Chapter 5 - The Lie in the Newspaper
I took a screenshot and sent it to the post's criminal-investigation office. I was not going to play amateur detective because a stranger wanted me scared. But I also wasn't going home without finding out what Dad had hidden.
Dwayne offered to drive. We stopped first at a diner outside the gate, where Brody waited in a back booth with two untouched glasses of water.
"Mom went back to Salina," he said. "She's telling people the Army forced me to confess."
"Did they?"
"No. I finally got tired of being a coward."
I slid the newspaper clipping onto the table. Dwayne had brought a photograph of Charlene's framed article. Its headline said BRODY RUDDOCK SAVES FELLOW SOLDIERS. The reporter had quoted an unnamed family member. Not a medic, not a rescuer, not Brody.
"It was Mom," Brody admitted. "She called the paper before I got discharged. She said you weren't available for comment."
"I was in surgery."
He flinched. "I know."
"Why didn't you correct it?"
"At first I tried. She cried. Dad said she couldn't handle another humiliation. Then people started thanking me. A veteran group gave me a plaque. Every time I tried to speak, the lie had gotten bigger."
I let the silence sit. Forgiveness was not something he could order off a menu.
Dwayne opened the map. "Tell her about Gate Three."
Brody stared at his hands. "Mercer ordered us through the crossing after county dispatch said the road was questionable. He told the driver the gate release had been canceled."
"Was it?"
"No. I heard a warning on the operations radio. He told me not to repeat it."
"And you obeyed."
"I was a lieutenant. He was a colonel. I thought he knew something I didn't."
That much I understood. It didn't excuse what came later.
Brody pushed a receipt across the table. A storage facility in Salina. Unit 14-B. Dad had rented it until the month he died. Charlene had kept paying the bill.
"Why would she pay for a box she didn't want opened?" I asked.
May you like
Brody's eyes filled. "Because it isn't her secret."
The diner door opened, and Leah Owens stepped inside carrying a six-year-old boy by the hand.
