Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO CAME HOME DEADMason had not spoken for four minutes.
Emma knew because she had watched the clock.
He sat on the edge of the kitchen table staring at Daniel Cross’s photograph.
Eight years had changed the man.
He had once been young, clean-shaven, smiling beside Mason and Owen in a desert photograph.
The image attached to Owen’s recent video showed someone else.
Scarred cheek.
Longer hair.
Dead eyes.
Emma stood opposite Mason.
“You thought Cross died?”
“I watched him die.”
“That seems difficult to misunderstand.”
Mason looked at her.
“The convoy hit an explosive. Cross was trapped inside the second vehicle. Fire everywhere.”
“You saw a body?”
“No.”
Emma nodded slowly.
“Apparently that matters in your line of work.”
He accepted the criticism.
“Owen disappeared. Cross survived. You survived.”
“Yes.”
“Three survivors.”
“Yes.”
“And all three thought the others were dead?”
Mason looked back at the screen.
“Someone wanted that.”
Marcus approached from the window.
“No vehicles nearby.”
Emma checked Mason’s blood pressure again.
Too low.
“You’re going to pass out.”
“Not yet.”
She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her pupils.
“Stop saying not yet like it’s medicine.”
Marcus almost laughed.
Mason didn’t.
“Owen is alive.”
Emma’s anger cracked.
“I know.”
“I buried him.”
“So did I.”
Mason’s eyes filled with guilt.
“I told your mother he was dead.”
Emma froze.
“What?”
“I was the one who called her.”
Emma remembered.
Her mother had received a private call twelve hours before Navy officers arrived.
A man had said only that Owen was gone and had died bravely.
She had never known who.
“That was you?”
Mason nodded.
“I couldn’t identify myself.”
Emma looked away.
Part of her wanted to hate him.
Another part saw how much he had carried.
“What happened after the convoy?”
“I woke in a German military hospital. Voss visited me.”
“Voss?”
“He told me Owen and Cross were dead. Told me the mission was compromised by local insurgents.”
“You believed him.”
“For six months.”
“What changed?”
“Bank records.”
Mason stood.
“I discovered Voss had paid a private company three days before the ambush.”
“Which company?”
Mason looked at Emma.
“Hale Medical Security.”
Emma’s skin went cold.
“Dr. Hale?”
“Victor Hale’s older brother founded it.”
Marcus swore.
“So Harborview was involved eight years ago?”
“Maybe.”
Mason walked to the laptop.
“Cross could have been working with Voss. Or against him.”
Emma looked at Owen’s recent face.
“What matters is finding my brother.”
“We will.”
“We?”
Mason looked at her.
“Yes.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I’ll improve.”
“You’re medically delusional.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Emma pressed her hands against the table.
“Where was the warehouse tonight?”
Mason hesitated.
“Portsmouth.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Following a courier.”
“Why?”
“Because three months ago someone accessed Owen’s old encrypted emergency account.”
Emma stared.
“You knew he might be alive.”
“I hoped.”
“And you didn’t contact my family?”
“If I was wrong, I would reopen wounds for nothing. If I was right, contacting you might lead them directly to you.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“Worked great.”
Mason took it.
“Yes.”
“What happened at the warehouse?”
“I found the drive inside a false wall. Someone else arrived before I could search the rest.”
“Who?”
“Five men.”
“The ones who shot you?”
“One of them.”
Emma’s eyes moved to his side.
“That wound isn’t a gunshot.”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Metal fragment from an explosion.”
Marcus frowned.
“Warehouse exploded?”
“Part of it.”
Emma stared.
“You walked from Portsmouth to Harborview?”
“Not entirely.”
“How?”
“Stole a motorcycle.”
Marcus looked offended on behalf of law enforcement.
“You stole a motorcycle?”
“Borrowed.”
“Did you return it?”
“It caught fire.”
Marcus rubbed his face.
Emma almost smiled despite herself.
Then Mason suddenly gripped the table.
His face drained.
Emma moved immediately.
“Mason.”
“I’m fine.”
