Two hours after she finished her shift at the long-term care facility, Callie took her place at her station in the Oklahoma City emergency dispatch center. Her cubby was one of many in the department’s administration bureau. It hadn’t been especially difficult for Callie to meet the minimum requirements for the job. She had excellent communication skills and paid close attention to detail, which enabled her to accurately record information. In a way, living like she did and not really feeling anything had an advantage in this job. It gave her the ability to remain calm in emergency situations, even dealing with panicked, frightened callers.

Odd though, in dealing with the news of David’s death and its aftermath, that she felt quite the opposite, even now, over a year later. It seemed when it was her own emergency, her own loss, her calm—no, any ability to stay calm—deserted her.

It was a friend of David’s, a former military man who attended the funeral, who had suggested that she keep busy, as busy as she could possibly stand, to get through the first year or two following David’s death. She had taken the advice to heart. After applying for the job, she had taken a written test and participated in two interviews, during which she scored in the high percentile. As soon as a vacancy was available in the department, she was called. She’d undergone a police background check, drug screening, medical exam, and a polygraph examination, and then six weeks of intense classroom instruction and training regarding the telecommunications equipment as well as procedures of the city’s 911 communications center. She was still on a twelve-month probationary period, still receiving on-the-job training under close supervision, but so far, so good. She handled most calls without hesitation.

In the beginning, she’d been terribly intimidated. What if she said the wrong thing? What if she froze or panicked? What if, during the middle of a call, she had a flashback to the moment she received her own death notification, or she had to endure the sounds of gunshots and screaming, making her imagine David’s last moments? No matter what doubts assailed her, she had to remember why she took this job. She needed to keep busy. She also wanted to help. The memory of that day . . . the moment she saw the two army officers walking to her front door, would stick with her forever. She knew even before they knocked what they were there for. That moment of complete and total helplessness, of being overwhelmed, uncertain, no idea what to do next . . . her mind frozen, her body numb.

She wanted to help people in the worst moments of their lives. She wasn’t a nurse or a law-enforcement officer, but she could still help. That was the primary reason she had applied for this job. If she could provide a calm, compassionate voice to someone in need, whether it was a victim or a family member, she would do it. It made her feel useful and worthwhile. Not everyone could handle the stress of this job. She wasn’t even sure that she would be able to make it to the end of her probation without crumbling. But damn it, she’d try.

The beginning of her shift started out relatively calm, at least as calm as a 911 dispatch center could be. Her first call came in from a panicked mother who’d been out hiking with her child who’d ended up getting bitten by a snake. In short order, Callie calmed the mother down, learned their location, and dispatched an ambulance to it.

Shortly after that, another call, this time an elderly man who had fallen down their porch steps and possibly broken his hip, according to his wife. She was able to calm the woman, who took a deep breath and was able to answer all of Callie’s questions while she’d dispatched an ambulance to the scene.

She took pride in her ability to provide comfort and a sense of confidence in the people who called the dispatch center. Callie felt a connection with each and every one of them. Each call was important, and each touched her in a different way, even if the callers would likely never think about her again. They wouldn’t remember her name. The moment police or ambulance arrived, she became a nonentity, for the most part, anyway. But that was okay. If the shoe was on the other foot, she’d feel the same way. She would barely remember who she had spoken to at the dispatch center, so wrapped up in concerns for friends or loved ones, tragedies, and accidents.

“Callie!”

She jolted from her thoughts and glanced at her computer screen. Shit, she’d nearly missed a call. She had to get out of her head. “Nine one one, what is your emergency?” she stammered, casting a glance toward her supervisor, who was now frowning at her.

“Shots fired! Shots fired!”

The male voice, frantic, talked so quickly that Callie couldn’t understand. “Sir, you need to slow down. What’s going on?”

“There’s shooting . . . motorcycles! Send someone right away!”

“Sir, what is your location?”

“Sven’s Bar and Grill, Winchester Street—quickly!”

While she tried to get more information, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she quickly dispatched police and ambulance to the caller’s location, her mind raced. Motorcycles? Shooting? Was it Grady?

She shook her head. Her obsession with Grady was getting completely out of hand. There were thousands of motorcycle riders in the Oklahoma City area, hundreds of bars, and lots of gun-toting patrons. Still, her heart pounded, her fingers trembled as she continued typing. “Sir, can you tell me—”

Dial tone. The caller had hung up. She sighed with frustration and tried to call the man back, but there was no answer. She glanced at her supervisor, who nodded encouragement and then offered a slight shrug. She had done the right thing, and while she kept trying to contact the man, there was no answer.

“Move on,” her supervisor told her. He then moved on to another trainee, one of three who had been hired at the same time as Callie.

She closed her eyes for a moment and forced herself to focus, to push thoughts and images of Grady out of her head. She didn’t need any more complications in her life right now. Nevertheless, she felt an irresistible pull toward the man. She didn’t know if it was because he’d been so close to David or it was something else. She worried about him. How had he found his way into the motorcycle club, gang, whatever you wanted to call it? She had no idea what he got into or what he was involved in. Still, in a way, she understood what had driven him into it.

Her thoughts were in a conundrum, wavering back and forth. Good and bad. Was Grady good, or was he nothing but trouble? Was he worth saving? Did he even want to be saved? And yet . . . and yet, she couldn’t stop the images of Grady in her bed from meandering into her thoughts, worming their way into her brain, overtaking her thoughts in between every call she caught for the remainder of her shift.