Page 166 of Murder

“How long has this been bothering you? The nightmares?”

I take a deep breath. Let it slowly out. “A while.” I rub my head, remembering. “Breck used to wake me up.”

“Bunkmates?”

I nod.

“Long gun?” he asks, arching a brow at me. I’m impressed he knows the Operator term for sniper, though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

“Yeah. Both of us.” I tell him about Dove and Blue as well. How I met Breck and Blue—“his real name’s Michael”—at basic. They joined together. Families knew each other. They both went to boarding school at Carson Long.”

“John Ferrara?”

My throat locks up. I can’t even nod.

Doc nods, his features soft. “Good guy, I heard.”

I don’t even plan it. I just stand up and walk out of his office, right down the hall, jog down the stairs, and outside where I stand with my back against the wall and wonder what would stop the pain inside my chest, what sort of damage I could do outside that might ease the hurricane of pain inside.

Good guy…

He was. He was.

Breck was a good guy. Breck should be alive.

“Aw now, I thought I had lost you.” Sean’s right there, his hand on my back, tapping. I blink, turning to him.

“Sorry.” I look down at my feet. He must think I’m such a fucking loose cannon. Not much of an Operator if I can’t even—

“Want to come back up? Tell me what set you off?”

I swallow back the urge to snap at him—or turn around and run the other fucking way.

“I don’t,” I say stiffly.

“You don’t have to.”

“You said he’s a good guy. How’d you know that?” I look him in the face because I want to see his eyes.

“Read the obit,” he says.

“And the obit told you he was a good guy?”

I can see the hesitation on his face. “Just heard in certain circles. People talk, you know.”

“When an Operator dies. Yeah, they talk.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“People talk. Opinions, assholes…”

He chuckles. “Opinions are like assholes, and most of them stink. Come back upstairs with me, and tell me what the talk was about Breck’s death.”

I look him up and down. “How long were you a Ranger?”

“Thirteen years,” he says. He lifts his shirt up, revealing a long, jagged scar along his ribs.

“Blown up around the time that Baghdad fell. IED our bomb guy couldn’t get.”

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