He collapsed.
Emma caught his shoulder.
Marcus helped lower him to the floor.
“Mason!”
His eyes rolled.
Emma checked his pulse.
Rapid.
Weak.
“His spleen.”
She looked around.
“We need an operating room.”
Marcus stared.
“We can’t go back to Harborview.”
“Then another hospital.”
Mason regained enough consciousness to whisper.
“No hospitals.”
Emma leaned over him.
“You don’t get a vote anymore.”
His hand closed around her wrist.
“Voss… monitors military hospitals.”
“You’re not military anymore.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Marcus pulled out his phone.
“I know a surgeon.”
Emma looked at him.
“What?”
“My sister.”
“You have a surgeon sister?”
“Trauma surgeon at Chesapeake Memorial.”
“Call her.”
Marcus dialed.
Thirty-five minutes later, they arrived at a private veterinary surgical clinic.
Emma stared at the sign.
“You called your trauma surgeon sister and she brought us to a veterinarian?”
Marcus shrugged.
“Her husband owns the clinic.”
Mason opened one eye.
“I’ve had worse.”
Dr. Lena Dunn was Marcus’s younger sister and did not ask many questions.
That immediately made Emma like her.
She examined Mason and frowned.
“He needs surgery.”
Mason muttered, “Popular opinion.”
Lena prepared the small operating suite.
“I can control the bleed temporarily, but if there’s major splenic rupture we transfer.”
Mason looked at Emma.
“No.”
Emma leaned down.
“If you argue, I will personally sedate you.”
His mouth twitched.
“Owen really did teach you.”
Emma froze.
Then said quietly, “You keep bringing him into everything.”
“He was in everything.”
That stopped her.
Mason looked at the ceiling.
“After my parents died, Owen was the closest thing I had to family.”
Emma’s anger softened.
“You never came to the funeral.”
“I stood across the street.”
“What?”
“I couldn’t let anyone see me.”
Emma swallowed.
“You watched us bury an empty coffin.”
“Yes.”
“Did my mother know?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you come to her?”
“Because by then I suspected Voss.”
Lena interrupted.
“We need to start.”
Emma reached for Mason’s hand without thinking.
His fingers closed around hers.
“You’ll be here when I wake up?” he asked.
Emma looked at him.
“I’m still furious at you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Yes.”
His eyes closed.
“I promised Owen once.”
Emma leaned closer.
“What?”
“To keep you safe.”
Then anesthesia took him.
While Lena operated, Emma sat in the waiting room holding Owen’s drive.
Marcus brought coffee.
“Your mother.”
Emma remembered suddenly.
She called.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Her chest tightened.
“Marcus.”
He saw her face.
“What?”
“She isn’t answering.”
They drove to Emma’s mother’s house while Lena remained with Mason.
The front door stood open.
Emma ran inside.
“Mom?”
No response.
The living room looked normal.
The kitchen did not.
One chair lay overturned.
A mug had shattered near the sink.
Emma’s mother’s phone rested on the floor.
Marcus drew his weapon.
“Stay behind me.”
Emma ignored him.
She ran upstairs.
Empty bedroom.
Bathroom.
Guest room.
Then she heard a sound from Owen’s old room.
A music box.
She opened the door.
The room had remained almost untouched for eight years.
Posters.
Books.
Owen’s old baseball glove.
On his desk sat the music box.
It had not been there yesterday.
Emma approached.
A note rested beneath it.
SHE LIED TO YOU FOR EIGHT YEARS.
Emma’s hands shook.
Below the sentence was an address.
And one final line.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT YOUR MOTHER BACK.
Marcus read it.
“No.”
Emma stared at the address.
It was Harborview Medical Center.
“What room?” Marcus asked.
Emma looked closer.
Her stomach dropped.
Room 417.
She knew it.
Everyone did.
Harborview had closed Room 417 eight years earlier after a fire killed two patients.
Emma turned to Marcus.
“That room doesn’t exist anymore.”
May you like
Marcus looked at the note.
“Apparently somebody thinks it does.”
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