Chapter 2 - Ten MinutesNobody moved for the first three seconds.
The second was the music.
I had been driving for nearly five hours, and all I wanted was silence.
Seventy-two hours.
That was all the leave I had managed to get before reporting back to Fort Belvoir for another stretch of meetings, evaluations, and planning sessions that would swallow the rest of my month.
I had pictured coffee on the deck.
A book beside the lake.
Maybe a steak on the grill.
Instead, I turned onto the narrow gravel driveway of my lake house in western Virginia and found six vehicles packed around the property.
Two SUVs.
A minivan.
A pickup.
A rental sedan.
And somebody’s boat trailer blocking half the garage.
I stopped my Jeep.
For several seconds, I simply stared.
My house stood exactly where I had left it—cedar siding glowing beneath the afternoon sun, black-framed windows reflecting the lake, stone chimney rising above the trees.
But there were inflatable pool toys scattered across my lawn.
Children were running through my flower beds.
Someone had tied balloons to my porch railing.
And a man I didn’t recognize was grilling hamburgers on the custom stone patio I had built with my own hands.
“What the hell?”
I killed the engine.
A little girl ran past carrying one of my fishing rods.
“Hey,” I called. “Careful with that.”
She froze.
Then sprinted toward the backyard.
I grabbed my duffel and walked toward the front door.
It opened before I reached it.
My younger sister Jessica stepped outside.
Her face went white.
“Emily?”
I stopped.
Jessica glanced behind her.
Then back at me.
“You’re supposed to be working.”
“That’s usually how leave works,” I said. “You stop working for a few days.”
She gave a nervous laugh.
“What are you doing here?”
I looked around.
“At my house?”
Her smile disappeared.
From inside came voices, laughter, and the unmistakable crash of something breaking.
I stepped forward.
Jessica blocked the doorway.
“Wait.”
That single word told me everything.
“Jessica.”
“It’s not what it looks like.”
“What does it look like?”
She lowered her voice.
“Ryan’s family is here.”
“I noticed.”
“He organized a reunion.”
“At my house?”
“We thought you wouldn’t mind.”
“You thought wrong.”
Before she could answer, Ryan appeared behind her.
My brother-in-law was forty-two, six feet tall, and blessed with the sort of confidence that came from never having been forced to examine whether he deserved it.
He wore a golf shirt, expensive sunglasses, and the irritated expression of a man discovering a delivery driver had arrived at the wrong entrance.
He looked me up and down.
Then he laughed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I stared at him.
“Nice to see you too, Ryan.”
He walked onto the porch.
Behind him, more people appeared.
His mother.
His father.
Two cousins.
Three children.
A woman carrying one of my wineglasses.
Ryan folded his arms.
“Jessica told me you might pull something like this.”
“Like coming to my own property?”
He smirked.
“You always make everything about you.”
I almost laughed.
Instead, I looked through the open door.
Shoes covered my hardwood floor.
Someone had moved my furniture.
A folding table had been set up beside the fireplace.
There were food trays on my antique dining table.
And above it all hung the framed black-and-white photograph of my grandfather standing beside the same lake in 1968.
My jaw tightened.
“I want everyone out.”
Jessica whispered, “Emily, please.”
Ryan’s expression changed.
The smile vanished.
“This is a family gathering.”
“Yes.”
“And you weren’t invited.”
For half a second, I honestly thought I had misheard him.
Then his mother chuckled.
Ryan stepped closer.
“You show up in that beat-up Jeep with your government-worker attitude and expect everybody to jump because you say so?”
I looked at Jessica.
She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Ryan kept going.
“We’ve been planning this for months.”
“You’ve been planning a reunion in a house you don’t own?”
“Jessica is your sister.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“She said we could use it.”
“And she was wrong.”
His face reddened.
People were watching now.
Phones had started appearing.
Ryan noticed.
And like most insecure men with an audience, he became braver.
“What is this parasite doing here?” he announced loudly.
Jessica gasped.
“Ryan.”
He pointed toward the driveway.
“Leave.”
I stared at him.
“You’re ordering me off my property?”
“You heard me.”
One of his cousins laughed.
Ryan’s father shook his head and muttered, “Some people have no manners.”
Something inside me became very still.
Eleven years earlier, I had learned that anger was most dangerous when it controlled your voice.
So I kept mine calm.
“Ryan, move.”
“No.”
“Move away from the door.”
“This isn’t some office cubicle where you can boss people around.”
A few people laughed.
He stepped into my space.
“You’re a glorified government employee, Emily. Everybody knows it.”
Jessica finally grabbed his arm.
“That’s enough.”
He shrugged her off.
“No. I’m tired of her superiority complex.”
I tilted my head.
“My superiority complex?”
“You disappear for months. You don’t tell anyone where you are. You act like your little training seminars make you important.”
I almost admired how little he knew.
For eleven years, my family believed I worked in federal logistics.
That was partially true.
I did work for the federal government.
I did attend training.
I did spend long periods away.
I simply never explained the insignia in the locked drawer upstairs.
Or why I sometimes disappeared to bases overseas.
Or why senior officers called me at Christmas.
My reasons had been simple.
Privacy.
Security.
And, if I was being truthful, exhaustion.
When I came home, I wanted to be Emily.
Not Colonel Emily Carter.
Ryan pointed toward my Jeep.
“Get your bag and go.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
Then he grabbed my arm.
Hard.
Jessica screamed.
Every bit of training in my body reacted before my emotions did.
I didn’t strike him.
I didn’t twist his wrist.
I didn’t put him on the ground.
I simply looked down at his hand.
Then back at his face.
“Take your hand off me.”
Something in my tone made him hesitate.
But his relatives were watching.
So instead of letting go, he tightened his grip.
“You don’t scare me.”
A vehicle turned onto the driveway behind us.
Then another.
Dark government SUVs.
Ryan glanced over my shoulder.
Dust rolled across the gravel.
Doors opened.
Three uniformed personnel stepped out.
One of them was Captain Daniel Reyes, my aide for the weekend, carrying a folder I had accidentally left behind.
He saw Ryan holding my arm.
His entire expression changed.
“Ma’am?”
Ryan looked confused.
Daniel approached quickly.
“Colonel Carter, are you all right?”
Silence.
Perfect, absolute silence.
Ryan’s fingers loosened.
His mother blinked.
Jessica’s face drained of color.
Someone near the doorway whispered, “Colonel?”
Daniel stopped several feet away.
His eyes moved from Ryan’s hand to my face.
“Would you like assistance, Colonel?”
I gently removed Ryan’s fingers from my arm.
“No, Captain.”
Ryan stared at me.
“You’re… what?”
I picked up my duffel.
Then I looked at the dozens of people standing inside the house I had spent fifteen years paying for.
“We’re going to try this again.”
Nobody laughed now.
“This is my house.”
I pointed toward the driveway.
“And everybody who doesn’t live here has ten minutes to leave.”
Ryan’s face hardened.
“You can’t do that.”
I met his eyes.
“Actually, Ryan…”
May you like
Behind me, another vehicle door closed.
“…you’re about to learn exactly what I can do.”
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