Chapter 5 - The House in Virginia
The flight east should have given me time to rest.
Instead I watched cloud shadows cross the wing while Ryan studied the case file that Reyes had cleared him to read.
He had taken emergency leave for a family matter, although I knew the word family now meant something different to him.
"Why didn't you tell me you were an officer?" he asked.
"I tried to tell you I was doing work I believed in."
"That's not the same thing."
"Neither is letting Mom call me worthless while you smile."
He looked away.
The blunt truth hurt him, and I refused to soften it merely because he had finally asked.
At the Virginia house, Dad's office door was closed.
My mother met us in the foyer as though she had been waiting behind it.
"I hope you've both come to apologize."
Ryan walked past her.
"Where's Dad?"
"At work."
"At seven on a Sunday?"
She touched her pearls.
"He has responsibilities."
I looked at the framed photographs lining the hallway.
Ryan at graduation.
Ryan in football pads.
Ryan at his commissioning ceremony.
The space where a photograph of me used to hang had been filled with a watercolor of the Chesapeake Bay.
Mom caught my eyes.
"Don't start."
I wasn't going to.
I had come for a particular object: the old cedar chest my grandfather had kept in the guest room.
It held letters he wrote during his service and the original watch box he had given me.
When I opened it, the papers were gone.
The watch box had been cut open from beneath.
Ryan crouched beside me.
"Someone searched it."
"Yes."
On the underside of the box was a strip of tape with three handwritten words.
BELOW THE FLOOR.
I remembered my grandfather tapping his heel twice on the attic boards when he told me never to surrender a promise simply because everyone else preferred an easier story.
Ryan found the loose board under the attic window.
Inside was a narrow metal container, wrapped against moisture.
It held a flash drive, three photographs, and an old letter addressed to me.
The first line made my hands shake.
Emily, if your father ever claims he knew nothing, remember that he was in the room when the agreement was signed.
Downstairs, the front door slammed.
May you like
Dad had come home early.
