The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters), Sheehan-Miles, Charles [reading an ebook .txt] 📗

they went through, though I do vividly recall the conversation I had with my dad late in my junior year. That was when he broke it to me that the house was being foreclosed, and they wouldn’t be able to pay for my next year of school.

I think it broke my father’s heart having to make that call. He’s the guy you always see in the backyard grilling steaks, or hanging out with his buddies on Sunday afternoon with a beer watching the game. He took a lot of pride in providing the life we had, and it hit him hard when everything just evaporated out from under him. My parents moved into a crappy little apartment, still in Glen Cove, but a long step down from where they’d been. It took him eighteen months to find work again.

By that time I’d joined the Army. I wasn’t willing to put any more burdens on my parents, and the Army was a way to pay for college, plus, maybe find out a little about the kind of man I was.

The afternoon after I had my talk with Dylan, I rolled into Glen Cove at about one. It was unseasonably warm, so I threw my rucksack and jacket over my shoulder and walked from the train station to my parents’ apartment. Both of them would be at work this time of day. Dad had found work managing a restaurant at the waterfront, and Mom as an administrative assistant for a law office. Combined, they made about half of what their 2007 income was.

As I walked, my phone chirped, and I saw Carrie had messaged me: I HAVE NEWS!!!! :)

I called her immediately.

“Hey, babe,” I said. “What’s the news?”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” she asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because you can’t call me babe anymore. It’s Doctor Babe to you.”

A wide grin spread over my face, and I immediately responded, “Next time I see you, let’s play doctor.”

She snickered on the other end of the line and said, “That’s not all.”

Now I raised my eyebrows. “Oh yeah? Spill it, Doctor Babe.”

“I like the sound of that,” she said.

“Oh trust me, you’ll like it better in person.”

“Well, here goes. I got the fellowship.”

“At NIH?”

“Yes!” Her voice carried a hushed, awed tone, but I could also hear the pride in her voice.

“You’re amazing,” I said.

“I agree, I am,” she replied. “But don’t let that stop you from saying it.”

“Nothing can stop me from saying it. You’re amazing. Wonderful. Fantastic. Beautiful. Smart. Funny. Doctor Babe, you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in life.”

She practically purred over the phone as she said, “You’re not so bad yourself. In fact, if you keep that up, I think I can put up with having you around.”

I grinned. “You’re sure?”

Then she dropped her voice to a near whisper, “Soldier, when I get to New York, I plan to take you back to my hotel and have my way with you.”

“I can’t wait,” I said.

So we said our goodbyes and I walked the rest of the way to my parents’ apartment with a huge smile on my face.

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine how ugly things would become at NIH once she was there. We had no idea. No idea what was brewing. No idea the Army and FBI had already gotten a court order to tap our phones, no idea that a jealous graduate assistant in Texas was already setting in motion what might be the end of Carrie’s career.

No. At that point, as I walked from the train station to my parents’ apartment, everything was hope.

My parents live in a large, three wing apartment building. It’s modest, but not unpleasant. I walked along happily as I approached the building. I wasn’t going to see Carrie until a few days after Christmas, but I knew we would talk every day, and I knew the time would come soon when we’d be together.

As I walked past one of the cars in front of the building, both doors opened up and a man and a woman got out of the vehicle. They were maybe ten feet behind me, but I could clearly hear their footsteps as they sped up to catch up with me. I spun around just as the woman said, “Sergeant Raymond Sherman?”

My heart sank.

The woman was a tall African American woman, attractive, wearing a plain blue suit. Not as tall as Carrie or me, but still tall, maybe five foot ten. The man, a younger guy, blonde and smug, looked as if all his color had been washed away by the sun and bleach.

“I’m Ray Sherman.”

She held up an ID folder. I didn’t have to be a genius to recognize the military ID. “I’m Major Janice Smalls. Army Criminal Investigative Division. This is Jared Coombs, with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

I took a deep breath. My heart had fallen through my chest, and I could feel my stomach tightening. I said, “I guess I don’t need to ask why you’re here.”

“We’d like to speak with you,” Major Smalls said.

“All right. Why don’t you come on up. My parents should still be at work.”

“They are,” said Coombs, the whitewashed FBI agent. Smartass. At first glance, Major Smalls seemed okay. But this guy had only spoken two words and already pissed me off.

 I unlocked the front door of the building and led my new entourage to the elevator. The ride up was probably the most uncomfortable of my life. You know how everybody gets quiet in an elevator when you don’t know each other? That’s what this was like. Except these two made me want to crawl out of my own skin. Finally, the bell rang, and I led them down the hall, and unlocked the apartment.

I dumped my rucksack and jacket on the floor near the couch. “Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?”

“Water, please,” Major Smalls said.

“Nothing,” Coombs replied.

So I got Smalls some water, and started a pot of coffee because I sure as hell