Chapter 5 - The General's Secret
Emily was sitting up when Richard walked in, a small mercy that made his chest ache with relief even as everything else in him remained braced for war. A uniformed officer stood outside her door; Richard nodded to him and stepped inside, closing it softly behind him.
"Dad." Her voice was stronger now, though her eyes were red-rimmed, and she flinched slightly as she shifted against the pillows, the bandages across her back visible beneath the loose hospital gown.
"I'm here." He pulled a chair close to the bed and took her hand, the way he had every night of every childhood fever, every scraped knee, every heartbreak he hadn't been able to fix with a hug and a promise. "You don't have to talk if you're not ready."
"I have to." Her jaw set, and in that moment he saw, unmistakably, his own stubbornness looking back at him. "I have to tell someone before I lose my nerve."
"I'm listening."
She took a breath that seemed to cost her something. "Three weeks ago, Daniel started acting strange. Quiet. He'd get calls late at night and take them in the bathroom with the water running so I couldn't hear. I thought — " Her voice wavered. "I thought maybe he was having an affair. I actually thought that, Dad. I feel sick about it now."
"You didn't know."
"Then last week he finally told me. About the Ashwood file. About his father." Her hand tightened around Richard's. "He didn't want to believe it either. He kept saying, 'Maybe there's an explanation, maybe I'm wrong,' but every time he dug deeper it got worse. Two soldiers, Dad. Two soldiers died because Marcus signed off on parts he knew were bad, just to hit a deadline."
"I saw the file," Richard said quietly. "I know."
"Two nights ago, Daniel got a call. I could hear his voice go strange — cold, careful, the way he talks when he's scared but trying not to show it. After he hung up he told me Marcus wanted to meet him alone, to 'talk things through as a family.' I begged him not to go. He said if he didn't, it would look like he had something to hide, and that would be worse." Tears slid silently down her face now, and Richard reached up to wipe one away, the way he had a hundred times before, though nothing about this moment felt small enough for such a small gesture. "That was the last time I saw him."
"And last night?"
"A man came to the apartment. I thought it was building maintenance — he had a badge, he knew Daniel's name, everything. I opened the door before I thought twice." She shuddered. "There were two of them. They didn't hurt me right away. They just — talked. Calm. Like it was a business meeting. One of them said, 'Your husband made a mistake trusting a stranger with a copy of that file. We just need to know if he was foolish enough to trust his wife with one too.'"
Richard's hand went very still around hers.
"I told them I didn't know anything," Emily continued, her voice dropping almost to a whisper. "I don't think they believed me. They took me somewhere — I don't even know where, it was dark, there was a tarp on the floor of the van — and one of them said something I'll never forget. He said, 'The General wants this to send a message loud enough that nobody else gets curious.' Then he said they needed something that would point back at Daniel, in case the audit ever traced the file to him anyway — something that would make it look like a jealous husband, not a cover-up." Her breath caught. "That's when he cut a piece off Daniel's shirt. They must have had it with them already — taken it from our apartment before they even came to get me."
"They planned the frame before they ever laid a hand on you," Richard said grimly.
"The words — " Emily's composure finally broke, and she pressed her free hand briefly over her mouth before continuing. "The one holding the knife said Marcus wanted me to carry the truth on my body since Daniel wouldn't carry it in his file cabinet anymore. He said, 'Tell your father his golden boy general lied to the Army about those deaths. Lied to Congress. And now he's lying to you too — pretending he'll let either of you walk away from this.'" She looked up at him, eyes wide and wet. "He lied to you too, Dad. That's what it means. Not just Daniel lying to me. Marcus — lying to everyone. To the Army. To Congress. To his own son."
Richard sat with that for a long moment, feeling three decades of loyalty to the uniform curdle slowly into something closer to grief.
"Where's Daniel now?" he asked finally, though he already feared he knew the shape of the answer, if not the details.
"I don't know. They said — " She swallowed hard. "They said if I told anyone I was alive before they were ready, Daniel wouldn't survive whatever 'conversation' they were still having with him. That's why I said what I said to you at the hospital. I wasn't sure who might be listening. I didn't know if you'd tell the police, if the police were even safe to tell."
"You did exactly right," Richard said, and meant it with his whole chest, pride and terror tangled together in a way he hadn't felt since watching young soldiers walk into their first real engagement. "You kept both of you alive tonight. Do you understand that? You gave us a trail to follow instead of a body to bury."
Emily's face crumpled, and for a moment she was simply his daughter again, not a witness, not a piece of evidence, just a frightened young woman who had nearly died carrying a warning on her skin because the men who loved her had gotten tangled in something far larger than either of them.
"We're going to find him," Richard said, low and certain, the same voice he'd used to promise young privates they'd make it home. "And we're going to make sure Marcus Halloway answers for every single thing he's done — the soldiers, the file, and what he did to you and Daniel. I promise you that."
Detective Alvarez knocked softly and stepped inside a moment later, her expression grim, a folded piece of paper in her hand.
"Colonel," she said quietly. "We just got a location ping off a burner phone associated with one of Halloway's known security contractors. It's active right now." She hesitated, glancing at Emily before meeting Richard's eyes again. "It's pinging from Fort Ashwood's old logistics annex. Decommissioned two years ago. Nobody's supposed to be there."
Richard rose from the chair, every old instinct in him snapping into place like a rifle bolt sliding home.
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"Then that's where we start," he said. "And this time, Marcus Halloway is going to be the one explaining himself to a room full of people in uniform."
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