18. Doc
DOC
The rifle cracks.
Glass explodes.
I take Mara to the floor.
My body covers hers before the last pieces hit the tile.
“Lights!” Wolf shouts.
The station goes dark.
Trigger and Blaze move toward the front of the building.
Ace and Havoc cover the rear.
Sheriff Tate is on his radio, ordering deputies to block every road out of Eagle River.
I lift my head.
“Mara?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
I run my hands over her shoulders, arms, and sides anyway.
“Colin.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m fairly certain I’d notice a bullet.”
“Humor me.”
Her hands touch my face.
“Look at me.”
I do.
“I’m not hit.”
My lungs finally work again.
She’s beneath me, surrounded by shattered glass, but she’s alive.
Angry.
Beautiful.
Alive.
I lower my forehead to hers for one second.
Then the phone on the floor crackles.
“Doc?”
Kane.
I grab the receiver.
“Where is the shooter?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Vance was close.”
“He is.”
“Then tell me where.”
“If I knew, I would’ve already killed him.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone.
Mara shifts beneath me.
“You’re heavy.”
I look down at her.
“You could show a little gratitude.”
“You could move your knee.”
I move it quickly when I realize where it is.
“Sorry.”
Her mouth twitches.
Then another sound comes from outside.
An engine.
Tires squeal.
Trigger shouts, “Black pickup heading east!”
I rise and pull Mara with me.
She reaches for her weapon.
I keep one arm around her waist.
“I can stand on my own.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you holding me?”
“Because I want to.”
She stops arguing.
That might be a first.
Sheriff Tate crosses the dark station with a flashlight in one hand and his radio in the other.
“Unit Two, cut him off at Mill Creek Road. Unit Five, cover the highway.”
Static answers him.
Wolf returns to the broken window.
“Shooter was across the street.”
“Roof?” I ask.
“Alley behind the pharmacy. Trigger and Blaze are checking it.”
“Did anyone get the plate?”
“Covered.”
“Of course it was.”
Mara crouches near the wall.
The bullet is buried in the old wooden doorframe behind the front desk.
I follow its path.
It came through the window at an angle.
Not aimed at Mara.
Not aimed at me.
I look toward the conference table.
Grant’s lockbox sits exactly where it did before the shot.
A deep groove cuts through the tabletop less than an inch from it.
Mara sees it too.
“He wasn’t trying to kill us.”
“He was shooting at the box.”
Sheriff Tate sweeps his flashlight over the gouged wood.
“Or warning us that he could.”
I look at the lockbox.
“No.”
“What?” Mara asks.
“Kane said Vance wants the list.”
“He also said it isn’t inside the box.”
“Vance may not know that.”
Sheriff Tate’s radio crackles.
“Sheriff, suspect vehicle abandoned behind the old feed store.”
“Driver?”
“Gone.”
“Start a perimeter. Don’t approach the vehicle until the bomb unit clears it.”
“Copy.”
Mara glances toward the broken window.
“He planned an escape route before he ever made the call.”
“Vance has been planning this for fifteen years,” I say.
“That ends now.”
She walks toward the conference table.
I know that expression.
Grant probably knew it too.
“What are you doing?”
Mara picks up the lockbox.
“Opening it.”
“Tate said the lock was damaged.”
“I’m not asking the lock for permission.”
Sheriff Tate turns from the radio.
“Deputy Ellis.”
“We’re out of time.”
“It’s evidence.”
“And we can document everything before we break the lock.”
“We may damage what’s inside.”
“We may all be dead in three days.”
Hampton calls from the holding room.
“She has a point.”
Tate closes his eyes.
“I am not discussing evidence procedure with a prisoner.”
“You should. I’ve been involved in several federal investigations.”
“You shot my deputy.”
“It was one investigation.”
From the front office, another deputy calls, “Parker says to tell Hampton he’s still an ass.”
Hampton sighs.
“His hostility is interfering with my recovery.”
Mara looks at Tate.
“The phone gave us part of Grant’s message. The box may give us the rest.”
Tate stares at her.
She doesn’t back down.
Of course she doesn’t.
Finally, he points toward the evidence camera.
“Photograph the lock from every angle. Record the entire opening. Nobody touches anything inside until Lieutenant Ross clears it.”
Mara smiles.
“I knew you’d see reason.”
“I don’t see reason. I see the futility of arguing with you.”
I understand that better than he knows.
Twenty minutes later, the station’s power is back on.
