NOLA
On the back of the photo, in my dad’s neat, architectural handwriting, it says: A debt to a friend is never truly paid. I will keep his son safe as he keeps me safe in the mountains. The circle must remain unbroken.
“The mountains?” I ask. “What happens in the mountains?”
Rhett leans back, his eyes unfocused. “My father finds Lawrence during a blizzard. Your dad crashes his plane during a business trip. My father carries him three miles through chest-deep snow to a cave. He keeps him warm with his own body heat until the search crews arrive. My father dies a year later from the strain of the shift during that storm. Lawrence never forgets.”
“So he isn’t just hiring a bodyguard,” I say, the pieces finally fall into place. “He is raising the son of the man who saves him. He is makin
