Page 4 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Chapter three

Matthew

"Paperwork's done." She yanked her ponytail free, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. "Finally. That GSW from the pileup took forever to process."

I nodded, focusing on the combination lock that never wanted to turn smoothly on the first try. Inside my locker, my civilian clothes hung where I'd left them twelve hours ago—jeans, gray Henley, and my worn leather jacket.

"You've been weird all shift." Kayla had perfected a blend of concern and accusation over three years of partnership. "Distracted. Even more than usual."

"Just tired." I pulled the Henley over my head. "Long day."

"I'm not buying tired." She sat heavily on the bench, unlacing her boots with sharp, efficient tugs. "You get that look sometimes. Like you're trying to solve a puzzle that's missing half the pieces."

The metal locker door swung shut with a bang. I'd been careful with my hands all night—steady during compressions, precise with IVs, and gentle when it mattered. Now, my fingers were clumsy.

"It's nothing."

"The GSW guy?" She softened her voice. "McCabe, you can't save everyone. We've talked about this."

I shouldered my bag, keys already in my palm. "See you tomorrow, Kayla."

She was still talking when I pushed through the exit door. It was something about getting enough sleep and not taking cases home with me. Good advice. This time it didn't apply.

I stopped beside the bulletin board where someone had pinned photos from last month's barbecue.

One featured Kayla laughing at something my older brother, Marcus, had said.

Another showed me in the background, barely visible, holding a beer I hadn't finished, always on the edges, even with people who knew me.

I straightened and shook my head. Walked away from the photos, buzzing fluorescents, and the lingering smell of burnt coffee.

Outside, Seattle's morning clouds promised rain. It was time to go home and stop thinking about bloodstained photographs and bullet wounds that didn't belong in traffic accidents.

My apartment was a dark and quiet corner loft on the third floor of a converted warehouse in Fremont. I fumbled for the wall switch, and a single overhead bulb cast harsh shadows across the main room.

I intended it as a temporary crash when I took my EMT position. It was still sparsely furnished with a couch I'd bought from a thrift store downtown and a coffee table made from salvaged wood and metal pipes that my brother, Michael, had welded together.

My television balanced on a stack of milk crates, and the walls stayed blank except for a framed photo of me with my brothers hanging on the wall near the front door.

I dropped my keys on the counter with a metallic clink and let my bag slide to the floor. The refrigerator hummed, and somewhere upstairs, Mrs. Kaminski's television murmured through the ceiling.

Leftover Thai food sat in white containers on the fridge's top shelf. It wasn't breakfast food, but I grabbed the pad Thai anyway, peeled back the cardboard lid, and shoved it into the microwave. Pressed three minutes.

Instead of waiting, I walked to one of the old industrial windows overlooking the street. Cars moved past as usual. They stopped when the light turned red, continuing on their way with green.

Regular people absorbed in their daily lives.

The microwave beeped. I ignored it.

Kitchen. Living room. Window. Again and again, like I was wearing a track in the hardwood floor.

I pulled open the drawer in the side table beside the couch, where I kept things I didn't look at often. Bills I'd already paid. A warranty card for the microwave. And underneath everything else, wrapped in tissue paper that had gone yellow at the edges, my Afghanistan photograph.

Farid and the rest of my squad smiled up at me from a faded color image. He wore a Manchester United jersey that was two sizes too big. We all stood beside a dusty Humvee, our arms around each other's shoulders.

I had the photo in my pocket when the IED went off. Afterward, when the dust settled and the medics pronounced him dead, I'd crumpled it in my fist, bloodstained and torn along one edge. The creases remained.

The John Doe from the crash scene had been clutching his photograph in the same way. His fingers wrapped around it like it was the only thing keeping him tied to consciousness. To life.

Who were the two people in the desert in his picture, and who was lurking close enough to cast a shadow?

The microwave beeped again, insistent. I walked to the kitchen and yanked the door open. The pad Thai sat there, steam rising from noodles that smelled like fish sauce and lime. I wasn't ready for it. My stomach clenched, and I shoved the container back into the refrigerator.

I went back to the hospital before my shift. Our GSW victim was still there. A few hours later, Reyes texted me: the John Doe had slipped out of Harborview.

Where are you now?

