Chương 15
“What business?”
“She used to sell custom stationery online.”
Harper had closed the shop the year before.
David used to tease her about charging twelve dollars for envelopes.
After that summer, he never mentioned it again.
Not even when Harper complained about shipping costs at Christmas.
At the time, I had assumed he was tired.
Now the absence felt different.
Keene rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“You’re doing what grief does.”
“I know.”
“You’re turning old details into evidence.”
“I know.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”
“I know.”
She looked toward the kitchen.
“We need Julian’s devices.”
“You have his phone and laptop.”
“His business systems.”
“Do you have authority?”
“Not yet.”
“So what happens?”
“Legal process.”
“How long?”
“Depends what we establish from the physical evidence.”
I nearly laughed.
The Army could move soldiers across continents faster than investigators could move through a warrant affidavit.
That was probably good for the country.
It was terrible for my nerves.
Harper appeared in the hallway.
She had heard enough to understand the shape of the problem.
“I can give you access.”
Bell looked up from the kitchen.
“To what?”
“His office.”
Keene turned.
“Which office?”
Harper swallowed.
“The one downtown.”
I stared at her.
“You told me Julian worked from home.”
“He does.”
“Then what downtown office?”
Her face twisted.
“He told me not to mention it.”
My patience snapped.
“Why?”
“Because the lease is under someone else’s company.”
Bell stood.
“Whose?”
Harper looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“You have been there?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Twice.”
“Can you get inside?”
She nodded.
“I have a key card.”
Bell and Keene exchanged a look.
Harper saw it.
“It’s in my purse.”
Bell raised one hand.
“Don’t touch it yet.”
Harper froze.
“What?”
“We need to document it before it moves.”
Harper stared at her own purse on the chair.
Then at me.
“I thought it was just a second office.”
“Who told you that?”
“Julian.”
“Did you ever see other employees?”
“One.”
Bell asked, “Name?”
Harper shook her head.
“A man.”
“Description?”
“Late forties maybe.”
“Hair?”
“Brown.”
“Height?”
“Taller than Julian.”
“Anything distinctive?”
Harper squeezed her eyes shut.
Then opened them.
“He had a scar.”
Keene’s head lifted.
“Where?”
Harper touched her own chin.
“Here.”
Keene went completely still.
I saw it before she spoke.
“You know him.”
Her eyes met mine.
“I may.”
“Who?”
She did not answer immediately.
Then she pulled out her phone.
“Mara.”
She looked at Harper.
“When did you last see him?”
“October.”
“Exact date if you can.”
Harper thought.
“The seventeenth.”
Keene began dialing.
My chest tightened.
“Who is he?”
She put the phone to her ear.
“A civilian analyst who disappeared during the Black Ridge review.”
I stared at her.
“Disappeared how?”
“He resigned.”
“That’s not disappearing.”
“He resigned by email, emptied his apartment, closed his bank accounts, and has not been located since.”
Harper’s face went white.
Keene turned away as someone answered.
“This is Colonel Keene.”
She listened.
“Reopen the Malik flag.”
I felt the name hit somewhere deep.
Malik.
David had said that name once.
Not to me.
In his sleep.
I had forgotten until that exact second.
Keene looked back at me.
“What?”
I could barely hear my own voice.
“David knew him.”
“How do you know?”
“He said Malik’s name.”
“When?”
“The week before his last deployment.”
Keene’s expression changed.
“What exactly did he say?”
I closed my eyes.
The memory came in pieces.
Dark bedroom.
David asleep on his back.
His hand clenched in the sheet.
My own irritation because he had kicked the blanket away again.
Then his voice.
Low.
Strained.
Not conversation.
A fragment.
Malik was right.
I opened my eyes.
“He said, ‘Malik was right.’”
Keene lowered the phone.
Bell had stopped writing.
Harper stared at me.
No one moved.
Then Keene asked the question I had spent seven months avoiding in every possible form.
“Claire, what if David knew the mission was compromised before he left?”
The question did not frighten me because I had already started asking it myself.
What frightened me was hearing someone else say it aloud.
I looked at Keene.
“If he knew, why did he go?”
Her mouth tightened.
“Duty.”
“That’s not enough.”
“For some people it is.”
“Not for David.”
She held my gaze.
“No.”
That answer hurt more because it was true.
David followed orders, but he was not obedient in the mindless sense.
He questioned.
He argued.
He made people prove things.
If he had walked into a compromised mission, he had believed there was a reason.
Bell’s phone vibrated.
She glanced at it.
“Malik’s description matches the man Harper saw.”
Harper sat down hard.
My mother moved toward her again.
This time Harper reached first and caught her hand.
Keene spoke into her phone.
“Preserve the office access until a warrant team arrives.”
She listened.
“No entry without documentation.”
Then she ended the call.
Harper looked at me.
“Are you going to hate me?”
The question was so small compared with everything else that it almost broke me.
“I don’t know.”
She nodded.
Fair.
“You should.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I brought him here.”
“You married him.”
“I defended him.”
“So did I, sometimes.”
She stared at me.
I continued.
“Being wrong about someone isn’t the same as helping them do wrong.”
Her face crumpled.
“But I did help.”
“You told him there might be paperwork.”
“Yes.”
“You let him believe I was too grief-stricken to notice.”
Her eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“That part is yours.”
She nodded again.
No excuses.
No tears used as a shield.
Just yes.
Something in me softened without becoming forgiveness.
Bell stepped into the hallway.
“We need to go.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
“Not you.”
She nodded toward Harper.
“Mrs. Lane can accompany us to identify the office access point, then we’ll bring her back.”
My mother stood immediately.
“I’m going too.”
Bell shook her head.
“Not necessary.”
“She’s not going alone.”
May you like
“Mom,” Harper said.
“I said I’m going.”
