Chapter Four

NICK WAS GRIPPING the seat belt with both hands, eyes fixed on the highway ahead of us, one long leg jangling up and down as I drove. He was wearing a powder-blue dress shirt he’d pulled from his closet immaculately ironed, and I figured it had probably been that way for months. The guy was all about control. Order. Process. Above the collar I could see his jugular vein, taut and thrumming.

“So what’s going on?” I asked.

“Huh?” He looked at me, unseeing, still captive to his thoughts.

“Who’s Dorrich?”

Nick gave a quick laugh, but there was no humor in it.

“Man, you are like some all-seeing eye,” he said. “I knew there was something hinky about this.” He sighed. “There is no funeral, is there? You’re taking me back to the shrink. I really am your emotional support dog, only you’ve tricked me into a ride to the vet when you promised me the park.”

“There really is a funeral, Nick. Old boss of mine, Mark Bulger. He retired. Kicked the bucket. I didn’t like the guy but I liked his wife, Shauna. She used to bring this amazing homemade soda bread with raisins into the station sometimes. That stuff could make grown men weep.”

“How do you know about Dorrich?”

“I’m the innkeeper. Nothing gets by me.”

“That right?”

“Yeah. And you’re lucky that’s true,” I said. “Because you seem to me like you’re about to run off with the ghosts of your past again. So I’m your friend, and I’m here, and I’m asking you to talk to me. Tell me what’s making you want to do that.”

“I’m fine, Cap.” Nick sometimes called me Cap, for Captain. He considered me a guiding and commanding force in his life, and had for some time.

“Come on. Just give it to me. Who’s Dorrich? Why do you need to get a hold of him so bad?”

The forest scrolled past us, undulating hills of leafless winter trees. Nick’s gaze was fixed on the horizon.

“Is Dorrich real?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s real,” Nick snapped. I let it go. We both knew Nick’s schizophrenia had caused him to come up with imaginary people before, or to assign imaginary intentions to people. But there was no need to rub it in his face. “He was my staff sergeant on my second deployment.”

“OK, so why isn’t he answering your calls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you talked to him since you came home?”

“We check in now and then,” Nick said. He tapped his phone against his knee. “You know. Say hi.”

I let the silence build in the car. When Nick didn’t break it, I did.

“You’re not giving me the full picture here.”

“I know,” Nick said.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s bad,” Nick said. I looked over and he met my eyes properly for the first time that morning, and what I saw in them was something dark and desperate. Something only barely contained. “It’s bad, OK? Worse than you could imagine.”

“It can’t be,” I said. “Because I know you, OK? I was a Boston cop for twenty years, for God’s sake. I’ve seen some stuff. And you? You’re not like that.”

Nick said nothing. He was listening to my speech, his jaw locked.

“So whatever it is, whatever you and this Dorrich guy went through together,” I continued, “it’s in the past. It’s over.”

“It’s not over. Something’s changed.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Because all these years since I’ve been home, checking in every couple of months with Dorrich and Breecher and Master has been like… my way of sniffing the wind for smoke,” Nick said.

“And now you think that because he’s not answering, it means a forest fire is coming,” I said. “Jesus, maybe the guy’s on vacation. A man can’t take a vacation?”

“None of them are answering,” Nick said.

I gripped the wheel and tried to organize my thoughts. It seemed impossible to comfort Nick without being drawn into his terrible, dark world. Without him showing me the monsters he so deeply feared. All I had to offer were vague words of reassurance, that he was safe, that whatever horrors he had seen weren’t going to reemerge here. That New England was about as far from Afghanistan as a person could get—both literally and metaphorically. The words seemed empty. But I said them anyway.

“There’s no forest fire coming, Nick,” I said. “I promise you.”

He shook his head. “No. There’s not. What’s coming is hellfire.”