Cold Springs(34)

When he said that, Chadwick got the uncomfortable impression he was talking about their friendship, too.

“Nobody gets access to Black Level,” Hunter decided. “I allow one exception, the integrity of the whole program is compromised. On the other hand . . .”

He looked at Chadwick, seemed to be weighing unpleasant options. “This Sergeant Damarodas—he could be on our doorstep next week. Court orders, I can fight. But I need to know what I'm fighting and why. I don't appreciate being kept in the dark by this girl's mother.”

“Like I said. Let me go back to San Francisco.”

“You got a full slate of pickups, and you're going to have a new partner to train.”

“What about Olsen?”

“She's asked for a different assignment. You probably guessed that.”

“I'll convince her to stay on,” Chadwick said quietly.

“Won't do any good.”

“Asa, I've had four partners in the last five weeks. I'm not going to lose another one.”

Hunter raised an eyebrow. “Why you making a stand, amigo? What makes Olsen different than the others?”

“Can I talk to her or not?”

Hunter gazed across the hills, at the land he owned all the way to the horizon. “I won't stop you. Now why don't you get some rest? I'll watch the class.”

Chadwick was about to decline the offer, but his friend's expression told him it might be best not to argue. He left Hunter at the edge of the deck, the sunrise turning the steam from his coffee red.

Inside the main lodge, tan levels were doing their chores—scrubbing floors, cleaning windows, sweeping the enormous stone fireplace in anticipation of tonight's hard freeze.

When Chadwick came near, they stood at attention. He remembered each of them by name and pickup city, and by how each had performed during Survival Week, which Chadwick sometimes led. Sarah from Albuquerque, who couldn't light a fire; Lane from Rochester, who would eat anything no matter how slimy; Tyler from Houston, who'd never been camping and got the highest marks for survival in his team. Chadwick talked to each of them, told them they were doing a good job. He hoped his tone wasn't as weary as he imagined.

Hunter had a saying—staff members find their level, then dress to it. It was not a requirement, but it was a fact.

Hunter himself, like most of the drill sergeant types, tended to wear black. They felt most at home with the new initiates. They relished confrontation.

The hands-on learning buffs, the ranch hands, outdoor ed graduates who weren't quite up to Black Level—they wore the second-level color, gray.

The therapists, the part-time teachers, the studious ones who preferred to work with kids the way jewelers worked with settings—they all wore the fourth-level color, white.

But tan was the invisible third level. Tan levels did domestic chores, lived by quiet routine, combated nothing worse than boredom. They learned tranquillity through humility. They were kitchen patrol. They were toilet cleaners. They were not the center of the world. Their therapy sessions chased the most elusive byword in Hunter's program—Honesty.

Very few people on staff dressed to that level. And though his job had nothing in common with the level, Chadwick almost always wore tan.

Partly, he envied their invisibility. It wasn't something a giant like Chadwick ever got much of. If there were other reasons, Chadwick had never thought them through. Maybe that's why he was still wearing the color.

He walked down the north wing, past the gym, the cafeteria, the infirmary—all state-of-the-art facilities built with the bulging profits of Hunter's alternative-education empire. Eight years ago, when Chadwick started escorting, none of those amenities had been there. Now Hunter had five campuses in three different countries.

His apartment was in the staff dormitory on the second floor. He didn't realize his hands were trembling until he started searching his key ring.

Every key at Cold Springs was identical except for the number, and Chadwick had never gotten around to color-coding them. He stopped at the only unique one—the gold key for the house in the Mission. He told himself for the millionth time he needed to remove it, put it in a box somewhere. He still owned the house, refusing to sell because under the terms of the divorce he'd have to share the money with Norma. But he hadn't visited in years. Had no intention of doing so.

And still, every time he took out his key chain—there it was. He could envision the green door with its brass knob, brass numbers above the mail slot. He could imagine opening that door, calling up the stairwell that he was home.

What had Hunter said about not trying to salvage the past?

He and Chadwick had walked away from Southeast Asia together with never a flashback. They'd seen children who'd stepped on land mines, shriveled Vietcong body parts strung on jute necklaces like Mexican milagros, dead GIs Huey-ed into base, their bodies cooked from napalm Chadwick's colleagues had loaded onto planes. None of that affected Chadwick much anymore. None of it gave him the shakes.

But when it came to San Francisco—the house in the Mission—his hands still trembled.

He put his keys back in his pocket, walked down the hall to Olsen's apartment.

He had to knock several times before she answered.

She stood in the doorway, squinting, the room behind her a yawning darkness that smelled of sleep and rye bagels she'd bought in New York.