Chapter 1 - The Echo of a Canceled Flight
The hum of the base recreation room refrigerator was the loudest sound in the room, steady and indifferent to the electronic glow of the television screen. On the display, the local news affiliate was already rolling a second segment of the highway rescue, replaying the blurred footage of my face illuminated by the amber flashers of a state trooper cruiser.
Sergeant Alvarez crossed her arms, leaning against the counter with a steaming mug of instant coffee. "Well, sir, if your family didn't know you were in Colorado before, they certainly have a front-row seat now. That broadcast is syndicating nationwide."
"They're busy, Alvarez," I said, keeping my tone flat as I stared down at my coffee. My phone buzzed again on the laminate table—the eighth missed call in twenty minutes, though this one wasn't from a local Colorado area code. It was a 516 prefix. Long Island. My father's landline.
"Busy?" Alvarez raised an eyebrow, a slight smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "Major, you just pulled three dozen civilians out of a rolled charter bus and dragged a driver out from under a shifting fuel tanker during a category four blizzard. If my dad saw that on national television while eating Christmas pie, he'd probably break a blood vessel from pride."
She didn't know. She didn't know about the phone call three nights ago, or the polite, calculated dismissal that had kept me sitting in this base recreation hall instead of carving a turkey two thousand miles away.
"Pride looks different depending on whose name is on the marquee, Sergeant," I murmured.
Before Alvarez could press further, the office door swung open, and Captain Keller stepped inside, brushing wet snow from the shoulders of his service parka. He looked at me with a strange mix of official gravity and personal awkwardness.
"Major Reynolds. Command post just took a priority wire through the secure line." Keller cleared his throat, glancing at the television screen. "The Pentagon's public affairs office has been getting inbound calls from national outlets. Apparently, your rescue footage caught the eye of the regional command staff because you bypassed standard protocol by not waiting for the heavy hazmat unit before pulling that driver out."
I stood up, squaring my shoulders. "Walt was pinned, Captain. The tanker was leaning toward a twenty-foot drop. If we waited for heavy equipment to clear the ridge from Denver, hypothermia or a fuel rupture would have finished him."
"I know that, and the battalion commander knows that," Keller said, holding up a hand. "The official report is being filed as a textbook execution of emergency initiative under hazardous conditions. But that's not why I'm here."
He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "There's a civilian line waiting for you at the front desk. A woman. She didn't give her rank or her military affiliation, but she sounded panicked, and she said she's calling from your father's house in New York."
The room seemed to shrink. My pulse ticked upward, rhythmic and sharp.
"Erica," I whispered.
May you like
"She said you need to call back immediately," Keller added quietly. "She said your stepbrother Jason just bolted out the front door into the snow, and your father has locked himself in his study."
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