Page 64 of Renegade

It seems to take an eternity for my phone to turn on, but as soon as it does, I click on my contacts. My finger hovers over Kenzie’s name as Dr. Singh’s words echo in my head. It’s ten hours earlier back home—around two in the morning. McKenzie’s always been reserved and anxious. Maybe I should at least wait until she wakes up before I call her and tell her I’m fine.

I feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise as I realize there are no missed calls—not from Kenzie or my best friend and SEAL brother, Walker, or any of the guys on my team. How does a guy disappear from his Navy SEAL team for several months and no one looks for him? I know Kenzie; she would have been beside herself with worry, calling and texting me. But there are no texts or calls from anyone. With a prickle of foreboding creeping up my spine, I google my name.

Apparently, I was killed rescuing an aid worker in Afghanistan. I had a lovely memorial service, but I’m kind of pissed that no one played my in-case-of-death playlist, which included “Stairway to Heaven,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” and Monty Python’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

There’s more—rumors that I had been illegally running guns, selling them to a Mexican drug cartel. I sit in stunned silence for a long time. Did I do that? Did I betray my country and smuggle guns out of Iraq? Was that hazy memory of carrying guns through customs real?

I have to find out. And I have to find out while the rest of the world thinks I’m dead, or else I’ll end up in jail before I can prove my innocence. Or my guilt, I think grimly. Either way, I have to do it alone. I can’t implicate anyone else in this. I know Walker would believe me—he’s the brother I never had—but he’s probably been made commanding officer after my “death.” Being a SEAL means everything to him. I can’t take that away from him, or involve him in this.

I set my phone down, the doctor’s words about my memory returning echoing through my head.Sometimes it’s a blessing.

Fuck that! I’ve got to get strong, and I’ve got to clear my name. But most importantly, if I did take the guns, I’ve got to find them before anyone else does and make this right.

“Were you able to contact your family?” Dr. Singh asks when he comes back to check on me.

“It’s complicated,” I say. “There are things I don’t remember that I need to before I go home.”

“I can’t keep you here any longer,” he says gravely. “You have no money, and we are short of beds.”

“I understand,” I say.

“That is why I would like to open my home to you. You can recover quietly there. And when you are ready, you can go home.”

“Why would you do that? Why did you take care of me all these months when I couldn’t even pay you?”

“I am Sikh,” he explains with a shrug. “Hospitality and protecting the weak are pillars of my religion.”

Weak.It’s not a word that has ever applied to me. I don’t like it.

I spend the next six weeks at Dr. Singh’s house regaining my strength and stamina, helping care for goats, teaching his two young boys English, and waiting for my memory to return, but the holes remain. Every day I comb the news, hoping to find clues or that one thing that will spark my memory and create a new path for the memories to surface. But there’s nothing.

Then, I see Charlotte’s face staring back at me, and the headline that accompanies the photo makes my blood run cold—“Charleston Wedding Planner Missing; Foul Play Is Suspected.” I skim the news article, my heart in my throat.

Charlotte has been kidnapped, and I know instinctively it has something to do with me, although I have no idea how. My time in India is over. I throw my things into a bag. If Charlotte is in trouble, so is McKenzie, and everyone close to me. Whether I stole the guns or not is irrelevant now. Someone is messing with my family, and that will not be tolerated.

Now it’s personal. It’s time to kick some ass.