Sanguine Springs, New York

  Matthias Neumann wiped a layer of dirt from atop the motor, his fingers pressing the corner of the blue shop towel into the curves and crannies around the spark plug sockets. His cleaning knocked one wire off-kilter from the other five. He stopped, set the rag onto the oil reservoir lid, its corner grazing the embossed H on the thick, dark-colored valve cover. Matthias extended a single finger and nudged the wire back into place, running perpendicular to the top of the throttle body of his V6 engine.

  Perfekt.

  He took his time cleaning the engine compartment of dirt, pine needles, and leaves. So many leaves. The former commando hadn't anticipated the volume of leaves an engine compartment could hold.

  Not that he minded the work. His appointment for the day had fallen through, and he had time to spare. Perhaps he'd head down to the library in the Forks, or head up to Lake Placid and have a drink while staring over Mirror Lake. Even a walk around his favorite patch of ground would be fine.

  Anything beat the thought of Tony's party.

  Matthias did not like parties. He did not like conversation. And he didn't care for Tony Dalotto.

  What Matthias liked was peace and order. Since arriving in the states, he had spent more time meditating. His last mission left him reaching to find order among life's chaos. He'd hoped to find it here.

  For the most part, he had.

  The Horus Overwatch severance package was quite nice, with enough funds for the down payment and first few years' mortgage, his continual rehab and therapy, even his golden-bronze Honda Odyssey.

  His job as a medical transport driver for the elderly helped pass the time and paid his bills. Matthias smiled. He used to lead men into combat. Now? He drove grandmothers and grandfathers to doctors in Elizabethtown or Plattsburgh in a high-mileage Honda Odyssey. It was a good life, by day.

  But at night, he still saw it all. The old woman's mouth forming a perfect O as her eyes rolled backward in her head, the fear writ large on her grandchildren's faces. A family destroyed. What did it matter if the children were placed together in a foster home? The psychic wound they bore would stay with them for the rest of their lives.

  Just as the psychic wound would stay with him.

  Stop. You came here to bury the past. Let it lie. He dropped the hood with finality, the burgundy-colored metal flashing in the morning sunlight. The van, like his name and home, was chosen carefully to avoid suspicion. With the decidedly unsexy ride and his still prominent limp, he was no warrior in a garden. Just a quiet man in a quiet town who needed to stretch his legs.

  Matthias bent to pack away his tools. His left leg wobbled outward, his nerves filing a complaint in triplicate. Sweat blossomed along his back as he slotted the screwdrivers and sockets back into the vacuum-molded recesses of their black plastic toolbox.

  Matthias carried the toolbox through an open rollup door, leaves crunching underfoot, and set the Snap-on tool set precisely on the metal shelving unit where it belonged. The black plastic case slid into place like a piston between a five-quart jug of SAE 5W-20 motor oil and two full rolls of blue shop towels.

  Everything in its place.

  Inside the house, he exchanged his "garage work" shirt for a clean Henley, filled his Hydro Flask at the kitchen sink, grabbed his keys, and headed for the door.

  The Honda's engine turned over with a reliable hum. Matthias adjusted the rearview mirror, glancing up the single-lane road. No traffic. He checked the neighbors' drives for taillights, then pulled out.

  As he circled the drive, Matthias noted the silver Nissan still parked beside Jake's totaled truck. The man's daughter must still be inside the house, sorting through the remnants of a life cut short. He felt a moment of fleeting pity. It was enough. He had his own path to walk.

  The Honda turned north to pass a hobby farm before entering the deeper solitude of thick pines, held back from the road by the remnants of mossy stone walls. Old walls. He was in the oldest corner of the young nation. A corner that had grown quiet and reflective with the years.

  After a few minutes the forests fell away, leaving him suddenly exposed to the scrutiny of a score of mountain peaks ringing the meadow. Up ahead, in the shadows of a granite-domed rise, a gray-weathered barn slouched, its timbers listing hard to port. Across the road, tucked behind a row of sentinel pines, lay the dead.

  Matthias flicked his blinker and rolled to a stop beneath a towering pine. He put the van in park, killed the engine, and pocketed his keys. It was time for a walk.

  Matthias slid from the van, leaving his cane resting on the cushion of the passenger seat. No need today. He felt strong. His boots crunched first on roadside gravel, then on dried and flaking dead grass. Gottesacker Gras, Oma had called it. The dry, twiggy blades that flourished like thick lichen in under-maintained graveyards. He had been surprised to find it here in America too.

  He came here to walk among the headstones of this country cemetery several times a week. The gentle slope and privacy both helped facilitate his recovery, walking laps up and down the slope without witnesses. While he walked, cane at the ready, he scanned the stones, noting birth and death dates. Some of the graves dated back to the American Civil War.

