Gracie - Sherry Foster Page 0,10

each other, even for a man as delicious as Hendrix. A shadow of sorrow crossed his face before he shook it off.

“Hendrix isn’t bothered by you. You know he isn’t. He thinks you are crazy and over the top with your divaness, is that even a word?” Gracie paused and tilted her head up to stare at the ceiling. After a moment she directed her gaze back at her best friend. “It doesn’t matter, we shall make it a word. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, Hendrix isn’t bothered by people who are different. He just shakes his head at you but he never laughs at you behind your back.”

“Like he would dare laugh at me in front of you.” Halo snorted. He had watched Gracie take a man down more than once for insulting him. Gracie did not stand for anyone to say one negative word about him, not to his face or behind his back. He was used to people giving him a hard time and most of the time he brushed it off but sometimes the comments cut deep and Gracie could read him like a book.

“I don’t care how well trained the man is, he would have given some sort of indication of distaste if you being who you are bothered him.”

“Oh honey, you are fooling yourself if you believe that. That man could hide anything from anyone if he wanted to.” Halo’s thoughts went to what the drone had shown him earlier. “Yeah, he could hide anything. For all we know he could be a monster in disguise.” He swallowed as he replayed the brief glimpse he had gotten of what Hendrix was hiding. He stared at the glass in his hand before lifting it to his mouth and taking a whiff. It didn’t smell drugged. He was sober. He had zero explanations for what he thought he saw. He shook his head. Maybe he had been hitting the bottle a bit hard lately. A single scene flashed through his head. His hand shook as he put the glass down. He needed something stronger than water. He reached for the bottle he kept near.

Before his hand could close around the neck he felt a stinging pain. “Ow. Damn, Gracie, what the hell?”

“It is barely nine in the morning. You are starting earlier and earlier on the bottle. Halo, my friend, it was not your fault. It wasn’t. No, don’t turn your head, look at me. We did everything right. You did everything right. You are damn good at your job. We both are. We wouldn’t have lasted this long in the field if we didn’t have our heads in the game. But you and I both know sometimes good isn’t enough. No matter how fast you are, no matter how much training you have, sometimes we don’t know what the bad guys will do. Most of the time we call it right, but no one could have guessed he would slit the throat of that child rather than let us save him.”

“Gracie, it was his own son. How could he kill his son? Flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood.”

Gracie shrugged. “How can any of these people hurt a child. They are evil.”

“If I had been faster, if I had moved faster.”

“Stop it. No matter how fast you move, and you can move damn fast when you have to, sometimes it isn’t enough. You know that. We both know how the game is played. We track down the traffickers, we find them, we end them, and sometimes they end the ones we are trying to save. We have always known we couldn’t save them all. We will never be able to save them all. We are damn lucky we have others out in the field working with us. We aren’t alone and we will save the ones we can and mourn the ones we can’t. But you won’t help anyone if you bury yourself in the bottle. This wasn’t the first child we lost and you know damn well it won’t be the last one we don’t get to in time. Maybe you have been in the game too long? Are you ready to call it quits? Do you need to get out? I won’t blame you and I won’t think less of you.”

Halo’s hand shook as he reached for Gracie’s and his voice trembled as he answered, “No. It isn’t time to quit. Not yet. Maybe never.”

Gracie squeezed his hand before releasing