A Soldier's Honor

by Regan Black

  “He’s great,” she was saying. “I just don’t want him hearing this from anyone else. I’m not entirely sure how he’ll react,” she added.

  “Has something changed?” The worry in her words felt like a knife twisting in his gut. This was only the second time he’d heard anything less than full confidence out of her. The first was when she’d been debating how best to be a mom and fulfill her career goals. “What’s going on with him?”

  “Nothing,” she said a little too quickly. “Nothing’s changed. It’s still soccer and school, school and soccer. He’s a teenager, that’s all.”

  Matt opened his mouth to push her, to make demands, but bit back the hard words. Instead he changed the subject. “Is he driving yet?” The query was a transparent attempt to learn if there was anything of him in his son.

  “He’s studying for his learner’s permit. We’ll take care of that next week, while he’s on fall break.”

  Matt remembered how excited he’d been for that same day as a kid. “Has he had any experience behind the wheel?” he asked, wondering if Caleb would have any interest or appreciation for the restored Camaro. Assuming they met.

  “My dad has let him drive the four-wheeler on camping trips, and he’s let him drive the tractor on their property. I’m told he’s still pretty rough on the manual transmission, but he’s improving.”

  “That’s good. It takes time,” he said. “You have enough set aside to buy him a car? I can send more money—”

  “When that time comes, we’ll talk about it,” she said in a stern voice that bore a striking resemblance to Patricia Riley’s mom voice. “It’s still a good year or more away.”

  He’d always believed the two women would get along well. They’d met once during a family day at West Point and seemed to hit it off, though his mom hadn’t known how vital Bethany was to him at the time. If she hadn’t forced him to keep Caleb a secret...well, now Matt had no idea what his mom might say or do when they met again.

  And they would meet. Once Patricia learned about Caleb, she would be adamant about welcoming him into the Riley clan.

  “Look, Matt, I called to make you aware of the creep-factor in this note,” she said. “I’ll report it to the security team at my office tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  “Matt, I’d like you to be here.”

  “At your office?” He held the phone back from his face as if that would clear up his confusion. “Huh?”

  “When I tell Caleb, I would like you to be here with me. Us.”

  His hand tightened around the phone. “You mean it?”

  “Yes. I think it will help him understand if we’re telling him together. Help him feel valued and that we’ve always wanted what was best for him.”

  He was going to meet his son. His heart hammered against his ribs. “Sure.” He had to find some real words. After all these years of wishing and wondering, he’d get to look his kid in the eyes, maybe even hug him or shake his hand. “Tell me when and where,” he managed at last. Too many emotions were warring for dominance. “I’ll be there.”

  “Here, please. He’ll be home from practice around six and we could eat at seven.”

  Matt was already doing the mental juggling over the drive time from Washington to her place in New Jersey, calculating how early he might need to leave work. He’d speak to General Knudson first thing in the morning, but there was no way he was missing that invitation.

  “Once Caleb knows, you’ll be okay with me telling my parents?” he asked.

  “I have to be, don’t I?”

  He would have preferred the catalyst for meeting his son wasn’t her feeling cornered by some vague threat in a letter. Bethany didn’t have enemies, not like General Knudson or even his dad had. In careers as long and storied as theirs, enemies of several varieties began to stack up, from disgruntled soldiers to politicians, both local and abroad. He sighed. He could hear the conflict and misery in her voice. As much as he hated to give her a pass on this, he felt obligated.

  “I can’t think of any reason anyone would target the three of us,” he said. “If you’d like to ride it out, we can. Whoever sent that threat will know soon enough there’s nothing to be gained. If you want to wait a bit before we have these conversations, I will respect that.”

  “No.” Her voice was calm and steady, if not delighted by the prospect of tomorrow’s family dinner. “I’ve put this off long enough. I won’t risk him learning about this from another source.”

  “All right.” Once more, he gave her full control, let her dictate how this played out. “I’ll be there at seven.”

  “Thanks, Matt.”

  “Thanks for the invitation.” She could have handled this mess alone and told Matt after it was done. She’d made it clear through the years that she could manage this parenting gig on her own.

  He thought he heard a sniffle, but when she spoke, her voice was steady, if quiet. “I know this will change everything,” she began. “I only ask that it doesn’t change everything immediately. Caleb will need time to process this.”

  “I understand.” She was warning him away from any abrupt changes over their custody agreement. “I’ve only ever wanted you and Caleb to be safe and happy.”

  “Thanks for that,” she said, ending the call.

  Matt held the phone to his chest. When he closed his eyes and thought of her, he still saw the athletic young woman he’d met when they were new cadets at West Point. Her big brown eyes had been full of nerves and excitement and eagerness for the challenges ahead. Like every cadet before him, he’d entered West Point with nothing more than his career on his mind.

  Bethany had changed that. Success took on more meaning than simple pride in doing a job well for the sake of reaching his goals. She made him want to set and accomplish goals for the good of the team. Meeting her had made him a better person and student from that first day forward, though it hadn’t yet made him good enough for her to keep.

