Thanks, Stavros,” I said, holding the cold pint he’d just placed in front of me at its base.
The salt from the napkin felt gritty against my palms, one more familiar thing about the mom-and-pop hotel I’d found earlier that year. It was my second visit to the Colorado Springs Hotel, and although I found the staff to be more curious than I’d like, the beds were comfortable, the sheets were clean, and despite its being at capacity with hotshot firefighters, I could still keep to myself.
“Never too early for a beer. It’s been busy, so I haven’t had a chance to tell you: Glad you’re back, Trex,” he said, turning to take another order. I had to watch his mouth move to hear him over the low hum of conversation in the hotel lobby. Years of too-close grenade blasts, explosives, and gunfire had made understanding someone speaking with any ambient noise difficult.
More than two dozen hotshot firefighters surrounded me, discussing everything from the fire line to beach homes in Mexico. It was a plus having them there, if only because it was refreshing not to be the only one drinking at noon. The excited chatter sounded more like a high school reunion than home base for the dozens of interagency crews preparing to fight the Queen’s Canyon wildfire eating up thousands of acres just a few miles outside of town.
“What keeps bringing you back to town?” Stavros said, sinking a glass into the soapy water in a basin behind the bar. He reminded me of any bartender you’d see in the movies. The vest, bow tie, and black pants were overdoing it for a wannabe Holiday Inn, if you asked me—but he didn’t. He was asking me for an answer I couldn’t give.
“Work,” I said simply.
“What, the fire? Wouldn’t peg you for an interagency guy.”
I offered a half-hearted grin, unflustered. Stavros was about to believe the lie I was going to feed him, and we would both go on with our day. Maneuvering around the truth wasn’t difficult for me. Having a strict Baptist preacher for a father had given me ample practice at half-truths and outright lies. Rule number one: Never give away all the information.
It wouldn’t be a far leap for Stavros to believe I was one of the hotshots, the ground crew, the helitack crew, or the brass. My ex complained more than once I wasn’t much for conversation, and she was right. Talking about who I was and where I’d been led to inevitable questions about what I’d seen, and no one—least of all me—wanted to hear about that.
“I just go where they tell me to,” I said, taking a sip.
Stavros wasn’t convinced. “No one tells you anything. You look like the boss to me.”
“One of them,” I said. Now, that was the truth, even if it was in the wrong context. My cell phone buzzed, and I excused myself from the bar, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the counter.
The caller displayed on the screen as Unknown, already a clue that it was my new employer. I headed toward one of the corners of the lobby, one of the few spaces out of earshot of the growing crowd of firefighters.
“Trex,” I said, holding my phone to my ear.
“Hello, Mr. Trexler. My name is Bianca Calderon. I’m General Tallis’s administrative assistant, and I’ll be helping you with accessing the property tomorrow. Is it a good time for you to talk?”
“Good to go,” I said. Bianca worked with military. She was used to short, simple answers.
“I’ll be waiting for you at the first gate at oh-five-hundred. We’ll process you there, then you and I will pass through Gates Two and Three. From there, we’ll enter the Complex. After a short tour, I’ll show you to your headquarters, and then you’ll meet with your new team at oh-six-hundred. With the general at oh-eight-hundred.”
“My team,” I repeated, trying not to sound surprised. “Everyone?”
“Yes, sir. Everyone from your unit.”
“Great.” I checked my watch. “See you at zero-five.”
“Sleep well, Mr. Trexler.”
“It’s just Trex. See you then, Ms. Calderon.”
“It’s Bianca.”
I pressed End, and slipped my cell into my back pocket, bringing my pint back to the seat I had occupied. I hadn’t seen my unit all at once in five years, and it would be good to have the old gang back together, even if we were all in different stages of readjustment to civilian life.
Now my seat was filled with someone slightly larger than me. His dark hair was buzzed, his skin looked like a doodle pad. I slapped his shoulder. “You’re in my chair.”
The man looked up. His smile faded, and he stood—not because he was intimidated, but because I was the last person he’d expected to see there.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.
“Calm down, Maddox,” I said, taking his seat. “I’m not here for you.”
The conversations around us quieted, and his crewmates turned toward the commotion, making an impressive wall between us and the rest of the lobby. I couldn’t blame them. The last time Taylor and his twin brother, Tyler Maddox, saw me was in Estes Park when I was carrying a federal badge and investigating a fire on a college campus that might have involved their little brother. As far as I knew, the case was still open.
“Then why are you here?” he hissed, keeping his voice low.
“Got a new job.”
“You just happened to find a job in Colorado?” he asked, dubious.
“As it happens, I did. Now fuck off, and let me enjoy my beer. I’ve got to turn in early. Tomorrow’s my first day.”
“Where?”
“Why do you care?”
Maddox puffed out a nervous laugh. “So, what? You left one shitty job for another?”
“No, this is a private gig. Pays way better. Now, seriously. Leave me the fuck alone.”
Maddox chuckled, taking a swig before joining his buddies across the room. They were younger than me but had been in more precarious situations than they could count. I could respect running toward the fire.
Stavros sat another pint on the bar and nodded to the group of men behind me. Maddox had bought me a drink. I didn’t want to like him, but I couldn’t convince myself that he was a bad guy. I bowed my head in thanks and faced forward.
“What was that about?” Stavros asked.
“Nothing.”
“I guess you two know each other?”
“His little brother might have gotten into some trouble.”
“And you helped?”
“Nope,” I said, moving on to the new pint.
“You’re crankier than you were the last time you were here, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
“I’m guessing the new job has something to do with the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”
“What’s that?”
Stavros smirked. “The only secret that can be kept around here.”
“Well, it sounds a whole helluva lot cooler than what I’m doing,” I said, keeping my composure.
