
Fucker didn’t even flinch.
To put me on domestic bullshit wasn’t fucking fair. We barely handled those contracts anymore. We had a sister agency on the West Coast for that.
“You wouldn’t accept this outburst from one of your recruits. Why would I accept it from you?”
“Oh, go fuck yourself, Doc.” I was done. I was so fucking done. I stalked right out of his office and slammed the door shut.
I was cleared, but I wasn’t cleared. I could work, but I couldn’t work. I’d have a shit-ton on my plate, all while I’d do nothing of importance.
* * *
August 5th, 2024
“Oh, we’re driving here today.” Alex peered out the window. “You always change it… What do you call it?”
“The route,” I supplied.
She was pulling through, wasn’t she? Little by little. It’d taken months for her to fully comprehend that Daddy was never coming home again, and it’d allowed her to start healing. She talked more in the car, and she finished her breakfast donut rather than just picking it apart while she was lost in thought.
“You want another donut, mouse?” I asked in the rearview.
“No, thanks.” She licked the last of the glaze from her fingers. “I wanna come with you to work.”
Because that was what we needed at Hillcroft, an eight-year-old running around.
Not that she hadn’t been there before, but she’d been Vince’s responsibility back then.
“I promise you can visit one weekend when work’s slow,” I said. I’d told her that before. “Maybe when school starts. We’ll come in one Saturday or Sunday, and you can help me with my homework.”
That made her smirk, and it was such a Beckett smirk. A little crooked and full of hell.
“You don’t have homework, Uncle Bo. You’re saying that so I don’t wanna come with you.”
She was way too fucking smart too.
I’m doing my best, big brother.
Alex had our messy, brownish, dirty blond-ish hair—and our eyes that couldn’t decide if they were blue or green. But the freckles came from her mother, and so did the button nose.
I released a breath and saw our exit up ahead.
This child… Fuck. She’d been dealt the worst goddamn hand in life. Her mom had died giving birth to her, and now her dad was gone too. It wasn’t fair. And to make matters worse, her uncle was useless with kids.
A few minutes later, I pulled up outside my sister’s picturesque house, and Alex jumped out of the truck right away. Perfectly maintained front yard with flower beds and a tire swing in the old tree. Red-painted door, a new porch built by me. Middle-class families up and down the street.
Thank fuck we had Kat. For now. The “For Sale” sign in the front yard haunted me.
I dreaded the day my brother-in-law came home from his last deployment—only because they were relocating to the West Coast. He’d landed a cushy civilian job with more money and comfortable hours. They deserved it and all that shit.
Alex knocked on the door as I jogged up the porch steps.
Kat opened the door soon enough, and she greeted Alex with a big smile while rocking a screaming toddler on her hip.
“Hey, sweetie! Let me guess, Uncle Bo already pumped you full of sugar.”
“Yeah, he’s the best!”
See? I was the best.
Kat snorted softly and ushered the girl inside. “Head on back to the others—there’s proper breakfast on the terrace. Can you maybe take this little monster with you?” She lowered my tantrum-throwing nephew to the floor, and Alex jumped into babysitter mode.
“I’ll pick you up around five, mouse,” I told her.
“Yeah, okay!” She was already gone, and my nephew’s cries faded.
I was horrible with names, but I was fairly sure that was Brian. In my defense, there were five of them, and the two youngest were only eleven months apart. It was much easier with EJ, because he’d been around for fourteen years.
“You can’t keep giving her donuts for breakfast.” Kat put her hands on her hips and stared up at me with her momma look.
I didn’t bite. I just, once again, cursed my brother for making me the godparent when it should’ve been Kat and Eric.
“Adopt her,” I offered. “You know she’ll be better off with you.”
She sighed heavily, and I instantly felt like a dick. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t discussed it already. Alex was dealing with enough crap, and she didn’t want to move. She loved her school, and she had friends here. Whatever.
“We need to sit down with Mom,” Kat murmured. “She has to come out of her grieving.”
Easier said than done. Ma was a wreck. It was why Alex and I were currently living in her house, so I could make sure she ate at least twice a day. When Alex and I came home at the end of the day, Ma retreated to her room so Alex wouldn’t see Grandma sad.
News flash, Alex saw it anyway, and it wasn’t a great environment for her.
“Do you want me to talk to her?” Kat offered.
I shook my head. “I’ll do it.” At some point. Kat had enough on her plate with five kids, a husband on deployment, and said husband’s aging parents.
I rubbed my jaw, thinking back on my own childhood. Vince, Kat, and I had grown up as Army brats, and my brother and I had loved it when Dad brought us along to work. He’d been one hell of a disciplinarian, so Vince and I had behaved when it really mattered.
“Do you think it’s the worst idea for me to bring Alex with me to work here and there?” I asked. “Say I’m not done working when she gets off school, so I pick her up and we return to Hillcroft for a couple of hours. After you move to San Diego, I mean. Vince used to do it all the time.”
