I didn't have time to grieve.
Jason was missing.
My father was injured.
My stepmother's identity had collapsed in front of me.
And somewhere inside the base, someone had helped cut every line of communication.
I turned to Alvarez.
“Who had access to the communications array?”
She thought for a moment.
“Engineering personnel.”
“Anyone else?”
“Captain Mercer.”
The name settled heavily between us.
Mercer was our executive officer.
He had insisted earlier that I receive medical treatment immediately after the highway explosion.
At the time, I had assumed he was concerned about me.
Now I wondered whether he had wanted me isolated.
“Where is he?”
“Motor pool.”
I checked my weapon.
“Stay here.”
Alvarez frowned.
“Major—”
“Lock the doors behind me.”
“Where are you going?”
“To talk to Mercer.”
I walked through the darkened corridors alone.
The storm hammered against the concrete walls, but inside the building everything felt strangely quiet.
My mother's face kept appearing in my mind.
Not the woman described by Erica.
The woman I remembered.
Her hands.
Her voice.
The way she used to stand in my bedroom doorway.
For twenty-six years I had carried her death as an unquestioned fact.
Now every memory had become evidence.
I reached the motor pool.
The garage was enormous and cold.
Emergency lights cast long shadows between the parked vehicles.
Oil and wet concrete filled the air.
“Captain Mercer.”
No response.
I moved deeper inside.
“Mercer.”
A figure stepped from behind a transport truck.
He was already holding his weapon.
I stopped.
His face was expressionless.
“You shouldn't be here, Major.”
“You cut the communications.”
“No.”
“You had access.”
“I was restoring them.”
“You were trying to isolate me.”
His jaw tightened.
I took another step.
“Who sent you?”
“No one.”
“Erica?”
Nothing.
“My mother?”
His expression changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
“You have no idea what you're involved in,” he said.
“Then explain it.”
“You were never what you thought you were.”
I stared at him.
“You mean my career.”
“I mean everything.”
He shook his head.
“Your mother built the machinery around you. Assignments. Transfers. Promotions. Everything.”
“And the people who died?”
He looked away.
That was answer enough.
“Did she arrange the ambush?”
He didn't respond.
“Did she?”
“You don't understand what she was protecting.”
“What was she protecting?”
“Routes.”
“What routes?”
“Transport routes.”
I felt my anger sharpen.
Mercer continued.
“The organization moved material through military channels. Your reports could have exposed them.”
“So they used me.”
“Yes.”
I took a slow breath.
“And you helped them.”
He looked at me.
“You think you're a hero because you wear the uniform.”
“I never said that.”
“They bought your medals.”
I felt something inside me go still.
“You're wrong.”
“Are you?”
He lowered his weapon slightly.
“If you stand down, they will release Jason.”
“Where is he?”
“They need time.”
“For what?”
“To clean up the highway.”
My eyes narrowed.
“The cargo.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
Mercer hesitated.
“Enough to destroy everyone connected to it.”
I raised my weapon.
“Drop yours.”
He didn't move.
“Major.”
“Put it down.”
“You don't have to do this.”
“You helped kidnap my brother.”
“I kept you alive.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
His hand tightened around the grip.
Then he raised the gun.
I fired first.
The shots cracked through the garage.
Mercer fell against the side of the vehicle and collapsed onto the concrete.
I approached carefully and kicked his weapon away.
“Where is Jason?”
He was barely breathing.
His eyes found mine.
“You can't stop her.”
“Where?”
“She’s a ghost.”
“Ghosts leave tracks.”
His mouth moved.
Nothing came out.
Then his head dropped.
I searched him.
A jammer was attached beneath his coat.
That explained the sudden silence surrounding the base.
I removed it.
A few seconds later, my personal phone vibrated.
I looked down.
A message from an unknown number.
There was a photograph.
Jason.
He was alive.
His lip was split.
His hands were tied behind a metal chair.
I stared at the picture until another message appeared.
Ask your father who signed your commission paperwork.
I already knew the answer.
Linda.
And Erica.
The lies went deeper than I had imagined.
Then a third message appeared.
This one came from an old number.
I recognized it immediately.
My childhood home phone.
The line had been disconnected after my mother's supposed death.
I had kept the number stored in my contacts for twenty-six years.
I don't know why.
Perhaps some part of me had never been willing to erase the last ordinary connection to the life I thought I had lost.
The message contained only a few words.
Come home, Becca. I'm waiting.
Beneath them was a set of coordinates.
I stared at the screen.
My first instinct was to call Alvarez.
My second was to call higher command.
Neither happened.
The communications system was compromised.
The people above me might already be involved.
And Jason was somewhere with the people who had engineered my life.
I went to the motor pool and climbed into a tactical SUV.
The engine coughed before turning over.
I opened the garage doors.
Wind and snow rushed inside.
I sat there for a moment with both hands on the steering wheel.
Leaving the base without authorization could destroy my career.
Driving toward those coordinates could be exactly what my enemies wanted.
But staying meant waiting while Jason remained a hostage.
I looked again at the message.
Come home.
For twenty-six years, I had thought home was the place where my mother had died.
Now I understood that home might be the place where the lie began.
I put the SUV into gear.
The tires spun on the ice before catching.
Then they found the road.
I drove into the blizzard.
For the first time since I was twelve years old, I was going to meet the woman I had mourned.
And this time, I intended to make her tell me the truth.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: The House Waiting at the Coordinates Was Empty Except for My Mother’s Voice, a Photograph, and a Door No One Wanted Me to Open
My Father Asked Me to Disappear for Christmas, and Before Midnight a Highway Disaster Exposed a Secret Buried Since Fort Bragg
Part 4 of 12
