by Snow, Nicole
A blind spot. I shuffle into it and edge closer, straining to see inside the shadows of the car with only the faint light from the street lamps to guide me.
There’s no one there.
Not that I can see.
Not anymore.
No one in the front seat, no one hiding in the back – but there’s something scratched on the dashboard I can’t quite read. Warily, rising up on my toes, I lean in to ensure no one’s crouched down in the leg space behind the front seats.
Nope. Empty. The only other place they could hide is the trunk.
Before I look any further inside the car, I pop the trunk and then fling myself to one side. But there’s nothing inside except my spare tire, my oh shit go bag, and a case of bottled water I’ve been forgetting to bring inside since my last grocery trip two weeks ago.
Sighing, I glance around, but there’s no one in the lot. Nowhere they could even hide, when there’s nothing but my car, a couple of skinny light poles too small to conceal anyone, and an expanse of flat concrete.
Still, I dip to peer under the car as I round it again, just to be sure. No one there, either.
A straight up coward broke into my car.
Left his message, and then ran off before I could catch him.
LAST WARNING. ONLY WARNING.
STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER.
SHE’S MINE.
It’s scratched across my dashboard in big slashing letters as jagged and pointed as the bowie knife thrusting out of the shredded leather driver’s seat of my car.
Asshole. That’s going to cost an arm and a leg to fix.
My breath pours out of me in a tired yet explosive sigh. I dig in my case until I come up with the spare t-shirt I keep in the event of an all-nighter, wrap my hand in it, and gingerly pull the knife from the seat, careful to avoid any fingerprints I might be smudging.
Then I toss the knife on the empty seat, throw my case in the back, slide behind the wheel, check that the Glock’s still in the glove compartment, and start the engine grimly.
I’ll call the police tomorrow. Right now, I’m going home.
Nothing’s going to stop me from continuing the search for Joannie, especially not some pissant jackal who cuts up my car and disappears because he’s too shit-scared to look me in the eye.
For me, this isn’t a threat.
It’s a sign of hope.
No one would bother trying to scare me off if Joannie was dead.
And when I find my sister’s ex, I’m going to use his own knife to skin him before taking my little girl home to her mama where she belongs.
* * *
The night passes without further incident.
Not even the stiffest coffee can keep me up beyond 2:00 a.m., though, and I wake up in the morning drooling over a stack of printouts about my prime suspect, Harmon Ketchum – my sister’s ex, Joannie’s father, master scumbag with an almost comical amount of dirty ties to the vast San Francisco criminal underworld.
My neck aches, and I groan, rubbing at my eyes and leaning back in my creaking, high-backed chair. The first thing I notice is the air. It tastes like storms blowing in across the ocean and the tiny little patch of sandy scrub beach I can call my own, fronting my little fishing shanty house.
The second thing I’m aware of is, if I don’t haul butt, I’m going to be late for work.
Crap!
I shower in record time, slap on the quickest gloss of natural-pink lipstick that’s the sole difference between my professional face and my private one, knot my hair into a neat bun, toss myself behind the wheel of my mangled car, and floor it.
I don't know why I think speeding helps. San Francisco traffic is hell as usual, and I just barely skid into the parking lot in the wake of my boss' Impala. He's just stepping out, rolling his massive shoulders, raking dark hair out of his eyes. Landon Strauss would look equally well put together and imposing in the thick of D-Day, I swear.
Us mere mortals aren't so lucky.
I slew into my parking spot, rage-tuck an annoyingly loose strand of my short hair back into my bun, and step out, still straightening my uniform shirt. He glances at me, lifting his hand in a lazy wave, only to freeze mid-motion, vivid blue eyes flashing hotly as he stares past me into the car.
“Pixie, what in the fuck?”
I really hate that nickname.
But what I hate even more is dumping this shit show on his doorstep. Even if Landon’s a hard-ass, he’s always been good to me – even more so since he found out about Joannie.
Too bad what happened to my car also falls under vandalism on company property.
No choice. I’ve got to clue him in, if only so he can cover his ass for legal reasons.
I’d just hoped for more than five seconds to be ready for this conversation.
He prowls toward me, expression black as he circles the car. His lips move soundlessly, shaping around the words carved across the dash, then jerks his head up, almost glaring. “Your niece is alive.”
“Would seem so, sir,” I answer tersely.
I don’t want to hear what he’s going to say next, but that doesn’t stop him.
“This is some serious shit. What if they’d gone after you instead of your car?”
“He’d have come away with a Taser to his balls, sir.”
Landon snorts briefly, but his amusement doesn’t soften the ferocity of his stare. “This isn’t funny, Skylar. Your niece may be in danger, but so are you, and I'm not having it. If you keep pushing –”
“I’m not quitting. Sir.” I bite off the last word as an afterthought. “Everyone else has given up. I won’t.”
“I’m not saying you have to.” He holds both hands up. “But hear me out, Sky. It’s time to stop trying to do this solo.”
I shake my head sharply. “No. I’m not dragging anyone from Enguard into this. I'll keep my personal and work life separate, thank you very much. I don't need a babysitter.”