Plywood covers the shattered window.
Deputies process the bullet and search the abandoned truck.
Trigger and Blaze found one shell casing in the alley, but no shooter.
The black pickup was stolen from a ranch outside town two days ago.
Vance is gone.
Again.
Grant’s lockbox sits in the middle of the conference table.
A camera records from one corner of the room.
Lieutenant Ross has photographed the lid, bottom, hinges, and damaged lock.
Now Sheriff Tate stands beside the table with a pair of bolt cutters.
Mara looks at me.
“You should do it.”
“Why?”
“It was Grant’s.”
“He was your brother.”
“He was your brother too.”
The words hit me harder than they should.
I look at the initials scratched into the lid.
G.E.
Grant Ellis.
Ranger.
Friend.
Brother.
Tate offers me the bolt cutters.
I take them.
The handles feel heavier than they are.
Mara moves beside me.
Her hand touches the center of my back.
“You’re not destroying something that belonged to him,” she says quietly. “You’re letting him finish what he started.”
I nod.
Then I fit the jaws around the lock.
The metal resists.
For fifteen years, Grant’s secrets have stayed inside this box.
One hard squeeze ends that.
The lock snaps.
No one speaks.
I put down the bolt cutters and lift the lid.
Inside is a folded green cloth.
A photograph.
Three envelopes.
And an Army Ranger patch.
My throat closes.
I recognize the patch.
I pick it up before I remember we aren’t supposed to touch anything.
Lieutenant Ross starts to object.
Then she sees my face.
She says nothing.
Mara touches the edge of the patch with one finger.
Her hand trembles.
I cover it with mine.
Beneath the patch is a photograph of eight men standing in front of a concrete building.
Grant.
Me.
Wolf.
Trigger.
Blaze.
Ace.
Havoc.
Kane.
All of us younger.
Dirty.
Tired.
Still stupid enough to believe we were coming home together.
Mara lifts the photograph carefully.
“Is this Site Seventeen?”
I study the concrete wall behind us.
A black number is painted above the door.
“Yes.”
Sheriff Tate leans closer.
“Who took the photograph?”
I don’t remember.
That bothers me.
“We were supposed to be on a reconnaissance exercise.”
“Who gave the orders?”
“Captain Miller.”
Mara turns the picture over.
Writing covers the back.
She reads it aloud.
“Eight entered the valley. Seventeen were waiting. Twenty-three never existed.”
The same message Grant left behind.
But there’s another line beneath it.
Smaller.
Written in red ink.
“Only seven Rangers came home.”
Wolf steps closer.
“That’s wrong.”
“No,” I say.
Everyone looks at me.
“Eight entered the valley. Grant died there.”
“Seven came home,” Mara says.
I shake my head.
“No. Six.”
The room goes silent.
Trigger understands first.
“Kane disappeared before extraction.”
I nod.
“We thought he’d been killed.”
“But he survived,” Tate says.
“Yes.”
Mara studies the photograph.
“If Kane didn’t leave with you, then who brought Grant’s phone home?”
I look toward the dead flip phone sealed in the evidence bag.
“Kane did.”
“He said Vance took it from him.”
“Which means Kane made it out of the valley on his own.”
Wolf swears softly.
Mara sets down the photograph.
“Open the envelopes.”
Lieutenant Ross photographs each one before moving them onto the table.
The first has my name written across the front.
DOC.
The second says MARA.
The third says IF WE FAIL.
I can’t breathe.
Grant knew.
Maybe not that he would die.
But he knew he might.
Mara looks at the envelope with her name.
Then at me.
“You first.”
“No.”
“Colin.”
“You’re his sister.”
“And you’re the man he trusted with his life.”
“That worked out well.”
The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
Mara’s expression changes.
She steps directly in front of me.
“You kept him alive long enough to get six men out of that valley.”
“He died.”
“He was shot three times.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t put those bullets in him.”
“I couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
“No one could.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know my brother.”
Her eyes shine, but her voice never breaks.
“If Grant were standing here right now, he would knock you flat for saying that.”
Trigger nods. “He would.”
Wolf looks at him.
“What?”
“He would.”
Mara picks up the envelope marked DOC and presses it into my hand.
“Read it.”
My fingers don’t want to work.
The paper tears unevenly.
Inside is a single folded page.
Grant’s handwriting fills both sides.
Doc,
If you’re reading this, then either I’m dead or Hampton finally decided to become useful. I’m hoping for the second one, but with my luck, it’s probably the first.
