And then I got that feeling again, like someone was following me. I glanced back and saw someone walking along quickly, gaining on me.
I felt my heart leap in my chest, adrenaline taking over. I started to walk faster, trying to stay ahead of whoever was coming closer to me. I glanced back, but he was grinning at me. I moved quicker, walking fast, pushing Mason faster along the sidewalk. I spotted the house up ahead and risked looking back. He was getting closer and seemed to be waving at me.
I practically started jogging. I didn’t know what the heck I was doing, but for some reason I didn’t want that guy to catch up to me. I was afraid, I realized, absolutely terrified. I started jogging faster, pushing Mason along.
I made it to the driveway and up along it. I fumbled at the door for my key and realized that my parents both were out.
“Excuse me, miss?”
I looked up, terrified. The man had followed me all the way from the park, even though I’d been running from him.
“I don’t have anything,” I blurted out.
He looked at me strangely. “You dropped this.”
In his hand was my wallet.
Relief washed over me. “Oh my gosh, thanks so much. It must have fallen off when I hit that bump.”
“No problem. Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I said, laughing. “I thought you were a mugger or something.”
He smiled at me. “Can’t be too careful.” He was taller than me, broad and handsome. He skin was dark and his dark hair was cropped short. I guessed he was Indian or something like that, though he spoke perfect English. He was a few years older than me and was dressed in really simple khaki pants and a polo shirt.
“Take care,” he said and then turned and walked away.
I watched him go for a second and then unlocked the door, feeling foolish. I didn’t know why I felt so paranoid and strange, or why I would run from a perfect stranger. All the guy wanted to do was return my wallet.
I opened the front door and pushed Mason inside, closing it and locking it behind me. Even though I knew that guy wasn’t chasing me to mug me or something, I couldn’t help but still feel a little uneasy. I was a single mother alone in a big house with just my baby. Anything could happen.
I sighed. “I’m being silly,” I said to Mason as I lifted him from the stroller and walked into the kitchen. “Mommy is paranoid today. I don’t know why.”
He just squirmed and giggled.
I got a glass of water and sat down with him at the kitchen table. I sipped the water, thinking to myself absently about trying to make some new friends at college. That was pretty tough, especially with a baby. I was only a year older than most of the people in my classes, which was no big deal at all.
The phone started ringing suddenly, yanking me back out of my thoughts. I stood up, Mason in one arm, and grabbed it with my free hand.
“Hello?” I answered.
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?” I said again.
I was about to hang up, but I heard something. It was someone breathing heavily on the other end, like they were running or something like that.
“I can hear you,” I said. “You’re breathing really loudly.”
No response, just more breathing.
That feeling of paranoia was back again, and with a vengeance. I was so thoroughly creeped out that I just hung the phone up, not caring if it was an important call.
“So weird,” I said out loud to Mason. He just squirmed in my arms like always.
I carried him out to the living room and strapped him into his bouncy chair. He rocked back in it while I started to make myself something to eat. I was trying to forget about that creepy call, but it was pretty difficult.
It wasn’t every day you got a call from someone just breathing on the line.
My initial instinct was to think that it was aimed at me, since I was the one who answered. But the call had come into my parent’s landline and not my cell phone, which meant that it could easily have been meant for my mom. People mixed us up on the phone all the time.
I started putting together a sandwich, and by the time I was finished I was starting to feel better. I’d just begun my day in a really weird mood, what with that guy in the park and feeling like I was being watched. The phone call was strange, but it had to just be a coincidence. There was no reason that it actually connected with my paranoia.
As I sat down by Mason to start eating, there was a knock at the door.
I sat totally still. We weren’t expecting any packages or any visitors. There was another knock at the door, a bit more urgent. I stood up slowly, fear in my chest.
Maybe I’d dropped something else in the park. Or maybe that guy was back to murder me and steal Mason.
I shook my head. I was being so stupid. I was a grown-ass woman now, right? I had to stop being afraid of the boogey man.
I walked over toward the front door, and the person knocked again. “Coming,” I called out.
I grabbed the knob. Something inside me told me that I shouldn’t open the door, that I should just walk away.
But I ignored that stupid part of myself, twisted, and pulled the door open.
“Remember me?” he asked, grinning at me.
Those intense blue eyes, that tall, ripped body, that cocky grin. I remembered him. I hadn’t stopped thinking about him for a long, long time.
My ghost, my baby’s father.
Emory stood there grinning at me, and I thought I was going to pass out.
4
Emory
I kicked my feet up on the table and pulled out one of my many secure cell phones. I dialed the only number in the contacts and waited for it to ring. On the third ring, I hung up and waited.
This was the game I had to play in order to contact my superiors when I was blending in with civilians. My work was too important to risk getting caught up in the surveillance that law enforcement agencies were constantly doing, plus the surveillance various terrorist groups likely had me under.
Three minutes later, the phone rang. I waited three rings and then answered.
“Sir,” I said, “I have a problem.”
“Speak fast, soldier. I was playing golf.”
I grinned to myself. I was speaking with my commanding officer, Colonel Ethan Blackfire. He was the head of the anti-terrorism Special Forces unit, namely my SEAL squad.
“I got a package this morning with a single photograph of a woman I had relations with just before entering Pakistan last year. It had a message written on it in Urdu.”
“What did it say?”
“‘We know who you are and who this baby is. Do you?’” I read to him.
“Baby?”
“She’s carrying a baby in the picture, sir.”
“Shit soldier,” he said. “If that means what I think it does, you might be fucked.”
“That thought occurred to me, sir,” I said.
“What’s the request here?”
“I want to protect the girl, sir,” I said. “The Network is clearly behind this.”
There was a short silence. “Fine. Find the girl and protect her, but be fucking subtle about it. I will get back to you with more orders soon.”
“Roger that, sir.”
“Good luck, soldier.” He hung the phone up.