Page 28 of Hell and Gone
He stiffened and stepped away as they walked out, the setting sun burnishing the mountains and shadowing the town in false darkness.
Braddock smiled at him, his face turning golden in the setting sunlight. “Let’s walk a bit,hmm? Fresh air always does a man good. I could use some.”
A mile down the road, they reached the Sheriff’s Department. “I’ve got a bottle of emergency bourbon in the back.” Braddock arched his eyebrows, a playful light in his eyes. “Care for a shot?”
Finally, Everett chuckled, a single snort and a wry twist of his lips. “I shouldn’t.”
Braddock laughed. “Course you shouldn’t. But…”
Why not? This was how it had been before, hadn’t it? He’d had people in his life who cared about him, who befriended him. Who looked after him.
Not a single soul in the whole world cared about him anymore. Not the ghost of the man who’d lost everything.
He knew why not.
He hadn’t wanted friendship or companionship or anything at all, after. No friends. No connections. Nothing at all in his life.
There was nothing to feel if he had nothing at all.
But… this moment, the smile on Braddock’s face. It’s what his platoon sergeant would have done, too. Pull him aside. Offer his time. Offer distraction. Offer to help with the pain.
Braddock didn’t have to leave the restaurant. He didn’t have to take a walk or drag Everett along on a pretense for fresh air.
But it had helped.
And Braddock had known.
One drink.
“Sure. Lead the way.”
Chapter 11
Sleep eluded him,again, like it always did. Three shots of bourbon with Braddock in his office, sharing old town gossip and listening to his stories from the way-back years hadn’t helped.
Despite himself, he’d enjoyed it. The echo of camaraderie, a world he’d once known. And freeing his mind, at least for a few hours, from everything else. He could hear his old platoon sergeant’s voice echoing in Braddock’s drawl sometimes. That care, the careful way he watched Everett.
History looped around him, and pulled on his soul.
Now he lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling like he did almost every night. He only slept after wearing his body down to the bone.
He’d slept wrapped in Lawrence’s sleeping bag, though, lulled by the man’s scent. Being in his bag had been like Lawrence’s arms were around him, like he was wrapped up in Lawrence’s hold. It had been torture, sweet, beautiful torture.
He should be sleeping now after another hard day of riding and work that scraped him raw. He ached all over, every part of his body.
Maybe it was just the weight of everything he’d heard that kept him up. Words churned in his mind, his inner voice already shifting into that slowed-down drawl, finding canyons and empty spaces between vowels while words dangled their ends. These people talked as if there was always another secret to be shared, even by the way they spoke, clung to their words.
He had more history to dig up, more skeletons to unearth.
Simple, he’d said he wanted. Uncomplicated. Far, far away from Afghanistan.
Tribal warlord alliances were simpler than this.
The coroner’s report on Carson Riley’s death lay at the foot of his bed. He’d tossed it away after chasing too many possibilities, too many ghosts winding through the pages. Carson had been hung, and he’d tried to scratch the rope free from around his neck. Physical findings in support of a murder.
But there were no defensive wounds, no signs of a struggle. His wrists hadn’t been bound. Absence of evidence in support of homicide, and factors in support of suicide.
And then there was the note. Had he written it himself? If not, who had?
