Page 31 of Dozer

He's made a decision that keeping me alive is non-negotiable and he delivers the decision the same way he’d tell me the sky is blue. It’s just a fact to him. I know arguing will do neither of us any good. Plus, I kind of want to stay alive.

"Okay." I surprise myself by saying it without arguing.

His eyes hold mine for a second, something passes between us. Understanding, maybe. Then it's gone and he starts the engine. The vibration settles beneath my feet, and I reach for the case. My fingers brush the edge of the evidence container, and the reality of what we're carrying settles over me again.

There’s a dead man in the back of the van. I don’t even know his name. And evidence somebody wants badly enough to kill for. A conspiracy that reaches farther than it should. A leak inside a system that is supposed to protect people like us.

And now Reyes.

I look out the window as we pull away from the gas station. Somewhere behind us is a wreck and a man who won't be going home tonight.

And somewhere ahead is Washington, D.C., where whatever is inside this case is supposed to change everything.

I think about my brother. Afghanistan 2011. The folded flag in my townhouse, the dog tags I dust weekly because touching them makes me feel closer to him. I understand sacrifice, I’ve understood it my entire life. Every holiday my dad wasn’t home for, every big event he missed and then my mom wailing over my brother’s flag draped casket. I definitely understand sacrifice. Military families don't get the luxury of pretending service only belongs to the person wearing the uniform.

I press my forehead lightly against the cool glass of the truck. Maybe that's why Reyes bothers me. I didn’t know him, but somebody did. Maybe his mother or sister will be the ones getting the knock on the door, or a wife and children. Somebody will be standing in a doorway when Hunter comes, and they will hear the words I'm sorry and know that nothing after those words can possibly fix what came before them. They will live life in the before and after. Before Reyes died and after. The divide has been made and there’s nothing I can do to change it. I wouldn’t wish membership of this club on anyone.

I don't know his family, but I know the trauma of living through that moment. And suddenly the case isn't just a case anymore, it’s a silent promise to Reyes and his family, that we will get this evidence to D.C. and not allow anyone to prevent that from happening. We owe Reyes that much.

I sit back as the road stretches ahead. Four hundred more miles of it. Eventually, my voice comes back. A small joke creeps out and then another. I make a random observation about the stupidest billboard I’ve ever seen. I tell Dozer my completely unnecessary theory about why every interstate rest stop seems to have the same three types of people.

Dozer answers occasionally, mostly with one or two words. But he listens to me and that's enough. Talking is how I stay a person instead of becoming nothing more than a set of competent hands doing a job.

So, I talk. That's who I am, ambush or no ambush, grief or no grief, fear or no fear. I'm a talker. Some people can't tolerate that about me, but I've learned, the hard way, that those aren't my people. My people understand my need to babble, and they let me be exactly who I am.

CHAPTER 7

Dozer

I clear the room before I let her past the doorway. Bathroom first, shower curtain shoved back hard enough to confirm empty and then the closet, behind the door itself, the window latch, under both beds.

Kenzi watches me from the hallway, arms crossed. "It's a Best Western," she says. "I don't think there's a sniper in the ice machine."

"Probably not."

Her eyebrows lift. "Probably?"

"I don't work off probably."

She studies me for a second, then nods like that answer makes perfect sense. Maybe that's one of the things I'm starting to appreciate about her, she doesn't need everything explained. She questions plenty, but when something matters, she knows the difference between curiosity and arguing for the sake of arguing. I've noticed she picks her arguments carefully, not because she lacks opinions because she has those in abundance, more than most people I've worked with, but because she seems to know instinctively which hills are worth the climb. This isn't one.

I step aside and wave her in. She crosses the threshold, drops her bag on the bed nearest the window without asking why I've chosen that one for her instead of me, and looks around the room.

One night. That's the plan. Sleep in shifts, keep moving before dawn, stay off anything that looks like a pattern or is predictable.

After the ambush, I abandoned half the original plan. The rest gets rewritten every time I replay the attack in my head. Someone knew our route and the timing. They had enough information to put shooters in the right place to hit us. That doesn't happen by accident. I don't like coincidences. I trust patterns because patterns are honest. People aren't.

I take the chair by the door, where I have a line of sight on both the window and the hallway, and start breaking down my sidearm for a clean I don't strictly need yet but want anyway. Something to do with my hands. Something familiar, something that keeps the parts of my brain still running the ambush occupied with a task instead of a replay.

Because the replay is there, waiting. Reyes's voice. The tire blowing. The lead vehicle leaving the road. The silence after I call his name.

I push the images down. Not gone exactly, just contained. That's the difference between control and denial, or at least that's what I tell myself.

Across the room, Kenzi settles cross-legged on her bed with a legal pad of motel stationery she must have grabbed from the desk. I can’t help but notice how beautiful she is. Not in a fashion model kind of way but in a unique, quirky kind of way. She reminds me of a cross between Penelope from Criminal Minds and Abby from NCIS. Artistic, creative and brilliant. Her eyes are like a magnet, drawing me to them. She produces a pen from somewhere inside that sticker-covered bag like a magician pulling something more interesting than a rabbit, then starts drawing. Not writing but drawing. Quick, loose lines that don't look like anything specific from where I sit. She only has one pen, dark blue ink, but she uses pressure to create different shades, building something with more detail than motel stationery deserves.

Neither of us talks for a while. I break the weapon down piece by piece, checking each part with the kind of attention that doesn't require thinking behind it anymore. I’m years past thinking, straight into muscle memory. She draws. The room settles into a quiet that feels almost strange after the day we've had. Not tense, not waiting, just two people occupying the same space without needing anything from each other. That's rarer than people give it credit for. Most people can't sit in a room with another person without filling the air. Kenzi normally isn't like most people. She's usually the person filling the air. Tonight, she isn't, and I like it more than I expect to. It means she’s comfortable with me and I hope, feeling safe.

That realization catches me off guard. I don't like being caught off guard, not by enemies, not by circumstances, and definitely not by a woman with paint on her boots and a habit of talking through every silence she encounters.