Damaged Goods (Don't Call Me Hero Book 2) (23 page)

“First-time parent freak-out?” I guessed.

“Sure, but it’s more than that. It’s bad enough being a husband with no legs. How the hell am I gonna be a dad? I’m supposed to teach him how to throw a baseball. I’m supposed to teach him how to drive a car.”

“I’ve never had a kid before,” I stated the obvious, “but I’ve got a dad. Seems to me as long as you support him and let him know he’s loved no matter what, you’re doing something right.”

Pense had always been able to read between the lines. “Your parents still being weird?”

I frowned and took a long pull from my beer. “My mom’s okay. Smothering sometimes,” I qualified, “but that’s what moms do.”

“Your dad though …”

“Doesn’t understand what he can’t see.” I shook my head hard. “Fuck. This was supposed to be about you, man. Not a personal therapy session for me.”

“Just make the check out to Dr. Pensacola.” He smirked and drained the rest of his beer. “Same time next week?”

+ + +

Afghanistan 2012

I’ve never pulled the trigger on my handgun. It’s a Beretta M9, semi-automatic. I had to shoot one for small arms qualifications during boot camp, but the black metal firearm I now hold in my hand is a different gun, but same model, than the one I shot on Parris Island.

Most of us have never had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. We engage the enemy from a distance with suppression fire and our M16s, except maybe to kill the occasional rat on base.

He stares at me, defiant grey eyes the color of a stormy sky. I think we both knew this was coming, but I’d probably been more in denial about it than he.

“Just do it already, Miller,” Pensacola barks at me.

I whip my head around to my wounded friend. I know he’s hurting and he’s using bravado to mask his fear. Once I do this thing we have no excuse keeping us in this safe house that’s been crumbling around our ears. I know what to expect if we remain holed up in this place; I have no way of knowing what we’ll encounter beyond these four walls. But I have to do this. Pensacola’s life depends on it.

I press the gun to Amir’s forehead. I’ve been fiddling with the handgun for the past hour or so, so the normally cool metal now feels hot in my palm from residual body heat. His lips move, but I can’t hear the words, and I’m not fluent enough in the language to read his lips. I imagine it’s a prayer or a curse.

I close my eyes. The sound of the gun going off is much louder in my head.

+ + +

My heart hammered in my chest. Despite the windows being open and the dip in temperature, I was sweating profusely. The t-shirt I slept in, damp with perspiration, stuck to my chest and back.

I reached for the glass of water that I kept on my bedside table. When your subconscious spent so much time hoofing it around a desert, you’re bound to get thirsty. In the dark, my fingers brushed against the side of the cup, but I only succeeded in knocking the glass off the small end table. It fell, but didn’t break. The entire contents of the glass spilled onto the floor.

“Shit,” I quietly swore when I realized what I’d done.

Beside me, Julia stirred. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Her unfocused eyes squinted at me in the darkness of the room.

“It’s okay. Go back to bed.”

“What was that noise?”

“I spilled some water. Back to sleep now.”

I grabbed some paper towels from the kitchen and began to mop up my mess. Luckily I hadn’t yet invested in an area rug for the bedroom, so the cleanup was minimal. The paper towel soaked up the puddle of water, saturating the sheet.

As I kneeled on the hard floor and wiped up the spilled water, tears of frustration began to form in the corners of my eyes. Without my permission, they began to tumble down my cheeks.

I couldn’t live like this. I couldn’t let this be my new normal, terrified of falling asleep, terrified now of what I might do in my waking hours. This was exactly the reason I had taken myself off of active duty in the first place. I wasn’t getting better—I was getting worse.

I had thought my tears had been of the silent variety, but I discovered Julia kneeling beside me. She rested a steadying hand between my shoulder blades.

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you there’s no sense crying over spilled milk?”

My body shook harder with pent-up emotions that I refused to allow.

Her arms wrapped around my waist and her head leaned into my shoulder. She asked no questions and offered no empty words of comfort. Instead, she became my rock when I finally surrendered to grief.

My knees ached from time spent on the floor. I sat down among the dust bunnies and damp paper towels.

Julia did the same.

“Do remember when you asked me if I’d killed anyone over there?”

“Mmhm,” she hummed.

“I wasn’t entirely honest. I mean, the part about the gunfire and shootouts, that’s true. But I know I killed at least one person. His name was Amir.”

Julia, smartly, remained silent. This story was a long time coming.

“He was in that safe house with us after the dirty bomb went off—the one that killed my team, took Pensacola’s legs, and gave me those scars on my back. I had kept him around as collateral. I thought we might be able to use him as a hostage if no one came to rescue us. I’d wrongly assumed that it was only a matter of time until help came. The foxtrot—I mean the
radio
was out, and the mission was a total disaster. Everyone was dead, including the al-Qaeda operative we were supposed to be transporting. I had to get Pensacola some help. I wasn’t going to let us die out there.”

“It was either you or him,” she quietly commented.

“Uh huh. At least that’s how I’d justified it at the time. But hell, I don’t know. Maybe if I’d just tied him up or something it would have given us enough time. Maybe I didn’t have to …”

“You can’t know that for sure, Cassidy. You did what you thought was the right decision at the time. You can’t dwell on that now.”

I sucked in a hard breath. “Tell that to my nightmares.”

“Will you let me help you?” Julia tentatively suggested. “I’m sure your group therapy is very cathartic and that the police psychologist is a capable man, but maybe there’s another, more aggressive solution to your flashbacks.”

“I won’t do drugs.”

