Rhys Read online

  “How can you say, It’ll be fine?” she asked. “There hasn’t been anything fine in my world in a very long time.”

  “And I understand that,” he confirmed. “I hear the stress in your voice. I see the fatigue in your eyes, the slump of your shoulders. I am here to tell you that there is life after whatever it is that’s gone wrong, and we’ll help you to get there.”

  She stared at him. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  Such bitterness filled her voice. He nodded. “Right. I don’t know, but, after you’ve had a nap, you’ll tell me.” He nudged her toward the open bedroom door and said, “Go. Know that Tallahassee and I will be downstairs. Nobody will come up here and get you in the meantime. You’re safe.”

  And, with that, she gave him a blank stare, as if shocked that he even understood that much.

  “I’ve seen faces like yours before,” he explained. “I’ve seen the stress, the shock, the pain. You are fine, right now. I’m not leaving until I know what’s going on and that you will be okay.”

  And, with that, he turned and slowly made his way down the stairs. Tallahassee came with him. He turned to ask her if she wanted Tallahassee upstairs with her, only to find out that she’d already closed the door. With a nod, he headed downstairs. In the kitchen he put on the teakettle, not really wanting tea, but then spied a pot of coffee sitting there. He didn’t care how old it was; it would be hot, considering the light was still on under it, and that would go a long way for him right now. He poured himself a cup and headed out to the living room to call his boss.

  When Jager answered the phone, Rhys asked, “What the hell did you send me into?”

  Jager paused for a moment. “I just got a phone call from a woman called Taylor,” he replied, “presumably the one with the dog.”

  “Yes. What did she ask?” Rhys was incapable of keeping the curiosity out of his voice.

  “If you were legit. If this newcomer who was running roughshod over her life was somebody who she could trust.”

  “Roughshod,” he repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth. “Yeah, that’s probably about right.”

  At that, Jager let out a laugh. “Seriously? Where’s your usual finesse?”

  “I lost it along with a leg,” he stated. “And I don’t know what the hell’s going on here, but that woman is under a huge stress. I just ordered her up to bed to give her a chance to recoup a bit, so that, when she comes back down, then we can have a real talk.”

  “What do you mean?” Jager asked.

  “You have no idea what’s gone on. As soon as I arrived,” he said, “shit hit the fan.” And he quickly explained about the drive-by shooting, Tallahassee being here, and then about the truck coming back.

  “Are you serious, the truck came back?”

  “Yeah. It not only came back but this was obviously a targeted hit,” Rhys stated. “And she doesn’t want to call the cops.”

  “Well, that’s suspicious as hell right there.”

  “It is, but I think the reason she doesn’t want to call the cops is something completely different.”

  “And what could that possibly be?”

  “I’m not sure, I’m waiting for answers from her,” Rhys admitted bluntly. “But I can tell you that, if you just even saw this woman, you’d have done the same thing I did.”

  “Ordered her to bed? Not likely,” Jager teased, with a note of humor in his voice. “They tend to take that the wrong way.”

  As soon as Rhys rang off, he sat down, brought out a notepad, and started making notes. He should have brought his laptop in with him. It would have been easier. But this would work for the moment. He jotted down notes about the drive-by vehicle, notes about her reaction, notes about any impressions that he’d picked up—like the fact that no bullets seemed to have hit the house, so that may be a dead end. No way to stop him from writing it all down, recording this initial interview; it was almost ingrained in him.

  Solving these kinds of problems was something that he had a lot of experience with. He didn’t know what the hell was exactly wrong with her world, but the fact that something was so dramatically wrong scared him. She already looked like she was dealing with a lot, and, if that drive-by shooter had been intentional because she—And he stopped, looked up, then over at Tallahassee. “Does she have PTSD?” he whispered. Tallahassee’s ears twitched.

  If the dog could have said something, Rhys imagined he would have had a lot to say. But, at the moment, there wasn’t anything the dog could really do to help Rhys figure this out. But he thought about what effect PTSD would have on somebody as the victim of a drive-by shooting like that. He needed to ask her if this was the first time something like that had happened.

  And, with that, he turned the page and started a list of questions. By the time he was done and had finished the pot of coffee, he realized that she’d been sleeping for over an hour—or at least was locked up in her room, trying to figure out how to get out of just such a conversation with him.

  When he heard noises in the bathroom upstairs, he knew that she was now up and moving. As she slowly made her way down the stairs, limping, taking one step at a time, he realized she really needed to get a much better prosthetic. And, with that revelation, he sent a message to Kat.

  Of course I’ll help. You know that we just need an awful lot of information and that she might need to come for a visit.

  With that, he put away his phone and watched as she stared at him in the living room, almost wavering on her feet. He got up and helped her to the couch. “Well, you look a little bit better but still pretty out of it.”

  “I think I’ve been out of it for a long time,” she replied, yawning. She stared at him. “I did phone your boss. Although I’m not sure why I bothered.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, if you gave me his number to get a reference, chances are that’s exactly what he would do, was give you a good reference. Which isn’t helpful if I’m trying to figure out if you’re trustworthy or not.”

