The plane landed shortly after ten. I stepped onto the dark tarmac with my duffel over one shoulder. Later, my driver admitted that whatever expression I wore had frightened him.

I believed it. For the first time in my career, I wasn’t thinking about mission planning or rules of engagement. I was thinking about the brass bell above a diner door, and the woman who deserved so much better from the town she had spent her life serving.

Chapter 3 — Don’t Gather a Storm

The hospital smelled like every hospital I’d ever entered — disinfectant, old coffee, plastic, fear. My mother’s room was on the third floor. I paused outside the doorway for four seconds before stepping in, because I needed those four seconds to arrange my face into something that wouldn’t worry her.

She looked smaller than I remembered. Nobody tells you that about seeing a parent in a hospital bed — the bed seems too large, the thin gown makes them look fragile, and suddenly the strongest person you’ve ever known looks impossibly vulnerable.

Her left arm rested in a sling; the fall had fractured her shoulder. A bruise in shades of purple and yellow stretched across her cheekbone.

She looked up and saw me. Her expression wasn’t relief. It was closer to concern.