  But one was barely a month old.

  Matthias walked his circuit among the stones, passing beneath a ten-foot-tall obelisk, its peak capped by a weathered angel of mercy. He veered toward Jake Clark's granite monument to pay his respects to the kind and industrious neighbor.

  He rounded the corner and stopped short. Someone was already there—a slender woman sitting cross-legged on the bare mound of dirt. Dark running leggings hugged her legs while the rest of her was wrapped in a gray zip-up athletic jacket, the hood pulled up over a baseball cap. She sat perfectly still, face buried in her upturned hands. One of the hands was made of polymer and metal.

  Allison.

  Matthias stopped, his knee complaining at the unexpected change in velocity. He reached out, placing a hand on the granite monument to steady himself. I should have brought my cane. His leg swore in German.

  Allison's head whipped up from her hands, her hands dropping down to the ground. Then she was on her feet, backing away while eyeing Matthias warily. She sidestepped, putting another headstone between them, hands held at the ready in front of her.

  Matthias gritted his teeth. "Hallo," he said. "I apologize. I did not mean to startle you."

  The woman frowned. She looked from Matthias's face down to his legs, then paused to stare at his hand, the one gripping the monument for support. "Are you hurt?" she asked.

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  "I am fine. It is an old wound." He stood up straighter.

  Allison looked toward the road, spotting Matthias's van. Her shoulders slumped fractionally, and she let out a breath. "You live in Sanguine Springs?" With her prosthetic hand, she brushed a loose strand of brown hair from her face, tucking it behind an ear.

  "Ja, for nine months or so." Matthias looked away from the pulsing light on the young woman's polymer wrist. "I did not mean to intrude. There were no other cars."

  "I ran from home."

  "Ah, that is... a very American thing." A runaway? He hadn't known Jake, or Brad, well enough to learn family secrets. Why would this stranger announce it to him in their first meeting?

  "Excuse me?" Allison cocked her head to the side. She laced her fingers together in front of her and wore an expression like one who had smelled something foul.

  "Pardon, I meant the independent nature of the American people." He tried to recall the films he'd seen, the books he'd read, to find some non-stupid thing to say to this new arrival. "California, yes? The promised land of opportunity?"

  Her hands came apart, rising to position themselves palms out toward him. "How do you know where I was?"

  Matthias raised both his hands like a man at gunpoint. "I am not... no, wait—excuse me. Your father. Jake Clark. I knew him. He talked about you, working in California. A great opportunity, he said. But he did not say you ran away from home."

  "What? No, you dummy, I RAN HERE. From my dad's house."

  Matthias's face flushed. She had caught him off guard again. He hadn’t expected such a forceful reply from the grieving woman. "Entschuldigung! Excuse me. I meant no offense. There are times when I very much hate your English language."

  "You and all of us." She smiled half a smile, the expression transforming her face from wary to almost amused. "It happens. Forget about it." Her gaze shifted past him to the mountains that ringed the tan-collared meadow beyond the cemetery. "But no, it's beautiful here. I understand why you come to walk."

  Matthias followed her line of sight. The Jay Range sprawled like a giant stone fence to their east, while to the west, sharp peaks pierced the sky. The Adirondack High Peaks. The cemetery commanded a million-dollar view of Whiteface Mountain, its sides scoured to the color of bone by regular but unpredictable rockslides. Nearer at hand, to the north, Haystack Mountain rose like a man's head against the October sky, its summit of bare stone a testament to the scourges of arboreal pattern baldness. The old cemetery commanded a view that had remained unchanged for generations—a peaceful overlook where the many dead could rest while watching over the nearby living few.

  "Perhaps when I am well enough, I can run here and beyond." He shifted his weight, testing his knee's response to the uneven ground. "Perhaps I could pace you?"

  "I doubt it." Allison's voice carried a note of finality. She flexed her prosthetic hand unconsciously, the mechanical fingers responding with subtle mechanical precision. "I won't be here long."

  "No?"

  "Just enough to pack up my dad's things, sell what I can, donate or junk the rest. And figure out how to sell the house." She kicked at a clump of dried grass with the toe of her running shoe. "Then I'm gone."

  Matthias watched her shoulders tense as she spoke, the way her jaw set with determination that seemed forced. "Your father... Jake was a good man. He mentioned you often. With pride."

  Something flickered across her face—pain, maybe guilt. "Yeah, well. Good for him."

  The bitterness in her voice caught him off guard. He had expected grief, perhaps sadness, but not this sharp-edged anger that seemed directed as much inward as outward. "He spoke of your work in California. Tetherly, yes? Impressive credentials."

