The operation to stem the flow of cocaine from Abadia’s cartel was deemed successful—despite the unfortunate collateral damage incurred—and we all went on to further missions. All but one of us. I didn’t hold Jack Schilling responsible for killing the woman. I couldn’t; not when he was trying to save me. But the fact that he’d killed the boy sent an ice-cold wedge into my heart that just wouldn’t thaw. We were never the same after that. Shame burned in the two of us. Jack retired from our unit before I did and I heard that he swallowed a bullet from his own gun a short time later. Maybe the killing of the boy had driven a wedge into his heart too.

Chapter 8

8

My home is on the beach overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, but we couldn’t go there. The cops would have it under constant surveillance. So instead we went to another house I use, a few miles to the south. No one but Rink, Harvey Lucas, who is a friend out in Arkansas, and Walter Hayes Conrad, my old CIA controller, knew about this place. I parked Bryce’s brown sedan on a turning circle above the beach. Below us was tall grass that gave way to golden sand. Beyond the beach the sea was sparkling under the early morning sun like someone had taken a handful of diamonds and scattered them across the undulating water. The view was beautiful, but I couldn’t appreciate it. I was thinking ugly thoughts.

I was thinking about the boy lying dead in his mother’s arms all those years ago. It was an image that occasionally came back to haunt me when sleep evaded me. Most times I’d get up and throw on some shorts and run along the beach under the scowling eye of the moon until the effort and streaming perspiration shoved the image aside. Now the boy—whose name remained a mystery to me—was back, and this time there was no opportunity for a nighttime run.

Bryce had become a catalyst for my nightmare. When Rink first mentioned Bryce’s name yesterday, the first thing I’d thought about was that boy. The second image was one that I hadn’t witnessed, but one I could easily conjure: I saw Jack Schilling propped in a chair in some stinking apartment with his brains decorating the wall behind him. Now I actually had Bryce standing beside me and it looked like the nightmare wouldn’t recede any time soon.

“We’ll talk inside,” Bryce said.

“Maybe we should.” I set off for the house with Bryce following. He was alert, scanning the area for anything untoward. I didn’t let it show, but all my senses were on overdrive, except nothing in the natural flow of the day warned me of hidden danger.