Page 9 of Beyond Protection
I didn't know if I should feel safer or more exposed.
Both, maybe.
Or maybe—for the first time in longer than I could remember—I felt seen in a way that didn't require me to perform. Seen in a way that wasn't about me at all.
Seen by someone who wasn't looking.
I let the curtain fall closed.
Outside, rain kept falling. Downstairs, Eamon Price was hearing about 847 photographs and a woman who wanted to extract me like a painting from a burning museum.
I lay back down. Didn't sleep.
Just listened to the rain and thought about how he'd stood on that street, absolutely still, scanning for threats with the patience of someone who'd done this before. Who'd stand between people and danger because that's what he did. What he'd always done.
Like he'd been waiting for this call.
Like he'd known exactly what he'd find.
Chapter two
Eamon
The dashboard clock read 12:07 when I killed the engine.
Rain hammered the roof of my rental car—sharp, relentless, the kind of Pacific Northwest downpour that turned streets into rivers and made sound travel strangely. I sat in the sudden quiet and listened—not to the weather but to what lived underneath it.
Sounds filled the night. Gutterwater rushing downhill. Distant traffic on the arterial. The stillness of a residential street after midnight, when everyone's inside pretending to sleep.
Three seconds. Five. Ten.
No dogs barking. No porch lights flicking on. No one was opening doors to see who'd pulled up.
Good.
I scanned left first. Parked cars lined both sides—Subarus and Hondas weathered by salt air and rain, bumpers held on with duct tape. It was the comfortable shabbiness of a neighborhood where people stayed because they belonged.
A recycling bin tipped against a curb. House numbers ascended in brass and painted wood, some tilted by decades of Seattle's hills trying to claim them back.
Then the gray sedan.
Two houses down. Driver's side facing me. Engine off but windows fogged from the inside—someone's breath condensing against cold glass. Oregon plates. Recent model, nothing distinctive. The kind of car designed to disappear in any parking lot, on any street corner.
Exactly what a smart predator would choose.
I memorized the plate number. Noted the angle to the McCabe porch. Calculated response time if the driver moved—twelve seconds to exit my vehicle, reach the front door, and position myself between threat and target.
Not fast enough if they had a weapon.
Probably fast enough if they didn't.
My hand drifted to the Glock holstered under my jacket, its familiar weight. I could draw, approach, and make contact. Establish presence. Show them someone was watching back.
Bad idea. Residential zone. No immediate threat. No proof of hostile intent beyond unsettling messages and surveillance positioning.
I left the weapon holstered.
Stepped out into the rain instead.
