Page 84 of I’ll Be Watching You

“You went to the main VA hospital, not a clinic. There’s a clinic much closer to here.”

Novak frowned. “Don’t know.”

“You saw a nurse practitioner named Liz Swanson. Do you remember her? She’s very pretty, petite. Blond hair. Forties.”

At first Nate could tell he didn’t remember at all, then a little light practically came on behind his eyes. “Oh. Yeah. I remember the nurse.”

“Liz said that you used to be a patient of Dr. Klein.”

Novak threw his bottle at Nate. The move was so sudden Nate couldn’t get out of the way and it hit his knee. “Get outta here! Doc is dead! He’s dead!”

“I know,” Nate said calmly. He picked up the bottle. Half the alcohol had spilled, but he handed the rest back to Novak. Novak hit it out of his hand and Nate let it be. “Dr. Klein was murdered because he thought the drug trial you participated in gave you bad side effects. Someone hurt him because he wanted to protect you. Now we need your help.”

He realized he was talking too much, laying out too many complex thoughts, and he was losing the man.

“Do you mind if I sit with you for a while?” Nate asked.

Novak threw his hands up in the air and started rummaging around in his shopping cart.

“I served on the USS Thomas Hudner for ten years,” Nate said. “Where did you serve?”

Novak didn’t answer. He found another bottle and opened it, drank. Sat down against the tree. Stared at Nate.

Nate had a friend look up Novak’s record. He’d been an officer and, like Nate, left because he’d been injured. Nate could have gone back after rehab, but chose not to. Sometimes he wished he had.

“Lieutenant Commander Novak,” Nate said quietly, “you’re the only person who can help us.”

Silence. Just the steady glare.

“I need to know everything you remember about the drug trial from four years ago.”

Novak frowned, stared at the bottle.

“Just leave me alone,” he whispered.

“I can’t. And I don’t think you really want me to. You went to your doctor’s appointment—you don’t want to drink your life away. I have a place for you, a place where you can clean up and maybe have a visit from your daughter.”

Novak blinked, frowned, tears in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but took another long swig.

“I have all the time in the world,” Nate said.

He sat down.

Nate had battled his own inner demons, but he’d never gotten this low. He didn’t drink. He refused drugs, even painkillers. When he had nightmares, or an old rage about a crappy commander rose to the surface, he worked out. Sometimes to the point of such intense physical exhaustion that he couldn’t move.

But he’d known men like Novak. Friends of his who left the service and couldn’t get their shit together. It hurt Nate because he wanted to both help and shake sense into them. He would give his brothers the shirt off his back if he had to, or a firm tongue-lashing if that was what it would take to get them to reclaim their life.

Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes it didn’t.

He wanted to not just help Novak, but to fix him. He knew that wasn’t always feasible, but he’d read the man’s record. He had been a good commander, a good man, a good sailor. How he ended up here five years after his injuries, Nate didn’t know. Yes, his wife left him. Yes, he was in a lot of pain. But how did Novak end up here and others hadn’t?

Nate had no answers. But this man was in front of him now, and he wasn’t going to leave him.

Leave no man behind.

No matter how long it took.