Chapter 4 - The Shot in the Dark
The gunshot silenced the ballroom.
I dropped.
Training erased thought.
Floor.
Cover.
Direction.
A second shot never came.
Emergency lights flickered on.
People crouched beneath tables.
Glass covered the carpet.
Daniel was on one knee with his weapon drawn.
Grant had pulled my mother behind a marble column.
Caroline stood three yards away.
She was holding her shoulder.
Blood ran through her fingers.
"Caroline!"
I crossed the distance.
She stared at me.
"I didn't..."
"Sit."
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding."
"The bullet grazed me."
Daniel scanned the balcony.
"Shooter gone."
Keene shouted for security.
I looked at him.
"Nobody leaves."
He stared.
"You don't command this building."
"I do now."
Maybe it was the tone.
Maybe it was the twenty-four officers who had saluted me.
Nobody argued.
Daniel tore open a field dressing from a security kit.
Caroline winced as I pressed it against her shoulder.
"Who grabbed you?" Daniel asked me.
"I don't know."
"What did they say?"
I looked at my sister.
"Nothing useful."
Caroline saw the lie.
Her eyes narrowed.
My mother crouched beside us.
"She's been shot."
"Grazed."
"That doesn't make me feel better."
Something almost normal passed between them.
Then Grant found the bullet embedded in the wall.
"Small caliber."
"Suppressed?"
"No. Deliberately loud."
Daniel understood.
"Distraction."
I looked toward the service corridor.
The dead contact.
We ran.
Room C was empty.
The body was gone.
Only blood remained.
Grant stared at the chair.
"I told you."
"Someone removed a body during a ballroom lockdown?"
Daniel checked the back door.
Open.
"Professional."
My mother stood behind us.
"How many enemies does this family have?"
"Tonight?"
I looked at Caroline.
"At least two."
She stiffened.
"You think I did something."
I showed her the message.
DON'T TRUST YOUR SISTER.
She read it.
Her face went blank.
Then she laughed.
"Of course."
"What?"
"That's what he wanted."
"Who?"
"Matthew."
I stared at her.
She reached into her purse again.
This time she removed a folded sheet of paper.
"I was going to tell you."
"When?"
"After we opened the locker."
I snatched it.
Matthew's handwriting.
Real this time.
I checked the g.
Left curve.
Becca—
If Caroline gives you this, it means I failed.
Do not trust her until she tells you what happened at Fort Brenner.
I looked up.
"What happened at Fort Brenner?"
Caroline closed her eyes.
My mother whispered, "Caroline?"
"I signed something."
"What?"
"A transport authorization."
Grant went still.
"What transport?"
"The Black Ridge flight."
Silence.
My sister began crying.
"Matthew asked me to."
My voice sounded strange.
"You authorized the aircraft that carried him to Black Ridge?"
"I was a civilian contractor."
"I know what you were."
"I handled procurement routing."
"You never told me that."
"Because Mom thought I worked finance."
Our family had become a house built from false job descriptions.
"Why did Matthew need you?"
"He said his original route had been flagged."
"By whom?"
"He didn't know."
"So he asked you to create another authorization."
"Yes."
"Using Orchid."
She nodded.
Grant swore.
Daniel looked at her.
"Your credentials could access it?"
"Limited sections."
I felt sick.
"Caroline, the replacement route was the one that leaked."
Her face collapsed.
"I know."
My mother grabbed the edge of the desk.
"What are you saying?"
Caroline looked at her.
"I'm the reason Matthew's helicopter was hit."
"No."
"Mom—"
"No."
"It used my authorization."
"That doesn't mean you leaked it."
"I spent nine years believing I killed him."
I understood suddenly.
My mother's golden child.
The one who seemed perfect.
The one who had accepted praise at every family dinner without ever admitting she carried the same corpse I did.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I thought you hated me."
"What?"
"You stopped calling after Matthew died."
"I stopped calling everyone."
"You looked at me like I was part of Mom's world."
"Caroline—"
"And Matthew's letter said not to trust me until I told you."
She wiped her face.
"So there. Now you know."
Daniel opened the note.
"There's more."
At the bottom:
FORT BRENNER. LOCKER 2417. TWO KEYS.
I looked at Caroline's key.
My mother whispered, "Matthew's second key."
"Do you have it?" I asked.
"No."
