Chapter 9 #2
He’d have eaten a shoe if she'd made it for him back then. He'd have done anything she asked, gone anywhere she pointed, followed her into any leaking canoe on any lake in the world. He'd been that far gone, and she'd known it, and they'd been happy.
The memory settled like something warm, taking up the space the fear had occupied. He could almost smell the lake water, the pine sap, the cheap sunscreen she'd bought at a gas station on the way.
He knew what she was doing. She was pulling him out of the spiral, away from the pain in his arm and the cold calculation running in the back of his mind. She was giving him something to hold onto that wasn't a weapon or a wound or a threat assessment.
And she was doing it for herself, too—replacing the sound of gunfire with the sound of water sloshing in a canoe and two people laughing who didn't know yet how badly things were about to go wrong.
"The sunset that night," she said, quieter now. "Do you remember that?”
They'd sat on the dock, her between his legs, leaning back against his chest. She'd been sketching the mountains across the lake in the last of the light, and he'd watched her hands move across the page while the sky turned every color the world had to offer.
She'd fallen asleep against him with charcoal dust on her fingers and her hair smelling like sunscreen.
He'd sat there for an hour after dark, holding her, listening to the water against the pilings, thinking, This is it. This is what the rest of my life looks like.
He'd bought the ring a week later.
"Yeah," he said. "I remember."
She was quiet again, but the silence was the warmer kind, the kind that didn't demand anything. She'd given him the memory, and he'd taken it, and now it sat between them alongside all the other things that lived in the space between what they'd been and what they were now.
His arm hurt. The road stretched ahead. Somewhere out there, Blake was making choices that would get people killed, and a professional marksman was still searching for them, and the cartel was recalculating, and none of it was over.
But for three blocks, driving through a neighborhood where someone still hadn't taken down their Christmas lights, Mack let himself remember what it felt like to be the man on that dock.
The one who thought the future was simple.
The one who didn't know yet what it cost to love someone in a world that was determined to take them away.
The rendezvous point was a church parking lot on the north side of town—empty in the late afternoon sun and shielded from the main road by a row of bare cottonwoods. Grizzly was already there.
The former Ranger himself was standing beside the driver's door, hands in his jacket pockets, looking for all the world like a guy waiting for someone to arrive for a late lunch.
But Mack saw the way his eyes tracked their approach, noted the slight shift in his posture as he clocked the damage to the SUV—the fractured windshield, the blown side window, the pockmarks in the metal.
His eyebrows went up. He said nothing.
"Thanks for this,” Mack said, stepping out. The cold air hit his arm and the wound announced itself fresh. He kept his face neutral.
"Garrett said you needed wheels." Clive “CB” Briggs was twenty-eight and built like a heavyweight boxer. His grandfather and then his father had led the Canon Outlaws biker gang. CB had escaped the gang and went into the military. Now, he worked for SPS.
His eyes went to the blood on Mack's jacket, then to Alyssa, who was climbing out of the passenger side, Mack's jacket swamping her frame.
"Alyssa Bennett," Mack said. "She's the principal."
"Ma'am." CB nodded at her.
“Thanks for your help,” she said. “Mr.?”
“Call me Grizzly,” he said with half a smile.
“Grizzly,” she repeated. “Got it.”
They transferred gear quickly—go-bag, med kit, sat phone, Alyssa's bag. The SUV would sit until Garrett could pick it up later and take it to the garage for repairs. CB was riding with them to the courthouse.
"Claire's got a marshal on the east entrance," Mack told him. "You'll take the corridor outside the meeting room. Nobody in or out without my say."
"Copy."
Mack opened the passenger door for Alyssa. She paused, one hand on the frame, and studied him, as if reassuring herself that he was okay.
"I'm fine," he said, before she could ask.
“You’ll tell me if you’re not, right?”
He held in an exasperated sigh. “Of course.”
She climbed in, and CB didn’t hide his smile.
Mack closed the door and stood there a beat too long, hand on the frame, staring at nothing in particular. His arm ached; his chest ached in a different way.
Get it together, Callan.
“I’ll drive,” CB offered.
“The hell you will.” He walked around to the driver's side, got in, and waited for CB before he pulled out of the parking lot.
