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confidently and threw some chips in the center of the table. I didn’t even pay attention to how much he threw in.
    How could someone just sit there and act like they didn’t have some hideous secret? How could he sit there and act like he wasn’t worth the scum on my shoe ?
    Questions like that usually had no answers. Answers a sane man wouldn’t understand. I learned a long time ago, in the center of a warzone, that actions spoke louder than words. A man could open his mouth and spew forth a bunch of pretty lies and no one would think twice, yet that same man would then come back hours later with machine guns and homemade bombs and totally obliterate the ones he fooled just hours before.
    I learned the hard way not to trust outward appearances.
    I glanced back down at the phone hidden in my lap. The screen had gone dark. But it didn’t matter. Her image —her face—was seared in my brain.
    Dark, tangled hair, blue eyes, one of them swollen shut, a bloody lip , and huddling against a very dark backdrop. It was almost like she was sitting in the center of a vast pit of nothing— waiting for its chance to swallow her whole.
    Something about that image —about her face—haunted me. It stirred up feelings deep in my gut that I didn’t expect.
    Could I trust her appearance?
    Could I trust that text? Was it some sort of sick game? A trick?
    “Nate,” the man on my right said. “In or out?”
    I glanced at the cards in my hand. I had a royal straight flush. I could take this game. I could have all the money piled in the center.
    “Fold,” I said, shaking my head like I was mad at my lousy hand. I didn’t have time for this and I didn’t want the attention of winning. Not here. Not right now. I hadn’t been wrong when I said I was lucky tonight, except now it seemed luck wasn’t the only thing I had tonight.
    One of my buddies clapped me on the back. I grunted and pushed away from the table, tucking my phone in my back pocket. “I need another beer after that shitty hand.”
    As the game continued, I walked toward the small wooden bar. I pulled out another Miller Light and looked up. Above the bar was a medium-sized flat screen showing sport highlights. The coverage clicked off and a news bulletin crossed the screen.
    The search for twenty -one-year-old Mary Greenberg is still underway. There have been no new leads or sightings since she was reported missing just over one month ago.
    A picture of a blond -haired woman with brown eyes and an innocent smile flashed onto the screen. My eyes went right to the image and got stuck there.
    It wasn’t her face that held me captive.
    It was what was hanging around her neck—a locket with a red gem in the center.
    The girl in the picture on my phone was holding up a necklace exactly like the one on the TV screen.
    What were the odds they would both have identical necklaces?
    Two missing girls, one necklace.
    There was something else I learned during my time at war. There were no coincidences.
    I turned away from the TV and leaned against the bar, pretending interest in the card game. Casually, I pulled out my phone and called up the photo, staring hard at her image.
    What’s your name? I finally texted. I needed a name to go with her face. It didn’t seem right that someone could affect me so much when I didn’t even know her name.
    Honor Calhoun.
    Honor. I liked that name. It was strong. It was unexpected. I wasn’t going to ignore those texts. I couldn’t. If I did, it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I didn’t need anymore ghosts.
    I’m going to get you out of there , Honor.
    It was a promise. It was a vow. I never broke a promise. And I never left a man (or woman) behind.
    I’m scared.
    Those two words did something to me. She could have said a million other things. But she chose those two words. Two words that made her even more vulnerable than clearly she already was. I swallowed past the lump in my throat as my fingers moved over the keypad.
    I