seven

“I dunno. Pretty hard, I guess. Thing is, though, she did leave a print.” Dorn’s face clouded. “You’re kidding me.” “Nope.” “Which, the one on the light switch? It wasn’t in IAFIS,” Dorn said, meaning the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. “That’s right,” Erwin said. “It wasn’t.” He was going to let the phrase hang there,

“I’ll need to see two forms of identification, Officer”—he broke off and squinted at the form—“Leffington? Erwin Leffington?” He looked up for the first time.

Did they see smoldering bodies piled ten deep when they looked in his eyes? Was he flanked by ghosts when he walked down the hall? He didn’t know.

Actually, Erwin was wrong. The cops had less than two hours to live, but smoking would not be a factor.

He wasn’t post-traumatic or anything. He still loved his men. He still thought the enemy were a bunch of assholes. He was just done with it. It was a Tuesday and he’d seen an Apache gunship basically disintegrate a sixteen-year-old knucklehead. It was the right thing to do, he was grateful to the guy flying the Apache for doing it—the kid was totin

Erwin wasn’t in the Army anymore. Thirteen years in—just after his third tour in Afghanistan—he’d decided he’d killed enough people.

Once, just for an instant, out of the corner of her eye, she caught David looking at the fire in a particular way. David did not notice her noticing him, nor did Margaret, standing next to him now. Carolyn did not say “uzan-iya” out loud, or even think it very clearly—she was learning—but for the rest of the night the phrase was never far from the

Monstruwaken