Chapter 4
ACE
Maybe I’m overreacting.
Maybe Yara’s completely fine, and I’ll discover my worries were for nothing.
I hope that’s true. I really do.
But after I fucked up royally in Tacoma by not going after Yara right away, I’m not ignoring my gut again.
And my gut has been telling me—more loudly each day—that she’s not okay.
It’s not that she’s said anything to that effect. In fact, if I went solely by the text messages I’ve received over the last couple of weeks, I’d think Yara is having the best time of her life.
Everything is great. Her job. Her class. Her projects. Her house. Even the weather, which I know is patently untrue. I checked the weather reports. It’s been rainy and cold pretty much non-stop.
If it were someone else, someone I didn’t know as well, I might take them at their word. Or I might not give it much thought. But I do know Yara. And that’s why I think she’s lying to me.
Shit. That makes it sound like she’s being intentionally deceptive, which I don’t think she is. What I think is she’s still struggling after everything that happened with that fucker, Winthrop, and she doesn’t want to tell me.
I know I don’t have the right to expect her to open up to me.
We’re friends, yes, but it’s not like I’ve ever shared my darkest secrets.
I know some personal things about Yara—things she shared by the flickering light of the TV during those late-night slash early-morning BattleBots watching sessions—like how her parents were killed in an embassy attack in Bogota when she was twenty, and that’s what spurred her on to join the Army, and later the Green Berets, instead of getting her advanced degree in robotics like she’d planned.
I know she secretly donates custom prosthetics to charities around the country under her LLC, TinkTech, because she doesn’t want the attention.
I know she’s lived all over the world thanks to her father’s job as a foreign service officer.
And I know she has nightmares about things that happened in the Army, just like I do.
The nightmares are one of the things that bother me the most. Not mine—I’m used to them by now—but hers.
And I keep wondering, Is she still having them?
Is she sitting in her living room at three AM, watching old episodes of BattleBots until it’s time for a new day to start?
Are the nightmares worse since Tacoma? Does she dream of that piece of shit touching her and the things he intended to do before she stopped him?
Then I think about Yara having a panic attack and wonder if she’s had any others.
What if she has? Does she have anyone to support her? Comfort her? To remind her to breathe when she’s close to hyperventilating? To distract her with talk of robots and inventions until she’s calm again?
Shit.
I can’t stand the thought of Yara suffering and not being around to help.
That’s why, as soon as I got back from my five-day job in Vegas for Blade and Arrow, I headed straight here.
And now I’m driving through Yara’s neighborhood, only minutes from her house, hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.
As I turn down Yara’s street, I give it an assessing look, searching for anything suspicious. But it looks just as I remember it; rows of small but well-kept houses with neat lawns and mid-level cars parked in the driveways.
Not that I expected anything different, but it’s a habit borne from years of constant vigilance. I can’t go anywhere without checking out my surroundings, whether I’m just walking around the B and A property—which is about as safe as anyplace could be—or visiting my childhood home back in Austin.
But safety can oftentimes be an illusion, can’t it?
You can think a building is completely empty only to find a trip wire nearly hidden in a doorway.
Or a sniper poised on a rooftop across the way.
Or the danger can come from a person you trusted to keep you safe, only to discover later he was working with the enemy.
Spotting Yara’s driveway just up ahead, I slow the car as I make a right turn into it. Yara’s Subaru is parked in front of the attached garage, which I know is because her workshop takes up the entirety of it.
I’m glad to see she’s home, since I didn’t exactly give Yara advance warning that I was coming.
I’m not sure why, aside from that gut feeling again.
While I was thinking about the trip on the plane back from Vegas, there was just something telling me that if I asked Yara about coming for a weekend visit, she’d come up with an excuse not to see me.
Maybe because, in hindsight, I’ve been about as subtle as a tank about my concern. Texting pretty much every day, asking if she’s doing okay, offering my ear if she ever wants to talk…
A wry laugh escapes as I realize I’ve been doing pretty much the same thing my mom did when I separated from the Army.
When I moved back to Austin nearly four years ago, the official reason I gave everyone was that I wanted to be more available for my family.
