Chapter 20

“No…No, it didn’t. He didn’t regret killing the people he did. They deserved it. But he never lost his humanity because of what he was doing. I couldn’t have loved him if that had happened.” I smiled sadly. “He was a good man.”

“He was,” Coop agreed. “We all are. Those of us who work for Reynolds. He wouldn’t have chosen us if we weren’t. Of course our definition of goodisn’t quite the same as the average person’s. But I don’t believe any of us think what we do is fun, for lack of a better word. It’s a job that needs to be done.”

I nodded. “He said, once, that he never killed innocents. But he qualified that, adding, ‘At least not that I know of,’ and that he did check.”

“We all do, from Reynolds on down, if there’s any doubt. None of us want to have blood on our hands because we were careless.”

I looked down at my hands, which had finally stopped shaking. “Does it really get better?”