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

and Agent Coombs showed up at Walter Reed to ask more questions, it had faded into the background. At that point, it was starting to look like I would be called in to testify and then the Army would release me and I could move on with my life.

At the end of February I got the letter I’d been waiting on. I was accepted to Georgetown for my senior year in college. Everything was falling into place. I never thought I’d have someone like Carrie. She was beautiful, and wild in bed, and a whole hell of a lot smarter than I was. Courageous, compassionate. I’d never met anyone like her. I remember tracing my fingers along the faint scar in her side, a scar left by a mountain lion, and I couldn’t do anything but have incredible admiration for this woman.

On March 2, I woke her up super early and told her I had a surprise for her. And we drove. Around the beltway, south into Virginia past Fredericksburg, and on to the small town of Orange. We talked along the way. About our dreams, of our life together, our dreams of the future. And when we arrived and she saw where we were, her eyes bugged out.

“Skydiving?” she said. “No way. I’m not going up there.”

“I wanted you to know exactly how you make me feel,” I replied with a grin.

She closed her eyes. Squeezed them shut, lines appearing at the corners of them. Then she opened one ... I guess to check if I was still there. Then she whacked me on the shoulder.

“All right, I’ll do it.”

And so we jumped together. For the rest of my life I’ll treasure the moment we went into free-fall, two instructors jumping with us. She met my eyes, her hair covered by a helmet, her face lit in an expression of shock and wonder as the air buffeted us, and the ground lazily floated in a gentle circle thousands of feet below us. We reached out and took each other’s hands and fell together, eyes and hands locked as one.

If I could have bottled that moment and preserved it forever, I would.

But I think maybe I wasn’t meant to have that kind of life. Maybe if things had been different, if I’d had time to intervene, if I’d done something to save that little boy’s life. I got a glimpse, those few weeks, of the kind of life that might have been. The kind of life I wanted Carrie and I to have together.

But one day in March, Major Smalls walked onto the ward at Walter Reed. And something in her bearing or expression … I knew it was all over.

The Red Queen (Carrie)

Lori leaned forward and shook her head. “You did what this weekend?”

I smiled, toying with my salad, and said, “Ray took me skydiving.”

She shook her head and laughed. “Girl, be careful. I think I’m falling in love with your boyfriend. I thought you said you were scared of heights.”

I shrugged and said, “I am, but this was ... different. Freeing. Amazing.”

She chuckled and took a sip of her drink. “I won’t lie. It’s obscene how envious I am. You two look so happy together. You should get a ring on that finger, and soon.”

I felt heat rising to my cheeks and said, quietly, “We’re talking about it.”

She gave me a gentle smile. “Good for you.”

She raised her eyebrows and said, “Here comes the Red Queen and her husband.”

I didn’t respond. As much as I clicked with Lori, I’d been extremely wary of Warren and Lila Renfield. The two of them joined us for lunch once or twice a week, and I’m not sure why, because they’d made it clear they didn’t care for me or Lori. Lori referred to Lila as the Red Queen because, as Lori put it, she was “the cause of all the mischief.”

As a rule, when I encountered that sort of thing in a work environment, I just smiled and stayed friendly and professional. I don’t believe in burning bridges, so I ignored their little barbs and their suggestive comments that I’d somehow gotten this fellowship due to something other than my research skills.

But I wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen. The moment they sat down, Lila gleefully switched on her iPad and said, “You won’t believe what I just saw, Carrie. Take a look at this, it looks just like your boyfriend, doesn’t it?”

I frowned and looked at the screen. And then I began to hyperventilate.

The screen was the front page of the Washington Post. Splashed across the screen was the headline, “Army Files Murder Charges Against 6 Soldiers.” And the pictures beneath—one of them was of Ray, in his dress uniform. By the looks of it, it was his basic training photograph. I recognized some of the names and faces in the photographs from talks with Ray. Colton and Martin, his platoon and squad leaders. Hicks, Gruber and Reynolds from the other fire team. And Ray.

Lila caught my reaction, and then looked at her husband, a quick, vindictive flash in her eyes. Lori’s mouth dropped open in shock, but I was too focused to pay attention to any of them. I read the article, barely breathing. The charges had been announced by the Secretary of Defense. Words like twelve-year-old boy murdered, Geneva Conventions, and court-martial were all washing across my brain, but the worst part? There was nothing there to say that Ray had reported it. Nothing there to say he hadn’t been involved in the shooting. He was just ... one of the six soldiers charged.

“Excuse me,” I said, standing up. I was shaking. “I have to go.”

“Carrie, surely that isn’t your boyfriend, is it?” Lila said. “A war criminal?”

Lori leaned across the table, her face inches from Lila’s, and said, “Shut up, you bitch.” She stood, grabbing her purse, and then my arm, and we walked out of the food court.

“I need to call