Chapter 3
Katelyn
“I can’t believe you pepper-sprayed him,” Thomas jokes as we climb the steps to our apartment. “I mean, do you even know who he is?”
“Do you?” I ask, unsure if I should be amused or concerned that my son seems to think the guy next door is the coolest person he’s ever met.
“Uh, yeah. Everyone in school talks about them. Plus, I’ve met him a few times after school at the community center.”
This is the first place my son has managed to make friends, and those friends spend their afternoons playing basketball at the community center next door. “Who is ‘them’?”
“The whole team,” he replies, his tone annoyed as though I should have already known. “Garrison, that guy who came to see him today, and the others. They’re Navy SEALs. Like, the ones you see in awesome action movies, Mom. Just living next to the guy got me cool points.”
I stop and turn toward him. “Navy SEAL?” He nods. “It’s not just a rumor?” Did I seriously assault a member of the United States Military? Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.
I can see the headlines now. LOCAL MOM ASSAULTS VETERAN IN HIS OWN HOME.
Thomas grins and shakes his head. “Didn’t you see the size of him? I mean, the guy must work out all the time.” My son keeps walking up the steps, clearly unconcerned with the fact that I’m reeling.
A Navy SEAL?
Right next door to me?
Thomas is right; the guy is built like a soldier, all solid muscle and broad shoulders.
I’m still not quite sure how I managed to hold his weight long enough to keep him from getting hurt when he collapsed right before the paramedics arrived, but I know I’ll be feeling it in the morning.
Maybe even later tonight after the adrenaline wears off.
“He’s a cool guy, though. Super nice.”
“He seems that way.” Here’s hoping he doesn’t press charges. I hadn’t had the courage to ask him outright, but based on the way he thanked me, I’m going to assume he won’t—hopefully.
The last thing I need is my name on an official police report.
“I heard he can kill a guy with just his pinky finger,” Thomas says, wiggling his own in demonstration.
“That he and the others once went into a fully armed compound and—” As Thomas continues, my thoughts drift back to Garrison in that hospital bed.
On how pale he’d looked, how vulnerable despite his size.
I’d genuinely grieved when I went to see him and they told me he hadn’t made it. My heart hadn’t wanted to believe that a man who had been so kind to my son, who’d seemed to have made such an impact in so many lives, was taken from this world in such a horrific act.
And then I pepper-sprayed him.
I fight the urge to groan. Why hadn’t I just paused a moment? Asked a question? Knocked before entering? Embarrassment heats my cheeks.
Maybe I’ll make him cookies or something. My way of trying to make nice so he doesn’t decide later on to have me arrested for assault.
“Are cookies enough for saving someone’s life these days? I forget.” Garrison’s attempt to lighten the mood pops into my mind, and I can’t help but smile softly. He’d seemed in high spirits. And maybe if I play off his joke, he’ll stay that way.
We reach the landing, and Thomas is still telling likely fictitious yet heroic stories of bravery in the face of danger, even all the way up to our door.
I pause and take a deep breath, my gaze landing on Garrison’s apartment door.
It’s been closed, but unless someone else came by to lock up, it’s unlocked.
My thoughts drift to the broken glass and the lingering effects of the pepper spray. He certainly won’t be able to clean it up, and I’d hate for him to come home, try, and collapse again.
“Head on inside and get ready for bed, okay?”
“What are you going to do?” Thomas asks as he unlocks the door with his keys.
“I’m going to head over and open some windows to make sure Garrison—Mr. Holt— doesn’t come home to the stench of pepper spray in his apartment.”
“Want help?”
I smile at my boy, so proud of the man he’s becoming—even if he does struggle from time to time. His heart is good, and the rest will fall into place. “That’s okay. You head in and get your homework done. I’ll let you know if I need help.”
“Sounds good.” Thomas heads into our apartment, so I push open the door to Garrison’s.
The stinging stench of lingering pepper spray immediately assaults me, so I cover my nose and mouth with my arm, then head over toward the patio doors and throw them wide open.
Fresh air coming in, I head back inside and turn on the ceiling fan before I get to work cleaning up the broken glass in his kitchen.
Thanks to the fact that he’s incredibly organized, it doesn’t take me long to find the broom.
As I’m putting it away, my gaze lands on the blood-stained carpet.
My heart begins to race as I recall what he’d looked like lying there.
