Page 65 of Rescuing Mary

“Come on, squirt, we’ve bilked Truck out of enough money for one day, I think.”

“Bilked?”

“Conned, swindled, bamboozled.”

“Bamboozled! I like that word,” Annie screeched, then proceeded to repeat it over and over as she headed for the door to Truck’s apartment with his five-dollar bills in her hand.

Truck stood and followed Fletch and his little girl to the door.

“Can I start the car?” Annie asked, looking up at her dad with big pleading eyes.

“Sure,” Fletch said and pulled a key fob from his pocket.

Annie grinned and turned to Truck. “I love pushing the magic button!” And with that, she was out the door and running for the parking lot.

Truck watched as she went straight to a Highlander that was a couple years old and climbed inside. They heard it start up and saw Annie wave at them from inside the car.

“She’s amazing,” Truck told his friend.

“Thanks. I can’t take too much credit for that. That was all Em.”

“She’s also a handful,” Truck observed.

“Now that I’ll take some credit for,” Fletch said with a laugh.

“She being bullied?” Truck asked.

“I guess so. She hasn’t said anything at home, but then again, we’ve been pretty worried about Emily. Annie’s a naturally happy kid and doesn’t complain much about anything.”

“Keep your eye on her,” Truck said. “It might not be a big deal now, but it can be hell on a teenager with raging hormones.”

“Sorry you had to go through that,” Fletch told his friend.

Truck shrugged. “Long time ago.”

“Still.”

Truck nodded.

“You okay?” Fletch asked.

Truck turned to him and raised an eyebrow in question.

“She said a lot in there. Did it bring anything back?”

“No. But…” He paused, not sure how to explain the weird feelings of déjà vu.

“What?”

“I feel as if the memories are there. It’s like when you can’t think of a word, but you know you know it. It’s on the tip of your tongue but you can’t spit it out.”

“Is that different from how you felt last week?” Fletch asked.

“Yeah. At first it happened only occasionally. But lately it gets triggered by smells, by seeing random things, like when I went to that meeting last week on post and sat inside the meeting room, or when your daughter laid her hand on my cheek.”

Fletch nodded. “That’s good.”

“I hope so.”