Chapter 6 - THE FAVOR DAD CHOSE
The photographs outside Erica’s hospital room had been taken from across the street from my father’s house.
One showed the front entrance under fresh snow.
One showed Dad stepping outside to collect the mail.
One showed Linda unloading groceries.
The last showed Jason’s SUV parked in the driveway three days before Christmas.
Across the bottom of that photograph, someone had written a single sentence in black marker.
EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING TO LOSE.
Detective Park treated the envelope as evidence.
Erica treated it as confirmation.
I treated it as a line being crossed.
“Move her,” I said.
Park nodded.
“We already are.”
Erica sat on the edge of the bed while a nurse packed her medication.
Her face looked hard, but her fingers trembled around the strap of the hospital bag.
“I should leave the state.”
“No,” Park said.
“If I disappear, maybe they stop circling your family.”
“They photographed my father before you ever met me.”
I looked at her.
“This was already about my family.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Park arranged a transfer to a secure medical facility under a different registration name.
I was not told where.
That was deliberate.
The less I knew, the less anyone could get from me.
At 7:10 that evening, Dad was waiting outside my quarters on base.
He had somehow convinced security to call me rather than send him away.
I considered doing exactly that.
Then I decided there were questions I wanted answered while I could still look him in the eye.
He stood when I opened the door.
His shoulders sagged with exhaustion.
“I need ten minutes.”
“You already used your ten minutes when Erica asked for them.”
Pain moved across his face.
“I didn’t see her email.”
“You saw Jason’s.”
He looked down.
“I did.”
“Come in.”
He stepped inside and immediately noticed how little of my life fit in the room.
A bookshelf.
A framed unit photograph.
Two coffee mugs.
A folded flag from a change-of-command ceremony.
No childhood pictures.
No Christmas decorations.
No evidence that I had expected to be here this week.
Dad stared at the unopened suitcase beside my bed.
“That was packed for home?”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed briefly.
“I am sorry.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that like it does not matter.”
“It matters.”
I sat across from him.
“It just does not fix anything.”
He nodded.
For once, he did not argue.
“Why did Grant tell you to keep me away?” I asked.
Dad rubbed both hands together.
“He said Jason needed a clean night.”
“What does that mean?”
“That investors were going to be there.”
“Investors in what?”
“Ridgeway is negotiating a regional acquisition.”
I waited.
“Jason’s promotion was part of it.”
“How?”
“He would oversee the combined western operations after the merger.”
“So Christmas dinner was not just family dinner.”
“No.”
“It was a business event.”
“Partly.”
“And you wanted me gone because my uniform distracted from Jason.”
Dad winced.
“When you say it that way—”
“There is no other way to say it.”
He stared at the floor.
“Grant said people compare you two.”
“Grant barely knows me.”
“He knows your record.”
“My record has nothing to do with Jason’s promotion.”
“I understand that now.”
I leaned back.
“No, Dad.”
I kept my voice quiet.
“You understood it then.”
“You just decided his comfort mattered more.”
He did not deny it.
That hurt more than another excuse would have.
I asked about the consulting payments.
His head came up quickly.
“Who told you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, because they are legitimate.”
“What did you consult on?”
“Community partnerships.”
“For seventy-eight thousand dollars?”
“I introduced Grant to nonprofit boards, county leaders, donors, and local business groups.”
“Did you have a contract?”
“Yes.”
“Show it to investigators.”
“I already offered.”
That answer surprised me.
Dad noticed.
“I am not hiding money.”
“Good.”
“But I was stupid.”
“Yes.”
He gave me a tired look.
“Still not making this easy.”
“You did not come here for easy.”
“No.”
He took a breath.
“I came because Jason asked me for a favor this afternoon.”
My expression hardened.
“What favor?”
“He wants you to make a statement saying Erica was confused when you saw her.”
I stared at him.
Dad raised one hand.
“I told him no.”
“After you came here to ask me?”
“I did not come to ask you to do it.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because I finally heard how it sounded.”
He swallowed.
“He said it would protect the family.”
“And?”
“And I realized I have spent years accepting that phrase whenever what he really meant was protect Jason.”
For the first time since Christmas Eve, my anger loosened by a fraction.
Not forgiveness.
Not trust.
Just recognition.
“What else did he ask?”
Dad hesitated.
“Nothing.”
I looked at him.
He held my gaze for three seconds.
Then he looked away.
“What else?”
“He asked whether you had brought anything back from the hospital.”
“The drive.”
“I assume so.”
“Did you tell him about Mason?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him where Erica was moved?”
“I do not know where she was moved.”
“Good.”
Dad’s phone rang.
He glanced at the screen.
Jason.
He silenced it.
It rang again immediately.
Dad silenced it again.
The third call came from Linda.
He answered.
“Linda?”
I watched his expression change.
“What hospital?”
He stood.
“No, slow down.”
He listened.
Then he looked at me.
“Claire, it is Walt.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“His daughter called the house because she found your number in an article and could not reach the base.”
“Is he worse?”
Dad shook his head.
“He is awake.”
I reached for my coat.
Dad continued listening.
Then his face changed again.
“What did he say he found?”
I stopped.
Dad looked directly at me.
“Linda says Walt keeps asking for you.”
“Why?”
Dad lowered the phone slowly.
“Because he says he has the silver drive.”
St. Anne’s trauma unit had restricted visitors, but Detective Park met me at the entrance and took me upstairs.
Walt looked twenty years older than he had in the tanker cab.
His face was bruised.
One leg was immobilized beneath a heavy brace.
Tubes and monitors surrounded him.
But when he saw me, his mouth twisted into the same stubborn half smile I remembered from the snow.
“Major.”
“You are hard to kill.”
“My wife says that is my most annoying quality.”
His daughter, Melissa, stood beside the bed.
She looked exhausted but relieved.
Walt reached toward the bedside drawer.
Park stopped him gently.
“Mr. Harrison, please do not touch anything yet.”
He frowned.
“You people have said that about everything I own today.”
Melissa opened the drawer instead and pointed.
Inside was a small hospital property envelope.
Through the clear plastic window, I could see silver metal.
The USB drive.
Erica had been telling the truth.
Walt looked at me.
“Found it in the lining of my coat.”
“You put it there?”
“That lady at the rest stop gave it to me.”
“Do you remember her?”
“Dark hair.”
He squinted.
“Looked like somebody had been chasing her before anybody actually was.”
Park documented his statement.
Then Walt said something that made her stop writing.
“Somebody came asking for it this morning.”
Melissa nodded.
“A man said he was from the trucking company.”
“What man?” Park asked.
“I never saw him,” Walt said.
“I was asleep.”
Melissa answered for him.
“He wore a suit and had a business card.”
“Do you have it?”
She reached into her purse.
Park took the card with gloved fingers.
The name printed across the front was JASON MERCER.
Vice President, Western Operations.
I looked at Walt.
“That is my stepbrother.”
Walt’s eyebrows rose.
“Family Christmas going well?”
“No.”
“Thought not.”
Melissa shook her head.
“The man was not Jason.”
Park looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because after he left, I searched the name online.”
She pointed at the card.
“The photo was different.”
My skin prickled.
“What did the man look like?”
Melissa described gray at the temples.
Broad shoulders.
May you like
Dark wool coat.
Mason Trent.