“You need protection,” he growls. “And I’m not thinking about someone from Enguard. Even if I’m sure Riker would be happy for an easy bodyguard gig.”
My eyes narrow. “Again, I don't need a babysitter, sir. And I can knock Riker on his ass in two seconds flat.”
“Precisely the reason I’m not putting him on your detail. That, and he’s already going grey trying to raise a kid alone. Well, greyer.” Landon grins, but there’s something in it that says I’m not wiggling out of this. I'm groaning inwardly before he even says the next words. “But, you know, I think I've got just the man for the job.”
“I don’t want help.”
“Too bad, Pixie. Not an option.” He smirks. “Look at it as humoring an overprotective friend.”
“You’re an ass, is what you are.”
“Nah. Trust me, when you meet Gabe Barin, you’ll be thanking me.”
Not fucking likely.
But when Landon Strauss gets hung up on details like this, there’s no stopping him. And while I don’t think he’d fire me for refusing his help, I can’t exactly be an ungrateful brat and say no either.
There's no denying the harsh truth. Whoever tore up my car last night might do the same to me next.
I’ll just have to play along. Shake whatever loser he wants to dump on me at the first chance.
It shouldn’t be hard.
I’m better than over half the men at Enguard. I can drop anyone in two seconds flat.
If this Gabe guy wants to keep up with me, he’s got his work cut out for him.
I’ve got too much to do to babysit a bodyguard.
II: Don't Give Up (Gabe)
After two and a half solid days on the road and nights in hard, cramped hotel beds, there’s a deep and quiet pleasure in stretching my legs out on the sand and letting myself just be.
Don’t get me wrong, the drive from New Orleans to San Francisco was plenty pretty. Scenic and slow, just how I like it.
I went from long, slow roads dripping with Spanish moss to stretches of desert
where the mesas looked like purpled murals and the whole damn Milky Way sprawled over me in a thousand whispers of stars. Then the bright blue waves, taking the coastal highways up the Pacific, toward Northern California.
I’ve always been a road trip kinda guy at heart.
But I’m also too damn big to be cramped into the cab of a Dodge Ram for thirty-four solid hours of driving. After that long behind the wheel, I’ve got cabin fever and possibly a few saddle sores.
That’s why, after getting to Landon’s place after midnight, I was happier than hell to ditch the beach house he’d made up for me and sleep under the stars.
The naked sand feels softer than any mattress, and there’s a difference in the dry, hot sand of San Francisco beaches versus the grayer, denser, wetter sand of the Louisiana shores I call home.
It’s always too clammy on the Louisiana waters, whether it’s on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain or the ragged edge of the Gulf – especially when it’s sweltering hot and humid and buzzing with clouds of mosquitoes. Not to mention every other goddamn thing that wants to take a bite out of your hide.
Sleeping on that Pacific Ocean shore, though...
That's something magical. Near perfection.
All hot and warm and soft and comfortable.
Probably the last comfy night I’ll have for a good long while, if this job Landon pulled me in for turns out to be as difficult as he’s hinted.
I lean forward, turning the makeshift spit I’d made over my little beach bonfire, letting my breakfast sausages crackle in the flames. Then I flop back on my blanket, and propped up on one elbow, open my journal against my thigh.
Sunrise over the ocean, I scribble. It’s every color and all one color I can’t describe, until it clears and decides it just wants to be...
Blue.
That’s what I want to remember about this morning.
Everything’s blue. The sky, the water, the soul.
I want blue to be a color for something besides melancholy, for once in my life.
Don't tell me that's too damn much to ask.
I stop, the pen’s scratch silencing.
Blue. That was the color of my old man’s suit, the day they buried him.
Open casket. I’ve never understood open casket funerals.
Morbid shit, y’all. Real morbid. Cuts the pain that much deeper, just standing there and looking down at that dead body all made up to look like he’s gonna open his eyes right then and there, when you know he’s never going to again.
And even if he does, he’s not gonna recognize you.
Fuck.
I still remember the day I came back from my last Army tour, all primed for that picture-perfect family reunion I'd imagined. The kind they broadcast on the news with a red, white, and blue banner underneath, some hokey headline. Military porn for the public, almost, but it makes people happy so who cares?
It made me plenty happy, walking up that drive with my kit hanging from one hand, and the other reaching for the door to the little bayou-front house my parents lived in ever since I was knee-high to a frog.
Only for my father to bar my way, staring at me through the latched screen door with his eyes rheumy and hazed and blank. Not an ounce of recognition. His voice harsh as he threatened to call the cops if I didn’t tell him who I was or get off his property.
Not even my mother’s sad-eyed explanations and apologies helped.
I hadn’t wanted to tell you, sug. You were dealing with enough in Iraq, too much on your plate.
I didn’t want you to worry when you couldn’t be here to help out. Gabe, please, don’t be mad...
Her words, however heartfelt, couldn't stop me from running later on. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her I hadn’t been running from Dad.
I’d been running from the fear of that ticking time bomb that might be counting down inside me right now, the same goddamn gift of genetics that ruined him. The same dagger twist of fate that could one day be me.
A hollow wreck drowning in Alzheimer’s and alcohol, every day losing a bit more of who I am and who I love.
