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The air whooshed out of him and his shoulders eased down. "We're all guilty of that sometimes."
"Oh yeah? What are you running from?" she asked. "What was that whole pissing contest about following orders during the meeting?"
He should have known she wouldn't let it go. She wasn't the type. Her bulldog attitude was one of the things he liked about her best, but that didn't mean he wanted his past to be the bone she wouldn't let go of. Silence thickened the atmosphere inside the Camaro as the sun-parched scenery of southeast Colorado flew past. He opened his mouth to tell her in no uncertain terms to mind her own business, but that's not what came out.
"I met Lash in the Marine Corps. We were in the same unit until he rotated back to the states and got out. His replacement was…different."
"What do you mean?"
How to describe Mitchum. Corn-fed? In over his head? Too green to know better than to believe the bullshit?
"The kids was young and on his third deployment."
Tamara let out a low whistle and unfolded her legs, pivoting in her seat so she faced him. "Damn, that's a lot."
He nodded. "Especially for someone who may not have been all that mentally healthy to begin with."
The signs had been there, but no one wanted to see them. Even when Isaac had pointed them out to his superiors, their eyes wouldn't see the cracks that had been growing every day.
"The kid couldn't hack it. He needed to rotate back stateside. I made the recommendation. My commander disagreed. The kid stayed in." Isaac clenched his jaw and watched the semi-trucks up ahead jockey for position on the interstate. "One day, we were out as part of the whole hearts and minds effort at a local village. The kid snapped, grabbed a four-year-old girl, and put a gun to her head. We tried to talk him down. The girl was crying. Her mother was screaming. Her father was begging us to do something—anything. My commander was ordering everyone not to fire. The kid locked eyes with me and I knew. That was it for him. He was done. He wasn't ever going to see home again and he didn't want to. He thought that was his best way out. If he had to take that little girl with him to make it happen, so be it. I couldn't let that happen. I fired. Took him out."
Where there should have been chaos there was only shock followed by a world of shit raining down on him.
"Did they court martial you?"
"There was a reporter embedded with us that day." Who'd have ever thought the skinny little puke would have been his saving grace? "He saw the whole thing. They couldn't court martial me without making a shitty situation even worse in the national media. Still, they wanted me out for not following orders, and I went."
"Isaac, I'm sorry," her voice was thick with sincerity.
One glance over and he could confirm it, but he couldn't risk it. He was in too deep with her already.
"I'm not."
He'd come home and hadn't known what to do with his life until Lash brought up the idea of freelance investigation. Since Isaac had absolutely no interest in ever working in a team environment with some asshole giving orders again, it had been the perfect solution, —although it didn't explain why he spent so much time working overflow cases for the B-Squad. Unwilling to go down that path, he turned up the radio and let the country singer belt it out.
* * *
Tamara
The air was thinner in Hamilton. Isaac parked the car across the street from Albert's two-story grey and white Victorian house with the wrought iron fence surrounding the front yard. It had been dark for several hours by the time they got to the small town in the Rocky Mountain foothills. Tamara hadn't wanted to risk calling the house, so she'd spent the last several, very quiet hours in the car doing breathing exercises and telling herself everything was going to be all right.
Seeing the bright blaze of Albert's porch light did more to calm her down than all the mantras she'd muttered under her breath.
She reached for the door, but Isaac clapped a hand down on her forearm.
"Give it a second," he said, his gaze going from house to house pausing to take in each car parked on the street and every person going for their nightly stroll.
It took forever—or at least it felt that way.
Being this close and not rushing in was making her fingers twitch. "The cars are empty. The old lady picked up her yappy dog's poop and went back inside. Can we go in now?"
He nodded and opened his door. "Wait for a second before you approach the house."
Frustration ate away at her, but she stepped out of the car and waited while he went around to the trunk. She couldn't see what was going on once he'd opened it, but when he closed it, he dropped both of their go bags to the ground and then squatted down to start fiddling with the license plate holder. After a minute, he grabbed the bags and strode past her. His dress shirt was left unbuttoned over a T-shirt was open, giving her a view of the Glock secured in his shoulder holster. Isaac stopped at the front of the car where he swapped the front Texas license plate out with one from Colorado. He put the Texas plate into his go bag, zipped it closed and stood up, holding both bags.
"Ready?" he asked.
She nodded and took her bag. That left his right hand free for the Glock. She didn't have a gun. The way her nerves were doing the cha-cha she didn't really trust herself with one right now.
