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I pull the envelope free and open it. Only a sheet of paper is inside with a phone number. I load my purchases in the back and slip inside my car. I dial the number.
“I see you take orders well.” A cultured, deep voice comes across the line.
“Who is this?” I demand.
“No, no. That’s not how we do this. You’ll meet me at the Hermitage tomorrow for afternoon tea.”
“I can’t just drop everything. I have a job, and I won’t just meet a man who left an envelope on my car.”
“If you don’t want your lovely mother or daughter hurt, you’ll do as I say.”
My heart stops and all the air in my body leaves me. Tears burn in the back of my eyes.
“Now that I’ve got your attention, we need to meet to put an end to this cat and mouse game once and for all. I’m more of a big game hunter. And don’t tell your soldier or anyone else for that matter.”
“Who will the reservation be under?”
“Ask for Miles.” He hangs up, and I immediately dial my mom.
“Where are you?”
“Um…” She pauses, and I can hear kids laughing in the background. “I’m at the park,” she says.
“Are you by yourself?”
“Sure,” she answers, and I can tell she’s not being honest.
“Mom. I’m serious right now. Where are you?”
“Mari and I are at the park with November. Tucker showed up.”
I know he’d protect them.
“Okay. I’m almost done shopping.” I hang up before she can ask me more questions. I turn to see another envelope in my passenger seat and my blood runs cold. They got inside my car. I open the envelope and pictures of Mari, my mom, and me all fall out.
I look around the parking lot and decide I need to go home and try to relax before I see my mom. She’ll figure out something’s going on if I’m not careful.
Making my way back to Murfreesboro, I keep checking my mirrors. Sure, I see a motorcycle following me, but when I get off before my exit, they continue on. I breathe a sigh of relief and take back roads the rest of the way home. I pull into the garage and don’t get out of the car until the door is completely closed.
The envelope of pictures is like a beacon and I turn back to it. There’s one of Mari playing at the daycare. Shit. I burst from the car with the pictures in my hand and slam through my house toward my office. I haven’t been in here much in a while. I look around for a place to hide the pictures when I trip over a box. It topples over and falls on its side. The lid opens and out falls clothes and a camera. The clothes are covered in blood. The camera smashed. I fall to my knees and pick up the shirt. The first sob breaks from my throat. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want this responsibility. Every day I have to live for those who died. I couldn’t bury them. Wild animals could have gotten to them. But all I was focused on was getting away. I reach down for the pants I was wearing that night. The legs are caked in dried blood from my wounds. I toss them away from me and something falls from a pocket to the hardwood floor of my office. It’s an SD card. The memories of that final rhino kill hit me. I crawl like I did that night on my hands and knees toward it. I lift it up. Another memory comes to my mind.
“Give it to me and I’ll make it painless.”Bahati had said that to me before—I stop the thought and move to my computer. I slip the card into the reader.
Images and video clips fill the screen. I move backward, watching them cut off the horn. My focus turns to the men. One delivers the kill shot and stands for a picture with his gun and the rhino. Something about him looks familiar, but it’s the second man with him, the one off to the side with a gun over his shoulder standing next to Bahati that has my pulse racing. It can’t be him. I save everything to an external drive without moving it to my cloud. I pull out the card and hold it in my hand. There is so much on here. So much that changes everything. I don’t know who to trust.
I slip the card into a secret compartment in my camera bag and move out of the office as the front door opens. My mom walks in with Mari.
“You look like you saw a ghost.” She jokes. Little does she know that I saw an apparition that has been haunting my life. I shake it off and walk to them. Mari reaches for me.
“Da-da-da-da,” she says and points around her.
“No. Momma, baby girl,” I say to her, but she shakes her head. I had put her hair in little twisted ponytails on top of her head this morning. She arches her back to get down and I set her on the floor. She pushes herself up and takes a step.
“Mom, look,” I squeal as Mari falls back on to her butt and stands again. She immediately falls and crawls to the living room, where she uses the sofa to stand up. I watch in awe with my camera on my phone rolling video as she takes a couple more steps.
My mom and I make dinner and the rest of the evening I don’t think about what I need to do tomorrow. I know I’m going to meet the man who shot the rhino. But will the other man be there?
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