Chapter 30 #2
Sarah wrote it down though she had already done it. Good.
Daniel slid another image toward me. “Camera trap blackout started at 2212. Came back at 2246. Same window as the fence disturbance.”
“Route logs?”
“Two patrol vehicles accounted for. One maintenance buggy unverified.”
Armand straightened. “Maintenance?”
“Keys were in the depot,” Sarah said. “Sign-out sheet blank.”
I looked at her.
“I’ve already asked for prints from the depot keys,” she said. “And before you ask, yes, I marked the sign-out sheet separately.”
The video feed froze on the anti-poaching contact’s face in a deeply unflattering expression. Technology remained the least dignified member of any operation.
Armand cleared his throat. “Ownership wants a guest statement before this becomes a social media incident.”
“It’s already an incident.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know what they want.”
His mouth shut.
My arm throbbed under the bandage. I flexed my fingers once and stopped when the gauze tugged.
Armand lowered his voice. “We can’t use words like breach in guest-facing communication.”
“No one says isolated until we know it was.”
“That language will alarm people.”
“Good,” I said. “The people responsible for fixing it should be alarmed.”
Sarah’s phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen. “First transfer just cleared the south checkpoint.”
My pen stopped halfway across the injury report.
Juliette was past the last controlled point before the airstrip road.
The room continued around me. Daniel asking about Mbeki’s statement. Armand breathing too loudly. The video feed returning with a burst of static.
I finished the line on the report.
“Confirm when they reach the strip,” I said.
Sarah’s eyes flicked to me, then down. “Will do.”
Sarah held out another page. “Ms. Wilder left this for the room,” she said. “Operational. Before you make that face worse.”
For a half second, my hand did not move.
Then I took it.
It wasn't personal.
Of course it wasn’t.
Juliette had left a precise, brutal list in neat handwriting. Suggested language for delays that did not lie. Compensation exposure broken into categories. Family contact protocol. Staff meal rotation in bold at the bottom.
Feed rangers before exhaustion becomes liability.
I stared at the line.
Sarah said, “She also told the kitchen to feed the rangers before anyone fainted into a compensation lawsuit.”
My mouth moved despite itself. Barely. “Sounds like her.”
“She told me you would object to the word liability.”
“She was wrong.”
Sarah’s eyebrow lifted.
“I object to the word fainted.”
Daniel made a sound into his coffee that he tried to turn into a cough.
I set Juliette’s page beside the incident file.
She had left the room and still managed to make it run better.
At 0730, Mbeki called me from his cabin.
I answered on speaker while signing the updated patrol roster. “No.”
A pause.
“I have not asked anything yet,” he said.
“You were about to.”
“I was calling to offer my wisdom, since apparently my body is under house arrest.”
“Your body has eight stitches and forty-eight hours off roster.”
“Eight stitches is a tailor’s problem, not a ranger’s.”
“The doctor said that yesterday.”
“The math has not changed.”
Sarah looked down at her clipboard. Her mouth did not move, which meant she was enjoying herself professionally.
Mbeki exhaled hard through the phone. “I can monitor from the south blind.”
“You can monitor the inside of your cabin.”
“A man can rot from boredom faster than blood loss.”
“Test that theory quietly.”
Daniel made the mistake of laughing into his coffee.
Mbeki heard it. “Is Daniel there?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Tell him a wounded lion still has teeth.”
Daniel leaned toward the phone. “A wounded lion is usually lying down.”
“I am not lying down.”
I stopped writing.
Silence.
Then the faint creak of a mattress came through the line.
Bloody hell.
“Mbeki.”
“I was preparing to rise with dignity.”
“Prepare horizontally.”
Sarah finally turned away, shoulders tight with contained laughter.
I lowered my voice. “You scared the younger rangers last night.”
The line quieted.
“They need to see you sit down when you’re hurt,” I said. “Or they won’t.”
Mbeki said nothing for three seconds.
Then, softer, “Forty-eight hours.”
“Minimum.”
“This place has no respect for warriors.”
“You work here.”
“Yes,” he said darkly. “A long-standing error.”
I ended the call before he could negotiate his way into a chair beside a radio and call that rest.
By the time I returned to my cabin, the sun had cleared the trees and the room had become hostile.
The bed was unmade. My shirt from the night before remained on the chair. The sheet had pulled loose on her side, a sharp diagonal across the mattress, but that was the only disorder she had left behind.
No hair ties. No discarded earrings. No accidental proof.
Juliette Wilder did not leave evidence unless she meant to.
The cabin had reset badly.
I stripped off the clean shirt and stepped into the shower. Hot water hit my shoulder and ran down my back, carrying the smell of smoke, sweat, and antiseptic into the drain. When it struck the bandage, pain flared white enough to empty my lungs.
