![\"carrie-with-children-com\"](\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Carrie-With-Children.com_-300x200.jpg\")
He was ten yards behind her when she heard him. In the cutaway on the back of her bathing suit he saw a braid of muscle tighten. He stopped and she turned to him, eyebrows arching as if only curious, her right hand moving in the L.L. Bean canvas bag hooked on her shoulder.<\/p>\n
He gently lifted the tails of his shirt up with his left hand to show her there was no weapon at his waist. He kept his right hand loose and away from his body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to ask you,\u201d he said, \u201cto leave my girl out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman stepped to where she could watch him and also look far down the shining sand at the edge of the waves for the girl she\u2019d been following. Gone. He watched her work out the problem. She committed to a decision and walked away from him toward where she had last seen the girl. He followed, just out of her reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an athletic confidence in your gait,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to dampen that if you hope to improve at surveillance. You must have heard it before, from a trainer maybe, but perhaps you can\u2019t help yourself. If it makes you feel any better, your partner at the hotel is worse. He wants people to notice his authority which, of course, becomes no authority at all. He likes his gun quite a bit, likes to touch it. He needs to be chained to a desk, don\u2019t you think?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re on about,\u201d she said, her voice TV American with a British rhythm.<\/p>\n
He moved to her left, closer, keeping her body between him and the gun in her bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet her go home,\u201d he said. \u201cYou give me that and I\u2019ll give you something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to bargain,\u201d she said, \u201cyou should make a call.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the call,\u201d he said. \u201cDon\u2019t be mad at me. You knew there was a chance I\u2019d circle back on you. You took a risk and so did I. It was wrong to ask her to meet me here, but I needed to see her. Now I\u2019ll do what it takes to keep her out of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s important to you,\u201d she said. \u201cI need to know who she is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe has nothing to do with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUs?\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re old friends?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with you guys,\u201d he said, \u201cis you have too much money. Old days, you wouldn\u2019t track me here. You\u2019d wait until I arrived in Boston, let me have my vacation. There\u2019s no thought to this at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
She scanned the ground ahead. \u201cYou\u2019re a branch on the tree,\u201d she said. \u201cI follow branches to the trunk, cut the tree down, stand on the stump.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d he said. \u201cA song? You\u2019re smarter than this. You need to stop marching long enough to hear what I\u2019m saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is you?\u201d she said. \u201cThe guy they warned me about?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFunny thing,\u201d he said, \u201cI was warned, too, but I didn\u2019t believe it. They said you guys would be all over me. Said all you cared about was doing O\u2019Brien because maybe he passed some money around and someone is talking and now you look bad because your boss said Boston was clean. I will tell you that O\u2019Brien\u2019s taking responsibility and wants help, wants this to work out. I can help him and we can help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
She followed the girl\u2019s footprints up a dune.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou might get her,\u201d he said, \u201cmaybe find out where she lives or go after her at work. But she won\u2019t be easy. She knows what to look for, who to contact. And there\u2019s nothing there so it\u2019ll look weak and you don\u2019t want that. I\u2019m asking you to make a decision here. Call it professional courtesy. She walks away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do your job,\u201d she said, \u201cI do mine. Nothing personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a mistake meeting her here,\u201d he said. \u201cI wonder if you\u2019re making a mistake right now. You\u2019re from a military family, is that it? Proving yourself? I know you had to be twice as good as the men to get this far. But all of us have blind spots. No exceptions. And blind spots tend to be personal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis what you do?\u201d she said. \u201cThis psyop<\/i> shit works on people?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m being practical,\u201d he said. \u201cGive me a couple days and O\u2019Brien will meet with your guy in Boston. No violence. What I\u2019ve done in the past, special circumstances like this, what I\u2019ve done is I\u2019ve let someone come in the room with me. How would that sound to your boss? You in the room with O\u2019Brien.\u201d<\/p>\n
She did not slow, said, \u201cI\u2019m supposed to believe that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re the only one who saw my girl,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe you took pictures or have her voice. I\u2019m asking you to stop and we\u2019ll talk to O\u2019Brien together.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care what you offer,\u201d she said. \u201cI saw you romancing her, that crap, what is she, twenty-two?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did you see?\u201d he said. \u201cMe kissing her hand? Hugging her? Is that what you saw?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re a talker,\u201d she said. \u201cI know what I saw and I know what you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to protect her,\u201d he said, \u201cthat\u2019s what this is. I like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re taking advantage,\u201d she said. \u201cShe\u2019s a kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s twenty-four, my girl,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy girl,\u201d she said, mocking him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it you?\u201d he said. \u201cA sister? Your mother? A daughter? You\u2019re carrying something extremely painful…stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stepped in front of her, forcing her to stumble, react. Her left arm punched and her fist slammed into his chest. He fell to his knees and she kicked him aside. Kept walking.<\/p>\n
\u2018There are people,\u201d he called out after her, \u201cthat you die for.\u201d<\/p>\n
He heard a long rolling wave break on the sand and hiss as it pulled back. Then he heard the woman moving toward him. He looked up and she was looking down at him, her eyes reflecting the ocean, her bare feet inches from his face.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s your daughter,\u201d she said. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t say it, let me think things, made me hit you. What am I dealing with here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith me,\u201d he said and stood up, brushing sand off his shirt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He was ten yards behind her when she heard him. In the cutaway on the back of her bathing suit he saw a braid of muscle tighten. He stopped and she turned to him, eyebrows arching as if only curious, her right hand moving in the L.L. Bean canvas bag hooked on her shoulder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12083,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12084,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12082\/revisions\/12084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}