I pressed my forehead against cool window glass and watched Seattle go about its early morning routines.

The glass fogged under my breath, blurring the street below into smears of yellow and white. I wiped it clear with my sleeve and stepped back.

Mr. John Doe was in my head again—not how he'd looked unconscious and broken in the wreckage, but when his eyes fluttered open in the back of the ambulance. Those dark eyes tracked my movements as I worked. He didn't look confused or disoriented the way trauma patients usually did.

Was he examining me? I gripped the windowsill, knuckles going white against the painted wood.

What kind of person gets shot and then ends up in a traffic accident? The timing was too precise and convenient. Someone fired a bullet into his ribs, and a few short hours later, he ended up trapped under a delivery truck on I-5.

The usual drone of Mrs. Kaminski's television stopped, replaced by nearly complete silence, like the building was holding its breath.

No identification. No emergency contacts. No insurance cards, credit cards, or anything that connected him to a normal life. People didn't exist without paperwork, not in Seattle in 2025.

Unless you were hiding from something. Or someone.

Was the gunshot a hit? Retaliation?

My hands trembled. I pressed them flat against the kitchen counter, feeling the cool laminate under my palms.

Somewhere in Seattle, a man with a bullet wound and no name was trying to recover from severe medical trauma with no assistance. Maybe he'd found shelter. Perhaps he was already dead in an alley, succumbing to infection or blood loss.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. Pipes creaked faintly in the walls. Outside, a car door slammed—then silence.

Then came the knock.

Soft. Hesitant. Three gentle taps, a pause, then three more.

Probably Mrs. Kaminski needing help with something—a stuck window or her ancient garbage disposal acting up again. Or maybe Marcus, stopping by after his shift, with some complaint about Ma worrying too much.

I walked to the door and flipped the deadbolt, not bothering to check the peephole.

After opening the door, I couldn't process what I was seeing for a moment. It was the John Doe from the highway accident.

He leaned against the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

His face had gone gray-white, the color of old bone, and sweat beaded across his forehead.

Dark stains spread across the front of his shirt—not the random spatters of an accident, but the steady seepage of an open wound.

Someone had found him again and tried to finish what they'd started.

His left arm hung useless at his side, and his right hand pressed against his ribs where fresh blood had soaked through layers of fabric. He still wore the hospital scrubs he'd stolen underneath.

"Help," he said. The word came out as barely more than a whisper.

I stared. He should have been unconscious—or worse. Nobody took a second wound that deep, fled a hospital, and made it three stories up without collapsing on the stairs. Sheer will or something darker had carried him this far.

Three floors. No elevator. I didn't even hear the stairwell door. Seattle prided itself on inclusion, but stairs were still the great gatekeeper. Elevator shafts didn't fit the budget—or the bones—of old warehouse lofts like this one.

How the hell is he still on his feet?

His eyes met mine—those same dark eyes that had tracked my movements in the ambulance, but now they were glassy with pain and exhaustion. He wasn't trying to figure me out anymore. He was pleading for assistance.

Blood dripped from his fingers onto the hallway's worn carpet. Each drop landed with an audible sound.

"Fuck." The word escaped before I could stop it.

His knees buckled. I lunged forward, catching him before he hit the floor, one hand sliding into an armpit and the other steadying his waist. He was heavier than he looked, all lean muscle and sharp angles.

"How did you—" I started, then stopped. Questions could wait. "Come on."

I pulled him inside, kicking the door shut behind us.

The deadbolt sliding home echoed through my apartment like a gunshot.

I heard my brother Michael's voice in my head—clear, stern, unrelenting.

He'd say, "You're letting a potential fugitive into your home—a criminal.

" And still, I locked the door behind him.

The stranger sagged against my kitchen counter, one hand braced on the laminate surface while the other stayed pressed to his ribs. Blood seeped between his fingers, dark and thick. His breathing came in shallow huffs, like each inhale threatened to be the last.

Calling 911 would make sense. I could grab my phone and report a fugitive GSW patient who'd fled Harborview and turned up bleeding on my doorstep. The system would handle it with protocols designed to handle dangerous unknowns.

Hospital escapee. Gunshot victim. Possible renegade. It wasn't my problem to solve.

My phone sat on the counter three feet away, screen dark and waiting.