I braced one hand against the tile.
Excellent. Arm still attached. Standards were slipping.
I changed the dressing one-handed and badly, because asking the clinic nurse to do it would involve a conversation about rest, and I had reached my quota of being correctly diagnosed by intelligent women before eight in the morning.
My phone lit on the sink.
SOFIA: r u awake?
The air in the bathroom changed.
I picked up the phone, thumb damp against the glass.
ME: Always. What’s wrong?
SOFIA: nothing. don’t do ranger panic
ME: That is not a thing.
SOFIA: dad
ME: I’m awake.
Three dots appeared. Vanished. Appeared again.
SOFIA: homecoming is oct 24
I leaned against the sink. The mirror had fogged around my reflection, leaving only a blurred outline of my face.
ME: Okay.
SOFIA: there is a parent thing before the game
ME: What kind of parent thing?
SOFIA: the kind with parents
My grip shifted on the phone. Water slid from my hairline to my jaw and dropped onto the screen.
ME: What time?
SOFIA: ur asking like u might come
ME: I’m asking what time.
SOFIA: dad
ME: Sofia.
The three dots came back and stayed long enough to do damage.
SOFIA: told Mom i’m not going unless u r there
The phone became very solid in my hand.
Outside the bathroom, the radio murmured from the bedside table.
Someone called for updated gate status. A vehicle reversed below with two short beeps.
The reserve kept moving. Radios murmured.
Engines reversed. Gates opened and closed.
My daughter had asked me to show up, and nothing around me had the decency to stop.
I typed I’ll try.
Stopped.
Juliette’s voice cut through the steam and tile and dull ache in my arm.
Don’t give people maybe when you already know the answer.
I deleted the words.
SOFIA: don’t say maybe if u mean no
My throat closed.
ME: I won’t.
I opened the airline app with hands that did not feel entirely reliable.
Johannesburg to Dulles. Leave October 22. Land October 23. Buffer for delays. Rental car. Three connections available, one terrible, two survivable. The fare was obscene. Fatherhood often arrived wearing the face of international aviation.
I selected the one with the longest Dulles buffer.
Passenger details. Seat selection. Payment. Confirm.
The confirmation number appeared on the screen.
A specific date. A specific seat. A promise with numbers attached.
I took a screenshot and sent it to Sofia.
ME: Flight confirmed. Arrive Oct 23. Dulles. Send me the schedule.
No reply for nearly a minute.
Then:
SOFIA: for real?
ME: For real.
SOFIA: ur really coming?
ME: Yes.
SOFIA: don’t miss the connection
ME: Planning not to.
SOFIA: that’s not a promise
I looked at the confirmation again. Seat 34A. Johannesburg to Doha. Doha to Dulles. Arrive 3:42 p.m. October 23.
ME: I’ll be there.
The next message took longer.
SOFIA: ok
SOFIA: good
Then:
SOFIA: don’t be weird in the stands
A breath left me. It sounded almost human.
ME: No promises.
SOFIA: dad
ME: I’ll be there. Quietly.
SOFIA: love u
My hand tightened around the phone until the edge pressed into my bandaged palm.
ME: Love you too, baby.
I stood there in the cooling steam for another few seconds, phone in hand, water dripping from my hair onto the tile.
Then I opened Juliette’s contact.
For thirty seconds, I stared at the blank message field.
Booked a flight to see Sofia sounded too large.
You were right sounded worse.
I typed before I could make it efficient enough to hide behind.
ME: Sofia asked me to come for Homecoming. I booked the flight. Dulles, Oct. 23.
Her reply came two minutes later.
JULIETTE: Good.
Then:
JULIETTE: Don’t turn it into a maybe later.
My mouth curved before I could stop it.
ME: I won’t.
The typing dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
JULIETTE: I know.
The room went too quiet around that.
I dressed, added the flight to my calendar, and blocked the travel days before I could downgrade them into a preference.
Then I opened a fresh note and typed the first line.
October coverage.
It was not today’s problem. The reserve did not need it solved before breakfast.
I made it real anyway.
I added Daniel as interim lead for field coverage, left Mbeki off anything involving a fence line until a medical professional with better judgment than him cleared it in writing, and saved the note without sending it.
One concrete promise at a time.
Then my radio cracked hard enough to cut through the cabin.
“Mercer,” Sarah said. “You need to come back to ops.”
I picked it up. “What happened?”
Silence held for half a second too long.
“The contractor login accessed the transfer manifest at 0418,” she said. “Not the general departure list. The assigned vehicles.”
My hand went still on the radio.
“Which assignment?”
Below the cabin, a horn sounded once from the courtyard.
Sarah’s voice came through low and stripped flat.
“Ms. Wilder’s vehicle.”