lips parted but her cell phone chimed, distracting her before she could explain. Frowning at the device, she excused herself and stepped into the hallway.
Legendary support? That had to be sarcasm. Derek had stumbled many a time, trying to raise a heartbroken little brother. They’d fought bitterly along the way and he’d been particularly unenthused about his little brother’s career decisions. He reached for Kevin’s hand, careful to avoid the bruising that mottled his skin from the helicopter crash.
Grace Ann came back in. “That was my boss,” she explained, holding up her cell phone. “I can’t pick up anything for you, but I asked the cafeteria to send something up.”
“That was...” Just about the nicest thing anyone had done for him in years. “Thoughtful,” he finished. “Thank you.”
“Anytime. I’ll see you tomorrow. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. Everyone wants to pitch in and help both of you through this.”
He nodded. His voice wasn’t trustworthy.
“Promise me,” she pressed.
She’d never demanded a promise or anything else from him before. He found himself giving it easily. “I promise.”
As she darted away, he felt the change. Lighter, hopeful again. It seemed a few minutes in her company had cut his burden in half. Should he chalk that up to her professional skill or their unique friendship?
It bothered him more than a little that he couldn’t be sure.
Being called to the commander’s office wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t an event Grace Ann categorized as fun. Hugging Derek in the hallway couldn’t have raised any eyebrows. As Kevin’s brother, he was unit family and offering him support or comfort was completely normal under the circumstances.
Maybe the Lieutenant Colonel wanted to put her on a new assignment or a special project. She was always up for a change of professional scenery and she’d happily dive into a task that would fill the hours between shifts and keep her mind off those relentless ghosts haunting her and the madman hunting her siblings. Only one way to find out. In the elevator, she took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts, prepared to give an update on her patients, as well as Kevin.
H.B. was shutting down his computer for the day when she walked into the suite of administration offices. “Go on in,” he said. “She’s ready for you.”
“Thanks.” She tried to pick up a clue about this meeting from his expression, but he might as well have been playing poker. Rapping on the door, she announced herself.
“Come on in.” Lieutenant Colonel Bingham waved her forward. “Have a seat,” she said. “It’s been a long day for all of us.”
“It has,” Grace Ann agreed. The pleasantries did nothing to settle her nerves. There was a hard gleam in the commander’s usually kind brown eyes. “I just came from Kevin’s room. He’s resting comfortably.”
“That’s good news.” Bingham’s gaze raked over a paper on her desktop before she looked up. “There is no easy way to say this,” she began. “I just received notice you’re under investigation for misappropriation of Department of Defense medical supplies.”
The absurdity of the statement left denials and protests tangled up between Grace Ann’s brain and her mouth, making her momentarily mute. There had to be some awkward, horrible mistake. She’d been stateside for two years, serving with her unit here at Walter Reed day in and day out. The only exceptions had been temporary assignments for training exercises elsewhere. Until the Riley Hunter’s actions prevented her participation.
“I beg your pardon?” she managed. “I would never—”
“Of course, I don’t believe it for a minute,” Bingham said. “I do, however, have to take appropriate action. The report claims you broke the rules during outreach efforts on your last deployment.”
Who would start pointing fingers now over a deployment two years done and gone? “The school,” she murmured as the devastating memories burst free of the boxes where she tried to keep them.
The ghosts took shape, flowing around her, the happy faces of children she’d come to know and love a little. She wasn’t in the office. Not even in the States. She was back in that dusty village where boys and girls, eyes sparkling with life and energy, would dance and sing and giggle during the team’s visits. One by one those faces withered, the eyes staring into nothing, all that life snuffed out.
“Major?”
Grief was an open, festering wound. Her mouth went dry, recalling the dust that coated everything and everyone. Her heart seemed to stall in her chest, aching more with every beat, her ears ringing as they had in the aftermath. Wouldn’t it be nice to curl up and turn her back on the world with all its horrors?
She yanked herself back to the present before the past dragged her under permanently. “Yes, pardon me.” Slowly she opened her hands, stretching her fingers, which had balled up in defense.
Bingham hadn’t been their commander on that tour and Grace Ann wasn’t sure what she might or might not know about the incident. When she had control of her voice, she explained, “We regularly conducted wellness visits at the village school. It was a high point in the tour for all of us. Until it was bombed.”
Legally, DOD supplies could be used to treat locals in cases of blindness, loss of limbs, or life-threatening trauma. On the day of the bombing, she and the team had gone out to conduct routine checkups with the schoolchildren. There hadn’t been any trauma supplies on hand to be used, appropriately or not.
Someone must have misinterpreted the team’s actions in that crisis. Why pin it all on her? Needing information, she forced herself to ask questions. “Is that the incident being investigated? Who accused me?”
“The whistleblower’s name is redacted in my report,” Bingham said. “As well as specifics.”
The name wasn’t important. Grace Ann was confident she’d guessed right. “That has to be it,” Grace Ann murmured to herself. “The school was the biggest, most publicized community outreach effort in our area,” she explained. “I suppose our time there, the improvements we were making, turned the village into an irresistible target for terrorists.”
“You know better than that,” Bingham said. “It had nothing to do with us. Terrorists habitually go for the jugular in a community. Positive growth isn’t tolerated.”
Bingham was right, but Grace Ann couldn’t shrug off the weight of blame. She’d come home, debriefed and reestablished a healthy work-life routine. And still when she closed her eyes to sleep, the children who would never grow up were with her.
“I don’t like this, Major Riley.” The commander glared down at the paper again, closed the folder with a snap. “However, my responsibility is to cooperate for the integrity of the investigation, regardless of how ridiculous it is. To that end, your security clearance has been suspended—”
“Pardon me?”
“—and
