Page 24 of Coming Home

"I mean it, Ralph. Until your driver comes back."

"I heard you the first time."

"And I'm buying my own gas."

"It's an electric car, Emma."

I glared at him. It did nothing; his eyes remained closed, his face angled toward the glass, looking for all the world like a man napping on a yacht in Monaco rather than a passenger being chauffeured by a woman he'd rescued last night.

I threw the vehicle into drive. The SUV rolled forward like a silk ribbon—smooth, silent, and terrifyingly responsive to the lightest pressure of my palms. I merged onto the main artery, steering us back toward the valley before finally demanding some clarity from the throne next to me.

"Where am I going, exactly?"

"Community pool," he murmured, his voice low and gravelly against the quiet hum of the motor. "Iris Vance's facility. Take Sunset to Alvarado, then drop south on Glendale."

A tiny chill touched my neck. I knew Coach Vance by reputation—anyone who had ever touched a competitive lane did. She was the mythic entity who had discovered Ralph in some forgotten Bakersfield community pool. I'd heard she'd opened a highly exclusive, private training facility after retiring from the national program—a quiet sanctuary for elite swimmers who wanted to escape the administrative circus of the official Olympic centers.

I drove. The morning traffic was uncharacteristically cooperative, the entire city still wet and glistening from the midnight downpour.

The buildings and palm trees looked hyper-saturated, their edges sharp against the sideways light, like someone had dialed up the contrast on the world.

Ralph gave his directions in short, low fragments without ever opening his eyes. Left here. Next light. Hold the center lane.

"You're a bossy passenger," I muttered, my hands tightening on the leather wheel.

"You missed the turn on Glendale."

"I did not miss it. I am taking the scenic route."

"There is no scenic route on Glendale Boulevard, Emma. It's an auto-body graveyard."

"There is if I decide there is. I'm the driver. I choose the narrative."

His mouth twitched, a tiny muscle jumping in his jaw. He didn't open his eyes. "I'm beginning to deeply regret my hiring choices."

"Good," I whispered, a small, fierce satisfaction thrumming in my chest. "Suffer."

The facility was a low, industrial concrete structure set back from the road—no flashy banners, no corporate logos, just functional architecture. But as I pushed the heavy glass door open, it wasn't the layout that caught me.

It was the air.

It hit my skin first—heavy, tropical, thick with humidity—and then came that sharp, chemical bite of chlorine. It cut straight through my sinuses, dropping like an anvil into the ancient, dormant spaces of my brain.

My knees locked.

The smell. It was everywhere, saturating the lining of my lungs, coating the back of my throat until I could taste it. My breathing went short and shallow.

My pulse was everywhere. Behind my ears. In my wrists.

I hadn't set foot inside a pool deck in over three years. I'd spent thirty-six months avoiding them the way some people avoid the scenes of horrific accidents—places where you were broken down until you were nothing but a number, and the walls still held the echo of your failure.

Ralph was already five paces ahead, speaking in low tones to a kid at the check-in desk. He stopped, his shoulders shifting as he sensed the sudden distance between us, and turned around. His expression quieted, his eyes tracking the tight, defensive line of my posture. He didn't say a word. He simply slowed his stride, lingering by the turnstile to let me close the gap at my own pace without feeling like a stray animal being herded into a corner.

Coach Iris Vance met us at the edge of the blue. She was exactly the woman from the profiles and simultaneously a different creature. Small, wiry, her hair a striking halo of silver, her handshake could crush granite. Her eyes were two lasers, assessing my entire history in the span of a heartbeat and spending the rest of the conversation merely verifying their own brilliance.

She looked at me, her gaze sweeping down my oversized hoodie, unblinking. "Emma Carrow," she said. It wasn't an inquiry. It was a fact.

"Yes, ma'am."