Chapter 5 - My Wife's SecretCaroline had hidden the journals in the last place Nathan would ever look.
Nathan was already gone.
He had entered using a key.
That fact bothered me almost as much as everything else.
“Why did Nathan have a key?” I asked.
Daniel looked ashamed.
“Olivia gave him one years ago.”
“Why?”
“He lived nearby. She trusted him.”
We all had.
The townhouse looked completely normal from outside.
Red brick.
White shutters.
A small flower box Olivia insisted on planting every spring despite killing nearly everything she touched.
Inside, someone had dismantled her life.
Not destroyed.
Dismantled.
Books removed carefully from shelves.
Desk drawers emptied.
Mattress lifted.
Kitchen containers opened.
Photographs taken down and examined.
This wasn't rage.
It was a search.
Nathan had been hunting something.
Torres met us at the door.
“He was inside eleven minutes.”
“What did he take?” Daniel asked.
“We can't determine that yet.”
“I can.”
Daniel entered.
He moved quickly through each room.
Nothing obvious was missing.
Then he stopped in Olivia's office.
Her wedding photograph had been removed from the wall and left facedown on the floor.
Daniel lifted it.
Behind it was a small rectangular discoloration.
Something had been taped there.
“What's missing?” Torres asked.
“I don't know.”
He turned the frame over.
On the back, Olivia had written something.
Where Dad taught me not to be afraid.
I stared at the sentence.
Torres asked, “Does that mean anything?”
Immediately.
Camp Eagle Ridge.
When Olivia was eleven, Caroline wanted her sent to an expensive summer arts camp.
Olivia wanted to camp with me.
So I took her to a cabin near Shenandoah National Park.
On the second night, a thunderstorm rolled over the mountain.
Olivia became terrified.
We sat beneath the covered porch while lightning split the sky.
I taught her how fear worked.
Identify the threat.
Control what you can.
Move anyway.
Years later, she still called Eagle Ridge the place where Dad taught her not to be afraid.
I said nothing.
Torres noticed.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I hesitated.
If Olivia had hidden something there, Nathan probably knew about the cabin.
He had visited once.
“Colonel?”
“Shenandoah.”
Daniel turned toward me.
“She could have stored evidence there.”
Torres immediately ordered officers to check the property.
I wanted to go myself.
She refused.
“Until we understand who we're dealing with, you're staying near the hospital.”
“I've survived combat zones.”
“And your daughter nearly died in a parking garage. This isn't Bosnia.”
That shut me up.
Back at St. Catherine, Alan was waiting.
“She’s awake.”
Everything else disappeared.
Olivia looked small beneath the blankets.
Her back was bandaged.
Her skin had regained a little color.
I sat beside her.
Daniel remained outside because I still didn't know whether seeing him would upset her.
“Hey, kiddo.”
She managed a weak smile.
“You still call me that?”
“You're still shorter than me.”
Her smile disappeared almost immediately.
“Dad.”
“I know about Nathan.”
Fear returned.
“Not enough.”
“Then tell me.”
Her eyes moved toward the door.
“Is Daniel here?”
“Yes.”
“Don't let him in yet.”
That hurt Daniel, though he couldn't hear it.
“Did he do this to you?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Relief hit me harder than expected.
“Then why were you holding his cuff link?”
“Nathan.”
“We know.”
“He planted it.”
“Why?”
“To make you hate Daniel.”
“Why would my opinion matter?”
“Because you're the one person Nathan still needs.”
“For what?”
Olivia took a slow breath.
“Your testimony.”
“About?”
“Bosnia.”
The room seemed to tilt.
She continued.
“Nathan didn't save you in Bosnia, Dad.”
I stared.
“He did.”
“No.”
“I was there.”
“You were unconscious for almost twelve hours after the explosion.”
My mouth went dry.
“There was an ambush.”
“No. There was a cleanup.”
“What are you talking about?”
Olivia blinked through tears.
“Rachel Bennett discovered Nathan was selling intelligence.”
I felt something inside me break.
“Nathan was an officer.”