"Who does?"
She thought.
"Arthur."
We all turned toward Keene.
He stood in the corridor entrance.
His expression was grim.
"I wondered when you'd get there."
My mother walked toward him.
"You have Matthew's key?"
Keene reached into his pocket.
A brass key.
Identical.
"You've had it for nine years?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Matthew gave it to me."
I laughed once.
"Everyone apparently received a farewell gift except me."
Keene looked at me.
"He was protecting you."
"Stop saying that."
"He knew your identity had become the target."
"R-007?"
"Not the call sign. The access behind it."
That caught me.
Grant said, "What access?"
Keene looked around.
"Not here."
Daniel pointed toward Room C.
"People are dying here."
Keene nodded.
"Then we go to Brenner."
The abandoned annex was forty minutes away.
We left through a secure underground exit with two trusted military police officers.
No sirens.
No convoy.
Daniel drove.
Grant sat beside him.
My mother, Caroline, and I sat in back.
No one spoke for ten minutes.
Then my mother said, "Rebecca."
I looked out the window.
"I'm sorry."
I turned.
She was staring at her hands.
"For tonight?"
"For years."
Caroline looked away.
My mother continued.
"I blamed you because you survived."
The words were ugly.
But truthful.
"I know."
"I told myself you didn't care."
"I cared."
"I know that now."
"Do you?"
She looked at me.
"I saw twenty-four officers salute you and realized every assumption I had made about your life might have been wrong."
"That shouldn't be what made you respect me."
"I know."
That mattered.
Not enough.
But something.
She swallowed.
"What I said tonight..."
"You can't unsay it."
"No."
"I heard it."
"I know."
"Matthew would have hated it."
Her eyes filled.
"I know."
I turned back toward the window.
We weren't healed.
But for the first time, she wasn't defending herself.
Fort Brenner appeared beyond a chain-link fence.
Decommissioned.
Dark.
Concrete buildings.
Keene met us at the side entrance.
The old transit annex smelled like dust and rust.
Locker 2417 stood at the end of a narrow hall.
Two locks.
Caroline inserted her key.
Keene inserted Matthew's.
Both turned.
The metal door opened.
Inside was a steel case.
Daniel checked it.
"No trigger."
I opened the latches.
Documents.
A flash drive.
A sealed letter.
And a small digital recorder.
My name was on it.
I pressed play.
Static.
Then Matthew's voice.
"Becca, if you're hearing this, I didn't make it."
My breath stopped.
My mother's hand flew to her mouth.
"I know you're going to blame yourself."
I closed my eyes.
"You always do."
His voice was younger than I remembered.
"If Mom blames you too, don't believe her."
My mother began sobbing silently.
Matthew continued.
"Black Ridge was compromised before Caroline touched the routing system. I asked her to generate the second route because I needed proof."
Caroline gasped.
"It was bait."
Daniel leaned closer.
"If the second route leaked, then I knew the breach wasn't external."
My heart pounded.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. R-007 had to stay clean. Whoever is inside wants your clearance because it leads to the continuity archive."
Grant whispered, "Oh God."
I looked at him.
"What?"
He didn't answer.
Matthew's recording continued.
"The leak is someone we all trust. Someone close enough to our family that Mom would never question them."
My mother stared at Keene.
He shook his head.
Matthew said:
"It's not Arthur."
Keene closed his eyes.
"Thank God."
Then came a long burst of static.
Matthew's voice returned.
"If I die, look at the photograph from Rebecca's commissioning. The person I'm talking about is standing directly behind us."
The recorder clicked off.
My mother whispered, "Commissioning photo?"
I knew exactly which one.
It hung in her house.
For fifteen years.
We pulled up an old digital copy on Caroline's phone.
There I was.
Twenty-two.
Newly commissioned.
Matthew beside me.
Caroline.
My mother.
Keene.
And directly behind us stood a man smiling at the camera.
My father's oldest friend.
My godfather.
Lieutenant General Thomas Voss.
A man who had helped carry Matthew's coffin.
A man who had comforted my mother after the funeral.
A man who had retired overseas three years ago.
Daniel whispered, "Voss."
Grant looked terrified.
Then a voice came from the dark end of the hallway.
"Matthew always was too sentimental."
We turned.
May you like
Thomas Voss stepped into the light.
And in his hand was my mother's service pistol...
