Chapter 2 - THE GENERAL ON THE TELEPHONE
Cole rejected the call twice before his phone rang a third time.
Nora had already called emergency services, and she refused to be intimidated by the man in uniform.
“Your rank doesn't pay for my broken chair,” she told him, “and it won't make this woman less injured.”
Walter stood beside the memorial wall as if guarding every name on it.
One of Cole's Marines whispered that they ought to leave.
“No one leaves,” Cole snapped.
I felt Owen Reed look at me, and I gave him a barely perceptible nod toward the door.
It was not permission to disappear.
It was permission to make a choice.
He stepped outside and spoke urgently into his phone.
Cole finally answered his own call.
“Dad, this isn't a good time.”
Whatever the general said made Travis close his eyes.
Then he turned the speaker off and walked toward the restroom corridor.
A military police vehicle rolled into the parking lot before he got there.
Nora's security camera had captured the assault, and a customer had called the installation watch desk.
The Marines at the door froze when two uniformed military police officers entered with a civilian deputy.
A woman officer introduced herself as Captain Marisol Vega.
She took one look at the shattered chair and my arm cradled against my ribs.
“Ma'am, are you Evelyn Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“We need medical care for you, and we need everyone to remain available for statements.”
Cole pushed between us.
“Captain, this is a misunderstanding.”
Vega didn't blink.
“Then the recording should clear that up.”
I heard the first clean note of panic in his voice.
“Recording?”
Nora pointed to a small camera above the bar.
“Mine,” she said.
Walter lifted the photograph again.
“And this belongs to all of us.”
A paramedic tested my fingers and asked whether I could move the shoulder.
I tried, and black dots crowded the edges of my vision.
As they guided me toward a stretcher, Travis caught my sleeve.
“Did you really know him?” he asked in a voice meant only for me.
“I knew the man he was before the world taught him to hide his pain.”
He swallowed.
“Then why did he tell us you were dead?”
The question stopped me more effectively than his boot had.
Because that was not what Daniel had been told.
Not unless someone had changed the story after we came home.
I asked for Walter, but the ambulance doors were already closing.
Through their narrow window I saw a black government sedan turning into the lot.
May you like
The man stepping out had Daniel Cole's unmistakable face, older and harder.
And he was looking directly at me.
