Chapter 1 #2
“North loves you. And you love him.”
“Love doesn’t conquer all, Chlo.”
“It could.”
No. Not this time.
“I think...I just need a couple months of calm. Sunrises and sunsets that don’t include tragedy and trauma. Where the biggest issues are bee stings and stubbed toes. Besides, you remember Wanda Johnson, right?”
“Of course. Best camp counselor ever.”
“She’s the current director. I’m just filling in as assistant program director for the summer.”
“Mom made a call.” Chloe shook her head.
“It’s fine. It’s perfect, really. Three months in the forest, clean air, clear water—”
A change in the train’s motion pulled her attention away from the phone. Then screeching—the train’s brakes engaging. She might have heard Chloe shout her name as the phone flew from her hands, as she grabbed the railing.
Screaming erupted from the dining car, and metal shrieked against metal, and just like that, the car lifted, jerked up. An explosion shook through the train and she went airborne. Glass shattered, the world spun.
Her body slammed against the windows, and she clung to the railing as the train car rolled off the tracks and careened into the valley below.
And all she could think as the world turned to smoke and terror was: Don’t expect me to show up.
* * *
The Blue Ox hockey game blared through North’s house before he even got the door open. Game night. Right.
And once again, North rued the day he’d said “I have plenty of room” to his teammates from Jones, Inc.
Sure, his four-bedroom house overlooking Medicine Lake in Plymouth, just outside Minneapolis, did have plenty of room. And had sometimes felt a little lonely after the years he’d spent renovating it on his own. So having roommates had felt like the right answer.
Until today. Today, all he wanted was quiet. Maybe a good book—he could finish that Victor Holt book that Selah had given him once upon a time. Maybe if he did, he’d have a reason to call her up, drop it off, and casually say, “So...yeah. I’m sorry.”
Except, maybe he wasn’t sorry. Or mostly wasn’t sorry.
Aw. All he felt was the hole skewered through him at his stupid, angry words, and the fact that she’d blinked out of his life.
Just. Like. That.
He shouldered through the front door and dropped his workout gear on the floor of the entry. Of course Skeet sprawled on his leather sectional, in a pair of shorts and an EmPowerPlay coach’s T-shirt, clearly home from a baseball practice for his volunteer gig.
West, however, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, paced in front of the coffee table. “C’mon—that was a personal foul!” He gestured toward the screen, then shook his head.
A quick glance as North headed to the kitchen showed the Ox up by one goal. “First game of the Cup tournament?”
“Yeah,” Dakota said, seated in the recliner, one eye on the TV, the other on his phone, probably watching the Twins baseball game. “Wyatt is in spectacular form. But he’s getting tired.” He set the phone on the side table. “There’s some leftover pizza.”
North lifted the lid of the box that sat on the counter. No, no there wasn’t.
He opened the fridge and found a take-out box from Loco Joe’s. Lifted the Styrofoam lid. Old nachos. “Can I throw these out?”
“Not if you want to keep your hands,” said Skeet. “Those are my breakfast.”
“You eat like a teenager,” North said and grabbed a packaged ribeye. He opened it and left it to sit on the glass cutting board while he headed upstairs to the master bedroom.
But not before snagging the mail that sat on the console in the hallway.
“There’s an invite to Scarlett and Ford’s wedding in the pile,” West said as the game went to a commercial break. “Apparently it got routed back from your previous address in Mariposa.”
North picked it up, stared at the scrawl.
Nice. Why couldn’t they have eloped like Ford had suggested over a year ago?
Then again, that was before a rogue arm of the Russian Bratva had tried to infiltrate the UN with AI-infected killer dogs, so that had eaten up a chunk of the active SEAL’s off time.
“Scarlett has you down as a yes, by the way,” Dakota said. “You—and Selah as your plus-one.” The room turned silent as Skeet and West glanced at Dakota. “What?”
