Chapter 29 - The Husband I Buried

Now

The pub was loud. The sound of conversation, clinking glasses, and fried food sizzling in the kitchen hit me the moment I walked in. I paused in the doorway, letting the warmth of the crowded room wash over me, until the smell of stale beer and smoke hit, making my nose wrinkle.

I hadn’t made much effort, just thrown on pants and a pair of comfortable pumps.

Keith was in the corner, perched on a stool with a pint in hand, grinning like he’d been waiting for me all day. He looked rougher than I’d pictured — stubble edging into a beard, hair longer than it should’ve been, bags under his eyes like he hadn’t slept in years. He could’ve been anywhere between thirty and sixty.

‘You came,’ he said, raising his half-emptied glass. ‘Wasn’t sure you would.’

I felt the same nervous flicker I’d felt talking to Sofia. Like whatever I was about to hear about Luis, I might not want to know. And once I knew, there was no going back. It wasn’t as if I could ask Luis to verify whether anything Keith said was true. I was relying on Keith sticking to the facts . . . and looking at him, I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

‘I almost didn’t,’ I said, sliding into the seat across from him, wrapping my coat tighter around my shoulders. ‘You said you had something to tell me. So tell me.’

Keith leaned forward, his grin fading into something guarded, careful. ‘You’re not gonna like it.’

I braced myself. ‘Try me.’

‘First,’ he said, raising a finger as the server passed, ‘I want you to know I believe you. About Luis, I mean.’

‘Just like that?’ I asked, skeptical.

I had come prepared to explain myself, to leave knowing I could add Keith to the growing list of people who considered me a lost cause, desperately hoping my dead husband would come back.

Keith beckoned the server for another drink, holding up two fingers. He turned back, staring right into my eyes. I fought the urge to look away.

‘Just like that,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen crazy shit. Crazier shit than this even. Hell, in the army, there was always crazy shit going down. I’m sure Luis told you all about it.’ He leaned an elbow on the table. ‘Did he mention they sent him home?’

‘Luis didn’t really talk about his time in the army. He tried drinking the memories away.’

‘Can’t say I blame him,’ Keith said, like someone who had lived it. I watched him suck the froth from his glass, emptying every last drop before setting it aside to be collected. This guy looked like he could handle anything, but he shrank in on himself when he started talking about the army. Whatever had happened, it had got to him, just like it got to Luis.

I accepted the beer when it arrived. The wine I’d been sipping earlier wasn’t enough. I would need more courage, something to numb me before Keith started talking.

‘There was always something,’ Keith said, voice low. ‘The army’s not all training exercises and roasting marshmallows by the campfire singing kumbaya.’ He let that hang in the air, then added, ‘You didn’t hear about the overseas op we got pulled for? Hostage recovery?’

I shook my head.

‘Don’t feel bad. It’s not exactly dinner conversation.’ His eyes went distant, fixed on some invisible point past my shoulder. ‘It was supposed to be clean. In and out. But by the time we got there . . .’ He paused, jaw tight. ‘The hostages were gone. Civilians too. Murdered.’

He leveled his gaze at me, as if deciding how much I could handle hearing.

‘Worse. Bodies mutilated. It was like something out of a nightmare. You never forget it.’

My chest tightened. ‘And Luis, he was there?’

‘Yeah. They pulled him in for the follow-up, too. Officially it was called “psychological resilience prep.” Some classified training thing. But he came back different . . . Like someone had scraped out his soul and left him raw.’

I swallowed hard. ‘Is that when they dismissed him?’

Keith’s laugh was humorless. ‘No. That was after the mission. They tried to keep him. But he wasn’t the same. Couldn’t follow orders. It was like he took matters into his own hands, decided the best way forward.’

Keith shook his head. ‘Luis had some strange ideas about the way we should train. One day, he just clocked a superior officer. Honestly, the guy deserved it. He was heckling another soldier just for the hell of it. But Luis, he didn’t hold back. A couple of guys wanted to try his way of doing things.’

‘What about you? Did you want to try Luis’s way?’

Keith shook his head. ‘He tried to convince me, but I stayed out of it. Didn’t want to get involved. He was burning a few bridges by then. Eventually, they cut him loose.’

I couldn’t imagine Luis hitting an officer. I hadn’t seen that side of him. He’d never told me any of this, but I was curious about his ideas.

‘What was “his way” of doing things?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t really get into it. It was heavy psychological shit. It’s like, whatever they threw at us, he would take it to the extreme. Fasting, sleep deprivation, drills. Some of the guys thought he was going crazy.’

I clasped my hands on the table. ‘Did you speak to him, after you both left the army?’ I asked.