With my mom newly widowed and my brother with two young kids, it made sense that I’d want to be back in Texas, where they both still live.
But my mom, always so perceptive, got it into her mind that there was some deeper, darker reason I came back home.
She was right, although I had no intention of telling her that.
I just kept insisting I was fine, everything was great, and that I couldn’t be happier being back in Texas again until she finally stopped asking.
That’s another reason why I’m having a hard time believing Yara’s reassurances. They sound far too similar to mine.
Shifting the car into park, I turn off the ignition, then grab my duffel and the large brown bag set beside it. Clothes for a weekend stay, if Yara doesn’t send me away, and a peace offering if she’ll accept it.
Duffel slung over one shoulder and the brown bag held in one hand, I survey Yara’s property as I make my way up the short path to her front door.
It looks like she kept all the security equipment B and A installed when we came here with Bea, including the motion-sensing lights, doorbell camera, and the special one-way treatment on the windows so she can see out, but passersby can’t see in.
When I reach the door, I realize she’s upgraded the camera. I’m not sure what she did to it, but it definitely looks different from the last time I saw it. AI facial recognition, possibly? Voice recognition? Could there be some sort of explosive detection feature installed?
I’m still inspecting the camera when the door opens, revealing a bemused Yara standing in the doorway. “Ace. Is there a reason you’re checking out my doorbell camera?”
Straightening, I give Yara my full attention. And the instant my gaze drags down her body—I’m not trying to ogle her, but it’s impossible not to at least look—there’s an unexpected and swift tightening of my pants.
I’m not here with expectations of romance. Or anything close to it. But, damn, she looks good.
Worn leggings cover Yara’s long legs, clinging just enough to show off her lean muscles and the flaring curve of her hips.
Her oversized Berkeley sweatshirt hangs low on one shoulder, exposing a glimpse of delicate collarbone and satiny skin.
Her hair is gathered in a long braid with tiny wisps springing out and streaks of red and gold woven through it.
Quick to cover my reaction, I shift my duffel so it’s partially in front of me. Meeting Yara’s questioning gaze, I reply, “I was wondering what mods you’d done to it. Since it doesn’t look the same as what we installed last year.”
Shooting me an is this how we’re going to play your unannounced visit look, Yara replies, “I added a sensor that detects explosive materials. The radius isn’t great, but it was more to see if I could get it to work than anything.
” With a wry smile, she adds, “Since I’m not exactly expecting anyone to send a bomb to my house. ”
I nod approvingly. “Nice. Is that all?”
“No.” She leans out the door and taps a tiny, secondary camera beneath the original one. “This allows me to get a 3D image of my visitors. Then it sends it to my facial recognition software, so I can identify my visitors in real-time.”
“That’s amazing, Tink. I’ll have to tell Tyler about this. I bet he’d like to add those features to our cameras.”
“I already sent him over a few samples,” Yara says. “As if I’d leave you guys out.”
With the topic of doorbell cameras at its conclusion, I hesitate, trying to figure out how to broach the next subject. Mainly, why I’m standing on her front porch at seven PM on a Friday night without calling ahead to warn her.
But Yara beats me to it. “Ace.” She cocks her head. Her eyebrows raise quizzically. “This might be a dumb question. And it’s not that I’m not glad to see you. But why are you here?”
“Well.” I hold a quick inner debate between coming out with the actual truth or an edited version of it. “I’m meeting with Leif—I used to work with him in Austin, but he recently transferred to Seattle—to help with some explosives training on Monday.”
In the two year gap between completing my service and joining Blade and Arrow, I worked as an unexploded ordnance technician for a private firm in Austin.
I didn’t love the job, but I liked some of my coworkers.
And Leif’s been asking me for months to run a training session on the types of explosives typically used in third-world countries.
I’ve been busy with Blade and Arrow, so I’ve been putting him off.
But when this thing with Yara came up, it seemed like the perfect solution—help my buddy out and have an official reason to be in Seattle, rather than coming right out and telling Yara I’m worried about her.
“But it’s Friday night,” Yara points out.
“True. But since I was coming here anyway, I thought… maybe I’d stop by. See if you wanted to order pizza, watch a couple episodes of BattleBots.”