“I thought you might say that,” she sighed.

“I want to be in control of this thing, not be dependent on a pill. I know it’s worked for a lot of people, but that’s not me,” I refused.

“Okay,” she said with a practiced patience I would never possess. “We’ll find another way.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

An old woman stood outside of a wooden frame house. The tilted mailbox near the street said Wiaczek, a traditional Polish surname. The residence was dilapidated, but still livable. Light blue paint had started to peel from the horizontal wooden planks and the single-pane windows that faced the street probably let out most of the heat in the winter unless you put plastic wrap over them.

Steely blue eyes regarded my partner and me as we exited the squad car and made our way up the driveway. The twin cement strips showed signs of wear and tear as well. The concrete was beginning to crumble and tall weeds and invasive dandelions had worked their way through the cracks. My own mother, a gardener herself, was fond of the saying
a weed is just a misplaced flower
. If that were the case, Mrs. Wiaczek’s yard was nothing but misplaced flowers.

A shock of full white hair, whiter than the driven snow, was pulled back into a stern bun like she’d been a librarian or an elementary teacher in a former life. She wore tan polyester slacks and a plain white blouse.

“Minneapolis’s best, no?”

She had a thick accent, but not the typical Scandinavian markings of small-town Minnesota. Hers sounded Eastern European; it reminded me of vodka and Communism, of cold winters and empty grocery stores.

“You called about a break-in, ma’am?” Mendez started.

Her thin lips pressed together, making her look even more displeased. “My front door was open when I came home.”

“Have you been inside yet?” I asked.

She stared at me. “I’m an old woman. I’m in no shape to be taking on burglars.” She lingered on the final word, drawing it out as though it had additional syllables.

“We’ll check it out,” Mendez said.

“My hero,” the woman drawled.

Mendez ignored the commentary, so I followed my FTO’s lead and did as well. It was strange to me—she’d been the one to call the police, yet she appeared annoyed by our presence.

“What’s her deal?” I quietly asked as we made our way to the front door.

“She’s getting older; she’s probably the type who hates having to ask for help but doesn’t have a choice anymore.”

I grunted. That sounded far too familiar.

Our footsteps creaked on the wooden wraparound porch. Mendez paused at the front door, which was slightly ajar. His hand went to the leather strap that held his gun in its holster. He looked to me as he unfastened the button snap. “You ready?”

I drew my weapon and nodded.

Mendez nudged the door open wider with the toe of his police boots. It swung on its hinges, shrieking terribly. So much for the element of surprise.

Mendez pushed his way into the house with his weapon drawn and extended in front of him. Bracing myself, I followed close behind. We entered into a bright, airy living room cluttered with furniture and stacks of newspapers and magazines. Mendez and I both paused, listening for sounds coming from other parts of the house.

We proceeded to clear the house, one room at a time. I’d cleared more structures than I could count over in Afghanistan; I could have done it in my sleep. My senses were certainly heightened as my partner and I went from room to room, but I moved without worry of insurgents jumping out at me or of dirty bombs exploding in my face.

I heard Mendez’s voice from elsewhere in the house. “All clear.”

“Clear,” I announced when I reached my final room. The spartan bedroom contained only a bed, clothes bureau, and bedside table. A delicate quilt covered the mattress of the twin-sized bed. Prayer beads were laid out on the bedside table beside an empty water glass, and a wooden crucifix hung at eye-level on the wallpapered walls. The television set on the bureau looked older than me with its rabbit ears antennae for reception.

I holstered my gun. Behind me, the woman—Mrs. Wiaczek—silently entered the room.

“Everything looks fine, ma’am,” I told her. “There’s no obvious signs of a break in, but I’ll need you to take a look around and let us know if anything is missing.”

“I’ve got groceries to put away,” she resisted. “They’ve been sitting out in my car long enough.”

“I can help with those,” I offered.

We met up with Mendez on our way out of the house. “Where are you going?” he asked me.

I turned on my heels to look at him and walked backwards as I followed Mrs. Wiaczek to her car. “We’re helping with the groceries.”

Mendez set his mouth in a hard line. My FTO valued efficiency and short radio calls, but it wasn’t like we had much of a choice here. Mrs. Wiaczek wasn’t going to provide us with a statement until the milk and eggs were in the refrigerator. Plus, the radio had been relatively silent all afternoon.

I expected Mrs. Wiaczek to shoo me away once we reached her vehicle, but she handed me a particularly heavy paper grocery bag. Mendez waited behind me, silent and stoic. Mrs. Wiaczek dropped a second bag into my partner’s arms.

“I probably forgot to shut the door behind me,” Mrs. Wiaczek thought out loud as we carried the grocery bags from her car to the kitchen. “My memory’s not what it used to be.”

“I can relate with that, ma’am,” I empathized. “Most mornings I’d probably forget my head if it wasn’t attached.”

“Oh, you’re too young to be having those kinds of problems already,” she dismissed.

I returned a tight-lipped smile. If only she knew what kinds of issues I was plenty old enough to have.

Once the perishables had been put away, Mrs. Wiaczek conducted a cursory scan of her home and concluded that nothing was missing. Mendez and I would still have to file a report, but at least we wouldn’t have to wait around for the crime scene technician to drop by and fingerprint the place.

Mrs. Wiaczek rummaged through her oversized purse, which she’d set on the kitchen table. “Here, let me give you something for being such a nuisance.”

“That’s not necessary, ma’am,” I held my hands up. “Your tax money pays for our salary.”