I couldn’t have Alex run free or anything, but in the basement…? And on the first floor, for that matter. That was where I spent most of my time anyway, and it wasn’t a sensitive area, so to speak.
“She’s certainly more like you and Vince,” Kat reasoned. “I would’ve hated it at her age, but considering Vince already took her trap shooting…”
I grinned. I’d been there too. Fun weekend, with Alex constantly yelling “Bang, bang, bang!”
“Would your superiors allow it?” she asked.
I shrugged and scratched my elbow. “I think so. They had no issues when Vince brought her along. I wouldn’t exactly have her sit in on briefings and shit. But, like…if I’m working out in the basement, or I’m preparing tests or checking scores in the library or one of the rec rooms, I don’t see the big deal.”
She nodded thoughtfully, then tilted her head at me. “Is this only so you won’t put any pressure on Mom? Because isolating herself the way she’s done isn’t healthy either. She will fade away in her grief if she doesn’t start seeing what else she has to live for. You and Alex will need her once school starts again. And what happens when you get shipped off on another assignment?”
“I didn’t say I was done thinking.”
She grinned sympathetically and touched my arm. “What about Kristen? Do you think she’ll be there for Alex?”
I grimaced. Let’s not even…
“She was on her way out the door before Vince was killed,” I replied wryly. “Things haven’t exactly improved since then.”
She knitted her brows together. “Then why don’t you end it?”
Because—
I sighed.
Realization dawned on my sister. “Because you’ve already checked out. You’re waiting for her to pull the trigger. For chrissakes, Bo.”
“I’ll get to it,” I said defensively. Fuck! Why did this have to become a thing now? I had to get to work. “We can talk about this later. I have sixteen recruits to greet in the lobby at nine.”
* * *
Dear little brother, I’m gonna start interviewing qualified people for Alex. She will need someone with her after school to make sure she does her homework and eats something better than mac and cheese from a box. Our goal for her is stability and a good environment to grow up in. She can’t spend all her nights at Hillcroft. Worst-case scenario, we’ll delay the sale of the house. I can stay here with the kids until we find a permanent solution, and then we’ll join Eric in San Diego.
Out of the fucking question. For starters, that family had spent enough time apart. Eric was so over it, and he missed his wife and kids. How did I know? Because he bitched about it to me all the fucking time. It wasn’t a normal week if he didn’t send me at least three texts with complaints.
Secondly, we had another month and a half to figure things out.
I sent her a quick reply.
Cease and fucking desist. We’ll figure it out before Eric comes home. Go bake cookies, you damn mac and cheese hater.
There. I tossed my private phone into my locker and slammed it shut.
“Fuck you, Vince,” I whispered to myself.
I remembered the day he asked me to be Alex’s godfather—or guardian or whatever. Alex had been around one year old, and she had screamed bloody fucking murder in his arms. Vince had been all smiles. He’d just started coming out of his own grief after losing Mandy, and it’d been a good day for him. He’d thrown an arm around my shoulders, and he’d said, “If anything ever happens to me, I want you to take care of her.”
I’d laughed, of course. Our sister had already popped out three kids at that point, so she was the obvious choice. But no. Vince had insisted, because he’d believed that Alex would save my life.
If by saving my life, he meant he wanted me to be riddled with worries and frustrations, then great. He’d been right. I was saved.
His quiet voice cracked in my earpiece. “Take care of my baby girl, brother.”
A shot rang out in my head.
“Vince, no! Fuck!” I shot up to my feet on top of the container and just unloaded my gun on the sick motherfuckers down on the ground. “Operator down, backup and transport requested!”
“Responding—”
“Get here now!” I yelled.
I gnashed my teeth and strode toward the elevators.
Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, big brother.
Since I was just going down one floor, I ducked into the stairwell instead and jogged down the stairs.
I checked my watch. Two minutes past nine AM. I pushed up the sleeves of my Henley and then patted the side pockets in my pants. Folding knife, work phone, multitool, emergency smokes, lighter…
I attached my ID card to my belt before I pushed the door open and entered the lobby.
Coach was dressed like me in black utility pants and a black Henley with the Hillcroft griffin on it, and it was the one and only uniform that made us stand out. We trained gray men at this agency, so the only time anyone saw us in branded gear was within the confines of this building.
He was giving the first intro, the warm welcome to a hellish year, so I just came up next to him and stayed quiet.
Thirteen men and three women between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-six. Most of them were in their mid to late twenties.
There you are.
I spotted Leighton in the back, and fuck me, the boy had grown up. We locked eyes, and he smiled tentatively, forcing me to react. I dipped my chin in acknowledgment, and something faded. The light in his eyes, the smile—gone.
Dammit.
Why was he here?
He was still too young, and I just had this memory seared into my brain… He’d been so fucking innocent. Not to mention lonely. His mom had died. Did he ever find his old man’s family?
