Chapter 2 - The Long Island Fallout
The secure phone on the desk in the CQ office felt cold against my palm. I punched in the numbers from memory, the ten digits of my father's Long Island home that I hadn't dialed in six months.
It rang once. Twice.
Before the third ring could finish, the line clicked open.
"Erica?" I said.
"Erica's here, but she's a wreck," a trembling voice answered. It wasn't my stepmother; it was Jason's wife, Clara, her voice tight and breathless over the static of a long-distance connection. "Erica is locked in the guest bedroom trying to calm the baby down, and the house is an absolute disaster zone, Major. Your father slammed his study door so hard the drywall cracked."
"Clara, slow down," I said, leaning my hip against the edge of the metal desk. "I saw the broadcast. I know the rescue made the news. Why is everyone reacting like someone died?"
"Because it wasn't just a rescue," Clara whispered fiercely, the sound of muffled crying bleeding through the receiver from somewhere down the hall. "When your face came on the screen, Jason went completely white. He didn't look proud, Erica. He looked terrified. He started screaming at the television about how your unit wasn't even supposed to be assigned to that sector."
My brow furrowed. "What are you talking about? We were activated by state emergency dispatch because we were the nearest garrison."
"That's what your father said!" Clara cried out. "Your father told Jason that military logistics don't just put major-rank officers on routine highway patrol during a holiday storm by accident. Then Jason grabbed his coat, muttered something about an audit, and drove off into the blizzard without his headlights on. Your father threw his wineglass against the fireplace, told everyone to get out of his house, and hasn't opened his study door since."
The room around me seemed to fade away. A cold prickle of unease washed over the back of my neck. Jason didn't react like a proud brother watching a sibling survive a dangerous accident. He reacted like a man whose house of cards had just been kicked down by a live camera crew.
"Clara, listen to me," I said, my voice dropping into the steady, commanding register I used during field operations. "Where is Jason's personnel laptop? The black one he brings home from his civilian contracting firm every weekend?"
"It's... it's sitting right on the kitchen island," Clara stammered, caught off guard by the question. "He left it behind when he ran out."
"Don't let anyone touch it. If my father comes out of the study, tell him I'm calling back in ten minutes."
"Erica, wait—what does Jason's work have to do with you pulling people out of a bus?"
I hung up without answering.
I stood in the quiet base office, staring at the gray wall calendar. For eighteen years, my father had treated my career as an inconvenience—something military, rigid, and entirely separate from the comfortable, corporate life Jason was building in defense contracting. Jason had stepped out of college right into a lucrative consultancy firm that worked directly with mid-Atlantic military supply chains. He wore tailored suits, drove a luxury European sedan, and never missed a family holiday.
Until tonight, I had assumed the tension between us was simple family friction: a father favoring the son who stayed close to home over the daughter who chose a duffel bag and a bunk on a base.
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Now, looking at the frantic panic in Clara's voice and Jason's terrified flight into a blizzard, a much darker possibility began to take shape. Jason didn't just fear my shadow. He feared my spotlight.
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