That’s why I write. Every day, every moment, every bit of life I want to remember.
So even when it’s gone, it’ll still be with me. Long as I can read, or have these words recited back.
And I promise the impossible: I’ll never look at anybody I love like they’re a stranger, the place in my mind and heart where they belong just a hole where they used to be.
But I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been drifting around this old world ever since Dad died.
Sure, I was a bit of a roamer even before, odd jobs here and there, then the military, maybe a few things I never shoulda gotten mixed up in. But after he died, I just got by working construction. Easy, mindless work meant for straining my muscles and putting my brain to sleep. And I do mean easy for a man my size, the harshest days are more like a good workout, rather than backbreaking.
For a while, that was all I needed. Now?
I don’t want easy. I don’t want mindless.
After the hell I left behind in Iraq – both during my tour and during my short-lived, disastrous stint in private security contracting overseas – I feel like my life could use a little purpose. A little goodness.
A little anything that’d make it worthwhile again, as if I can atone for the shadows in my past by building a brighter tomorrow.
“You know,” Landon drawls over my shoulder, “I know you Southern boys aren’t up on the latest modern conveniences, but the kitchen can’t be that hard to work.”
I’m flipping him off before I even look back. It only lasts a second before he’s clasping my wrist and pulling me to my feet, into a thumping bear hug.
Old Landon looks the same as he did last time I saw him, even with years between us...but there’s a difference, too. He looks calmer. Settled. Peaceful, with that shiny new wedding ring on his finger.
Happy, instead of tortured by whatever demons haunted him during our time in the service, making him wild and reckless and dangerous as hell.
I grin real wide. It’s good to see somebody happy. I envy him that, I think.
Don’t know if I’ll ever settle down. But I almost get knocked down right on my country ass when the two cats twining around Landon’s ankles decide to investigate me, and get tangled right up in my legs.
“Hey!” I lean down to stroke their soft, velvety blue-grey fur. “Y’all gonna kill me if you ain’t careful.”
“Velvet and Mews are harmless. Just very, very spoiled.” Landon chuckles, folding his arms over his chest. “You slept out here, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“Guess it’s no worse than the bivouac tents in Fallujah.” He jerks his chin toward the bonfire. “Be careful with that, will you? I just rebuilt this damn beach house after fucking Dallas burned it down. I don’t need another house fire.”
“Sorry.” I retrieve my crisped sausages, then kick sand over the fire. “That whole mess settled yet?”
“Sentencing was handed down not too long ago. Seventy to life for the murder, another life sentence for attempted double homicide, extra ten tacked on for arson. They’re still processing additional charges against his daddy, Reg.”
He's been through the wringer, all right, a knock down drag out fight to save his company and his woman that almost cost him everything.
I tilt my head, studying him. “How you feel about that?”
He grins. It’s fierce, wolfish, familiar. “Feel like I didn’t get enough of a chance to draw blood, but I’ll take it. Justice, you know.”
I can’t help laughing. Landon and I understand each other in more ways than one; we’re almost brothers, both of us running away from our lives far too young to join the military. Both of us losing our fathers.
I just wish the demons that took mine away had a name and a face like his.
Something I could fight.
But I keep my thoughts to myself and hunker down on the sand again,
scraping my sausages onto a plate and then offering it to him for first pick. He waves it off, dropping down next to me, propping his elbows on his spread knees.
“I already made breakfast. Just waiting for Kenna to drag herself out of bed.” He sighs, looking out over the waves. He’s another point of blue, those bright eyes that have always meant friendship and solidarity to me. Another way to change that color into something that matters more than loss, sadness, and death. “So, you up for this job?”
“Sure. Better be. Came all the way here, didn't I?” I pick up a breakfast sausage with my fingers, blow on it to cool, and then take an alligator bite. “What’s so tough about this little lady that you had to call me, though?”
Landon snorts. “You’re the only one patient enough to deal with her.”
I quirk a brow. “C’mon. She can’t be that bad.”
“She’s hard as nails – and all those nails are pointed sharp end out, aiming right at you. Saying Sky’s prickly is like saying water’s wet.”
That draws a snort. “C’mon. She’s probably like a possum. All teeth and scary eyes, curls up and plays dead the second you holler.”
“You think that, you’ll be the one playing dead just to get her to stop kicking your ass.” There’s affection in Landon’s voice, though. Like he’s talking about a sister. “Skylar’s tough. No-nonsense. This pint-sized terror who’s got men three times her size terrified of her.”
“...and she needs me why?”
“Because it’s impossible to watch your own back twenty-four seven, and someone’s out to get her.” He sighs. “Look, Gabe, this may not be war, but she needs backup anyway. She’s just too proud to admit it. The more she runs herself into the ground on this case, the more vulnerable she’s going to be. She thinks I can’t see it, but she’s ragged and falling apart at the seams. She’s been looking for her niece for almost a year.”
“So, she’s been getting tangled up with some rough types.” I nod, leaning forward to retrieve the insulated metal thermos I’d stuck in the sand near the fire, and screw the cap off. “I get to play Santa, then. Sounds fun.”