The last thing I needed was the hotel bartender spreading the rumor that I was working for a top-secret facility before my first day. Stavros looked disappointed, and fully convinced that he wasn’t right.
“Are you here alone?” he asked.
“Just me.”
“Brand-new start, huh?”
I’d started over a few times, but it never felt brand new. Leaving home for the Marines, moving on to the FBI, and now private security. Like plenty of veterans, I was trying to lead my life after being conditioned for years to follow. An honorable discharge after having my knee blown out by enemy fire was bad enough. A decade in the Corps, multiple deployments, countless missions, and one kidnapped ten-year-old kid with minimal combat training ended my military career.
I touched my knee, feeling the raised scars. “Who knows? Maybe this will be the one.”
“Oh, so you’ve done this before.”
I nodded. After my knee had healed as much as it could, I called up an old buddy who ran Deep Six Security. Driving bulletproof but air-conditioned vehicles seemed like promotion at first, but protecting dirty politicians, weapons contractors, and warlords—the paycheck never helped me forget, and then my left shoulder was burned by a flash grenade during a midnight raid. When I was accepted into Quantico, I thought I’d finally found my calling. As it turned out, two years at the FBI was enough to know it wasn’t for me. My boss in Denver was decent compared to the asshole in San Diego, but my colleagues were analysts and paper pushers. Even the field agents wore ties and blazers to work. No one who wore a suit came to get dirty. Working there was a decision made in desperation that I’d corrected as quickly as I could.
“She must have really fucked you over,” Stavros said. “I don’t even see a twinkle of regret.”
“Nope. I haven’t met her yet.”
“Oh. You’re a believer in the one, huh?”
I smiled before taking a drink. I’d had a few girlfriends, but I’d never found anyone who could help me shake the feeling that there was something—someone—more. I’d met Laura just after basic. She could have been a textbook military wife. We lived together for a year, but we both figured out it wasn’t love, and I was the best man when she married my best friend three years later. There were a handful of dates and many other women my little sister Hailey called time killers, but no matter how amazing, how beautiful, how fun…I knew it wasn’t her. My girl was out there somewhere, and I could feel her just as I could Maddox and his buddies staring at the back of my head.
My cell phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I stood, dropping a rolled five-dollar bill into the tip jar. “I was just thinking about you,” I said, walking toward the elevators.
“Of course you were. All settled in?” Hailey asked.
I weaved between firefighters, all sipping on their half-price IPAs. “As settled in as I can be in a hotel room.”
“They didn’t get you a place?”
“Nope.”
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing in Colorado Springs.”
“And I’m not going to.”
Hailey sighed, and I laughed. We’d spent a lot of time talking around the truth. “I don’t have much time. I’m on my lunch break. But I’m excited that you’re only a three-hour drive from here. Are you coming home for Easter? Dad has his sermon ten months early.”
I pressed the button for the elevator and waited. “Isn’t it the same thing every year? What is there to prepare for? Other than maybe deciding which of the stories he’s going to tell.”
“Stop.”
“Seriously, have you read the gospels? Was there one man, two men, a man and an angel, or one angel at the tomb? It’s different in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And this is what he calls the infallible word of God.” The elevator door opened, and I stepped in, immediately feeling guilty. “I’m sorry, HayBells.”
“Since when did you become such a pessimist?”
“Since my first deployment when I actually read the Bible. Listen, I’m going to be breaking in the new job next week. I’m working long hours getting the team trained, so I might not be around the next couple of weeks.”
The elevator shuddered as it slowed to a stop. The doors slid open, and I stepped out, turned left, and—even though I knew which way to go—checked the sign to make sure my room was to the left. Room 201 was at the end of the hall, and I stopped in front of the door, digging for my room key while holding my baby sister’s voice to my ear with my shoulder.
Hailey prattled on about junior prom, and the new boy sniffing around, and her college applications. I couldn’t blame her for her ignorance of what life was like for me in high school. The yelling, the rules, the nonexistent privacy. I was the prototype. They had learned from me how not to drive a child away. Dad had relaxed, Mom put her foot down more often. Hailey’s childhood had been almost normal.
“Did you hear me?” she asked as the lock to my room clicked. I pressed the door open.
“I’m sorry, you said the mission trip. It’s to Honduras this time, right?”
“It was Honduras last time, too. I think you should go. I’d feel safer with you there.”
“Wish I could, Bells. I start a new job tomorrow. No time off for a while.”
“It’s just a week. You could take off for a week.”
I fell on my back onto the hard, cold mattress, looking up at the beige ceiling. I hadn’t bothered to turn on the light, the sun spraying a few rays through a gap in the blackout curtains.
“I miss you, kid.”
I could hear her pouting through the phone, and it made me smile. She always thought the best of me. It was a full-time job pretending to be the guy she thought I was.
“I miss you, too, Scottie.”
“Tell Mom and Dad I love them.”
“I will. Good luck tomorrow.”
When she hung up, the room felt empty, darker. Hailey was a light of her own. She, my parents, and my childhood home in Goodland, Kansas, were just a few hours away. For some reason, it wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. Hailey would turn eighteen in a few months. She could get in a car at any time and drive to see me. I’d love nothing more than to spend time with my baby sister, but keeping secrets was easier when they were all a plane ride away.
I glanced at my watch. Another seven hours to kill before lights out. I closed my eyes, aiming for a half-hour nap, hoping it was just long enough to recharge, and short enough to keep the nightmares away.
Someone knocked on the door, and my eyes popped open. “Hold on,” I said, stumbling to the door. I opened it to see Taylor Maddox and a few of his friends standing there. I tensed, ready for a fight.
“We’re heading out to lunch downtown. Wanna come?” Taylor asked.
Food was better than fighting faceless men with rifles that never seemed to run out of ammo the moment I fell asleep. “I’ll get my shirt.”