Chương 4
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I know.”
He held out his hand. “Your weapon.”
Sarah’s jaw hardened.
“Administrative procedure,” he said. “You were involved in a physical altercation while armed.”
“I never reached for it.”
“I know. Your weapon.”
She unfastened the holster beneath her uniform blouse and handed it over. Mercer checked it, secured it in a lock bag, and wrote the time on the label.
The ordinary efficiency of the act humiliated her more than the removal itself.
The back door opened.
Chloe stood there wearing a gray wool coat over her stained dress. Someone had bandaged her hand. Her face was pale, and a strand of hair had stuck to the wine drying on her cheek.
“They’re taking him,” she said.
Mercer stepped aside.
Sarah did not know whether Chloe meant it as information or accusation.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said.
“For which part?”
The question landed without volume.
Mercer moved toward the yard, giving them privacy that did not exist.
Chloe came onto the porch and wrapped both arms around herself. “Did you come here hoping he’d do something?”
“No.”
“Did you come hoping his phone would light up?”
“Yes.”
Chloe breathed through her nose. “At least that’s honest.”
“I hoped we were wrong.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Sarah started to answer, then stopped.
Chloe looked toward the driveway. Two investigators guided Marcus into the rear seat of a black SUV. He twisted around before the door closed, searching the porch. His eyes found Chloe, not Sarah.
“I have to go with him,” Chloe said.
“You can’t ride in the transport.”
“I’ll follow.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
“One glass.”
“Give me your keys.”
Chloe laughed once, a sound with no humor in it. “Still giving orders.”
“You’re bleeding and shaken.”
“My husband is being taken away by the FBI.”
“Yes.”
The direct answer made Chloe blink.
Sarah softened her voice. “Let Dad drive you.”
“Dad looks like he forgot how to stand.”
“Then I’ll arrange a ride.”
“You’re not in charge of me.”
“No.”
The admission seemed to leave them both with nowhere to go.
Across the yard, Marcus disappeared into the vehicle. The door shut. Chloe watched the SUV pull away until its taillights turned at the end of the street.
Then she said, “He told me you hated him because he could see through you.”
Sarah’s mouth went dry. “What does that mean?”
“He said everyone else was impressed by the uniform, but he knew you liked being gone because being home required more.”
Sarah stared at her sister.
Chloe rubbed at the bandage around her thumb. “I defended you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“No. You never ask. You just vanish and let people make excuses.”
The porch light hummed above them. Water dripped from a branch onto the metal railing.
Sarah could have explained deployments, compartmented assignments, casualty notifications, and the way every return home turned her into a guest at a table where everyone had continued living without her. She could have reminded Chloe of plane tickets bought at the last minute, hospital visits, money wired quietly when the twins were born early.
None of it answered the accusation.
“I should have told you I was concerned about him,” Sarah said.
“You weren’t allowed.”
“No.”
“So you chose the job.”
“I chose not to warn a possible subject of an investigation.”
“You mean me.”
“I mean Marcus.”
“You thought I would tell him.”
Sarah looked away.
Chloe’s face changed.
“That’s why you didn’t tell me.”
“I couldn’t risk it.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“I didn’t trust what you might do if I put you in that position.”
“What position?”
“Choosing between your husband and me.”
Chloe stood very still. “You made the choice for me.”
The back door opened behind them. Evelyn appeared carrying Sarah’s coat.
“Your father is cleaning glass,” she said. “He shouldn’t be bending that long.”
“Mom, go stop him.”
“I told him.”
“Tell him again.”
Evelyn held out the coat. “You should leave.”
Chloe turned. “Mom.”
“The children are frightened. Everyone is upset. We need quiet.”
Sarah took the coat.
Her mother did not release it immediately.
“You could have warned us,” Evelyn said.
“I couldn’t.”
“You always say that.”
Then she let go.
By midnight, the family had dispersed, the dining room had become a documented scene, and the turkey sat untouched in the refrigerator beneath a sheet of foil. Sarah rode to the FBI field office in the back of Mercer’s sedan because her own vehicle was blocked by evidence vans.
Neither of them spoke for the first twenty miles.
Traffic moved easily along the highway. Holiday lights hung from shopping centers, gas stations, and an urgent-care clinic. At a red light near Leesburg, Sarah watched a teenager in the next car balance a paper plate on the steering wheel while eating pie with his fingers.
Mercer turned the heat down.
“You were right about the accountant,” he said.
Sarah kept looking out the window.
“That doesn’t make me right about Marcus.”
“No.”
“Did he ask for a lawyer?”
“Immediately.”
“That was smart.”
“He has one on the way.”
“Who?”
“Gordon Wells.”
Sarah looked at him. Wells represented contractors accused of procurement fraud and senior officials accused of remembering nothing. His hourly rate was the kind of number people said quietly.
“Marcus keeps him on retainer?”
“Apparently.”
“His firm isn’t that successful.”
Mercer’s hands remained steady on the wheel. “That is one of several new questions.”
At the field office, Sarah surrendered her access badge and signed an administrative acknowledgment stating that she would not enter the Vanguard operations suite without authorization. Mercer gave her a temporary visitor card, which displayed a red stripe across her photograph.
She looked at it.
“You could have found a worse picture,” she said.
“I tried.”
May you like
The joke was weak, but it broke something in her chest just enough to let her breathe.
Priya met them near the digital forensics lab. “Marcus’s phone is locked. We have authority to preserve the incoming traffic, not to conduct a full device search without additional process. Wells arrived and is objecting to everything, including the chair.”