He’d been pale—far too pale to be alive. Or so I thought.
And there had been so much blood, as evidenced by the massive stain right in front of me.
I shiver, then shake my head, trying to clear an image that will likely never fully go away. Did it hurt him to see it when he got home earlier? To know that he nearly lost his life in that spot?
At least, blood is something I’m well-versed in cleaning up. I may not be able to take back the fact that Garrison is back in the hospital because of me, but I can hopefully make his return easier.
Leaving the balcony doors open, I head back next door to my apartment. It’s not much—but it’s home. The small, single-bedroom apartment is exactly what I’d needed when I drove clear across the country for a fresh start.
One that both Thomas and I desperately needed. The couch folds out to my bed, and I’d insisted on Thomas taking the back bedroom. He thinks it’s to give him space—and it is. Partially.
The other reason is far too sinister to share with my son. A boy who, at the age of thirteen, has already had way too much of his innocence stolen.
I walk into the small laundry room off the kitchen and grab my bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a cleaning cloth, and a protein bar, then head for the front door.
Thomas’s bedroom door is closed, and his music is blaring, so I don’t bother letting him know I’m headed back over.
Hopefully, he’s in there doing his homework.
If not? Well, that’s a conversation for tomorrow.
Because tonight, I just don’t have it in me.
Once back inside Garrison’s apartment, I apply the hydrogen peroxide to the blood stain, though I’m not confident it will get all of it out.
Not when there’s so much and it’s already set.
Still, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to at least get most of it.
That way, he doesn’t feel like he needs to be down on his hands and knees to clean it.
The apartment door opens, and I jump as a striking woman with blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail strolls in. She sees me and freezes, looking just as shocked as I am. I recognize her from town, but I don’t know her name.
And then it hits me—she’s come into the diner with Garrison and his friends before. My cheeks heat. I’m mortified. How did I not know he had a girlfriend? Of course he has a girlfriend! A guy like that? No way he’s single. And here I am, scrubbing the floor of his apartment. Will she think—
“I’m so sorry. I was—the door was—I’m sorry.” I grab my hydrogen peroxide, then start for the door.
“No need to apologize,” the woman says, her expression shifting from shock into a friendly smile. “Wait, you’re the one who found him the night he was—” She swallows hard and points to the blood. “You saved his life.”
“Yeah. Katelyn,” I tell her. “I live next door. I also happen to be the one who pepper-sprayed him earlier,” I blurt.
“I thought someone was robbing the place, and—well. Anyway, I was just trying to clean up a bit.” I’m blabbering, a nervous habit of mine.
As much as I know I need to slow down, choose my words more carefully, I can’t seem to stop.
“That’s really sweet,” she replies, her smile widening. “I’m Anastasia Knox. I own the coffee shop in town. You work at the diner, right?”
“I do.” I swallow hard. “Sorry, I can get out of your way. I was just trying to help.”
“Oh no, you don’t have to leave. I’m just here to grab him a few things.
” Anastasia sets her purse on the couch, then moves past the stain and down the hall.
I don’t miss the way she avoids looking down at it as she walks past it.
Definitely can’t blame her there. It hurts me to see it, and I don’t have any personal ties to him.
Unsure what else to do, I drop down and start blotting at the peroxide I’d put on the carpet. The blood saturates the cloth as I dab at it. Now that I know it works, I saturate even more of the stain. If it keeps this up, most of the blood will be gone. A bit of relief surges through me.
So the peroxide can set, I wash my hands, then step into the doorway of the bedroom. Anastasia is packing a black duffel bag as she hums happily, moving around the space as if she lives here, too.
Does she?
“So, is he going to be home soon?” I ask.
“Doctor said maybe tomorrow. Though if it were up to me, he’d be staying until he was completely healed.
Stubborn men, am I right?” She hoists the duffel bag up, then turns to face me.
Standing this close to her, I can see a fresh scar on the side of her cheek.
A puckered, red line that spans from nearly the corner of her mouth back toward her jaw.
His words from that night come back to me. “Help. Her.”
Is this the “her”?
“Thanks so much for cleaning that up,” Anastasia says. “I tried, but didn’t have much luck.”
“Hydrogen peroxide is the trick,” I tell her.
She shivers. “Let’s hope I don’t have to remember that. Seriously, though. Thank you, Katelyn.”
“It’s the least I could do. I did put him back in the hospital.”