nurse who had barely been caught in time, she’d known she had little choice but to take their offer of witness protection.
There had been another victim with her that night. He hadn’t survived. He’d happened to stumble onto the scene, a homeless veteran who’d served his country — and whose country had failed him upon returning from a war he’d never wanted to be in, but had done what he’d believed he’d had to do. Living with those memories had all but destroyed him. His next few decades on earth had left him drifting and unable to come back to societal norms, desolate, body broken, mind shattered, and all alone. In his last act on earth, though, he’d tried to save the woman — and he’d died for her. If he hadn’t, she’d surely be dead too.
And somehow, even with eye-witness testimony, this piece of scum was still walking away. Carl was seething. He wanted to blame the entire system. It was so messed up. But he couldn’t blame these jurors. They only had the information that was presented to them. The DA was an incompetent idiot who shouldn’t be in his position and, unfortunately, Avery Klum was damn good at her job.
Carl watched as she walked away from her client, not saying anything to the man she’d set free to enact more deaths in the world. He watched as she passed reporters while uttering no comment, and then left the room.
He’d followed.
He was beginning to learn Avery’s routine. He should simply walk away. But there was something about her that wasn’t allowing him to do that. He wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe it was because he knew she didn’t like doing what she was doing. She should be fighting evil, not helping it. Or maybe he was wrong. He shook his head as he smirked. That was laughable — he was never wrong.
But then he was surprised again.
Avery changed her routine that night as she walked about ten city blocks, turning away from the main drag. It was pretty impressive considering the heels she wore. They must have some damn fine insoles. But after a while she stepped into a bar — and not a snobby business district, rubbing elbows, kind of establishment as he’d expect a woman like her to enter. He waited a minute, then followed her inside.
It was a Friday evening but still early. There were about a dozen people in the room, a band setting up in the back corner, and a few drunk guys sitting at the bar, talking about who caught the biggest fish, who’d been in the most fights, and who’d been wrongly arrested. It was typical bar talk. There were only a few females present and Avery’s entrance hadn’t gone unnoticed. But she wasn’t making eye contact. She’d found an empty table in the back corner, and her body language screamed do not touch, talk, or come near.
He never had been good at following directions. He made his way toward her when he stopped just out of sight as an older, female bartender approached Avery.
“Hi, baby girl, rough day?” the woman asked as she set down some fruity looking drink.
“Yeah, not my best,” Avery said with a sigh.
“Do you want to talk about it? I have a few minutes,” the woman said.
“You know I can’t talk in here, Mom. But you can tell me about your day,” Avery said. “I could use the distraction.”
“You know nothing exciting goes on in my life. I have to live vicariously through you,” her mother said.
Carl was nearly speechless as he listened in on this interaction. From how cool and collected Avery was, he’d have expected her parents to be as icy cold as she appeared to be. But he knew appearances could be deceptive. Hell, people judged him all of the time — and they were always wrong.
Carl was a former SEAL, though he never talked about that time in his life. The last mission had been far too painful. When the dust had settled on that mission and he’d been forced into a medical discharge, he’d been lost. He hadn’t allowed himself to wallow too long though.
SEALs didn’t wallow.
He stood six feet tall, kept his body shredded, and took as much care with the insides as he did the outside. He was thirty-three, but had already lived enough lifetimes that there were days he felt ninety-three. He was originally from Philadelphia, his father a blue-collar construction worker, who’d taken his kids to