Page 40 of Building Courage

“Yeah.”

“Have your phone handy?”

“Always.” He retrieved it from the kitchen island.

He opened it for her, and she found her number, then typed in her address. “If something should happen…” she said as she handed it back to him.

“I’ll call or text.”

She rose on tip-toe to brush his cheek with a kiss. “See you Friday.”

He walked her out to her car and watched her drive away. He’d known quite a few women but had never met one nearly as complicated as Brynn. He needed to know what had happened to her. If her heart hadn’t been broken by some cheating asshole, it had to be something worse. Something bad enough she’d traveled twenty-nine hundred miles to get away from it.

He had to know. There was some kind of trauma in her background that made it difficult for her to trust. He had to know what it was so he could combat it.

He entered the house and moved down the hall to his bedroom, where he’d used one corner to set up a home office, which consisted of a desk that held his laptop and a small printer.

The two desk drawers stored his personal files and some copy paper. The shelving unit above it on the wall held memorabilia from his scuba diving adventures and his SEAL career.

He couldn’t trace Brynn through social media since he had no pages himself, but he could do a broader search, and he might find something.

He pulled out the rolling office chair, sat down, and flipped open his laptop. The device came up, and he keyed in his password. He typed in Brynn’s name, and immediately, all the sites he’d already visited displaying her professional information came up.

He began to click on other links and fine-tuned his queries to include the area of Saranac, New York. He scanned local news for several pages, then typed in news, Saranac, New York, with the date four years prior, and her name. After he scrolled through several pages of links, a graphic headline popped up. Local Woman Beaten, Choked, and Left for Dead. Boyfriend arrested.

Tucker clicked on the link, and immediately, a picture of a younger Brynn popped up. “Jesus!” he breathed as shock drove him to his feet. He’d expected something bad, but nothing like this. He paced the length of the room and back again to calm down. The pacing did nothing to ease the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He was used to dealing with violence and carnage, but knowing she’d been the target of something like that…

He returned to his seat and opened the story.

Brynn Barrington drove up to Ampersand Mountain for the weekend to take photographs. She checked into the lodge at one in the afternoon on Saturday, October 9th. She left the lodge at two p.m. to hike the trail and take photos. She had almost reached the summit when Chad Gillespie, twenty-eight, her estranged boyfriend, caught up to and confronted her on the path. Gillespie had been served a restraining order a few days before for stalking, terroristic threatening, and abuse and had slipped the ankle monitor the police had tagged him with.

He attacked Brynn on the trail, beat her, choked her with her camera strap, and, believing her dead, tossed her body off the side of the trail onto a ledge.

Driven to his feet again by rage and a feeling of helplessness, Tucker rose to pace again. She’d hate that he’d snooped, that he’d read even that much. He raked his fingers through his hair and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.

He’d answer violence with violence against people trying to kill him, his teammates, or innocent bystanders. He had a few scars from injuries during his deployments. But knowing she’d faced all that turned his stomach.

He sat back down in front of the computer, closed out the story, and instead typed in the Chad Gillespie trial. The guy had to have gone to jail. He clicked through several pages of news stories about the trial. Twenty-five years to life, without the possibility of parole.

“Fuck!” Tucker breathed in frustration and rage.

She’d survived because she was strong. Stronger than she probably realized.

He wished he hadn’t felt compelled to go snooping. He should have waited to let her tell him when she was ready.

She was a private person probably because her privacy had been invaded by news people during the investigation and the court proceedings.

And now, he knew why she’d moved twenty-nine hundred miles to the other side of the country. He also understood why she did the podcast and challenged people to step outside their comfort zone. She was testing herself. Trying to build back part of what she’d lost.

What had she been like before that fucker had attacked her? He’d never know because there was no way for her to wipe away what had happened.

He, too, had things he’d witnessed and experienced that had affected him, but he’d learned to compartmentalize and lock the memories away. Brynn would never be able to do that.

He massaged his temples with his fingertips. She had PTS. Who wouldn’t after that? He’d suspected it all along. So, what could he do to help her without being obvious?

If she found out that he knew before she was ready to tell him, would she walk away?

Probably.