Page 72 of The Bodyguard's Fall

“We go undercover and buy drugs from dealers. We do it to gather evidence, try to figure out where they’re buying from, that kind of thing.”

He reached across the seat, took a scoop of my strawberry ice cream, and placed it in his mouth. His face wrinkled.

“Gross. How do you eat this?”

I smiled and rooted around for a big bite with strawberry and cheesecake pieces. “With gusto. What happened next?”

He sighed. “We’d bought from these guys before. It was just supposed to be a routine buy. We were close to getting all the evidence we needed to put them away for a long time. But apparently, they’d caught on to who we were and set us up.”

“What does that mean?” I asked, leaning close enough to take a scoop out of his pint. He watched me expectantly as I took the bite. The bitter chocolate assaulted my delicate taste buds, and I immediately dove in for another bite of my much superior flavor. “Excuse me while I try to extract the rancid bitterness from my mouth. Keep going.”

“So, these guys had been trafficking fentanyl and cocaine all over the state. Just before we got there, they’d messaged us and said they just wanted one of us to come inside. We should have called it off right there. There were so many red flags, but we both wanted it. We were so close to making an arrest. If we made this deal, we had them.”

“Coleson said he wanted to go and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I should have called the whole thing off, but instead, I watched him go inside. He turned the corner into the warehouse, and the communication went static. I heard gunshots.” Tate trailed off for a moment, looking like he was reliving the whole thing.

Finally, he blinked and continued. “Anyway, I busted in there as fast as I could, but by that point, Coleson was already down. They were about to finish him off. I took down the one closest to him, but the other guy saw me and got a shot off before I could get him. Coleson shot him just before he passed out.”

For a moment, I was taken away by the image of Tate dressed like a drug dealer, going undercover, and willingly putting himself in that kind of danger. The image of it all struck me for a long moment. It was easy to forget about that side of his life when I’d never been exposed to it.

“Did they…?” I trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase my question.

“Nobody died,” he said. “They were both in the hospital for a week or so before going to jail. Now they’re waiting for their court date.”

I absently took another bite of my ice cream while my thoughts churned. I wasn’t sure what you said to a person who had experienced something at this scale. I decided to request more facts.

“And what happened to Coleson?”

“They shot him in the back.” His voice came out bitter—like some code of honor had been broken. “He never saw it coming.”

“And he survived that?”

“Never seen a luckier guy. It was an incomplete spinal cord injury. That was the only thing that saved him. His lower half was temporarily paralyzed for a while. That’s why he’s been in rehab for so long. He had to relearn how to walk. He’s done well. Better than the doctors expected. It’ll still take a while before he has full mobility, but at least he’ll be home soon.”

“You guys were both lucky,” I said.

He sighed. “Yeah. If the bullet had gone a half inch in any other direction, his life would have been over. We think they were planning to take Coleson down quietly first and then text me from his phone to come inside. But Coleson put up a fight.”

At some point, my hand moved to cover my mouth as I listened to his story. A story that sounded more fit for the big screen than small-town Vermont.

He had grown silent, attempting a nonchalance as he took another bite before glancing out the window. I had so many questions, but I wasn’t sure how to ask any of them.

“What’s the part that keeps you up at night?”

His eyes flicked over to mine before he took another bite of my ice cream. By now, we’d gotten quite comfortable sneaking bites from each other. Surprisingly, the two flavors together created a perfect balance.

“For a week or two after, I dealt with some PTSD. The department sent us both to counseling, which is pretty standard. We were lucky, and I knew it, but the what-ifs can drive you absolutely crazy. But mostly, I’m just running it all through my head a million times, trying to figure out if it could have been handled any other way. What if I’d just called it off? Or tailed him into the warehouse.”

“Maybe you should rephrase that statement so it doesn’t start with what if.”

He paused, a reluctant smile toying at his lips.

“I remember some smart-aleck cop saying that same thing to me.”

At his appalled look, I laughed. “See? Works just fine.”

“Still doesn’t work,” he insisted. “But this is different. You took a chance on a guy on the street. I’ve been trained. I knew better.”

“But you were ambushed,” I broke in, unable to help myself. “How could anybody have done anything different? If you hadn’t come when you did, Coleson would have died. If you had gone in with him, you probably both would have died. You did nothing wrong.”