Chapter 5
Five
Ava
Silas isn’t talking a lot, and I’m glad for it. If anything, he seems more interested in observing people than in discussing my mother, the work I do at Ashford Street, my feelings, or anything else as equally pointless, given our circumstances.
At his instruction, I stay in the car until his tank is full, and snow is starting to fall more thickly and settle on his broad shoulders.
He’s still wearing the same clothes, heavy coat, and gloves. But it’s the concealed weapon strapped to his torso that befuddles me.
I should feel repulsed by it. Instead, it’s another signal that Silas Hightower was the right person to call.
To distract myself, I turn my thoughts to the journey ahead and away from the man I’ve spent too many hours trying to dissect.
In clear weather, the drive to the Gambill Mountains should take an hour. In worsening conditions, I can’t imagine we’ll make it there safely any faster than double that.
My phone cuts through the quiet — the obnoxious on-call tone I chose specifically to pull me from sleep.
Now, even with Silas right outside, I have to pray for strength to look at the display.
Relief shudders through me when I see the familiar digits of Johns Hopkins.
I pick up immediately.
“Dr. Morrison.”
“Ava, it’s David.” My division chief. He sounds hesitant, like he’s already weighing whether he should hang up. “I know you’re on leave. I wouldn’t be calling if this weren’t important.”
I shift my weight against the car, the cold seeping through the metal into my shoulder. Snow ticks softly against the roof.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“We admitted a former EOD tech overnight,” he says. “Long history of post-blast headaches. Now he’s reporting visual disturbances and brief lapses in awareness. MRI didn’t give us much. EEG’s borderline. Neurology’s divided on whether this is post-concussive or something more concerning.”
I close my eyes for a second, already picturing the exam room.
“You’re worried about committing him to the wrong track,” I say.
“Yes,” he replies. “And you’ve seen more of this overlap than anyone else I can reach right now. I’m not asking for a formal consult. Just your sense of where you’d push next.”
I glance toward the store windows. Silas is still outside, close enough that I can see his reflection move as he watches the lot.
“And you’re calling because you’re short next week,” I say quietly.
There’s a pause. “We are. If you were willing to come back a few days early, it would help. If not, I’ll make it work.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. I think of the patient—how hard it is to admit something is changing when you’ve already survived worse.
“I can’t give you an answer yet,” I say. “I need to check a few things first.”
“Of course,” he says immediately. “Take the time you need. Call me when you know.”
The line goes dead. I hold onto my phone for a moment longer than necessary, the cold biting, the snow steady, my thoughts already half back in a windowless room with a man who needs someone to slow down and listen.
Silas, now finished with the gas tank, opens the door and leans inside, snow dusting his coat and hair. “Do you want to get some food? Or would you rather hit the road?”
For a moment, I can’t think. Decision fatigue most likely. “I can wait.”
He nods and climbs inside. “I’m going to stop off in Fredrick and pick up a few supplies. We can grab something there if you change your mind.”
With tiredness tugging at me again, I offer a weak nod and place my phone in the cup holder as he pulls out into traffic.
We drive in silence for a while, his eyes never stilling as he glances behind us, as though checking we aren’t being pursued.
I should be grateful for his vigilance, and I am, but it’s also unnerving to be on the receiving end of protection from a man I hardly know.
My phone trills again, and I pick up without bothering to check. “Dr. Morrison.”
“Morning, Doc. Who’s the guy?”
I suck in a breath through my teeth, and Silas responds instantly. In the time it takes for me to press speakerphone, he’s pulled off the road and onto the shoulder.
I swallow past the fear and look to Silas for direction. Swiftly, he pulls out a notepad and quickly scribbles on it. I repeat verbatim.
“You shouldn’t be calling me.”
“Relax, Doc. I just wanted to hear your voice.”
Silas scribbles again.
I keep my eyes fixed on him as I answer. “This number is no longer available to you.”
Silas points at the end call button, and I move a second too late.
“Your mom looks a little thin, Doc. Sure they’re feeding her enough at Greenfield?”
I don’t understand the words at first.
They hit in fragments—your mom, looks thin, Greenfield—and my mind refuses to assemble them into a sentence. If I let them lock together, something inside me is going to give way, and I can’t afford that. Not here. Not now.
My breath stalls halfway in. My chest locks, like a machine that’s seized. I recognize the sensation instantly—acute shock response. The moment before pain registers. The moment before a patient realizes the damage is real.
He isn’t watching me anymore.
He’s watching my mother.
The woman who doesn’t know my name most days. Who can’t follow a conversation long enough to sense danger. Who smiles at strangers because her brain tells her kindness is safer than resistance.
A sound scrapes out of my throat before I can stop it. Not a scream. Something smaller. Broken. My hands curl into fists in my lap, nails biting into my palms hard enough to ground me.
He’s crossed out of my life and into hers—into the last space I believed was protected. Controlled. Off-limits. Greenfield was supposed to be sterile. Safe. Locked down. A place where harm couldn’t follow her because memory itself had already taken so much.
