The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(7)

He made those first supplies last as long as he could before going back to the populated world. Roads and houses. Commerce and government. He hitched a ride on the tailgate of a logger’s pickup and, at the outskirts of town, found a small grocery store.

It was the first test of his hypothesis.

But walking through the parking lot, he already knew. The closer he got to the door, the louder the static sounded in his head. He still needed supplies, so he clenched his teeth in the narrow, crowded aisles under the fluorescent lights, trying to get what he needed and into the open air before the white static turned to sparks and began to rise up inside him.

He climbed up into the empty mountains again, where the wind washed him clean. South for the winter, north for the summer. Every time he came down for supplies, the static was still there. After a year, he extended the experiment. Give it another four months. Or forever.

Then Jimmy killed himself.

Peter was deep in the backcountry of the Klamath Mountains in northern California when Manny Martinez heard about Jimmy’s suicide and got on the horn. The informal sergeants’ network had a long reach. Four days later, an off-duty fireman from Klamath Falls walked up to Peter’s campsite with a sorrowful look on his face, and that was the end of that.

—

From his perch on Dinah’s back steps, he saw headlights in the alley, then heard her garage door rolling up. So he was prepared when he saw her. He stood as she walked the cracked concrete path from the garage. The motion light came on, brightening the yard only a little.

“Oh,” she said, slowing. She looked him up and down, seeing a lean, rangy man in worn carpenter’s jeans and combat boots. The big restless hands at the end of long bony wrists that stuck out past the sleeves of his brown canvas work coat. Her eyes lingered on his angular face, wolfish and unshaven.

Her expression was neutral. It occurred to Peter that maybe he wasn’t quite what she expected in a Marine officer.

She said, “You must be Lieutenant Ash.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I appreciate your letting me get started without meeting in person. You said that the front porch was your most pressing repair, and you were correct.” He tried a smile. He wasn’t used to people yet. “Please,” he said. “Call me Peter. Jimmy talked about you so much I feel like I know you.”

She didn’t answer. She was tall, almost as tall as Peter, and wrapped in a long wool coat that went past her knees. She carried her keys spiked out from her fist, something Jimmy would have taught her for self-defense. It looked natural.

She measured him with cool eyes, reserving judgment. But polite.

“Please, come in,” she said. “You must be hungry. I’m making supper, if you’d care to stay.”

“I’ll wait outside,” he said. “It’s a nice night.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s cold. Please, come in.”

Peter pointed at the back door, the bottom panel covered with a piece of bare plywood. “Something happen here?” he asked. It looked like a quick repair after someone had kicked in the door.

“We had a break-in,” she said. “Not long after James.” She blinked. “Died.”

“I’m sorry,” said Peter. “I can replace that when I’m done with your porch.”

She turned her key in the lock. “Come inside,” she said. “Get out of the cold.”

He hesitated, but picked up the suitcase and followed her inside.

He had questions.





4



She sat him down at the big kitchen table, where the static prickled at the base of his brain. Peter took long, slow breaths. His knee bounced to the time of his internal metronome. In a few minutes his shoulders would start to get tight.

Dinah set her large canvas handbag on a wooden chair, then went deeper into the house to hang up her coat and check on her boys. The bag was big enough to carry a complete change of clothes, including shoes. Maybe two or three pairs of shoes.

He heard the front door open, then her sharp intake of air. And the growl of the ugly dog at the far end of its rope.

She came back into the kitchen. “Lieutenant Ash.” She raised her eyebrows in an expression that was half surprise and half reproach. “You’re doing more than a few repairs. My porch is gone.”

She didn’t comment on the dog.

“Please, call me Peter,” he said. “And yes, I took some liberties. But once I started to take it apart, I could tell it wasn’t safe. Don’t worry, I’ll have it together again tomorrow or the day after. And it’s all on the U.S. Marine Corps.”

Peter had seen her picture in Iraq, Dinah with the two boys. Jimmy carried it in his shirt pocket on every mission. Said they were his good-luck charm.

He’d clutched it tight waiting for the medevac, eyes locked on the faces of his family while the corpsman was putting the tourniquet on his leg. “I’m such a lucky bastard,” he said, his grin widening as the morphine kicked in. “You got to come visit when you get stateside.”

Peter had gone to the mountains instead.

—

In the picture with her kids, Dinah had seemed fragile, like fine china kept high on a shelf.

In person, she was anything but.

He knew she was an ER nurse, so he was expecting the air of calm competence. But he wasn’t prepared for how the green hospital scrubs showed her shape, or the way she carried herself, fluid, capable motion with her head held high, her back straight as an iron rod.