Chapter 9 - THE LAST ATTEMPTLinda was not supposed to be there.
That was my first thought.
My second was that security had failed.
My third was colder.
What does she want?
She wore a cream suit, pearls, and the expression she used whenever she wanted strangers to believe she was somebody's respectable mother.
She sat in the last seat of the front row.
Beside her was a man I recognized from television.
A reporter.
Wonderful.
General Reed followed my gaze.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
A staff officer hurried over.
“She has a valid guest credential.”
“From whom?”
“We're checking.”
Linda saw me backstage.
She smiled.
Then mouthed:
Family.
My skin crawled.
“She wants a scene,” I said.
Reed nodded.
“So don't give her one.”
Easy for generals to say.
The ceremony began.
Daniel's surviving teammates attended.
Eleven remained alive.
Samuel Ortiz sat in the center aisle.
He wore the old unit pin on his lapel.
When I walked onto the stage, all eleven stood.
The room followed.
That almost broke me.
The citation described Daniel's actions.
Not as legend.
As documented fact.
He had voluntarily entered an isolated operational area.
Carried critical communications equipment.
Restored authenticated contact.
Facilitated evacuation of twenty-three personnel.
Continued supporting withdrawal after being mortally wounded.
I had heard pieces before.
But hearing the government formally correct its own history mattered.
It could not bring him back.
Corrections aren't resurrection.
But truth recorded publicly still matters.
The medal was placed in my hand.
I looked at Ortiz.
He was crying.
Then I looked at the empty seat beside him.
We had deliberately left it empty.
For Daniel.
Applause rose.
Linda remained seated.
Of course.
Afterward, people gathered in a reception room.
No folding chairs.
I had checked.
Linda approached with the reporter.
Security moved.
I raised my hand.
“It's okay.”
It wasn't.
But I wanted to know what she thought she was doing.
“Leah,” she said warmly.
Like she hadn't broken my arm.
“Linda.”
The reporter introduced himself.
“Patrick Sloan. National Focus.”
I knew the program.
Tabloid journalism wearing an expensive tie.
Linda touched her chest.
“I just wanted to support the family.”
“What family?”
Her smile flickered.
Sloan leaned in.
“Captain Mercer, Linda says there's another side to the events surrounding your family.”
“I'm sure she does.”
“She claims your biological father had serious disciplinary problems not mentioned today.”
Ortiz started toward us.
I signaled him to stay back.
“Does she?”
Linda's eyes glittered.
“I brought records.”
There it was.
She handed Sloan copies.
“Daniel Cross was investigated before Silver Lantern.”
My heart kicked.
Sloan looked at the papers.
“Unauthorized disclosure inquiry.”
People nearby began listening.
Linda smiled at me.
“You wanted the truth.”
For a moment, old fear returned.
The fear that truth was something adults kept in drawers until they needed to hurt you.
Then Colonel Shaw appeared.
She looked at the first page.
And laughed.
Linda's smile vanished.
“What?”
Shaw took out her phone.
“You probably should've asked someone to authenticate these.”
Sloan's face changed.
“What are you saying?”
“They're fake.”
Linda stiffened.
“No.”
Shaw pointed to the heading.
“This office designation didn't exist in the year printed here.”
Sloan pulled the pages closer.
“And the document-control format is from more than a decade later.”
Linda looked toward me.
I suddenly understood.
She had spent months preparing one last humiliation.
Fake records.
A reporter.
My father's medal ceremony.
She wanted to poison the correction.
Not because it would save Richard.
Not because it would help her legal case.
Because she couldn't tolerate a world where I stood in a room and wasn't ashamed.
“Where did you get these?” Sloan demanded.
Linda backed away.
“I was given them.”
“By whom?”
“I don't have to answer you.”
Shaw did not touch the documents again.
“Mr. Sloan, preserve those exactly as received.”
Linda realized too late.
Probation.
Obstruction restrictions.
A false document presented at a federal military ceremony.
She started toward the exit.
Security stopped her.
“You can't detain me!”
Nobody had said they were detaining her.
She made the situation worse herself.
Some traditions survived.
“Leah!” she shouted.
I turned.
“This is what you wanted!”
“No.”
“You destroyed all of us!”
“No.”
“Your father is in prison!”
“Because of what he did.”
“Dylan betrayed us!”
“Because he finally told the truth.”
“And me?”
I looked at her.
“You broke my arm.”
Her face twisted.
“After everything I did for you.”
I almost asked what.
Instead, I realized I didn't care.
“I hope you figure out why you need me to be small in order to feel important.”
Her face went blank.
I continued.
“But you're going to figure it out without me.”
Security escorted her away.
Sloan did not follow.
He stayed with Shaw.
Apparently the story had changed.
Later, I stood alone on the balcony holding Daniel's medal.
Dylan came outside.
He had been invited.
Barely.
We were trying.
Slowly.
Very slowly.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Linda texted me last week.”
I looked at him.
“What did she want?”
“Access to old files.”
“And?”
“I blocked her.”
Progress.
He leaned against the railing.
“I keep thinking about the chair.”
“That makes two of us.”
“I could've stopped her.”
“Maybe.”
“I didn't.”
“No.”
He stared at the ground.
“I don't know how to live with that.”
I thought for a moment.
“Don't turn it into a speech about how terrible you are.”
He looked confused.
“Why?”
“Because then I have to comfort you.”
That stung.
Good.
“What should I do?”
“Become someone who would stop it next time.”
He nodded.
After a while, he asked, “Do you think we'll ever be normal?”
I laughed.
“No.”
He laughed too.
It was probably the first real laugh we'd shared since we were children.
Ortiz stepped outside.
“Captain.”
“Yes?”
“Somebody wants to meet you.”
A woman stood inside the doorway.
Maybe fifty.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
She held a photograph.
“Leah?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled.
“My name is Anna Cross.”
My heart stopped.
Cross.
“I was Daniel's sister.”
I stared.
Nobody had ever told me Daniel had a sister.
She held out the photograph.
Daniel stood beside her, both young, both laughing.
“I've been looking for you for twenty-five years.”
May you like
And suddenly, at the very moment I thought my father's story had finally ended, another door opened.
This time, I wasn't afraid to walk through it.
