Chapter 7 - The Daughter They Thought They Could Use
Emma should have been celebrating.
Instead, less than twelve hours after receiving her commission, she was sitting in a military investigation room answering questions about a dead soldier, a missing evidence bag, a retired colonel, and a father she had apparently never fully known.
I hated myself for that.
Her classmates were posting photographs.
Families were at restaurants.
Champagne glasses were being raised.
Emma was staring at a wall covered with Blackwood photographs.
Including one of me at twenty-eight.
She stood in front of it.
I barely recognized that man.
Lean.
Hard-eyed.
Weapon across his chest.
No gray in his beard.
No knowledge yet of trucking companies, mortgages, dead wives, college tuition, or what it feels like to wave goodbye to your only child when she leaves home.
Emma touched the edge of the photograph.
“You look angry.”
“I probably was.”
“You still make that face.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
For a second things felt normal.
Then Agent Grant entered.
“We found Sarah.”
I stood too quickly.
My knee nearly gave out.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled.
“She hid in a neighbor's storm cellar. Local police have her.”
“And the glove?”
“With her.”
Grant placed a folder on the table.
“But we have another problem.”
“Lang?”
“Yes.”
She showed us a photograph.
Peter Lang as a young lieutenant.
Then another.
A much older man captured by a bank camera six months earlier.
“He has been living under the name Peter Lawrence in Montana.”
Mercer walked in behind her.
“Financial investigators found overseas payments tied to him.”
“How much?”
“Approximately four hundred thousand dollars over twenty years.”
Emma whistled softly.
“From Voss?”
“No.”
“Pike?”
“Not directly.”
“Then who?”
Grant slid over another document.
“Blackridge Strategic Systems.”
Mercer knew the name.
So did I.
Blackridge had become one of the biggest private defense logistics firms in the country.
“What does a contractor have to do with Blackwood?”
Grant answered.
“In 1999, they operated under another name. Ridge Tactical Aviation.”
Mercer's face changed.
“The aircraft contractor.”
“Yes.”
Now the pieces began fitting.
Our mission didn't only involve military personnel.
A private aviation company had supplied regional reconnaissance support.
Blackwood wasn't supposed to become public.
Neither was the fact that one of their aircraft had flown outside an authorized corridor.
“Why redirect us?” Emma asked.
Mercer looked at the map.
“Maybe the original extraction site would have exposed something.”
“Like what?”
Nobody knew.
Then Emma's phone buzzed.
A message.
She looked at it.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Emma.”
She turned the phone over.
“Spam.”
I knew my daughter.
That was not her spam face.
“What did it say?”
“Dad.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
“Emma Carter.”
She stood.
“Don't use the Dad voice on me after spending twenty years lying to my face.”
That hurt.
It was meant to.
She walked out.
I started after her.
Grant stopped me.
“Give her a minute.”
“No.”
“Mr. Carter—”
“She got a message that scared her.”
That was different.
Grant followed.
We found Emma in the hallway.
She was staring at her phone again.
I held out my hand.
“Please.”
Her jaw tightened.
Then she handed it over.
Unknown sender.
One photograph.
Me.
Taken that morning beside my truck.
A red circle had been drawn around my head.
Below it:
YOUR FATHER SURVIVED ONCE.
DON'T MAKE HIM SURVIVE YOU.
Everything inside me went cold.
Grant took the phone.
“When did this arrive?”
“Two minutes ago.”
“Any previous messages?”
Emma hesitated.
“Emma.”
“One.”
“When?”
“Thirty minutes ago.”
“What did it say?”
She looked ashamed.
“‘Officers should think about their careers before attaching themselves to disgraced men.’”
I stared at her.
“Why didn't you tell us?”
“Because I knew exactly what you'd do.”
“What?”
“This.”
She gestured at me.
“You'd decide I need protection. You'd try to send me away. You'd treat me like I'm eleven.”
“You are being threatened.”
“I am also an Army officer.”
“You've been one for eleven hours.”
“And you've spent twenty-seven years pretending you're only a truck driver.”
Silence.
Mercer arrived behind us.
Emma's voice cracked.
“You taught me my entire life not to run when something is hard.”
“I taught you to be smart.”
“No. You taught me to stand up.”
She stepped closer.
“So don't ask me to become smaller because someone finally noticed me.”
I saw Rebecca in her.
Not metaphorically.
Actually saw her.
The chin lifted slightly.
Eyes bright with anger.
Hands steady.
Rebecca had looked exactly that way the night I tried to tell her I wasn't good enough to marry.
She'd said, You don't get to decide what I'm brave enough to love.
I sighed.
“What do you want to do?”
Emma looked surprised.
Then she answered.
“Use me.”
“No.”
“You just asked.”
“I regret it.”
“Dad.”
Grant intervened.
“What do you mean, use you?”
“The person messaging me thinks I'm the weakness.”
“Yes.”
“Then let them.”
Mercer frowned.
“You want to bait them.”
“Yes.”
Absolutely not.
Every cell in my body screamed it.
But Emma was thinking like an officer.
More importantly, she was right.
The person behind this had broken into my truck.
Intercepted evidence.
Frightened Sarah.
Threatened Emma.
They were reacting.
People make mistakes when they react.
Grant considered it.
“We could control communication.”
“No physical contact,” I said immediately.
Emma glared.
“Dad—”
“No contact. Digital only.”
Grant nodded.
“That would be my recommendation.”
Emma sent a reply.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Three minutes.
Nothing.
Five.
Ten.
Then the response came.
THE BAND.
Emma typed:
I DON'T HAVE IT.
Reply:
YOUR FATHER KNOWS WHERE THE COPY IS.
I stared.
“What copy?”
Mercer asked.
“No idea.”
The sender continued.
HOLLOWAY MADE TWO.
My heart jumped.
Two bands?
Two devices?
Emma typed:
PROVE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.
A photograph appeared.
Holloway.
At Blackwood.
Alive.
Standing beside our damaged aircraft.
The photograph had never been in any official file.
And on Holloway's wrist was a leather band.
But around his neck was another.
I zoomed in.
Mercer leaned closer.
“That's yours.”
Maybe.
Before the crash, I'd lost my band during an earlier movement.
Holloway said he'd found it.
But when I asked for it back, he joked that I'd get it later.
At the crash site, he had handed me his.
Meaning Holloway had possessed both bands.
Two storage places.
“He put evidence in both,” I whispered.
“Where is your original band?” Emma asked.
“I don't know.”
The sender answered as if hearing us.
YOUR WIFE DID.
My skin prickled.
Rebecca.
The message continued.
ASK WHAT SHE LEFT EMMA.
Emma froze.
“What did Mom leave me?”
I stared at her.
A memory surfaced.
Rebecca's last weeks.
Hospital room.
Her weakened voice.
The small wooden jewelry box she gave me.
Give this to Emma when she becomes a woman.
I'd forgotten what was inside.
Emma had opened it on her eighteenth birthday.
Earrings.
Photographs.
Rebecca's old high school ring.
And—
“The bracelet,” Emma whispered.
“What?”
“Mom gave me a leather bracelet.”
My blood went cold.
She ran toward her overnight bag.
Pulled open the side pocket.
And removed a thin brown leather strap.
I'd seen her wear it a hundred times.
I had never looked closely.
Emma turned it over.
Stamped faintly on the inside was the same symbol as the Blackwood band.
Mercer whispered, “You've got to be kidding me.”
Emma held something her dead mother had secretly guarded for nearly two decades.
May you like
And somebody had just told us they knew she had it.
Then the hallway lights went out.
