Chapter 2 - FOUR DAYS
"Why didn't you tell us you were alive?" Sarah asked.
David's eyes stayed on Marcus.
"Because I wasn't cleared to come home."
That was only half the truth.
He had been recovered from a mountain village after surviving an ambush that killed two soldiers and scattered the rest of his team. He spent two days at a military hospital, then two more in debriefings.
During those debriefings, an investigator showed him something strange.
Someone at home had tried to move money from one of his savings accounts while he was listed missing.
Then someone submitted a document requesting access to the title of his house.
The signature looked like David's.
It wasn't.
"I was coming home today anyway," he said. "I wanted to talk before I accused anybody."
Marcus lowered his arm. "Then talk."
David turned to Maya.
"Baby girl, who hurt your eye?"
Maya stared at the floor.
Marcus answered for her. "She fell."
David did not look at him.
"Maya?"
Her lower lip trembled.
"I dropped a cup."
"And then what?"
Sarah whispered, "David, please."
Maya's eyes filled.
"Marcus got mad."
The room went silent.
David picked up his phone.
Marcus stepped forward. "Who are you calling?"
"Police."
Sarah grabbed David's wrist.
"Don't do this. We can handle this as a family."
David looked down at her hand until she released him.
"A family doesn't make a six-year-old stand on a stool holding a baby while she scrubs pans with a swollen eye."
Marcus moved toward the back door.
I blocked the hallway without thinking.
He stared at me.
Then a siren sounded outside.
David's phone was still in his hand.
But he had never made the call.
He looked toward the front window.
May you like
"They were already on the way," he said.
That was when I realized the military investigators had known far more than David had told us.
