Page 20 of North

“No, North. Not under a sheet.” York put a hand on his shoulder. “Although there are still people caught in the rubble.”

“Survivors?”

“We hope so. But the fire…it spread to the cars. There’s…it’s not good. At least thirteen people dead.”

North’s legs threatened to give. He grabbed the wall, institutional paint rough under his fingers. The fluorescent lights suddenly seemed too bright, too harsh. “Then I’ll go back to the crash site. Maybe we missed something. Maybe⁠—”

York caught his arm as North pushed away from the wall, phone already out to show her picture again. “North. Stop.” York’s grip tightened. “You need to sit down before you fall down.”

He was right. North’s body trembled with exhaustion, with too much gas-station coffee, with the hollowing sense of helplessness. He didn’t do helpless. Not well.

York took a look in the waiting room, then guided him down the hall toward a coffee-shop area, although the shop was closed. More people sat in the hallway, others just giving in to slumber.

He guided North to a chair. “You should get some sleep.”

North looked at him. “That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

York’s mouth tightened. “Okay then.” He sank into the other chair. “I’d give that coffee shop a thousand dollars to open up right now.”

North leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He sighed. “We had a fight.”

York said nothing.

North sat up. “It was stupid. I was angry and she was…I don’t know. Traumatized maybe. We were in Mariposa, working, and she went to this village to help. She does that—finds the broken places, the people everyone else forgets. Tries to help them.”

His throat tightened. “That’s one of the things I love about her. She sees people. Really sees them. Makes them feel like they matter.”

“But something went wrong?”

“By the time I heard about it, she had a good head start. I was probably already wired, but when I arrived, I spotted a body outside town, a local. I knew they were in trouble. And they were. A gang had shown up and robbed them at knifepoint, and I walked in to some thug with a machete practically to her throat. Didn’t sit well. We had a bit of a dustup. One of the gang members ended up in the morgue. It was…well, he was little more than a kid, really.”

“He had a weapon and he planned on using it.”

North held up his hand. “Did use it. But…I don’t know. The whole thing set me off. There were rules on the island about…okay, everyone knew the gang was trouble and…I never get mad, but right then, I might have said things.”

York sighed. “Yeah. I get that.”

He didn’t know much about York. Just that the man had worked in the clandestine services at one point and now operated with the Caleb Group, a private-intelligence service under the purview of President White.

But York wore experience in his blue eyes, and his mouth pinched. “We’ll find her, North.”

“Yeah.” North scrubbed his hands down his face. “The thing is…I started thinking about all this on my drive here—and I don’t know. I might have triggered some PTSD response. She was taken hostage in Nigeria⁠—”

“Wait. That op that Fraser Marshall and Colt Kingston were on?”

“The very one. She seemed to come out of it okay, but…she saw a lot. People died—people she cared about.”

“Did she get trauma counseling?”

“Yes. And she seemed to be fine. When she came down to Mariposa after the landslide last year, she seemed herself again.”

“Trauma sits in our bones. And the smallest thing can surface it,” York said.

“She hates violence.”

York cocked his head.

“Yeah. I see right there that could be our problem.” North wove his hands behind his neck, kneaded a muscle. “She looks at broken things like they could be made whole again. And she helps even if it puts her in danger.”