Four days later, my dad was still on the run, but my mom had woken up from her coma. She was alert and talking to us, and the doctors said it looked like she was going to be okay. My niece was at preschool, my sister had gone into work because of a meeting she couldn’t miss, and my mom had insisted I take a break and get out of the hospital, so I’d driven an hour to Killeen to visit with some friends.
I sat outside Grover’s house with him, Trigger, Lefty, Brain, Oz, Doc, and Lucky, drinking a beer and catching up. Oz and I had been infantry soldiers together in the Army before going our separate ways. I became part of the Army’s Special Forces as a Green Beret, which, among other missions, specializes in training militias in other countries. Around the same time that I entered the Green Beret pipeline, Oz was chosen for Delta Force, the Army’s top-secret, elite special operations force. The United States doesn’t acknowledge that Delta exists, and those who join its ranks aren’t allowed to discuss the unit, or their part in it. However, Oz and I were close friends, and I was good enough with context clues, to figure it out on my own. It also helped that Oz and I had run into each other on missions a couple of times, and seeing him operate helped solidify that my intuition was correct. I’d also met the rest of his team on those missions, and we’d bonded, enough for us to keep in touch over the years.
“Remember when we got trapped in that valley together in Afghanistan, taking heavy fire, and we didn’t realize until later that all your commandos were hiding in a cave?” Doc asked me with a laugh, talking about the Afghan soldiers my team had trained and gone into combat with. “They were taking a smoke break while we did all the work!”
“Hey, it wasn’t all of them!” I argued, laughing just as hard.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Doc said. “One of them did stay, but he was so freaked out he forgot how to load his rifle. He thought he was taking out all of these bad guys, but it was actually Trigger, who was next to him.”
“He was so proud of himself, too,” Lefty added, sounding wistful.
“Hell, I let him take the credit. At least he stayed, unlike the others,” Trigger said. “He deserved to feel proud of himself.”
“I hope you gave him more firearms lessons afterwards, though,” Grover said to me.
“Oh, you can be sure,” I said, smiling. “And the rest of them got their asses chewed out for hiding.”
We reminisced for a while longer, until the heat of the afternoon became too much for us.
“I wish you’d told us ahead of time that you were coming down,” Lucky said, regret evident in his tone. “If I’d known, I’d have made more time to hang out, but I promised Devyn we’d go shopping tonight. She has several projects around the house she’s been bugging me to help her with.”
“Believe me, if I’d known sooner that I was coming, I would’ve given you a heads up,” I answered. “I got a phone call five days ago, and I hopped on the first plane to Austin.”
“A phone call?" Lefty asked, and I sensed my friends tensing as they realized this wasn’t an ordinary visit for me. “I assumed this was just a normal trip home to see family.”
I took a breath, preparing myself for their reaction to a truth I’d hidden from them. “My dad has abused my mom for as long as I can remember, and no matter what I do, she won’t leave. This time was the worst. He caused some broken bones, and they had to put her in an induced coma for swelling on her brain. Until my mom got sick of looking at me a couple hours ago and kicked me out of her hospital room, I didn’t know if I’d have time to stop by, or if you’d even be stateside. Otherwise, I would’ve called sooner.”
A few of them cursed under their breath, some calling my dad names I’d used for him myself plenty of times. Trigger and his team had always hated abusers, but now that they had wives and families of their own, their need to protect others had grown even stronger.
“Where are they holding him?” Oz asked, disgust clear on his face.
“That’s the thing. He ran when the police showed up, and he’s been missing since it happened. I’ve checked everywhere I can think of, all of his old hangout spots and the nearby jails and hospitals, and I can’t find him anywhere,” I explained. “The fact that he’s out there somewhere, and that he could hurt my mom or my sister at any time once I leave, is eating me up inside.”
The men were silent for a moment, then Trigger pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “I’m calling Tex,” he said, pressing a button and then putting the phone on speaker. Tex was a legend in the Special Operations community, and while I’d never talked to him myself, I knew that his work was second to none. He’d been a Navy SEAL until he’d lost a leg during an op, and since then he’d been helping from the sidelines. He was strictly on the side of good, and he used his computer skills to help with missions and to locate people, among other things.
“Hey, Trigger,” a voice answered after a couple of rings.
“Good to hear your voice, Tex,” Trigger responded. “You're on speaker phone. The whole team is here, along with a friend of ours. He has a situation that I think you’d like to help with. It should be an easy one for you.”
“A friend of yours is a friend of mine,” Tex said. “What’ve you got for me?”
I took that as my cue and started speaking. “Hey, Tex. My name is Evan Hall,” I introduced myself. “Long story short, my dad is an abusive piece of shit, and this time he went too far, and put my mom in the hospital. He ran from the police, though, and I could use some help finding him, if you’re up for it.”
“If I’m up for it?” Tex scoffed. “I love taking down scumbags like him. What’s his name and date of birth?”
“His name is Robert Hall, and his birthday is September 20, 1964.”
“Got it. I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes, maybe less,” Tex said, and then the phone went silent.
While we waited, a car pulled into Grover’s driveway, and three women got out, shopping bags in hand. I recognized Gillian and Kinley, Trigger and Lefty’s wives, but I wasn’t sure who the third one was, even though she looked familiar. They walked closer, and Trigger, Lefty, and Doc got up, greeting the women.
“Evan, this is Ember,” Doc said, his arm wrapped around the woman I didn’t recognize.
I stood and walked over to them, holding my hand out to shake hers. “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”
Ember smiled. “You must be from around here. No one else calls me ma’am.”
“Guilty as charged, I’m afraid,” I quipped, holding my hands up in surrender. Then, I suddenly recognized her. “Wait. Weren’t you in the Olympics?” I asked.
“Yes, in the pentathlon. Now I’m retired from competing, and I live here with Craig,” Ember said, using Doc’s real name.
“And she’s opened a gym for kids to try out the events in the pentathlon. Kids whose family can’t afford a membership get to come for free,” Gillian added, sending Ember a look as if she was disappointed in her for downplaying her accomplishments.
I asked her about the organization, and Ember lit up at my interest. For the next few minutes, she told me all about the gym she’d set up, with the others chiming in occasionally with details she forgot. I really was impressed with what she described, and made a mental note to myself to look it up once I was home.