Then the hearing had ended and the three men whose comrades had gone home in flag-draped coffins were recalled to duty and Patton had received a medical discharge and had hidden in the mountains of North Carolina. Her legal address, as far as the US Army was concerned, remained her parents’ home in Illinois, but she never went there. She never knew how, exactly, her parents found out that she had visited the curse of friendly fire on the family once again, but they must have known. She could only guess how disappointed in her they must be. But she had made no attempt to contact them either while she was in Germany or when she returned stateside. She had changed her email and shut down all her social media accounts, and disappeared into the hills.

“So when I came under fire the morning we met,” said Patton to Nemo, “I assumed it was those three, finally discharged and clever enough to track me down.”

“But it wasn’t,” said Nemo.

“Yes, but that doesn’t really matter now, does it?” said Patton. “They are on my trail which means they are on your trail. At this point you’d be better off leaving me behind.”

“We couldn’t do that,” said Ruthie. “We won’t do that. Will we?”

“Of course we won’t leave her behind,” said Nemo. “She knows too much.”

But Nemo knew in that moment there was another reason. A reason that had not entered his life for a long, long time. He had actually come to care for Patton Harcourt. There were elements of this empathy that scared him—it bore too much resemblance to the protective feeling he had had toward Jack. But he decided to forget about his fear and embrace his first actual human connection in decades. After all those years alone, Patton felt like a friend, and he was not going to give that up just because some soldiers were hunting her.

“What makes you so certain these men want to kill you?” said Jean. “I mean, I understand that they’re upset, but they’d be risking their own freedom.”

“I saw it in their eyes,” said Patton. “I could just tell.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” said Jean. “The inquiry said you weren’t to blame.”

“An inquiry needs things like evidence; these are guys who lost nine of their best friends. No, more than friends; your unit is your family.”

“But it was years ago,” said Jean. “Don’t you think they’d be more reasonable now?”

“If they’re reasonable, why are they coming after me? And besides, who says killing me is not reasonable? In the end it was my fault. One death in exchange for nine—that seems a small price to pay.”