Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT AT STATION NINE
Celeste remembered signing hospital forms.
Pain medication.
A room with no windows.
Her father telling her the Navy needed paperwork finished so he could bring her home.
She remembered asking about Ben.
Arthur had looked down.
That was how he delivered bad news when he wanted to seem gentle.
Now Brooks examined the photographed documents.
“These aren’t a current court order,” she said. “They appear to include a temporary authorization from your hospitalization. We’ll get the originals.”
“Can he use them?”
“He can try to misrepresent them. We’ll make sure the relevant people have accurate information.”
Celeste nodded.
Facts.
She needed facts.
Across the room, Nora’s laptop chimed.
The recovered audio had finished processing.
Brooks sat beside her.
“Celeste, you don’t have to listen right now.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
The first sound was wind.
Then Mara’s voice.
“Tell me you’re seeing this.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
Suddenly she was thirty again, standing inside a supply shed that smelled of hot metal.
On the recording, her younger voice answered.
“Wrong serial numbers?”
“Wrong everything. These units aren’t new. Somebody painted over the inspection labels.”
A scrape.
Mara moving a metal housing.
Then another voice.
Male.
Impatient.
“You’re delaying a critical delivery.”
Julian.
Celeste opened her eyes.
Nora looked at her.
On the recording, Celeste said, “Then bring us equipment that works.”
Julian lowered his voice.
“Your father would appreciate a phone call before you make accusations.”
Mara answered.
“Then he can expect one.”
The recording ended.
Nobody moved.
Celeste stared at the laptop.
“I forgot he was there that week.”
“You were injured,” Brooks said.
“I knew he visited. I just—”
She stopped.
Memory wasn’t a neat cabinet.
Some doors opened.
Some stayed jammed.
Ben leaned forward.
“The man at the service gate wasn’t Julian. He was older. Gray beard.”
Brooks wrote that down.
Celeste looked at the date on the file.
Two days before the attack.
“Mara made a report.”
“Do you know where she sent it?”
“To our logistics chain. And she kept a paper copy because the connection kept dropping.”
“Where?”
Celeste pictured Mara folding the pages.
Sliding them inside something.
A book?
No.
A photograph.
Her children’s photograph.
Then another memory hit.
Mara at the evacuation point, shoving a scorched pouch into Celeste’s hands.
Don’t give this to the company people.
May you like
Celeste looked up.
“My father took my belongings out of the hospital.”