  Matt reached up and turned out the light, but he couldn’t sleep. His mind flipped back and forth between the baseball lobbed at General Knudson and the creepy letter sent to Bethany. For both of them to get direct threats in the same twenty-four hour period made him question the motive behind the breach of the personnel records and who was buying the information.

  Who would gain from exerting that kind of pressure? And how many other Military personnel and families were suddenly feeling exposed and vulnerable tonight?

  * * *

  He read the reports as they came in with cautious optimism and rising confidence. His first warnings had been successfully delivered. Shots over the bow, so to speak, and now he waited to watch their response.

  He imagined them scrambling, racing about in circles and jumping at shadows. They would chase the leads he gave them all the way to inevitable dead ends, only to start over on another path of his choosing. Having the world’s best Army dancing to his tune was an excellent feeling.

  His plans were finally coming together. Years in the making, he found a delicious irony in using the security breach to his advantage. His team had been handpicked and painstakingly groomed to the tasks ahead. He’d deliberately given them a cause they could understand and support as he moved both key players and pawns into place for his ultimate revenge.

  His charisma was a skill his superiors had consistently undervalued. The pompous fools had been unwilling to blur their clear vision and mission parameters to improve the overall morale in a way that would practically guarantee success on any field of battle.

  Their loss.

  The skills they didn’t value, he would now use to wreak havoc at both the individual and institutional levels. This was going to be phenomenal fun, as well as a just reward for everything they’d taken from him.

  He swiveled his chair away from his desk until he could gaze out at the gathering night through the f
loor-to-ceiling window. At this end of the compound, there wasn’t another person for miles. Not another soul from here to the horizon. He’d earned the solitude, worked alongside the others to carve this quiet, impenetrable place out of the desert.

  Now it was merely a matter of time before his first target came out into the open.

  Once he had Matt Riley centered in the crosshairs, the first shot in this war would be fired, with brutal, irrevocable accuracy.

  Chapter 2

  Nervous energy plagued Bethany all through the night. First she couldn’t sleep, and when she’d finally dozed off, her dreams had quickly turned to nightmares. Centered on change and loss and the unknown, it was easy to figure out the trigger. In the last one, she’d been listening to Caleb tell a judge all the reasons he didn’t want to live with her anymore. The judge had been giving his ruling that Caleb should spend the next fifteen years with his dad, denying her all visitation and contact, when her alarm had interrupted.

  Eyes gritty, a knot of dread in her stomach, she dragged herself out of bed and tried to remember dreams and nightmares weren’t real as she showered and dressed for work. Matt wanted what was best for Caleb, and he was too honorable to play dirty and steal her son with the aid of family court.

  Downstairs, she sipped tea while Caleb scarfed down his breakfast. No matter what she did, she couldn’t quell the notion that this was their last normal day as a family of two. Tonight, when he met his father, he would look at her differently, judge her through the lens of his teenage values and find her lacking. They were close, but suddenly she wasn’t sure their relationship could survive the turmoil ahead.

  “You okay, Mom?”

  “Sure.” She waved off his concern with a smile. “Didn’t sleep well—that’s all.” That was an understatement bordering on a lie. Clearly every conversation today would be guilt-inducing no matter how unrelated it might be to the revelations in store for Caleb tonight.

  Without the usual reminder, he cleared his place and rinsed his dishes before loading them into the dishwasher. She found it refreshing and counted it as the first happy spot in her gloomy morning.

  She double-checked her purse while he shrugged into his backpack. “How does Greek chicken sound for dinner?”

  He paused and aimed a speculative look at her. “That’s company food.”

  “Not always,” she said. “I’m just in the mood. It doesn’t sound good?”

  “It’s fine.” He picked up his soccer bag. “Coach said practice ends with an endurance run. I might be a little late getting home.”

  She glanced toward the calendar over the kitchen desk. “When did he add that?”

  “There’s the bus,” Caleb said.

  “Here.” She dashed over and gave him a quick hug. “Have a great day. Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” Caleb said on his way out the door.

  She watched him jog to meet the bus rumbling toward the stop on the corner, one hand pressed to her queasy stomach. She didn’t want Caleb home late. That would mean time alone in the same room with Matt, a situation she’d successfully avoided since she’d told him the pregnancy test had come back positive.

  She could call the coach and ask him to give Caleb a pass on the run, but that would also mean picking him up and dodging her astute son’s inevitable questions. The better option would be calling Matt and pushing dinner back by half an hour. Feeling good about that decision, she headed out to the office.

  Her discussion with her supervisor went almost as smoothly as she’d expected. She showed him the letter, a little surprised by how seriously he handled the implied threat and her explanation that the source of the discrepancy was the child support she received from a closed agreement. He called security and they joined her in his office so she could relate the incident again and give them the doctored letter and envelope for further analysis.

  She didn’t think they’d get much from it, but she agreed it was best to try. It was midmorning when she was finally able to get to her desk, only to find the department assistant had left two messages on her desk that were both from Caleb’s school. Bethany pulled her cell phone from her purse and found two more voice-mail messages from the school, as well. She listened to them quickly and they all amounted to brief requests to return the call as soon as possible.

