Chapter 10 - The Safe Beneath the Floor“GRANT TOOK MY SAFE?”
The words sounded absurd when I said them aloud.
My husband could be arrogant, dismissive, and cruel.
But breaking into our own home to remove a safe containing my military belongings seemed almost impossible to comprehend.
Agent Shaw watched me carefully.
“We haven't established who removed it.”
“The code belongs to Grant and me.”
“That makes him someone we need to interview. It doesn't establish that he personally entered the house.”
I pressed a hand against my forehead.
“Was anything else missing?”
“The responding officers haven't completed the inventory.”
“Was the house damaged?”
“There's evidence that someone moved furniture in the upstairs bedroom. The safe was removed from its secured location.”
I felt a familiar hollowness spreading through my chest.
That safe had contained more than medals.
It held a folded American flag from my retirement ceremony.
A photograph of my squadron.
Letters from families of service members I'd helped bring home.
A small silver compass my father had given me before my first deployment.
And a sealed envelope I hadn't opened in six years.
I hadn't thought about the envelope until that moment.
Then I remembered it.
And my blood turned cold.
“Agent Shaw.”
“Yes?”
“There was something in the safe.”
She waited.
“An envelope.”
“What kind?”
“Military correspondence. Personal effects returned after the crash.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know.”
Shaw frowned.
“Did you ever open it?”
I shook my head.
“Not fully.”
“Explain.”
I sat down.
Six years earlier, during the final weeks of my hospital recovery, a military liaison officer had delivered several boxes of belongings recovered from the destroyed aircraft and the staging facility.
Most were ordinary things.
A watch.
An old notebook.
Flight gloves.
A damaged photograph.
But there had also been an envelope addressed to me in unfamiliar handwriting.
Inside was a second sealed packet.
A handwritten note on the outside read:
If the official report doesn't match what you remember, open this.
I had stared at those words for almost an hour.
Then I'd put the packet away.
I was exhausted.
Angry.
Traumatized.
And terrified that examining the past would destroy the fragile future I was trying to build.
“I couldn't do it,” I whispered.
Shaw leaned forward.
“Do you remember the handwriting?”
“Not clearly.”
“Was there a return address?”
“No.”
“Any identifying marks?”
I closed my eyes.
I pictured the envelope.
Cream-colored paper.
A faint crease across the corner.
And a blue ink stamp.
My eyes opened.
“There was a number.”
“What number?”
“Seven.”
Falcon stopped moving.
I turned toward him.
His face had gone pale.
“Blue Mountain Seven,” he whispered.
I stared at him.
“You think it's connected?”
“I think we need to find that envelope.”
Shaw rose.
“I'll notify the investigating team.”
Before she reached the door, I spoke again.
“Agent Shaw, I want to know whether Grant has left the club.”
She paused.
“Why?”
“Because if he knows what's in that safe, he may be trying to get it to Adrian Vale.”
She didn't dismiss the possibility.
“I'll check his status.”
After she left, Falcon looked at me.
“Jessica, why didn't you open it?”
I stared at my hands.
The answer was humiliating.
Not because I'd been afraid of danger.
I'd faced danger.
I knew how to function while terrified.
But this had been a different kind of fear.
“I couldn't survive losing everything all over again.”
Falcon said nothing.
I continued.
“When they told me I couldn't return to combat flying, I felt like someone had erased the only person I knew how to be.”
My voice broke slightly.
“I woke up every morning wishing I could forget Syria. The envelope promised answers, but I was afraid the answers would make it impossible to move forward.”
Falcon lowered his head.
“I understand.”
I looked at him.
“Do you?”
He nodded.
“I spent a year refusing to look at photographs from that mission.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because every time I saw your face, I remembered that you saved me, and I couldn't remember enough to explain why we were attacked.”
He looked at his trembling hand.
“I thought if I remembered, I'd finally be able to repay you.”
“Falcon, you don't owe me anything.”
He smiled sadly.
“You pulled me out of a burning aircraft.”
“You would have done the same for me.”
“Yes.”
He looked directly at me.
“And that's why I didn't give up trying to find the truth.”
I sat beside him.
For a moment, we were no longer officers or survivors or witnesses.
We were two wounded people trying to understand the same terrible day.
Then the door opened again.
Agent Shaw returned with General Reed.
Their expressions told me something had changed.
“Grant left the club,” Shaw said.
“When?”
“Approximately fifteen minutes ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“Where did he go?”
“His vehicle was recorded leaving the property. Investigators are working with local authorities to determine his location.”
I stood.
“He's going to Vale.”
“We don't know that.”
“I do.”
Reed held up a hand.
“Jessica, we need to keep this grounded in evidence.”
I wanted to scream.
But he was right.
Fear could make a person see patterns that weren't there.
I'd learned that in the cockpit.
Assumptions killed people.
So did hesitation.
“Then what do we know?” I asked.
Shaw opened her tablet.
“We know Grant received multiple calls from a phone associated with Adrian Vale's office. We know his investment firm appears in records connected to the original investigation. And we know someone removed your safe using an authorized household access code.”
I took a breath.
“Enough to question him.”
“Yes.”
“Enough to search his car?”
“Not automatically. Investigators will obtain the appropriate legal authority.”
I nodded.
I didn't want a reckless investigation.
I wanted one that would survive scrutiny.
The truth had already been buried once.
I wasn't going to help bury it again by making careless decisions.
Then Shaw's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
And slowly looked at me.
“What?”
She didn't speak immediately.
“Rebecca?”
She lowered the phone.
“Local authorities located Grant's SUV.”
My chest tightened.
“Where?”
“On a service road near Vale's mountain property.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Of course he'd gone there.
“Was he alone?”
Shaw hesitated.
“Jessica, the vehicle was abandoned.”
“Abandoned?”
“The doors were open. The keys were still inside.”
I stared at her.
“And Grant?”
“No sign of him.”
A cold sensation spread through my stomach.
“Was there blood?”
“Investigators haven't reported any.”
I looked at Reed.
“Something happened.”
He nodded grimly.
Then Shaw added:
“They found an item in the back seat.”
My voice was barely audible.
“What?”
“A photograph of you standing beside your F-15E six years ago.”
I knew the photograph.
It had been inside my safe.
But Shaw wasn't finished.
“Someone wrote a message across the back.”
I swallowed.
“Read it.”
May you like
She looked directly at me.
Tell Raven the second missile is already in the air.
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