Expired Cache - Lisa Phillips Page 0,15

that was the case, Dean was called. After a while, people started calling him first, especially if they didn’t want to occupy the EMTs time, didn’t want it to be official, or maybe, if they didn’t want to leave a paper trail.

Stuart’s biceps flexed. He shifted his legs and turned his head side to side. Erratic, nervous movements that often preceded the moment he began spiraling into a state where he was harder to reach. Unable to respond.

“Listen to the sound of my voice.” This was where the blindfold sometimes worked against them, and he’d occasionally had to ask Stuart to remove it. To center himself back in the present. “You’re in the town of Last Chance, and you’re with me. You are safe.”

Stuart sucked in a full breath and sighed it out. Without being asked. He was learning how to manage the panic in its early stages. “One of them said he wanted out. That’s when he got shoved. The other man…”

Dean gave it a few seconds. Then he said, “What did he say?”

“He kicked the man in the stomach, three times.”

Dean’s abdomen clenched in sympathy. It always did.

“He said no one quits west and lives to tell about it.”

Probably a gang, or a place they lived together. Their motorcycle club, maybe. Dean wondered if it was worth having Stuart take the brain power and energy to describe both men when this could very well be nothing. Stuart was already agitated. It could make it worse by hindering his recovery.

“That’s good.”

Stuart pushed out another breath.

“Where did you go next?” As he asked the question, Dean’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored the call for right now. If it was an emergency, then the person would likely immediately call again.

“I followed them. The big man dragged his friend behind the bar. His boots made grooves in the gravel.”

“Did you intervene?”

Stuart flinched in the chair. As though he was bound, which he wasn’t at the moment. The former CIA agent had been tied to a wooden chair when they found him, though. The blood… Dean pushed aside those thoughts or he’d be heading to his place of panic.

“I waited at the corner, pressed against the siding. I got a splinter in my arm.”

Dean couldn’t see one in his arm right now, as he wore a long-sleeved running shirt.

“The big man kept kicking him. He was going to beat him to death.”

“Stuart.” Dean wasn’t sure what to say. He knew Stuart had seen a man killed that way during his captivity. He could be reliving that. Blurring past and present so that he wasn’t able to remember accurately.

“There was so much blood.” His whole body shuddered, but he held back the whimper. Dean saw his throat bob as he swallowed it down. “Lights flashing. It was so hot, and he was crying. I couldn’t get to him.”

Useless platitudes wouldn’t help, regardless of how badly he wanted to tell Stuart that he’d done what he could, or that he was safe now. Dean knew what it felt like to know you could have—or should have—done more. That inaction or a deficit of your skill had cost someone their life.

“Keep breathing.”

Stuart gasped. “I had my gun out.” He shook his head. “I didn’t even know I had it, and then I was pointing it at him. I stood over him.”

Dean stilled.

“I pulled the trigger. The muzzle flashed. It was a good kill. They needed to die or things would’ve gotten out of control.”

“Keep holding the gun. Feel the warm metal in your hand. The smell of gunpowder in your nostrils. Close your eyes.” He paused for a second. “And then open them. Tell me what’s around you.”

“A brick wall, and a dumpster.”

The biker bar? He’d just mentioned getting a splinter from the siding. Given how many people Stuart had likely killed in his career as an officer for the CIA, Dean had no idea where his mind was right now. He noted these details on his pad to remind him to look through the reports contained in Stuart’s file—the one they’d obtained by hacking into the Government’s database of covert action.

“Tell me where you go next.” Landmarks may help him remember, given a lot of cities had unique locales particular to that location.

“To the car.” Stuart pulled his blindfold off. “It was a rental.”

Dean figured he likely needed to check behind the biker bar anyway. Stuart had been in possession of a gun last night. Could he have killed a man?

Not something he