Code Name Ghost (Jameson Force Security 5)

We stare at each other for a long moment, then Malik’s gaze drops to my phone. “Cute kid.”CHAPTER 3MalikOf course she’s a cute kid. She’s a product of Jimmy and Anna, and they were an extraordinarily good-looking couple. I’d only met Anna once before the mission, and that was at a Jameson get-together for drinks the night before we flew out. I’d been working and training with Jimmy for almost a month, but I’d never met his wife before that night.

I know all about the little girl facing me on the screen of Anna’s phone. From the moment I’d been rescued by my Jameson teammates, I couldn’t stop asking questions about everything. I made Cage recount to me in painstaking detail everything he knew about Jimmy and Sal’s deaths so I could compare it to my own recollection. How they died and how their bodies were recovered. Sal bled out from a bullet wound to his femoral artery while Jimmy died from a shot to the neck.

The guilt for those two deaths is crushing to me, and there’s nothing I can do to assuage it. Perhaps that’s why I’m overly curious about Anna and her baby, Avery. How does a woman survive losing her husband and bearing his baby all within a matter of weeks? As I stand before her right now, seeing an easygoing, welcoming smile on her face, I have to think it might be somewhat of an act.

It makes it a bit awkward for me.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. At first, I was mostly resting. Then a hell of a lot of eating, trying to nourish my body. Spending time at home with my parents in Montreal was exactly what I needed as I come from an incredibly close-knit family that knows me inside and out. There was no hovering or overcompensating. I can’t even imagine the pain and grief my parents and siblings have been through, but they didn’t fuss over me as they knew I would have hated it.

My siblings came in at separate times to check in on me. Max and Lucas both play professional hockey, so they snuck in for a visit when they played Ottawa. My sister Simone and her husband Van—a retired hockey player for the Cold Fury—came in for an entire week, but, like my brothers, they weren’t in my face bemoaning the fact I’d been a prisoner in the Middle East for five months. Van and I played a lot of Xbox together, and Simone cooked all of my favorite foods. My parents stared at me a lot, but I couldn’t really blame them. I’m sure they’re having as hard a time as I am believing I was actually rescued.

But then, it was time to return to Pittsburgh.

To my job.

It was the only time my parents got vocal, expressing their concerns. While they hedged it in terms of “maybe you should stay and rest some more,” I know they’re scared I’m going to go back out on a dangerous mission and die.

I totally get it, but they also know one thing about me. I never run from fears, and I don’t hide from “what if’s”. I confront things head-on, and the only way I know how to put Syria behind me is to put Pittsburgh and my job right in front of me.

I made a slight detour though, flying to New York to visit Sal’s family. He wasn’t married and didn’t have kids, so it was a somber visit with his aging parents who were incredibly stoic about his death. They were quite surprised to see me on their doorstep, but they welcomed me in. We spent an afternoon talking about Sal. I didn’t know him all that well, but I would have given my life for him. They never asked me what happened the night he died and I was taken prisoner, which is a good thing. I haven’t been debriefed yet, and I wouldn’t have been able to give them any details. I’m glad I didn’t have to tell them it was my fault he died along with Jimmy.

And as I stare at the picture of Jimmy’s daughter, Avery, I wonder if there will come a time in her life where she’ll know my role in her father’s death. Anna may or may not choose to tell her the details, and I have no clue exactly what Anna knows yet. She’s a little bit different seeing as how she works here and would presumably be privy to some details.

Regardless, until I get my official debrief with Kynan, I can’t tell her what I did or didn’t do out there in the desert. I can only hold my grief and guilt in tight for now.

My gaze lifts from the photo of Avery to Anna. She’s an incredibly lovely woman with golden hair and unusual blue-gray eyes that seem to change depending on the lighting. In the bar the night we all had drinks, I thought they were a dark cornflower color, but under the fluorescent kitchen lights, they seem almost silvery with a hint of sky blue.