Chapter 2 - THE STORY HER FATHER TOLD
Arthur recovered first.
“Celeste was involved in an unfortunate incident overseas,” he said. “We’ve tried to protect her privacy.”
“You told us she worked in an office,” Vivian said.
Celeste tightened Reed’s jacket around herself.
“That’s what he told you?”
Arthur shot Vivian a warning look.
Too late.
“You said she had a breakdown,” Vivian continued. “That she came home because she couldn’t handle the job.”
Reed’s expression hardened.
Celeste barely heard the room.
For eleven years, she had accepted that her father didn’t understand what happened at Station Nine. She had even let herself believe his distance came from fear.
He hadn’t been confused.
He had been writing his own version.
Julian stepped between them.
“This isn’t the place.”
Celeste looked at him.
“You helped him tell it?”
“Let’s get you somewhere private.”
He reached for her elbow.
She stepped back.
“Don’t.”
The word was quiet enough that only the people nearest them heard it.
Julian stopped anyway.
Reed turned to a hotel manager.
“An empty room, please. And ask your security team to preserve the ballroom footage.”
Vivian’s face changed.
“It was an accident.”
“You were laughing,” Celeste said.
Her stepsister opened her mouth, then closed it.
Arthur moved closer.
“If you walk out with him, don’t expect to walk back into this family.”
For years, that threat had worked.
At nineteen, it had cost her a relationship.
At thirty, it had cost her the last of her savings.
Tonight, it cost him his daughter.
Celeste walked past him.
In a small conference room, Reed gave her space while a hotel employee brought a robe and sewing kit.
She changed behind a folding screen.
Her hands shook when she tried to tie the belt.
Reed waited until she sat down.
“Ben’s alive,” he said.
Celeste stared at him.
“No.”
“He was transferred under a different evacuation number. There was confusion after the attack.”
“I was told he died.”
“Who told you?”
She looked down at her hands.
“My father.”
Reed took a slow breath.
“Ben has spent eleven years trying to find you.”
Celeste remembered a young corpsman pinned under a beam, telling her to leave him.
She remembered promising she wouldn’t.
“Why now?” she whispered.
“Because the investigation into Station Nine has reopened.”
Someone knocked.
A gray-haired woman entered carrying a slim folder.
“Commander Warren? I’m Special Agent Elena Brooks.”
Celeste recognized the credentials before Brooks put them away.
NCIS.
Brooks sat across from her.
“We believe the attack was real,” she said. “And that someone used it to hide something else.”
She opened the folder.
May you like
On top was a payment authorization.
At the bottom was Celeste’s signature.
