Cole was sitting on his front porch sipping a cold bottle of Modelo Especial beer. A night high in the mountains of North Carolina could go either way. Some nights the temperature dropped like a rock, but tonight was humid and buggy. Cole had air-conditioning but he worked outside in the heat all day and preferred his body stay acclimated to the natural temperature of things. He did not want to become addicted to air-conditioning like some office worker who could barely tolerate the walk between his house and car for fear he might perspire.
He had a lot going on in his head. The house they were building was progressing at a satisfying pace. He had no complaints. Part of him missed having Amanda on the job site. Still, he was proud of her for knowing what she needed in her life right now and for going out and finding it. She needed independence and a way to make friends. The job at the bike shop would offer that. He could not fault her. It was an adult decision, a sign she was growing up.
Though the mountains of western North Carolina were a generally calm and relatively crime-free area, he worried about her being out at night. That was what parents did. It wasn’t a reflection on her or the region, just a realistic awareness that bad things could happen to anybody at any time through no fault of their own. Sometimes the worst things in life came from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. From being subject to the utterly random will of the universe.
Cole had a microwave dinner earlier then had done some shooting at his backyard range. He’d already cleaned and oiled every gun he’d shot and put them all back in the gun safe except for the Smith & Wesson Shield he wore inside his waistband. Normally, about this time of day he would slip the holster out of his waistband and leave it on his dresser, ready for going to work tomorrow. He was so accustomed to wearing it that some days he carried it up until bedtime without even realizing it was there.
He took another sip of beer and thought about the conversation he had with Amanda recently. It had been weighing on his mind. She was full of questions about his ex-wife and how things had ended. That was a very dark period of Cole's life and it hurt him to revisit it. He’d considered coming clean and telling Amanda the whole sordid story but he harbored so much bitterness he wasn't sure he could do it without ranting, and he’d promised himself he would not do that. He’d made that promise long before his ex-wife died, and now that she was gone, it was even more important than ever to not tarnish her memory.
He wasn’t sure why he was so concerned about protecting Christina’s image. She’d apparently never been concerned at all about protecting his. It hurt him deeply to think his wife had made him out to be a horrible father who never wanted Amanda. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth. It was him from the very beginning of their marriage who wanted children. He’d practically begged her to carry his child. Then, for the entire pregnancy, she moaned and complained about how she was never doing it again. He had hoped she would forget the discomfort because he wanted more than one child.
When Amanda was born, it was him who made most of the bottles, who changed her and bathed her. It was him who got up in the middle of the night and rocked Amanda because his ex-wife did not want to.
"You're the one who wanted this," she reminded him. “Get out of bed and deal with it.”
He was glad to do it because he wanted to make this easy enough that Chris would be willing to have another one. But as Amanda got older, his ex-wife became more adamant she was not having another baby. She complained about the effects on her body. She complained that motherhood and maternity leave had stalled her career because she had to miss work for doctor’s appointments and stay home when Amanda was sick.
Cole was never was able to change her mind. Like the divorce, it remained one of the landmark tragedies of his life. At nearly fifty years old he didn't see himself remarrying or fathering another child. Yet that longing for a large family never went away. There were times when he thought of remarrying and starting over but he couldn’t do it. It felt like a betrayal for some reason that was so complex and nonsensical he could never have explained it. So each morning, he shouldered his pain, got out of bed, and went on with his life. Amanda’s return made it impossible to suppress all of those feelings. One way or another, he was going to have to deal with them.
Cole drained his beer and with a faint clink set the empty on the table next to him. He settled back in his chair and listened to the chorus of night sounds. Most nights there were owls and sometimes coyotes. It was then he heard the scuff of feet on gravel and it was coming from his driveway.
His first reaction was anger. He assumed the sound meant Amanda had ridden her bike home on the bike trail despite him specifically telling her not to. That was fine. If that's the way she wanted to play, he would ground her and lock her bike up until she was ready to follow the rules. He did not want to talk to her while he was this angry. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. While he was doing that, he noticed it sounded like there was more than one person approaching the house.
Could Ben have ridden his bike with her?
He would've been a little less angry if that was the case but she said Ben was going to drive her home. Cole hadn't heard a vehicle. If Ben pulled his Jeep into the driveway, Cole would have seen the headlights reflecting on the trees. He continued to listen and it hit him that there was information contained not just in what he was hearing but in what he was not hearing.
What he was not hearing was a rolling bicycle. Had it been his daughter pushing her bike, there would've been the faint ticking sound of the rolling bike. He didn't know who this was but he no longer thought it was his daughter. With the realization it was not her approaching the house, Cole went on hyper alert. In this part of the country, people didn’t just wander up to your house at night. If someone came on foot unannounced it was usually people intent on theft.
It wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion. Cole knew all too well building contractors were a favorite target. Tools were easy to resell and could bring a lot of money. It had happened to him once before.