The stretch to the courthouse was quiet.
Alyssa had her sketchbook open in her lap, but she wasn't drawing.
She was looking at the sketches she'd already done—the faces from the study.
Blake. Vega. Guerrero. The enforcer. Her fingers hovered over Blake's portrait, not touching the page, just resting in the air above it as if she could feel the graphite lines like braille.
He didn't interrupt. Whatever she was doing—steeling herself, saying goodbye, making peace—it was hers.
His mind was on the courthouse. Room 114, ground floor, east wing.
He ran through the variables—entry points, exit routes, sight lines from outside windows.
Claire had said the wing was empty. That was good.
The marshal at the east entrance was standard.
CB in the corridor was his addition. He’d have him sweep the room before Alyssa set foot inside.
Alyssa closed the sketchbook and sat with her hands flat on the cover.
Her jaw was set. Her shoulders were straight.
She looked, he thought, like someone walking into battle—not the kind with guns and explosions, but the quieter version where the weapon was the truth and the casualty was everything you'd believed about someone you loved.
She was going to sit in a room with federal agents and confirm Blake’s presence at a cartel meeting. Hand over the phone call transcript. Destroy whatever was left of her relationship with Blake and, by extension, her family.
And she was going to do it because it was right. Because Jenna was dead. Because Mack was bleeding. Because she was done choosing the comfortable lie over the difficult truth.
Bravest person I've ever known. The thought arrived without permission, fully formed. He didn't argue with it.
The pale brick courthouse came into view. Claire's sedan was parked near the east entrance. A US Marshal in plainclothes leaned against the wall, pretending to check his phone.
Mack pulled into a spot with a clear exit line and killed the engine.
“Give us a minute,” he said to CB.
The man climbed out, and Alyssa glanced over at him.
Mack searched for the right words. Not the big ones, not the ones pressing against the back of his teeth that he didn't have the right to say yet.
But something. Something that acknowledged the last two hours—the scar story, the shooting, her stumbled word in the drugstore lot, the Flathead Lake memory she'd given him to hold.
"What you told me on the drive," he said, “about the climbing accident." He paused. "That took more guts than anything I did in four years of combat."
Her eyes glistened, but she didn't cry. She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“When this is over," he continued, "we're going to talk about everything. The things we said. The things we haven't said." He held her gaze. "All of it."
She nodded again. A promise accepted. “You’re damn right we are.”
He got out and went around to her side to open the door. She stepped out into the cold, her breath making small clouds in the air, the sketchbook pressed against her chest.
Claire met them at the east entrance. She took one look at Mack's arm—the bloodstain visible through his jacket, the stiff way he held it—and her expression tightened. "You need that properly cleaned before we start."
“Not necessary.”
“Yes, it is. You're getting treatment." Her tone left no room for negotiation. She glanced at Alyssa. "Ms. Bennett. I'm sorry about the circumstances, but we appreciate your cooperation."
"Alyssa," she corrected. "And I'm here to cooperate. Let's get started."
Claire looked at Mack. He saw the question in her eyes—Is she solid?—and answered with a small nod.
Inside, the courthouse was hushed. Their footsteps echoed on marble floors. Claire led the two of them and CB through a security checkpoint. They went down a corridor to the east wing, where the hallway was empty, and the doors were closed.
CB did a sweep and gave Mack a nod upon exiting the room. It was clean.
The judge's chambers were wood-paneled, with a heavy desk pushed to one side, and chairs arranged around a conference table. A recording device sat in the center. Two people waited—a woman in her forties with DEA credentials clipped to her belt, and a younger man in FBI field attire.
Mack swept the room anyway. Windows, exits, sight lines. He checked the lock on the corridor door. Satisfied, he positioned himself against the wall near the window—close enough to reach Alyssa in two strides, far enough not to crowd her. His weapon stayed holstered but accessible.
Claire returned with a first aid kit—a proper one, not the field version—and spent three minutes cleaning and redressing his arm while Alyssa introduced herself to the agents. She shook their hands, set her sketchbook on the table, and pulled out a chair, her gaze constantly darting to him.
He gave her a nod. I'm here. You're not alone.
She turned to the agents. "Where would you like me to start?"