Page 116

His blood soaks through his clothes onto mine, dripping down to his pants. This injury might send him home, and Marley’s worse. We’re all worse on the inside. We saved our man, but we’re all scarred by what we left behind.

It’s too late to change it. We’ll deal with the scars later.

When the fighting stops.

1

Raquel

Present Day

A hot breeze whips through the streets of downtown Nashville, sweeping my light brown hair off my shoulders and throwing my black blazer open. I catch it, holding my bag and clutching my phone to my ear, hanging on my sister Renée’s words l

ike the voice of God.

“Make friends with Sandra. She’s a good ally.” Renée is encouraging, but my stomach is in knots. “Don’t ask too many questions. If something doesn’t make sense, wait and ask her later.”

“I can’t ask questions on my first day?” The orange hand appears at the crosswalk, and I take the opportunity to straighten my blouse. “What kind of mind reader do they think I am?”

“Trust me, Patton Fletcher doesn’t have time to teach you how to do your job.” She sounds like she might be quoting him.

“I’ve never even met Patton Fletcher.”

“Who hired you? Taron? He’s the only one who could get away with something like that.”

“Ah, yeah.” The walk sign appears, and I hustle across the four-lane street. “I interviewed with Taron Rhodes and Jerry Buckingham.”

“Hmm…” Her skepticism fans my nerves.

“What?”

“You’ll really have to be on your toes, then. If he didn’t pick you, he’ll be looking to get rid of you.”

“Why?” Panic spreads into my chest.

“It’s just how he is. He likes to be in control.”

“So what do I do? You worked here.” I push through the glass doors of Fletcher International, Inc., fresh out of Vanderbilt’s Owen Grad School with a shiny new MBA.

Just like my sister, I graduated in the Top Ten in my class, and as such, I landed interviews with the top firms in the city. I wanted to go to Chicago or Dallas, but my advisor said Fletcher was a great starting point, a real feather in my cap if I could get a good recommendation. I assume this Patton Fletcher knows every CEO in the country… or his dad did.

When I searched Fletcher International, I found pages of articles on George Fletcher, not so much on his son.

“Don’t let him push you around.” Her voice turns thoughtful. “I couldn’t tell if he did it on purpose or if it’s just his personality…”

“How do I do that? He’s the boss.”

I wonder if she might tell me what happened to her here. My thoughts flicker back to when Renée started as an accounting intern at FII. She seemed to be doing great, one of Nashville Magazine’s “Thirty under Thirty” rising stars in local business.

She passed the CPA exam on her first try… Then a year later, she dropped off the grid.

She stopped answering her phone, and when I called the office, a woman said she didn’t work here anymore. I had to leave campus in the middle of exams, catch a city bus across town to her low-rent apartment in East Nashville, where it looked like she hadn’t left her bed for days.

She wouldn’t tell me what happened—she only said she wasn’t doing it anymore. “It” meant anything having to do with her accounting degree.

That spring break, I ditched my plans to spend the week in South Walton to help her move back to Savannah, to our parents’ tiny home near the watchful eye of Ms. Hazel Wakefield, their old neighbor.

Now she helps run Ms. Hazel’s gift shop on Tybee Island and pays for rent by cleaning the old woman’s house, running her errands, and cooking their meals. She doesn’t have much choice since she walked away from her career with nothing but a crushing load of student loan debt.