by Meli Raine
John gives me a look that makes it clear he doesn’t understand what her security guy is doing in the middle of this conversation.
I don’t care what John thinks.
“I’m not telling you to stop,” he stresses, focusing his attention on Lily. “I’m just telling you we have to take the stroke risk into account. You’ve passed the first three-month stretch, which is the most critical for strokes, and you had strokes during that period. I realize you weren’t aware of it,” he continues, holding up one finger as if he anticipates arguments from her. “So that’s good.”
She nods, waiting for more.
“But, Lily, you were in bed for fourteen months. You had some of the best care of any of my patients, with PT and OT coming regularly. You were exercised frequently. You were given top-of-the-line medical treatment. You’re on the bleeding edge of any patient that any of the experienced neurologists and neurosurgeons have seen at this hospital.”
Lily rolls her eyes. “I know. I’ve heard this before.”
“You may have heard it before,” John says, kindly but firmly, “but you need to hear this now. Pushing too hard in here could end up setting you back. It’s the same with stress. You cannot live a stressful life.”
Lily snorts. “I don’t know if anybody made you aware, John, but I was shot at again.”
“I heard,” he says, sighing. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she shoots back. “I’m sorry I can’t live a life without stress.”
Her eyes meet mine. I know exactly what she’s thinking. Hiding the secret about Romeo was a source of unimaginable stress. Thank God I can carry it with her now.
Maybe even for her.
“You can’t control people shooting at you,” John continues, “but you can control your other risk factors for stress and therefore for stroke, blood clots, and other vascular issues.”
“Bottom line,” Rhonda says before Lily can object, “We just need to pace you.”
“Yes,” John says, relieved to have someone who understands.
“I’m tired of being paced,” Lily says with a near snarl. Her eyes jump to mine and then flit away. Something about her demeanor makes me sit up and pay attention on a different level. There’s something about me that is affecting her reaction to all of this.
“What is it? I can walk,” she says to John, a plaintive tone coming into her voice. “I can’t run yet, but I’m close. I’m much weaker on the left side, but I’m getting better. I can smile symmetrically if I try really hard. My hair,” she says, reaching up to stroke it, “has gotten long enough now to cover the scar. I just want to be normal.”
I brush my fingertips against my own scar at the base of my eye. “Yeah,” I say to her as she turns and acknowledges me. “You wouldn’t want to go through life looking like this.”
“That’s not what I meant,” she says.
“Right,” I tell her roughly. “But I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks about me and my scars, Lily. You shouldn’t, either.”
“It’s not about the scars. It’s about me claiming my life. It’s about not letting that fucker win.”
“That I understand,” John says to her before anyone else can react. “But his goal was to kill you. A stroke could kill you, too.”
A long sigh flows out of her. “Got it,” she says. “Message received.” Turning to Rhonda, she asks in a subdued voice, “Okay, what do we do now?”
Rhonda hands her a bottle of water. “We hydrate.”
An hour later, I have a very quiet Lily in the car next to me, half asleep, turned away. She's not sleepy because she's tired. She's sleepy because we can only handle so much.
Strokes. John brought up strokes.
A red light gives me a chance to idle and look at her.
I spend all day with her, and it never feels like enough. What happened at the ranch was a start. The longer I'm with her, the more I want a middle. I want an end.
I want it all.
A honk from behind startles me. My foot presses the accelerator a little too fast, making the car jump forward. Lily makes a sound of surprise, then settles back down, head to the right, eyes closed.
I drive to her house.
I make my mind blank.
When we pull up to the front of her place, her mom and dad are in the front yard, raking. Lily looks at me with trepidation. She doesn't want to cross the streams.
“I'll stay here,” I tell her, giving her an out.
Her hand covers mine. No one can see the physical contact from a distance.
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For you.”
The door opens. Her skin leaves mine. Lily closes the car door and walks away, limping slightly.
I pull out my private phone, the burner I'm not supposed to have.
And I get to work, the vision of her limp fueling my determination.
Where do you go when you need to dig up information on someone who is untraceable?
I can access Romeo Czaky's official record. That's easy. It's all clean and bright. Nothing to see here, folks. Nothing outstanding, nothing awful. Just a good ex-soldier doing his job, coming home and working security.
Just like me.
Scratch the surface, though, and there's more.
Just like me.
I can find my way around code, but I'm no hacker. Definitely not a cracker. I know my limits. I know when I'm outclassed.
What I also know is how to find people who are experts. Move one step above my abilities. And then leverage them to keep on moving up until I find what I need.
I've put out feelers. The darknet is all about money. People get off on being outlaws. Leveraging that is easy. Enough cash and some ego strokes and you can move mountains.
Move a mountain and sunlight exposes something formerly buried.
One problem with the darknet is knowing the difference between the operatives and the agents posing as operatives, though. Being an operative myself makes it slightly easier to catch.
Information like this doesn't get sent to you in a Gmail attachment. No one stores this on a shared drive. The irony of using the darknet is this: the information you find there is the kind you need a face-to-face meeting to distribute.