  “Then trust the dog,” he suggested. “Tallahassee won’t lead you the wrong way.”

  She stared down at the dog, who, even now, was getting up from his bed to come over and to nudge her gently with his nose. “I don’t know very much about dogs,” she murmured. “I was just getting to the point where I thought maybe it would be good to have—” And then she stopped.

  “Companionship or a guard dog?” he asked bluntly. Her gaze flew to his. “Has somebody else done this before?”

  “Done what?” she asked.

  “Has somebody else,” he repeated, choosing his words carefully, “potentially shot into the house?”

  “You mean, another drive-by shooting? I wouldn’t have thought so,” she replied, “but now I don’t know.”

  He nodded. “Well, at least that’s an honest answer.”

  “I’m not used to lying to people,” she stated stiffly.

  “No, maybe not. But I think it’s been a long time since you’ve taken a serious look at what’s going on and assessed the truth.”

  She closed her eyes and sank back. “I suppose you finished all the coffee.”

  “It was old,” he noted.

  “Yeah, it was. I forgot about it too. I made tea earlier,” she explained, “forgetting that I had a pot of coffee.”

  “And is that a sign of stress or are you having memory problems from the injury?”

  “I don’t think I’m having memory problems,” she shared, “but obviously I’m fairly stressed.”

  “How are you feeling now?” he asked, crouched down with the dog, both in front of her.

  She gave him half a smile. “Better, thank you. I didn’t realize I needed sleep quite so badly.”

  “Are you getting any sleep at night?”

  She shrugged. “Not a whole lot.”

  “Is that why you thought Tallahassee would be a help?”

  “One of the reasons,” she said cautiously, looking at him.

  “Good, let’s hope that that part works. Now,” he added, “how about I put on some fresh coffee, and then we can talk.”

  “Do we have to talk?” She struggled to her feet. “Besides, I’ll put on the coffee.”

  “Only if you want to get up and move around,” he noted, watching her struggle with the need for independence. And yet her very dire need in this moment was to just collapse and to do nothing for a few days. “After your accident did you have any help?”

  “Nope,” she said. “Matter of fact, the friends who I thought I had just left me.”

  “They didn’t know how to handle the injury, I presume?”

  “I guess.” She frowned, as she looked at him. “Did that happen to you too?”

  “Turns out an awful lot of things people can’t handle,” he shared. “My parents are a prime example.”

  “Don’t tell me you went home to Mom,” she teased, with a raised eyebrow.

  “I was definitely heading there for a few weeks to reconnect, after not having seen them for quite a few years, but going home and staying with them was a mistake. Believe me. It wasn’t meant to be long-term. But, as it is, my mother couldn’t stop asking questions.”

  “Wow, they just can’t let it go, can they?” she said almost bitterly. “Like we really want to rehash all that shit for their entertainment.”

  “I don’t think it’s for their entertainment as much as for their need to understand, for their need to know exactly what their child went through.”

  “But it doesn’t help,” she stated, as she poured water into the coffee maker. “And how does knowing all those ugly details help them?”

  “I’m not sure it does, but I think, in their mind, they believe that maybe they can do something to help.”

  “Well,
there isn’t any help to be had,” she snapped. And then she dumped in coffee, and, as she turned on the button to the coffee maker, she turned toward him. “I don’t mean to snap at you.”

  “I know you don’t,” he said, with a shrug. “Believe me. I’ve been where you are. I’m just a little further down that road.”

  “Tell me. Does the road get any easier?”

  “No,” he said instantly. “It really doesn’t.”

  She froze, staring at him.

  “Do you want me to lie? I won’t lie,” he declared. “You’ll lose friends. You’ll lose family. You’ll lose things that you thought mattered, and I’ll tell you that they don’t matter. Because, if those are your kinds of friends, then you need other friends. If that’s the kind of family you have, you need to ditch that part of your family.” He nodded. “You have a whole new set of reality to deal with, and sometimes it’ll be easy, and sometimes it’ll suck big-time. Anybody who tells you anything different isn’t doing you a favor by lying.”

  She slowly released a breath. “That truth is harsh.”

  “It absolutely can be. Did you want me to lie? Too bad,” he said bluntly. “I had people lie to me, and finding out the reality afterward wasn’t any easier.”

  She half smiled at that. “Okay, got it. Life sucks, and then you die.”

  “Nope, not quite,” he disagreed. “Some parts of life suck, and then you find a way to make a life after that.”

  “And did you?” she asked, a challenge in her voice.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” he stated, looking at her. “Do I have a full-time position in this new life? No. Will I be checking up on other War Dogs, like this? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. Could I rekindle a career in dog training? Yes. Could I do something else? Absolutely. Have I decided? No. Those are the kinds of questions that my parents can’t stop asking,” he muttered. “We love them, but then sometimes you have to let them go.”

  She smiled at that. “They don’t take it well when you tell them that.”

  “No, they sure don’t,” he agreed. “Neither do they take it well when you ask them to stop with all the questions, to give you a chance to deal, to find a way to heal. Sometimes they take it even less than kindly.”

