Page 4 of Carter
Sirens wailed outside—real security this time, not a page. I cuffed him with a zip tie from my pocket and dragged him back inside like yesterday’s trash.
When I reentered the bay, Harper had Lindsey’s hand cupped in both of hers, whispering something steady. The first guy lay face down with Faron’s knee between his shoulder blades, the second in a loose, ugly sprawl.
Detective Keane arrived ten minutes late and five minutes after the danger was over. He looked at the pile of men, at us,and lifted his hands in a gesture that said he’d pretend he brought the cavalry if we’d let him keep the paperwork clean.
“Appreciate the assist,” he said.
“Call it even when we get plates on the SUV and eyes on their stash house,” Faron replied.
Keane nodded, already dialing.
Harper finally exhaled and straightened. Up close, I could see the faint tremor in her fingers and the way she forced it quiet. She looked me over like she was checking for damage she’d be expected to fix.
“You okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. Which was almost true. “You?”
“Also fine.” She paused. “I hate lying.”
I almost laughed. “Yeah.”
Her braid was coming loose, wisps escaping to frame her face. She tucked one behind her ear, then looked past me to Lindsey, who had stopped shaking and started sleeping, the kind of sleep that takes and keeps.
“Thank you,” Harper said, and the words weren’t fragile. They were flint striking steel.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I said. “We’re not done.”
Her eyes met mine—steady, assessing, a challenge and an invitation in the same breath. “Good,” she said. “Because neither am I.”
Faron jerked his head toward the hall. “Robinson. Walk with me.”
I followed him out. The ER buzz settled back into itself—monitors, low voices, the life-and-death rhythm that keeps going no matter what you drag through its doors.
At the corner, Faron stopped. “First day,” he said. “You didn’t screw it up.”
“I’ll put that on a plaque.”
He huffed what passed for a laugh. “Harper Vale,” he added, like he’d been reading my mind. “Works nights.Doesn’t rattle. The kind who puts herself between the world and the person bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
His look sharpened. “Not a warning. A fact. We work with facts around here.”
“Copy that.”
He started walking again. “Keane’s pulling cams from Coast Highway. Red rose tattoo popped up on two prior arrests tied to a warehouse near Oceanside Boulevard. We move in three hours.”
“Three hours it is.”
When I glanced back through the glass, Harper was at Lindsey’s bedside, head bent, hand steady. She didn’t look like someone who wanted saving. She looked like someone who had made a decision a long time ago and kept making it every day since.
I knew that feeling. It was the only one that had pulled me out of Idaho.
Three hours until wheels up. Three hours to learn a new city, a new team, a new woman’s name in my bones.
I didn’t know it yet, but this was the moment my old life stopped clinging to me.
And the new one started to bite.
