Chapter 12 - The Picture Nobody Wanted
We had spent so much of our childhood competing over things that didn't matter: who got the front seat, who had better grades, who made Dad smile at dinner. None of that explained the cruelty at the beach, but it showed me how long we'd practiced keeping score instead of asking what the other person needed.
Chloe drove to our childhood house with me beside her. It was the first time we'd shared a car without a fight in years.
"I thought you hated us," she said, watching the road.
"I was angry. That's different."
"You never called."
"I called Dad three times after the hospital released me. He said you'd both be better off if I stayed away."
Chloe's knuckles tightened around the wheel. "He told me you didn't want to see us."
There it was: another lie, small enough to fit into a family conversation and large enough to split a family in half.
At the house, Mom's photo albums were still in the hallway cabinet. I found a snapshot from a thunderstorm when Chloe was twelve. We were huddled under a blanket with flashlights, using an old postcard as a bookmark. On the postcard, Mom had written a sentence we'd recited like a secret password: When the lights go out, count the windows.
"That's not a key," Chloe said.
"Not yet."
I flipped the picture over. Seven little squares had been drawn under the sentence. Ben had told me to store the second half of the code in something no one would think to steal. I had used our childhood game, replacing numbers with the order of windows in the house.
We stood outside and counted. First the kitchen, then the living room, then the two upstairs bedrooms. In the pattern, a sequence began to return to me.
Chloe recorded each number as I spoke it. When we reached the last window, she grabbed my hand.
"Harper. Look."
A black sedan was parked across the street. Its engine was running. Through the windshield, a man lifted a camera and photographed us.
Chloe's first instinct was to duck. Mine was to stand still and look straight into the lens.
The sedan rolled away, but not before I caught the license plate.
May you like
Torres ran the number. It belonged to a government vehicle assigned to Admiral Vale's office.
THE SCARS THE ADMIRAL REMEMBERED