‘Right before . . .’ Keith paused, lowering his voice, ‘before his accident, Luis reached out to a group of us online. Out of the blue. Asked if we ever thought about that op. About what happened to the hostages. If we ever wondered why they sent him back in with Thomas.’

He stopped talking, waiting to see if I recognized the name he mentioned.

I didn’t, but still my pulse hammered, ticking through my body. My ears, my chest, my throat. I’d always wondered what happened out there, but I couldn’t press it, not when Luis clearly hadn’t found a way to process it. ‘Did you respond?’

Luis had been distracted those last weeks before the accident.

Keith’s mouth pulled into a grim line. ‘I told him we all wondered why Thomas never came back. A few of the guys thought it was weird. Some of them thought maybe Luis was crazy enough to kill him. Maybe he did it to save himself, who knows. I didn’t believe it. He was too cut up about it to be truly responsible. But—’ He leaned in closer, his voice a rasp. ‘The way he’d asked about the op . . . it wasn’t just guilt. It was like he’d finally realized something. Like he was hoping to confirm something he already knew.’

Keith dragged a hand down the side of his face, like it weighed heavy on him.

What was he struggling with? Something to do with Luis, or his old army memories? Keith looked at me, deciding how much to reveal. Finally, he said, ‘If he was drinking, it was for a reason. He went in with Thomas, but only one of them came out alive.’

I stared at my beer, the foam still clinging to the sides. If Luis had to leave someone behind, that would explain why he was so riddled with guilt. The thought twisted in my gut.

‘Do you think me seeing my dead husband has something to do with that special ops mission?’ I asked cautiously. Keith hadn’t come right out and said it, but I got the feeling he was working towards it.

‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Did he ever say anything to suggest he could be in danger?’

‘No. He didn’t.’ I suddenly wasn’t sure I should be talking to Keith about this. I didn’t know him, and Luis’s army days had been a long time ago. He could be different to the man he was when Luis knew him.

‘I think it sounds like some crazy conspiracy bullshit,’ I added.

That got a laugh. ‘Yeah, you and everyone else. That’s why I keep it to myself.’

‘It’s no crazier than me telling people I saw Luis, when he died months ago,’ I said.

Keith shrugged, drained his second beer and smacked the bottom of his glass down on the table with new resolve. ‘Honestly, I don’t see Luis being part of some army conspiracy. He was a pretty boy who was a damned good soldier, but he didn’t belong in the army. He signed up to piss off his rich parents. They thought they could buy everything, and I think Luis wanted to show them that they couldn’t buy him.’

I couldn’t help a small, bitter smile. I couldn’t imagine Luis with a gun, let alone shooting it.

‘That’s what Sofia said too. About Luis joining to piss off his parents.’

‘Yeah, well she’s not wrong. No one else wore Tommy Hilfiger under their greens. His parents were shitting themselves, thinking he’d get himself killed. They offered him money, trying to bribe him to come home. To be honest, he’s lucky he got sent home. We were all a little worried. And surprised he got picked for the op.’

That sounded exactly like Luis. Smart, stylish, ill-fitted for the horrors of war.

‘There was a joke going around that he paid his way into the squad.’ Keith shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I still think maybe he did. He had a lot of grit, but he was a protector, not a fighter.’

I set my jaw. ‘If there’s a chance this has something to do with that op, we should talk to my friend Jessica.’

‘Jessica, huh?’

‘She’s a psychologist. She’s done a lot of work on conditioning, like army conditioning. She might be able to help.’

‘And does Jessica know you saw your dead husband walking around like a regular fucking Casper?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘She knows.’

‘Well, she’s a psych, so, what did she say?’ He sounded skeptical, but behind it was a morbid curiosity.

‘She thinks I’m grieving, but—’

‘But,’ Keith interjected, already filling in my plan, ‘you think with me to back up your story, she might listen.’

I looked hopeful. There had to be a reason why Luis had let me believe he was dead. Could it be because of some army mission he wasn’t allowed to talk about? I was hoping Keith was as curious as I was, that he’d help.

‘If this is about the op, maybe Luis is already gone,’ Keith said, staring into the bottom of his beer glass. ‘You should think about letting him go. It might be safer.’

His comment riled me. ‘What, I should just wait for someone else to figure out what’s going on, to stay safe?’ That wasn’t how I operated.

‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said. ‘I’d say the same to anyone – and you’ve got a lot riding on the answer. Makes people think less clearly sometimes.’

‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘But I’m going to follow this through anyway. With or without your help.’

He nodded thoughtfully, as if he hadn’t just dropped a live grenade between us, dangling the possibility of finding some answers.

‘Well, then,’ he said, like that was exactly what he needed to hear before we took this any further. ‘Let’s give Jessica a call.’