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I grinned to myself and watched her pull away. I was about to head back inside and make some fucking food when I caught sight of a strange envelope tucked under the welcome mat.
My apartment was half a bungalow, and I was lucky enough to have my own entrance. It was set back from the street and surrounded with plants, shit I was pretty sure my landlord took care of, since I clearly wasn’t doing it.
I went out my door and down the steps. I bent over and grabbed the envelope.
On the front was written Captain Emory Rush.
I frowned. Who knew about my job in this area? As far as I knew, nobody knew I was a SEAL. If anyone asked, I told them that I was a traveling salesman, and that was that.
But this had clearly been hand delivered. Whoever put it there knew who I really was and where I lived.
I had a bad feeling as I climbed back up to my apartment. I sat down at the table and tore the envelope open.
There was one glossy photograph inside, black and white, a bit grainy, but I instantly recognized the person.
It was Tara, the girl from the resort in India. She was sitting on a picnic blanket with three other people, two older and another about her age. And she was holding an infant.
My heart skipped a fucking beat. The baby looked young, maybe seven months at most. I screwed up my face and tried to remember if she’d said she had a kid, or if one of her friends was pregnant, or something like that, but we didn’t talk about ourselves much that night.
I flipped the photograph over.
“Fuck,” I said out loud.
Written in Urdu, the language Pakistani people spoke, the language The Network spoke, was a simple message.
Emory, we know who you are and who this baby is. Do you?
I dropped the photograph on the table and stepped away, my mind moving a thousand miles a second.
The implication was obvious. I thought it the second I saw the girl holding that baby. Sixteen months ago, sixteen months after we slept together.
But how the fuck could The Network know about her? I was only with her that one night, and for such a short time.
“Fucking fuck,” I said again. They must have had spies inside that resort. They knew who I was and who my team was; they must have been watching us. They probably followed every person I was with that night, watching and waiting for something they could use against my team and me.
Fuck, this was bad. Worse than bad. But I couldn’t panic, not yet. I took a deep breath, calling on my SEAL training to remain calm in the face of danger. I didn’t know anything for sure yet.
All I had was this photograph. Clearly The Network was watching this girl; that wasn’t the issue. No, the real issue was whether the kid was actually mine or not.
But that shouldn’t matter. The girl’s life was in danger because of me. I couldn’t just hang her out to dry because I wasn’t sure if that baby was mine or not.
No, I wasn’t going to let The Network have this girl. Fuck them for coming onto my turf, fucking with my people. They could come after me all they wanted, and frankly I welcomed that shit, but they weren’t messing with some innocent fucking girl just because they were too cowardly to come at me directly.
I clenched my jaw and resigned myself. I was going to find this girl, and I was going to protect her, at least until I figured out what this was all about.
3
Tara
The day was bright and comfortable as I pushed Mason in his stroller along the paved, black path.
I loved taking Mason out for a walk in the park near my house. There was nothing better than spending some time with him out in the sunlight, getting some fresh air and some exercise. Mason seemed to like it too and rarely ever got fussy when we were out for a walk. In fact, it was the calmest I ever saw him.
It was Friday, and fortunately I had the day off. I worked out my schedule so that I had short days on Mondays and Wednesdays, long days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and every Friday off to spend the day with Mason. And to give my mom a break from babysitting, of course, though she’d never complain.
As I walked along, pushing Mason, I started to have this strange feeling on the back of my neck. It was almost like I was being watched or something like that. I looked around, but it looked like a normal afternoon at the park: moms out with their young kids, older people going for a walk, basically what you’d expect from suburban Indiana.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was staring at me. It was completely bizarre, because normally I felt so comfortable at the park, but suddenly I was acting paranoid. It was probably just because I hadn’t been home in so long. I wasn’t used to being around the neighborhood.
As I walked, I spotted a friend of mine, Jane. She was a few years older and had a little baby boy around Mason’s age. I waved to her and headed over. She was a little taller than me, with glasses and large, round cheekbones.