He had more of an edge to him now, and he looked like he wanted to stand at parade rest but forced himself to relax his arms somewhat.
Despite having only seen him in person twice—six years ago—he’d left a mark. It was practically unheard of for me to feel something deep within around strangers, and he’d managed both times. I’d felt this urge to protect him, partly from his sense of loss and lack of direction in life, and partly from his own stupid decisions.
He reminded me a little of an old friend’s kid brother. Back during my “confused” days, when both guys and girls had turned me on. Mostly my buddy, Adam, who was open and proud. I’d talked shit out with him and figured I might’ve been bi, but… Anyway. Didn’t matter. His kid brother had followed us around like a puppy, and when we’d learned he was being bullied at school, I’d…turned into someone else. Adam and I had been suspended for two weeks for talking with our fists.
My mom used to say I had an ear for silent cries for help. As if I had a sixth sense for sniffing out people who were lonely and didn’t know how to escape their own reality.
It wasn’t a great gift.
“…and as you already know, if you want to live elsewhere after these first two weeks, that’s fine,” Coach was saying. He handed me the orientation binder, and I flipped it open to get started on sleeping arrangements. “Any questions so far?”
One guy raised his hand. “Do we call you Operator Coach or just Coach?”
“Just Coach,” Coach replied. “If you graduate to become a Hillcroft operator, you will meet some colleagues who work under nicknames or call signs instead. You should remember seein’ the option to choose your own handle in the application. Some use only their last name. The reasons are private, and you can ask them why, but they can also tell you to mind your business.”
“How come you go by Coach?” another guy asked.
“Mind your business.” Coach gestured to me next. “Operator Beckett is gonna tell you your dorm unit. The rooms are equipped to house between five to twelve people, with some havin’ bunk beds, but we’re kind enough to make sure you have extra space.”
I took a step forward and read from the top page. “DU-1, recruits Morris, Davies, Hernandez, and Kelley.” I lifted my gaze to Tanner Kelley. “Your brother’s looking forward to seeing you.”
His older brother, Finnian, had graduated this summer.
Tanner’s grin was as carefree as his brother’s. “I’m sure he is. Thanks, sir.”
I dropped my stare to the page again. “DU-2 is ladies only. Recruits Jones, Ortiz, and Bryant. DU-3, recruits Fuller, Jensen, Cohen, Travers, and Adebayo. Lastly, DU-4, recruits Watts, Flores, Fairchild, and Grey.” I shut the binder and looked out over them. “Your rooms will be inspected on Tuesdays and Fridays at oh-seven-hundred, and before you ask, no, we don’t have any regs for how you fold your sheets or make your bed. But, with that said, the unit will be held back to do a better job if we find dirty laundry on the floor or trash outside the trash can. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Moreover, the shower room isn’t restricted to one gender, so just be respectful in there,” I went on. “There’s a communal shower area, and there are individual shower stalls that can be locked for those who want privacy. Pick whatever you feel comfortable with. And those areas will be cleaned daily, but that’s no excuse to be a pig in there. Grab your things when you go, and be nice to the maintenance staff. They are encouraged to treat you the way you treat them. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir!”
I nodded once and handed the binder back to Coach, who went on to discuss the daily schedule, which was my cue to walk over to the front desk and grab their ID cards.
Gina smiled brightly, ready with the envelope. “Here you go, sir. It’s always so exciting with the newbies.”
More than half of them would flunk out.
“Thanks.” I accepted the brown envelope and returned to Coach’s side.
“And lunch is always between 12:00 and 13:00,” he said. “Same story with the cafeteria staff. Treat them with respect—and don’t ask if they have anything other than what’s being served. If you have any allergies, they should already be aware of that. And no, we do not take into consideration whatever diet’s trendy at the moment. Every day comes with two options and a salad bar. It’s ten times better than whatever you ate in the service.”
I opened the envelope and dug out the first handful of ID cards. “When I call your name, raise a hand. You will need your ID card on you at all times. Without it, you won’t get access to the schoolhouse, the training facilities—the elevators won’t move. Ortiz.”
Gabriella Ortiz raised her hand, and I extended her card. Grey, Jensen, and Travers were next.
“The IDs give you clearance to move between the basement, the first floor, and upstairs,” Coach said. “If you need to go to medical on third for whatever reason, just push the yellow button labeled ‘Medical’ in the elevators.”
I didn’t need to say Leighton’s name. I walked over to him with his ID, and he accepted it without making eye contact, so I held on to it.
Look up, kiddo.
He glanced up, confused.
I mustered a faint smile, because I didn’t want him to worry that he might be unwelcome.
“It’s been a minute,” I said quietly. “I’m thinking you’ll buy me coffee in the cafeteria later when you explain why you stopped texting me updates.”
Relief flashed in his blue eyes, and he exhaled a quick laugh. “You got it, sir.”
That felt better.
“Once everyone has their ID card, we’ll go to the dorms to leave your belongings,” Coach announced.