“Ix-nay on the Elah-say,” Skeet said and made a small explosion motion with his hands.
“What?” Dakota turned in his chair. “You two broke up?”
Great. North wanted to turn the man to ash but, well, Dakota was the newest guy on the team.
He’d been in Mariposa over the past year as the Jones, Inc.
, team helped with the reconstruction process after a landslide had decimated the island.
He’d seen North and Selah together—eating at one of the sidewalk cafés or swimming in the ocean or even helping out with the orphans at Hope House.
It felt like a dream, really—most of it, at least. A Caribbean getaway, after which North had been planning to propose—
“That’s right. You came back early,” West said to Dakota, now focused on the story instead of the game.
“You missed all the action. Selah got it in her head that she was going to take supplies to a village on the other side of the island. They weren’t hit by the landslide, but all of their commerce and goods came out of the town of Esperanza, so they were short on food and medical supplies—”
“Wait.” Dakota sat up. “The only way to the other side of the island is past—”
“The old S-7 gang compound,” Skeet said.
“Yeah. Sebold is gone, but they’re still trying to stir up trouble.” North glanced at the invitation. “They followed her to the village and robbed her. She turned stubborn.”
Silence as Dakota frowned. “Selah is...She’s not a fighter.”
“No, but she is resilient. And...anyway, if I hadn’t shown up—”
“I was there too,” Skeet said. “A gang member had a machete to her throat. If we hadn’t gotten there in time—”
“Thanks for that memory, Easton.” North gave him a look.
Skeet held up his hand. “Uh-oh. Boss man used my big name.”
“I’m just saying that...Can we not talk about this, please?”
West turned to Dakota. “North and Selah had an epic brawl.” He picked up the remote to unmute the game.
“It wasn’t epic. Or a brawl,” North growled. Except, given her usual peacemaking demeanor and maybe his own unflappableness...yes, he might call it...Fine. They had certainly been a lot louder than he’d intended.
And she’d slammed the door on her way out, which had him perplexed.
“When did this happen?” Dakota asked over the volume of the game.
“A month ago,” Skeet said. “One long month of North here talking in his sleep and growling at everyone and wishing he could go back in time and—”
“That’s enough.” North met Skeet’s eyes.
The former SEAL cocked his head, gave North a grim look, unfazed. “He wasn’t a kid. He had intent and determination. You did the only thing you could. And you were cleared. But maybe Selah doesn’t know all that.”
North drew in a breath. “Fine. You’re right. Now that I’m back, I’ll figure out how to fix it.”
“She’s not here, man,” West said, glancing over his shoulder. “Selah left town. Some camp out west. Jake and Aria were home last week, and there was this shindig at the Silver place. Said she was taking off a couple days ago.”
North stared at him, the words a punch.
Just like that, she’d left. Again.
“Right. Well, I’ll...just...” North put his fist into the wall. He turned and headed upstairs.
His bedroom boasted nearly floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. A stone path led from the lower-level walkout, past the firepit to his empty boat launch.
He’d kept the bedroom simple—a platform bed, linen sheets, a wooden headboard, a massive flatscreen on the far wall. And over the bed, one massive photo of an oil painting done by an artist he’d seen on the internet, of Jesus reaching into the water to grab a hand.
His hand, or so he’d felt at the time.
Maybe he needed to remember that on days like today.
He tossed the wedding invitation on the bed, pulled off his shirt and threw it in the hamper in the walk-in closet, then went over and picked the invite back up. Thumbed open the envelope.
A simple card inviting him to the wedding of Ford Marshall and Scarlett Hathaway in Key West, less than a month from today.
RSVP appreciated.
He threw it back on the bed and headed to the shower.
Twenty minutes later, he came down the stairs to voices. Fighting.
“If you’ve killed another microwave trying to heat up your gross week-old nachos...” West, and yep, a burning smell lifted from the kitchen.
“That was one time!” Skeet said. “And technically, the fire department said—”
“It was a grease fire. We know.”
