PART 2: Forty-eight hours earlier, my tires crushed gravel outside the white clapboard house on the Mendocino coast.

That house used to be home, though even then the word felt like stolen equipment in my mouth. Fog had swallowed half the coastline. The Pacific rolled gray and cold below the bluffs. Cypress trees bent inland under the wind, and salt stuck to the windows in dull streaks.

I killed the engine of my beat-up V8 SUV and sat for one breath longer than necessary.

Six years of continuous deployments had taught me that arriving at a hostile location was never the problem. The problem was underestimating the people who smiled when you crossed the perimeter.

My duffel bag sat on the passenger seat, canvas frayed at the seams, a patch half-torn from the side. Everything I owned fit inside it. That used to bother me. After enough war, ownership becomes less about objects and more about what you can carry while running.

Arthur Butler stood on the porch.

My father.

Brand-new cashmere sweater. Pressed slacks. Hair silvered at the temples in a way he cultivated because women at country club fundraisers told him it looked distinguished. He watched me step out of the SUV with a clinical sweep of his eyes: muddy boots, faded field jacket, sun-bleached sleeves, duffel strap over one shoulder.

No hug.

No welcome home.

No “Thank God you’re alive.”

He pointed toward the narrow side path.

“Use the back door.”

I stared at him.

“Excuse me?”

“Your mother just put down new carpet for the engagement dinner. Ethan’s family arrives tonight. Don’t track whatever that is through the front.”

Whatever that is.

Mud.

Road salt.

Work.

Survival.

The things Arthur had always found offensive unless they were funding something he wanted.

I tightened my hand around the duffel strap.

“Good to see you too.”

His expression did not change.

“You don’t have to make everything a confrontation, Alicia.”

That was his favorite trick.

Turn the wound into my reaction to the wound.

“I wasn’t aware I had.”

He looked past me toward the driveway as if neighbors might be watching.

“Back door.”

I could have argued.

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