Chapter 8 - Emily Never Left Me
Her name was Emily.
I had not said it aloud in months.
She left a note on our kitchen table four years earlier.
I can’t keep living beside a man who refuses to come home even when he’s standing in the room.
I never blamed her.
She deserved more than nightmares and locked doors.
But Voss’s message suggested another story.
Keene found Emily in Oregon.
Remarried.
Safe.
I refused to contact her.
Then Emily contacted me.
“I heard about the fight.”
Of course she had.
Half the internet had.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then:
“Clayton, there’s something I should have told you.”
My stomach tightened.
Three weeks before leaving, Emily found a photograph inside our mailbox.
It showed me working in the field.
Taken from long range.
On the back:
Ask your husband what happened during Black Cedar.
“She knew the operation name?”
Keene whispered.
I nodded.
Emily continued.
“Then a man approached me outside the grocery store.”
“What man?”
“He said staying married to you would put me in danger.”
“Description?”
She gave one.
Tall.
Gray hair.
Scar beside his ear.
Voss.
My dead commander had approached my wife.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were barely sleeping. You kept a gun beneath the bed. I was scared that if I told you, you’d go looking for whoever threatened us.”
She was right.
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“He told me to leave because somebody else was watching the farm.”
Voss had protected Emily.
By destroying my marriage.
I did not know whether to thank him or hit him.
Maybe both.
Then Emily said:
“He gave me something for you.”
“What?”
“I never sent it.”
“Why?”
“He told me only to send it if you ever mentioned the words ‘easy money.’”
I looked at Keene.
Those were Trent’s exact words.
Hours later, a scanned document arrived.
A handwritten letter from Voss.
Clayton,
If you are reading this, Cole found the farm.
Black Cedar was never about stolen targeting technology.
That was the cover.
Your team was sent to recover a ledger identifying Americans who sold military access to private buyers.
Nathan Cole was only one name.
I hid the ledger where nobody would search until you were ready.
You carried the key home yourself.
My blood chilled.
The challenge coin.
Keene examined it.
Its edge unscrewed.
Inside was a microscopic data key.
I had carried it for nine years.
Then the final line:
Do not trust the official casualty list.
Three men did not die at Black Cedar.
Only two did.
I knew exactly what that meant.
One teammate listed as dead was alive.
Voss.
Or someone else.
Keene opened the sealed casualty records.
Three names.
Elias Voss.
Benjamin Shaw.
Michael Grant.
I stared at Michael’s name.
Mike had been my closest friend.
He had died in my arms.
Or so I remembered.
Then Keene showed me a current driver’s-license photograph recovered from a Cole shell company.
Michael Grant.
Older.
Bearded.
May you like
Alive.
And living less than twenty miles from my farm.