My stomach turns violently. Heat rushes up my neck, my vision narrowing until the edges blur. I can’t get enough air. I know exactly what’s happening to my body, and that knowledge does nothing to stop it.
Before I can breathe again, Silas takes the phone from my shaking hand and cuts the call. The silence that follows is deafening, filled only by the ragged, uneven sound of my own lungs trying to remember how to work.
“Ava,” he says softly.
I don’t look at him. I can’t. I keep my eyes locked on the windshield, watching the world blur. If I move even a fraction of an inch, I’ll lose the last of my control.
“It’s a trap. He’s baiting you.”
Hearing him say it out loud doesn’t lessen the pain; it just carves it deeper. “I can’t leave her,” I whisper, the words breaking apart in my throat. “What if he—”
Silas’s posture shifts, his shoulders turning rigid, his profile hardening into something forged from ice. “I won’t let that happen. As soon as we get to Frederick, I’ll set up a security detail. She’ll be covered until he’s found.”
I don’t respond. I can’t find the words through the static in my head. As if sensing the need, Silas reaches across the console. His hand is massive, warm, and solid as it closes over mine. My fingers, pale and trembling, disappear beneath the weight of his.
I focus on that pressure—the heat of his skin against my cold knuckles.
Slowly, the car begins to move. The low vibration of the engine hums through the seat, and the rhythmic sound of the tires on the asphalt starts to pull me back from the ledge.
I take a ragged breath, then another, letting the oxygen dampen the panic in my chest.
The fear doesn't leave. It’s still there, a dark coil in the pit of my stomach. But as Silas removes his hand to take the wheel, I realize I’m out of room to carry it. My hands are too small for this much grief.
I take the terror, the "what-ifs," and the image of Reagan alone with my mother, and trust God to hold what I can no longer.
Silas
Ava disappears into the restroom of the grocery stop, her shoulders locked and her movements too precise—she’s navigating the world on a fraying thread of discipline. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t have the spare bandwidth for a glance.
That brittle composure worries me more than a breakdown would.
The moment the door clicks shut, I’m in motion.
I step out into the biting air, back to the brick wall, eyes raking the lot by reflex as I pull my phone free.
Overhead, the yellow sodium lights hum with a sickly, electric drone.
A delivery truck idles at the far end of the asphalt, its exhaust huffing thick white plumes into the air.
Everything looks exactly as it should—the kind of normalcy that usually hides hazards.
Caleb answers on the second ring.
“Who do we have in Baltimore?” I ask, cutting straight through the silence. “I need a two-man protection detail at Greenfield Memory Care. Plain clothes. Immediate.”
“What’s the threat profile?”
“Targeted surveillance,” I say. “Elderly female. She’s being used as leverage.”
“I’ll make the calls,” Caleb says. “They’ll be in place within the hour.”
“Good. Defensive posture only. Eyes on entry points. Tree line coverage. I want every vehicle approach clocked and logged.”
“Understood.” He pauses, and I can hear the weight of the hesitation before he speaks. “Are you sure the cabin is the right call, boss?”
My fist tightens at my side. Caleb is the only person alive who can alternate between calling me out and calling me boss in the same breath. If we hadn’t bled in the same dirt—if I didn’t trust him with my life—I’d have stopped listening years ago.
“The plan to isolate stands.”
His disapproval crackles through the line, heavy with unspoken history. “Roger that. Check in when you’re set up.”
I end the call, refusing to let his doubt take root. Thinking about the last time I went solo is a luxury I can’t afford; memory is just another distraction.
Next call. Someone who won’t argue tactics.
Delilah answers, breathless. “I was literally calling you—”
“I need a background check,” I cut in. “Reagan O’Connell. I want everything. He’s been on-site at Dr. Morrison’s residence. Several times.”
Her tone sharpens instantly, the playfulness stripped away. “She has a stalker? Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”
“He wasn’t threatening her mother yesterday,” I say.
Delilah’s intake of breath is sharp, audible.
“Here’s what we actually have,” I continue, my voice dropping into a low, analytical cadence. “Male. Late thirties to mid-forties. Taller than Ava. Broad shoulders, balanced build. Moves deliberately—no wasted motion. Calm under pressure. Practical dress. Boots. Hands callused. No visible limp.”
I pace a short, tight line, eyes sweeping the perimeter again. “Don’t anchor to the name. Look for identity gaps. Recently assumed aliases. Contract or security work. Short stints. Geographic hopping. Minimal online footprint.”
She mutters something under her breath that I should probably reprimand her for. “Oh, it is on. This guy is toast.”
I wish I shared her confidence. Right now, I’m hunting a ghost who knows exactly how and when to apply pressure.
“Don’t get cocky, kid,” I say.
She makes an offended noise. “Wow. Weaponized Star Wars. Ruthless.”
I end the call and inhale the freezing air, letting the cold settle my pulse until the anger is something I can use.
We have a ghost to catch.
Focus is the only currency I have left.