Page 6 of Dozer

Finally he’d said, "Looks like you were angry."

I blinked, surprised he noticed. "I was." I was angry at the universe for taking Ryan away, angry at war and PTSD for taking my dad away and angry at how weak I perceived my mother to be for emotionally abandoning me after Ryan died. It was as if she’d only ever had one child. I’d put all those emotions into the painting Hunter was standing in front of.

"Good. I’m glad you have an outlet."

That was the entire critique. Oddly enough...It was exactly what I needed to hear.

I never paint because I want my artwork to hang in fancy galleries somewhere. I paint because some emotions refuse to fit inside words. For me? Red means anger. Blue means peace. Yellow means hope. Black means nightmares, night and finality.

Every canvas tells a story only I can read. Painting is my therapy and looking around now, I realized I’ve been doing a lot of it lately. I’ll unpack whatever that means later. I return my thoughts to the conversation at hand.

"What do you need, Hunter?"

His voice shifts, and I can hear it in the tone. It’s sharper, focused, and when Ryan used the same tone, I’d refer to it as mission mode.

The easy conversation disappears as naturally as a soldier checking the safety on a rifle and flipping it off.

"How attached are you to whatever you're working on?" He asks me.

I glance back toward my monitors. Dexter has migrated from the keyboard to the mousepad, tail lazily swishing across the screen. The malware continues quietly mocking me from the monitor.

Told you I'd be back.

Cocky little bastard.

"I'm moderately attached."

"You can walk away for a bit?"

"If I have to."

"You'll want to."

I lean back and cross my arms over my chest. I’m intrigued. Hunter doesn't recruit people; he personally selects them. Every request comes with purpose and every mission matters, because he’s handpicked it.

I learned that years ago.

"Why?" I ask. What is this mission he has that he thinks will make me want to pause my current project? Better be good.

"I need someone who understands digital forensics."

Reasonable. He knows it’s my specialty.

“And physical forensics,” he continues.

Interesting, I love forensics. Gathering every piece and putting the puzzle together is fun for me.

"And someone who can disappear off the grid on short notice."

Now we're getting somewhere. “A family hired you to do some private investigation?” I ask. It wouldn’t be the first time.

"It's a government contract." He answers.

Of course it is. Probably hush-hush. Likely off the books.

"High security."

Naturally.