High tech meets low brow.
No fucking way am I meeting some rando from the creepiest edges of the internet in a back alley in San Diego. Not crossing the border into Tijuana for a handshake and an exchange, either. What I need to know can be found with a few inquiries. Confirming my suspicions won't take much.
And speaking of Tijuana... I can't stop thinking about El Brujo.
The drug kingpin died years ago. I know the truth. Mark Paulson's brother's girlfriend did it, a woman who'd been kidnapped and sold to El Brujo himself as a sex slave. She escaped, and when El Brujo's guys kidnapped more women, she helped rescue two of them. Shot the guy straight in the face.
Paulson took credit to give her an out.
Most guys take credit to make themselves look good.
Being invisible means acting in ways that most people interpret one way, but you know are motivated by a completely different set of intentions.
Nothing is ever what people assume.
That's where the real traction kicks in.
Online rabbitholes are funny things. One search leads to another. For the average person, this means finding your way to YouTube. Watching silly videos. Reading about conspiracies. Finding the new diet fad or vitamin deficiency that can be cured by some new product.
For me, it's about connecting the details that keep me up at night.
Tijuana.
El Brujo.
Romeo.
Why do those three feel connected?
Robots can't have feelings.
But we can analyze.
Bzzz.
A text from Lily.
Sorry I was a pain today. Will I see you tomorrow?
I'm on duty. Six a.m., I reply.
Tijuana.
El Brujo.
Romeo.
Rose petal.
I jerk in my seat. Rose petal? What made me think of that?
Impulse makes me do a quick search: “el brujo tijuana rose petal.”
I expect nothing.
I get more than I bargained for. A connection I never considered.
Son of a bitch.
Chapter 25
“Absolutely not,” I tell her, holding back my laugh at the ridiculous request. It's five minutes after six in the morning and we're in her kitchen, whispering furiously, crappy coffee brewing in her parents' machine while I ignore the smell as best I can.
“I didn’t ask your permission,” Lily says, lacing her hiking boots with a tug of frustration.
“Good, because you weren’t gonna get it.”
“I need forest therapy,” she says, as if that’s a thing. “Lush greenery. I need to spend time in nature. I can’t keep living like this.”
“Like what?”
“My life is an endless loop of fighting with my mom, going to doctors and physical therapists, and spending too much time in my own head.”
I can’t argue with her on that. She’s right. “Where do you want to go?”
She names a state park an hour or so away.
“If you want to be one with nature,” I point out, “the ocean is a lot closer. Why not go there? Everyone here loves the ocean. It’s what Southern Californians do.”
She laughs. “Only someone who isn’t from around here would say that, Duff.”
“I’m from Philly.” I hold my hands up, palms facing the sky. I'm stalling. If she were a little more observant, she'd notice that.
She has no idea what she's asking of me.
A simple hike in the woods feels like death to me. Cities are safe. Suburbs are safe. Nature? Wilderness? That's where people die. Disappear.
Like my mother and father.
Like my brother.
Like me–almost.
“Everyone does love the ocean,” she says, oblivious to what I'm going through on the inside. That's fine. I can keep it under control.
I grunt in response to her words.
She ignores me and continues. “Including me. But that’s not what I want. I want to go out and be surrounded by greenery. Go for a hike up a mountain. I want to be in a place far away from here, where all I have to do is move and be and not think all the time.”
“How important is this to you?” The minute the words are out of my mouth, I realize I’ve already lost the argument.
She beams. It’s a smug, satisfied grin that says she knows, too.
“Let me talk to Gentian,” I say grudgingly. “We’ll clear the area and get a team.”
“A team?” Alarm fills her features. “What do you mean, a team?”
“You think we’re going on a hike in the middle of nowhere with just me to protect you?”
“That was my idea,” she says slowly. “I don’t think that someone’s going to come out of nowhere in the woods and try to…” Each word comes out of her mouth haltingly, stunned, until finally she winds down and stares at me in silence. “There’s no escape, is there?” she moans, the end of her question a whimper.
“No,” I say, hating the word as it rolls up from my gut, across my vocal cords, and off the tip of my tongue to hang there between us. That one word, “No.” Lily hears too many no’s in her life. I hate being one of them.
At least this no is a truth, as hard as it is to accept.
“I still want the hike,” she says, angry and irritated. It covers for her fear, a deep fear that I’m starting to worry isn’t going away. People shouldn’t have to live from a core point of fear, but they do.
Many of us do.
I just let out a long, resigned sigh.
“Then it’s settled,” she says, as if that alone would make it so.
“Nothing’s settled here, Lily.”
“We’re going on a hike, Duff.”
“Let me check in with Silas and Drew.”
Her hands move to my shoulders, her face tipping up with a look that’s half plea and half demand. “I need this, Sean.”
That’s better. Hearing my real name from her lips feels better than it should.
“I know you do. I’ll make it happen.” My ears sharpen, listening for any sound of Bee, Tom, Gwennie, or Bowie. It's one thing for Silas and Jane to know that Lily and I have crossed a line from professional to personal. It's not as if they have any room to criticize.