  Worried now, she dialed the school and waited for someone in the office to pick up. “This is Bethany Trent,” she said when the school’s secretary answered. “I received—”

  “Yes, Ms. Trent. The principal asked me to put you right through. Hold just a moment.”

  In place of hold music, a chipper voice recited the upcoming school events. Bethany tapped a pencil against a notepad on her desk until, at last, the line clicked and Principal Andrea Ingle’s voice greeted her.

  “Bethany?”

  “Yes.” She’d met Andrea long before Caleb became a student in her school, back when they’d first moved into the neighborhood. She counted the principal as one of her closest friends. “Has something happened?”

  Andrea mumbled an oath. “I take it Caleb isn’t home with you?”

  Her skin chilled and her heart kicked hard in her chest. “No. I’m at work. I saw him get on the bus.” She heard the desperate note in her voice and stopped to take a breath.

  “Right, okay. We do have him checking in at homeroom, but he didn’t make it to Spanish class this morning.”

  Bethany glanced at the clock over her desk that Caleb had made during an art project in second grade. Spanish class had started almost two hours ago, while she’d been in her supervisor’s office.

  “Per your instructions, we’ve been trying to reach you while doing all we can to find him. I’ve spoken with the school resource officer. We haven’t yet called in the police.”

  “Thank you, Andrea.” She forced herself to keep breathing. Panic wouldn’t help anyone find Caleb. “He’s not in the building?”

  “No. I think he left on his own after his homeroom teacher took attendance.”

  He was safe. He had to be. And when they found him, she’d wring his neck and ground him for the rest of his life. “Is there a camera or anything to verify that?”

  “Unfortunately, all I have is a hunch. There are only cameras at the main doors and he didn’t use either of those. We’ve walked the building and grounds twice. Do you want me to call the police?”

  Her heart dropped at the suggestion. “Not yet. I have an app installed on his phone. Let me check that first. Are his friends in class?”

  “Yes,” Andrea said. “I thought of that too and I’ve spoken with each of them. They don’t know where Matt is or why he might have left. Keep us posted and let us know how we can help.”

  “I will,” Bethany promised. She replaced the handset in the cradle on her desk phone and immediately brought up the app on her cell phone. Her hands trembled as the app showed Caleb’s phone was somewhere near Philly.

  She called him immediately, but he didn’t pick up. She sent a text, and as she waited for a reply, she struggled to find a logical explanation for his behavior. Had Caleb overheard her conversation with Matt last night? Had he been in more trouble or more upset than she’d thought?

  She wasn’t buying into those scenarios. He’d been himself over spaghetti last night and in a good mood this morning. She groaned, reviewing his behavior in her mind. He’d been planning this.

  Still waiting for a reply from Caleb on her cell phone, she used the office phone to call his soccer coach. Dread and fear were an icky congealed mess in her stomach when the coach said there was no practice at all tonight. Caleb had been lying about being home late.

  She sat back. Anger and hurt quickly burned away her initial worry. What was he up to?

  The standard school policy when a child was absent was an automated call after 6:00 p.m. Because of her unique situation with Caleb, she’d had a stan
ding request at every school that she be notified immediately if anyone other than her or her parents asked about Caleb or tried to pick him up from school.

  She wasn’t so paranoid that she thought Matt would try something as outrageous as taking him right out of school; she just needed the extra layer of confidence and support. Fortunately school administrators had been cooperative and, until today, her precautions hadn’t been necessary. Thank goodness she’d never shared that particular safety detail with her son.

  Whatever Caleb was up to, she had to assume he thought he’d have an entire day to himself. Why did he have to do this today? And why run off to Philadelphia?

  Her head pounded from lack of sleep and a resurgence of worry. Matt was coming today. Lovely that Caleb would pull this kind of stunt on the day she wanted to introduce him to his father.

  On a hunch, she checked his bank account. She’d opened a checking account for him and started teaching him about personal finance as soon as he’d started mowing lawns in the neighborhood for extra cash. Reviewing his recent activity, she gaped at the screen. Despite the evidence in front of her, she resisted the truth.

  Once more, she picked up her desk phone, this time dialing the Pentagon’s switchboard. “Major Matthew Riley, please. He’s currently the adjutant for General Knudson.”

  It took some time for the call to reach Matt, but when he picked up the call, she wasted no time. “Dinner’s off.”

  “Bethany?”

  “Yes. It’s me.” Her heart was pounding and everything in her was urging her to leap into action, to chase down her son. “I’m sorry to be so abrupt. I think Caleb is on his way to see you.”

  “What? Did you tell him already?”

  “No.” They’d come up with a plan, and she intended to honor it. “He’s skipped school, Matt. First time ever.” She forced herself to slow down and relay the facts. “I’m looking at his bank account. He purchased a train ticket to DC two days ago. He’s not answering my calls or texts. The app I have is showing that he’s close to Philly.”