Behind me, Hampton calls, “That’s insulting.”
Sheriff Tate shouts, “Stop listening!”
I almost laugh.
Almost.
I keep reading.
You’re going to blame yourself. I know you. You blame yourself when it rains on a day you planned to grill.
I stop.
A memory comes back.
Grant standing beneath a tarp in a thunderstorm, accusing me of ruining dinner because I’d said the sky looked clear.
Mara’s hand finds mine.
I continue.
So hear me now. Whatever happens in that valley is not your fault. Captain Miller changed the mission after we crossed the border. Kane knows why. I think Miller is afraid of the man Kane calls the Colonel.
Captain Miller wasn’t the Colonel.
Miller worked for him.
I read faster.
Twenty-three men were moved through Site Seventeen. They were soldiers on paper until their files were erased. Some were recruited. Some were threatened. Some disappeared.
I found their names.
Kane took the list before I could copy it.
“Damn it,” Wolf says.
Mara looks toward the phone.
“Kane still has the list.”
“Or knows where it is,” I say.
The letter continues.
Vance is the Colonel’s cleaner. If Vance is in Eagle River, he’s searching for the one thing I took from Site Seventeen.
I look inside the box.
The folded green cloth.
The patch.
The photograph.
Two unopened envelopes.
Nothing else.
I finish the last line.
Don’t let him find it.
Grant
Mara looks at me.
“What did Grant take?”
“I don’t know.”
Lieutenant Ross carefully removes the folded cloth.
Something hard is wrapped inside.
She unfolds one corner.
Then another.
A small metal object falls onto the table.
A key.
Not the silver key Vance stole from Mara’s house.
This one is black.
Short.
Stamped with two numbers.
2–3.
Twenty-three.
Sheriff Tate leans over it.
“What does it open?”
“I’ve never seen it before,” I say.
Mara reaches for her envelope.
Inside is another letter and a hand-drawn map.
She unfolds the map.
A circle marks her mother’s old house.
A line runs from the house, across McKinley pasture, and ends beneath Site Seventeen.
“That’s impossible,” Tate says. “I thought Site Seventeen was in Afghanistan.”
“Maybe this isn’t a map of Eagle River,” Mara says.
“Then why did Grant draw your house?”
She turns the map over.
Two words are written on the back.
LAST PROMISE.
Wolf grips the edge of the table.
I look at him.
“What?”
He stares at the words.
“That was the name Grant gave our fallback plan.”
“What fallback plan?”
“The one we were supposed to use if the mission was compromised.”
Trigger steps beside him.
“We never activated it.”
“Why not?”
“Because Miller changed our extraction point.”
“And sent you into the ambush,” Mara says.
“Yes.”
I look at the black key.
Grant took it from Site Seventeen.
He mailed or carried it home before the mission.
Then he hid it inside the lockbox.
Vance stole the wrong key.
Mara reaches for the third envelope.
IF WE FAIL.
Sheriff Tate stops her.
“Wait.”
She looks at him.
“Why?”
He points to the lower corner.
A dark stain marks the paper.
Not blood.
Ink.
Faded words are barely visible beneath it.
Lieutenant Ross angles a light across the envelope.
The writing appears.
My pulse stops.
Mara reads it aloud.
“Give this to Daniel Kane.”
Behind us, the station’s rear door opens.
Weapons come up.
Rangers turn.
Sheriff Tate reaches for his gun.
A man stands in the doorway with gray hair, a scar cutting across his jaw, and blood soaking the side of his shirt.
He raises both hands.
Doc stares at him.
For fifteen years, Daniel Kane has existed in memories, questions, and Grant’s last warning.
Now he’s standing inside the Eagle River Sheriff’s Department.
Kane looks at the envelope.
Then at me.
“You opened the box.”
I move in front of Mara.
Kane gives a tired smile.
“Still protecting Grant’s little sister.”
My hand tightens around my weapon.
“She doesn’t need me to protect her.”
“No,” Kane says. “She never did.”
His knees buckle.
He hits the floor.
Mara reaches him first.
She presses both hands against the blood pouring from his side.
“Kane, who shot you?”
His eyes find mine.
“Vance.”
“Where?”
“McKinley cellar.”
Mara applies more pressure.
Kane groans.
“What was he doing there?” she asks.
“Digging.”
“For what?”
His gaze moves to the black key on the table.
“Twenty-three graves.”