  Allison's laugh was hollow. "Oh, impressive all right." She turned away, staring out at the mountains. "So impressive that I walked away from it two days ago."

  Matthias frowned. There was more here than simple mourning—layers of regret and disappointment that went deeper than loss. But he was not skilled at reading people, especially not American women carrying burdens he couldn't begin to understand.

  "I should go," Allison said, turning from Matthias with an air of finality. "Enjoy your walk. I've got boxes to pack."

  "Wait." The word came out more forcefully than he intended. She stopped but didn't turn around. "I... I know what it is like. To live with actions that cannot be undone."

  Her shoulders went rigid. "You don't know anything about me."

  "Nein, I do not. But I know about moments that change everything." He shifted his weight, feeling the familiar protest from his artificial knee. "About choices that cannot be taken back. Shots that cannot be unfired."

  Allison turned back to face him, and for a moment her defensive mask slipped. He saw exhaustion there, and a kind of sadness that made her look somehow younger and older than her years. "He called me," she said quietly. "Five weeks ago. I was... busy. I told him I'd call back."

  The confession hung between them in the autumn air. Matthias tested it in his mind. It felt true, but only partway there. A sacrificial confession, one tossed out to distract the hounds, while the real regret lay buried deeper still. A tactic he recognized within his own heart.

  "I keep thinking, if I'd picked up, maybe things would be different," she continued, her voice barely above a whisper. "Maybe this time he'd have convinced me to come for a visit." She stopped, shaking her head sharply. "Doesn't matter now."

  "Perhaps not. But you are here now."

  "A month too late." Her laugh was bitter. She gestured toward the grave with her left hand. "Look, I really need to get going. Lots to do."

  Matthias could see her walls rebuilding, the momentary vulnerability disappearing behind practiced defenses. He wanted to offer some final comfort, something to ease the pain he recognized in her eyes. The German words formed first in his mind, then he translated carefully—or thought he had.

  "Well then, good luck picking through the bones."

  The young woman stood stock-still. "Excuse me?"

  Too late, Matthias realized his mistake. In German, the phrase about sorting through memories and belongings carried gentle connotations of careful preservation. In English, it sounded like something else entirely. "I meant... going through his things. His memories—"

  "Just who do you think you are?" Her voice was ice. "Are you calling me a grave robber? A ghoul?"

  "Nein, no, I—"

  "You know what? I don't need this. Forget you." She was already turning away, her stride sharp and angry. "And forget your fake concern too."

  She began jogging through the headstones, passing through the belt of taller pines, and out of view. Matthias stood mutely, his eyes on the break in the trees where the road wound back toward home. It wasn't long until she reappeared, her form cutting through the late morning air with fierce determination. Matthias watched her go, thinking about the weight she carried. Grief? Guilt? Regret? Or all of that, and something more. Walked away from her job? There was something broken in her. Something that matched the fractures in his own life.

  By the time he made it back to his van, she was gone. No surprise. She was moving fast. He started the engine, and out of respect for the young woman's mental state, headed north. Perhaps now was a good time to visit the library in Au Sable Forks.

  Hours later, Matthias drove homeward in silence, a stack of freshly borrowed books buckled securely into the passenger seat. He had some vague idea of their contents but had only checked them out as a force of habit, just going through the motions. His mind was elsewhere, still haunted by the cemetery encounter. He had handled the encounter poorly. Despite his conversations with passengers, his already terse social skills had been atrophying during his months of solitude. He had clearly missed important undercurrents in their exchange. The woman was struggling with emotions beyond grief—emotions he had stepped right into.

  As he turned the Honda onto the leaf-strewn road to home, Matthias found himself thinking about Tony Dalotto's party. The very idea made his skin crawl, but in a community this small, Jake's daughter would likely be there to spend time with her uncle if nothing else. It could be a chance to extend a proper olive branch, to offer whatever small comfort he could to someone who seemed as displaced and wounded as himself.

  Matthias pulled into town without sight of the girl. A small mercy. He pulled the van into his open garage, put the vehicle into park, and killed the engine. His fingers found and pressed a button on the controller near his window shade. Darkness fell as panels slid into place, leaving him staring ahead at the organized and tool-lined shelves of his garage. Organized and alone. Much like he spent each day, losing himself in careful routines that kept his nightmares at bay. But perhaps Allison's nightmares were even worse. He could not tell.

  With a sigh, he unbuckled, popped the van door, and circled to the passenger door to gather his belongings. As he passed from garage to the inner house, stepping gingerly on his smarting leg, Matthias made up his mind.

  He would go to Tony's party after all. Not for the music, and certainly not for the company, but for the chance to show a grieving woman that someone understood what it meant to carry the weight of words left unspoken. Or at least, to show her that I am not an absolute ass.