He carefully stood and listened. He heard a faint whisper. It sounded like a man's voice but Cole was uncertain at the low volume. He moved to his left so he could get a view of the driveway approaching the side of the house. He walked gently as to avoid any creaking boards. He'd been on the porch a long time and his house was dark, his eyes fully adjusted to the blackness. He clearly saw two men walking carefully around his driveway. They were feeling the hoods of the vehicles, like they were looking for indications of a vehicle that had been recently driven.
Cole drew his pistol. Because it was his primary self-defense weapon, he carried it with a Streamlight tactical light mounted on it. At the touch of a button he could turn the light into a powerful beam or a blinding strobe. The weapon felt comfortable and familiar in his hand. It was ready to go. No safety and one in the pipe.
He held the weapon at a low ready position and continued to watch the intruders. They were at the side of the house now, peering into one window, then another, whispering between themselves. Cole had seen enough to know these men had no business here. He had no clue who they were or what they were up to. With most of his body protected by the corner of the house, Cole trained the weapon on the men and hit the powerful strobe.
The light emitted a rhythmic flashing beam that was disorienting in the darkness. Both men threw up an arm up to shield their eyes. Cole did not recognize them but thought they appeared vaguely Hispanic.
"Don't you fucking move! On the ground now!" Cole barked.
They did not immediately respond, stunned and uncertain as to what to do.
"I have a gun and I will shoot you! On the ground! Now!"
The man on the left, one hand raised in front of his eyes, suddenly dropped the other hand to his shirttail. Cole knew where this was going. He was doing it. There was only one thing that could be under that shirt.
He started to issue another warning but there was no time. The guy had his hand on the grip of a weapon and he was drawing. Cole had little more than a second. No time to consider.
He’d practiced with the Shield so much that firing the weapon took no conscious thought at all. It was pure reaction. Cole double tapped him. Both rounds hit center mass and the intruder staggered backward. The shots were deafening, the echo rolling through the wooded hills.
The armed intruder didn’t release his gun. He could not pull it together enough to aim but he squeezed off the shot. Perhaps it was only a reflex but he was still a threat. Cole center-punched him again, the third round catching the man at the base of the throat. This time he dropped the gun, twisting and falling into a heap.
In the chaos, Cole lost sight of the second man. Maintaining cover, he angled the light around, trying to find where the man might be hiding. He needed to check the downed man and make certain he was no longer a threat but he couldn’t until he’d figured out where the second guy went. Then, as the pounding of his heartbeat in his ears subsided, he picked up the distant crunch of gravel. Specifically, gravel under running feet.
The man had fled. As much as Cole hated letting him go, he was not pursuing the man into the dark. Shooting a robber in self-defense was one thing. Hunting down and killing a fleeing man was another. Cole needed to call the police and let them sort this shit out.
He was going for his phone when it began buzzing in its case. He pulled it out and checked the display. He didn’t recognize the number. It was a pretty shitty time for a conversation but his gut told him to answer. If it was a telemarketer, they were about to get an earful.
“Cole Castle?”
He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice.
“Yes? Who is this?” He realized he sounded a little demanding but adrenaline was still surging through his body. He was in fight mode.
“This is Penny at the bike shop. I’m Ben’s mom.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her this wasn’t a good time but then it finally sank in.
Penny. Amanda’s boss.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes, but I’m not exactly sure what it is. You know about the strange guy we had at the shop?”
“Yes,” Cole said. He was trying to be polite but she needed to talk faster.
“I don’t know all the details but I just got a call from Ben. Amanda got a call from her stepfather tonight that upset her. She took off from the shop on her bike. While Ben was trying to catch her on the trail, someone dropped something on him from an overpass and wrecked him. He said it was the same man.”
“Is he okay?”
“He’s injured,” she replied. “I don’t know how badly yet. The police are on their way. He said the guy left once he saw it was him. He thinks he’s after Amanda.”
Cole thought he had no more room for adrenaline. He thought the intruders and the shooting had amped him up as far as he could go. He was wrong.
“Where is Amanda?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. Somewhere on the trail between the shop and your house, we think. Ben hadn’t reached her yet. I’m going to tell the police to get ATVs out there on the trail and find her.”
“Did Ben say how far along they were?”
“He got hurt at Overpass One,” Penny said. “He thought he was closing in on Amanda until that happened. He thought the guy may be taking off for the next overpass to try the same thing again.”
Cole hung up the phone and shoved it back in his pocket. He holstered the Shield as he ran to his shop. He threw up the rolling door and pulled the cover off his own ATV. He jumped on, started the machine, and shot backward. In his haste, he crushed a cooler and nearly turned the machine over.
Once he was pointed in the right direction, he accelerated wildly, shooting down the gravel drive. When he hit the road at the base of the drive, he shoved the throttle all the way forward. The machine squatted and launched forward.
To the best of his knowledge, the same trails his daughter used to ride to work would accommodate the ATV. The machines were prohibited on the trails but those laws didn’t mean shit to Cole right now. He’d already killed one man tonight and he was bracing himself to kill another.