  She winced. “I gather yours didn’t do very well with that aspect.”

  “Not at all,” he replied. “And, even now, I probably won’t go back, if Mom can’t find a way to reconcile the current me with the old me.”

  “And that’s hard too, isn’t it?” she asked, looking at him. “It’s gotta be hard for her.”

  “Of course it is, but, at some point in time, she also has to understand that I have to look after me now and that her questioning, her constant nagging and wanting to know more, isn’t helping.”

  “No,” she said, with a shudder. “God, no.”

  “That’s the one thing that they struggle with because our silence makes them feel shut out.”

  “And that’s not what we’re trying to do.”

  “And it doesn’t matter what we’re trying to do because, in our parents’ minds, what we’re effectively doing is saying, We don’t care enough to tell you the details.”

  “And yet what we really are saying, I think in a lot of ways,” she murmured, “is that I care so much that I don’t want you to know the details.”

  “From our perspective, yes. From theirs, no. And it doesn’t really matter because what you have to do is what you have to do for you. Their life has been upended in the sense that their child has been injured, but you’re the one who has to deal with it. You’re the one who has to find a new world after this,” he explained. “And you have to do that in whatever way you can. And I can guarantee you that it won’t be in a way that makes everybody else happy.”

  Chapter 3

  Taylor poured coffee, and then, with Rhys at her side, she awkwardly moved into the living room.

  “You haven’t answered me,” he said a moment later.

  “No,” she replied. “I wasn’t thinking that they were actual shootings.” At an odd sound from him, she looked over at him. “I know that sounds foolish, doesn’t it? But I used to react to backfiring, as I used to react to shouting. I used to react to so many noises that everybody kept telling me it was all in my head and to calm down and that nothing was happening out there. And you get to the point where you believe everybody.”

  “PTSD?”

  “Of course,” she agreed, with a wave of her hand. “Isn’t that something everybody goes through?”

  “No, it’s not something I go through.”

  She stared at him in shock. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Do I have nightmares? Yes. Do I envision the worst things possible that could ever happen? Yes,” he explained. “But it’s not necessarily PTSD where I get flashbacks or where I have to deal with loud noises.”

  “You’re lucky,” she said bluntly. “I honestly wondered if it were even possible to have a life past all this because of it.”

  “There is absolutely. And, yes, PTSD can be crippling. It can be insane for anybody who’s trying to deal with it,” he noted, “but it’s not impossible. It’s often brought on by trauma that’s unresolved, injuries that are unresolved, friends who you lost at the same time.”

  She didn’t say anything, wondering just how much of what he had said was real. The shrinks had never asked her about any unresolved issues, but then maybe they didn’t want to know. Like so much of her world, so many people didn’t want to know the truth. And yet Rhys wasn’t sugar-coating anything. As she studied him, she asked, “Just your leg?”

  “Leg, a couple ribs, missing a kidney, lots of scarring,” he shared. “My back’s the worst.”

  She winced at that. “Yeah, you’d think that everybody who has back injuries should be entitled to a hot tub to help take the pain down.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice? It’s in my plans to get one, as soon as I figure out where I’ll buy property.”

  “If you’re in a position to buy property,” she said, “this town’s pretty decent.”

  “Is it though?” he asked, looking at her. “It’s funny because I see somebody, like you, who’s dealing with so much, and I wonder that maybe this town isn’t where you need to be.”

  “It’s home,” she stated. “Although there are probably some people who wish that I would not have returned, I wouldn’t want to give them the satisfaction of taking away my joy of being here on my own. I have good memories of this place.”

  “Memories from before?”

  She nodded.

  “Did any of your friends go into the military with you?”

  “Several,” she replied. “One didn’t come home. One got out earlier than I did; whole, happy, now sees me and basically crosses the street to get to the other side.”

  “Guilt maybe?”

  She looked at him, frowning. “Why? He didn’t do this to me.”

  “Survivor’s guilt,” he noted. “It hits a lot of people.”

  She thought about it, shrugged. “I’ve no idea then. Maybe, maybe not. It’s just one of those things that I can’t help him deal with because I’m too busy dealing with my own shit.”

  He smiled at that. “So have you had many drive-by shootings?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” she replied. “You really stunned me with that.”

  “What was your reaction when it happened?”

  She stared at him, a flat stare that she hoped gave away nothing of the turmoil inside her.

  He waved a hand. “Look. I do get it. You don’t know me, but that should make it easier to talk to me. Are you cringing in the corners? Does it make you freeze? Does it send you screaming to your room, and you slam the door and crawl into the closet? What kind of reaction do you have?”

  She took a slow deep breath, realizing where he was coming from. “In this case, basically I curled up in the corner of the dining room, waiting until everything in my mind calmed down. It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “And yet it’s not that bad,” he noted immediately. “Now the next question is, considering this guy came back, and I don’t know if he was coming back after you or after me, as a potential witness, but could somebody have done this on purpose?”

  An ugly knot formed in her stomach. “What do you mean by on purpose?” she asked cautiously, not wanting to even think about it.