“Nathan was stealing target data and selling access through intermediaries. Rachel found out. She was going to expose him.”
“So he killed her?”
“No.”
She looked toward the door.
“He made the world believe she died.”
“Why?”
“Because she helped him.”
That made even less sense.
“She discovered him and helped him?”
“Later.”
Olivia swallowed.
“Because Nathan had something on her.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“Then what does this have to do with me?”
“You were supposed to die too.”
Silence.
Every memory I had of that mission rearranged itself.
Our vehicle.
The sudden route change.
The explosion.
Nathan pulling me from the wreckage—or so I had been told.
Rachel supposedly killed.
Three soldiers injured.
One civilian interpreter missing.
I remembered waking in a field hospital with Nathan beside me.
You got lucky, Rich.
For thirty years, I had thanked him.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“Your convoy was routed deliberately into an ambush because Nathan thought you had seen the same evidence Rachel found.”
“I hadn't.”
“I know.”
“He tried to kill me because he thought I knew something?”
“Yes.”
“Then why save me afterward?”
“He didn't.”
Olivia stared into my eyes.
“Mom did.”
I couldn't speak.
“Your mother wasn't there.”
“She was.”
“No.”
Caroline had been in Germany.
At least that's what I remembered.
Olivia's voice shook.
“She flew into Sarajevo two days before the attack.”
“Why?”
“To warn you.”
My heart pounded.
“How could you possibly know this?”
“Her journals.”
“What journals?”
“The ones she left me.”
Caroline had kept journals?
“Mom made me promise not to give them to you unless I found proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That Nathan had spent thirty years controlling the story.”
My mind fought the idea.
Caroline had been gone seven years.
How much had she carried alone?
“Why wouldn't she tell me?”
“She tried.”
“I would have believed her.”
“Would you?”
That question cut deeper than accusation.
Would I?
Nathan had been my brother in everything but blood.
After Bosnia, he had received a commendation partly for saving my life.
I had stood beside him while it was pinned to his chest.
What would I have done if Caroline had told me he engineered the whole thing?
Olivia closed her eyes.
“She was scared you'd confront him without evidence.”
“She knew me well.”
“Yes.”
A faint smile.
Then it vanished.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Mom didn't die believing her illness was natural.”
I stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“Don't.”
“Dad—”
“Don't say that unless you know.”
“I found a toxicology report.”
The room became very quiet.
“What report?”
“Not from her hospital.”
“Then where?”
“A private laboratory.”
Olivia's eyes filled with tears.
“Mom had hair samples tested six months before she died.”
I couldn't breathe.
“The report found elevated concentrations of a heavy metal.”
“Which one?”
“Arsenic.”
My hand hit the bed rail.
“No.”
“She thought someone was poisoning her.”
“No.”
“Dad.”
“She had cancer.”
“She did.”
“Then that killed her.”
“Maybe.”
Maybe.
The cruelest word in the English language.
“What did she write?”
Olivia hesitated.
“Her last journal says she believed she had been exposed deliberately.”
“By Nathan?”
“She never wrote his name.”
“Then who?”
“She wrote only one sentence.”
Olivia reached for my hand.
“‘If anything happens to me, Richard must finally learn what his best friend did.’”
My eyes burned.
For seven years I had grieved Caroline as a victim of disease.
Now my daughter was telling me she may have died carrying a secret.
Before I could ask another question, Detective Torres entered.
She was holding a sealed evidence bag.
Her expression was grim.
“The officers reached your cabin.”
I turned.
“And?”
“The place was empty.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone got there first.”
Inside the evidence bag was a photograph.
My cabin.
Front door open.
Floorboards torn apart.
Walls damaged.
And painted across the living room wall in black letters:
RICHARD SHOULD HAVE DIED IN 1997.
My grief disappeared.
In its place came something old.
Cold.
Disciplined.
The part of me I thought I had left behind when I retired.
Nathan Cole had attacked my daughter.
He had desecrated the memory of my wife.
And now he wanted me afraid.
He had forgotten something important.
May you like
Fear had never made me run.
It made me pay attention.
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