North caught the pillow that West had lobbed at Skeet’s head. “We were all there. Including Ford and Scarlett, so put a sock in it, Skeeter.” He headed to the kitchen to grab his steak. Seasoned it, and then went out to the deck to start the grill.
The wind carried the scent of summer off the lake.
He’d met Selah on a day like today, at a backyard barbecue her brother, Jake, had hosted.
He sighed and returned inside.
The game was muted, commentators talking during the period break.
“You know what could help?” Dakota said now, getting up to follow him to the kitchen.
“Help with what?” He picked up his steak.
“Getting back on the horse.” Dakota opened the fridge and pulled out a root beer. “You know...forgetting Selah.” He popped open the can. “The wedding. I’m sure Scarlett will have some bridesmaids there. Maybe one of them is single. And we will be in the Keys...” He winked.
North managed somehow not to throw his steak at him. “Don’t talk to me.” He walked outside and put the steak on the grill. Closed the lid and watched the smoke spiral out.
He wasn’t getting back on any horse.
How could she just...leave? Again.
He should shrug it off. The woman wasn’t a troublemaker. She simply got in over her head without realizing it and—aw, it wasn’t his problem.
Not anymore.
He stood just inside the door, hands in his pockets, watching the game resume.
His phone buzzed and Chloe’s name appeared on the screen.
What was...“Chloe?”
At her name, Skeet turned, frowned. West picked up the remote and muted the television.
Selah’s sister never called. Not since...
“North!” The woman faced down warlords, snuck into besieged villages, interviewed drug runners, and yet, her voice cracked. “Tell me she’s contacted you.”
“What?” On instinct, he pulled the phone away and put it on speaker.
“Selah...she...” Chloe’s voice shook. “She was on a train—and I think it crashed. And now she’s not answering her phone.”
He closed his eyes. Think. “Where?”
“She was on the Amtrak. The one that goes to Washington State.”
“The Empire Builder,” West said, and North didn’t ask him how he knew that.
“Are you sure—”
“No. But...sort of. Maybe. I don’t know, but we were on the phone and then...everything went crazy and there was screaming, the phone falling—and then it died. I’m in Chiang Mai, and I...You were my first call.”
Of course he was. Okay then. “When did this happen?”
“An hour ago.”
“Let me see what I can find out. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up.
West’s phone was already putting a call through. Of course Ham answered.
“Boss, North just got a call from Chloe Silver, who thinks her sister—”
“We’re already on it. Apparently, the Empire Builder derailed east of Leavenworth.”
“Has anyone gotten ahold of Selah?” North said.
Silence. Then, “Not yet, North, but we can’t get through to any local emergency response either, so—”
“I’m heading to my room to pack. Get me on a plane to—”
“North—wait.” Hamilton’s voice stopped him by the stairs. “York and RJ live about sixty miles north. I’ll get York on the road to her. Take me off speaker, West.”
West listened a moment before handing the phone to North.
He took it, pressed it to his ear.
“What I’m about to tell you stays with you.”
North grunted and took the stairs up to his room.
“The reason we know about the wreck is that...well, the Caleb Group had security on that train. It was carrying a refined mineral used in DOD hardware to a remote storage location in Washington State—”
“An Amtrak train carrying freight?”
“Under the radar, yes, but...apparently not.”
North had pulled out his go bag, was throwing in an extra phone charger, some cash. “So this was an attack on the train.”
“Possibly. But more important...Coco Marshall, the Caleb Group’s white hat hacker, has been running image traces on everyone getting on the train since it left Chicago. She pinged on a person embarking in Spokane.”
He’d zipped the bag shut and now stilled. “Who?”
“We think it’s Alan Martin.”
Alan. Martin.
Spy, assassin, and global terrorist.
Nice, so very nice.
Selah, what have you gotten yourself into?
Apparently, it was time to break some promises.