Bee would have my head if she knew.
Three hours later, we pull into the national park entrance. Silas assigned Ralph and another guy, Justin, to stay on the trail with us, but a quarter mile or so behind.
Lily insisted on the privacy.
I have to admit, the idea of spending hours alone with her in that kind of peaceful environment is appealing. It’s also vulnerable. If someone wants to take her out, it would be easy. Wide-open spaces are any security guy’s nightmare. They’re second to large crowds, but this is one request that isn’t just a request.
It’s Lily’s way of reclaiming a part of her life.
We get out of the car. The standard black SUV I expected to see is waiting in the parking area, and Ralph and Justin emerge. Unlike our normal uniform for work, they’re not wearing suits. Instead, they’re dressed for a hike, like me. The four of us look like something out of an outdoor sports magazine, which is fine. It means we blend in with all the other folks.
There are more people here than I’d imagined. The more, the better. Romeo’s not stupid. There’s no way he’d use a gun in an environment like this. Too many witnesses. The authorities would be here instantly.
It’s paradoxical, because what happened back at the coffee shop was about as laden with witnesses as you can get, but that was a set up.
That was theater.
We grab maps from a park ranger’s station, and I start to unclench a little. This is pure hiking, no rock climbing. Lily wants to go into the woods, the trees rising like skyscrapers with roots. We each have a backpack, and I’m wearing a water vest, a half gallon evenly distributed across my chest. It’s a handy disguise for my gun, too. There’s no way we’ll suffer from a lack of provisions.
“How far up the trail do you want to go?” she asks me.
I put my hand over my heart. “I have a choice here?” I'm looking at the weather app on my phone.
She smiles. “I get to make all decisions?” she asks in a playful tone.
“You’re the one in charge.”
“Music to my ears, Duff,” she says, nudging my elbow, and with that, she takes off at a fast clip ahead of me, leaving a beautiful view of her ass.
“There's a strong chance of rain in an hour or so,” I warn her.
“Walking in the rain is fun,” she calls back.
I groan.
Ralph and Justin hold back, fading away into a smattering of people behind us, until finally they’re far enough away for me to know that we have some privacy but close enough to know that if the shit hits the fan, we’re covered. They’ll react in seconds.
Lulled by the greenery as we walk up the rocky path, I have to give Lily credit. This is its own kind of peace. Silence is our language as we take step after step, muscles working in ways you just can’t manage in daily urban life.
The evergreens stretch high into the sky, some impossibly thin, like spires, others fat as if pregnant. The vaulted ceiling of greenery reminds me of the old cathedrals Gran loved so much, the songs from Mass soaring into the wood and stone and stained glass.
“It’s almost holy,” she says to me with a reverence that makes me ache.
I watch her profile as we move together, the path widening enough to walk in tandem. “It is,” I say, staring at her.
Her hand slips out of her left pocket and reaches for mine, our fingers entwining.
I’m not supposed to do this, I think to myself. If Ralph or Justin reported this back,
there would be an official paper trail. Mike didn't say a word about our kiss in the car. I know Silas overlooked what little he saw at the ranch, an unspoken agreement between us, tenuous and fragile.
But this? Being caught by some low-level grunts in the system and reported? It could force Drew to act. I squeeze her hand, and then I hold even firmer because suddenly, I don’t care about being reported. Not anymore.
As romantic as holding hands is, it’s hard to walk on a hiking trail that climbs at a steeper rate as we go along. She breaks the contact first, edging slightly ahead of me at my urging. I want her in front, but I want her close. Threats come when you least expect them.
Unfortunately, there’s no good way for me to be in all places at all times. If I could, I wouldn’t be human.
In fact, I’m not supposed to be quite human in this world, but Lily is changing all of that.
“Look!” she says, pointing into the woods. “A stream.”
“Don’t see many of those around here,” I say, marveling at the look of lush ground cover down a small hill to our left. Years of drought in this part of the country have made the brown landscape around our area of Southern California the default view. I can go months without seeing anything that isn’t artificially watered. Like most people here, I’ve come to associate greenery with wealth, because you have to have money to be able to afford the bills that come from maintaining landscaping in the face of severe water shortages.
Out here, though, it’s different. It’s nature. No one’s paying for this. No one’s using this as a status symbol.
I crash into Lily, who has stopped to take in the scenery, hips slamming into her ass, my hands going instinctively to her elbows, our bodies pressed together, soft and hard. She stumbles, her foot catching on a root, and I wrap one arm around her waist from behind, the other one a counterweight to balance us so we don’t fall. The water pack that I’m wearing like armor forms a strange padding that hits her own water pack.
She squeals, and I look down. There’s water on my leg.
“The mouthpiece. It backwashed,” she says, giggling as we look down at the ground to find a small puddle, no bigger than a grapefruit, at the base of her foot.
I don’t move away. My arm stays wrapped around her, the spare one sliding up and down her arm, stopping at the thin, fragile bones of her wrist.