Chapter 5 - The Man Officially Dead
The satellite phone contained one voice recording.
Thomas sounded injured and exhausted.
“Daniel, if this reaches you, do not return to base. Someone inside the unit sold the recovery coordinates. Wade Mercer has the ledger. Rachel saw him transfer it. Trust the girl before you trust her mother.”
The recording ended with gunfire.
Dad replayed one sentence.
Trust the girl before you trust her mother.
The message had been recorded four years earlier.
I was only eight.
Thomas had known I would eventually become involved.
Or someone had edited the message later.
Military investigators arrived before midnight.
They took control of the green case.
Dad was ordered not to leave the county.
His old unit’s records showed Thomas died during a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.
No body was recovered.
The military used dental records to confirm him.
Those records came from a private dental office owned by Wade’s older brother.
Another connection.
Rachel was taken to the hospital.
Before leaving, she asked to speak with me alone.
Dad remained nearby.
“You weren’t supposed to hit Wade,” she said.
“He grabbed my phone.”
“You were supposed to run.”
“I tried.”
She looked at my bruised hands.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why did you leave the pictures for me?”
“Because children look inside places adults ignore.”
She handed me a folded wedding program.
A row of letters had been circled.
B-R-I-D-A-L R-O-O-M.
Inside the bridal room, police found a medical bandage identical to the one covering Rachel’s head.
The blood on it did not belong to her.
It belonged to Diane.
My mother had been injured before the ceremony.
Yet she showed no wound.
Dad confronted her.
She finally removed a strip of artificial skin near her hairline.
Beneath it was a fresh surgical incision.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
Diane looked toward Wade’s empty chair.
“He removed something.”
“What?”
May you like
She began crying.
“A tracking device.”
