Chapter 7 - The Leak
Admiral Keene came to the house forty minutes later.
No uniform this time.
He had changed into dark slacks and a plain jacket before leaving the hall.
Dad stared when he walked in.
“Does everybody in the Navy own two outfits?”
Keene almost smiled.
“It helps.”
Marjorie had disappeared upstairs.
She claimed she had a migraine.
Nobody believed her.
Dad poured coffee.
His hands shook.
“I need somebody to explain this to me like I’m not an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Then explain why my wife has me swallowing mystery pills while my best friend steals money using my signature.”
I didn’t have an answer.
Keene did.
“They may have been building plausible deniability.”
Dad frowned.
“What?”
“If questioned, they say you approved everything.”
“And if I say I don’t remember?”
“They say you’re confused.”
Dad stared toward the stairs.
For years, Marjorie had joked about his memory.
At dinners.
At church.
At family gatherings.
Robert forgot again.
Robert needs me to keep him organized.
Robert would lose his own head without me.
I had laughed a few times.
So had Dad.
Now none of it sounded funny.
I put the unlabeled pills in a plastic bag.
Keene called a federal investigator named Special Agent Karen Holt.
She agreed to meet us the next morning.
Then footsteps sounded upstairs.
Marjorie appeared carrying a suitcase.
Dad stood.
“Where are you going?”
“My sister’s.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You don’t get to tell me where I can go.”
“You’re taking documents.”
“I’m taking clothes.”
I walked over.
“Open the suitcase.”
She laughed.
“You have lost your mind.”
“Then open it.”
“No.”
Dad stepped forward.
“Open it.”
For a moment, I saw hatred in her eyes.
Real hatred.
Then she dropped the suitcase on the sofa and unzipped it.
Clothes.
Shoes.
Makeup.
Nothing else.
She gave me a smug smile.
“Happy?”
“No.”
She zipped it again.
Dad stood near the door.
“Leave your house key.”
Her smile disappeared.
“Robert.”
“Key.”
She pulled it from her purse and threw it onto the table.
“You’ll regret this.”
Dad didn’t move.
Marjorie looked at me.
“You always do this.”
“Do what?”
“Come back and make him feel guilty.”
“About what?”
“About choosing me.”
That hit the room differently.
Dad closed his eyes.
I felt like I was twelve again.
Standing in a kitchen while two adults argued about where I belonged.
My mother had died when I was fourteen.
Dad married Marjorie four years later.
She never hit me.
Never screamed at me in public.
She was smarter than that.
She made little cuts.
A comment here.
A joke there.
A story told slightly wrong.
By the time I joined the Navy, she had convinced half the town I was selfish for leaving Dad.
Maybe she had convinced him too.
Marjorie picked up her suitcase.
As she reached the door, Keene spoke.
“Mrs. Reed.”
She stopped.
He held up his phone.
“One question.”
She looked at him.
“Have you ever met a man named Victor Hale?”
The suitcase slipped from her hand.
Dad whispered, “Who?”
Marjorie stared at Keene.
May you like
Then at me.
And she ran.
