She opened a personal timeline.
November seventeenth: Valley Echo extraction.
November eighteenth: Daniel assigned to a follow-on movement.
November nineteenth: flight schedule revised.
November twentieth: aircraft reported missing.
November twenty-second: preliminary casualty notification.
November twenty-fifth: official confirmation.
She stared at the dates.
Something had always bothered her.
The casualty notification had been issued unusually quickly given the uncertainty surrounding the aircraft's final location.
When she asked how the conclusion had been reached, officials cited information she was not permitted to examine.
At the time, she assumed the restriction involved sensitive intelligence sources.
Now she wondered whether it had been used to conceal something else.
Tyler approached.
“What's that?”
“A timeline.”
He studied the screen.
“Daniel disappeared three days after Valley Echo?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think the two events were connected?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“I always suspected they might be.”
“Why?”
She looked at him.
“Because Daniel questioned an order given during the extraction.”
“What order?”
“The instruction to delay support.”
Tyler sat beside her.
“Who gave it?”
“I never received a confirmed identity.”
“But you suspected somebody?”
Rebecca looked toward the window.
“Adrian Cole.”
Tyler frowned.
“The retired general?”
“Yes.”
“He's speaking at Pendleton this week.”
Rebecca turned sharply.
“What?”
Tyler nodded.
“Leadership seminar. Thursday.”
She stared at him.
“Are you sure?”
“I saw the announcement.”
Rebecca stood and walked toward the window.
Adrian Cole.
The man who had summoned her to a private meeting after she filed her concerns.
The man who told her that continuing to challenge the official report could damage her career.
The man who insisted that Daniel's disappearance was a tragedy, not a conspiracy.
Now he was arriving at the same base where Holloway had publicly recognized her.
Rebecca felt a cold pressure in her stomach.
She did not believe in coincidences without evidence.
But she could no longer ignore the pattern.
That evening, Tyler ordered dinner.
Rebecca barely ate.
He watched her move food around her plate.
“Becca?”
She looked up.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something personal?”
She smiled faintly.
“You've been doing that all day.”
He hesitated.
“Why didn't you tell Dad about Daniel?”
Rebecca stopped moving.
Their father had died six years earlier.
He had known Rebecca was struggling after her deployment, but she had never explained the details.
She had told him that a friend was missing.
Nothing more.
“He knew some of it,” she said.
Tyler looked surprised.
“He did?”
She nodded.
“He knew I was having a hard time.”
“Did he ask questions?”
“Of course.”
“What did you tell him?”
Rebecca looked down.
“That there were things I couldn't explain.”
Tyler was silent.
She continued.
“He told me I didn't have to explain everything to be loved.”
Tyler swallowed.
“That sounds like Dad.”
Rebecca smiled sadly.
“Yes.”
For a moment, they sat quietly.
Then Tyler reached into his jacket.
“I almost forgot.”
He placed the small wrapped package on the table.
Rebecca frowned.
“What's that?”
“You dropped it at the lounge.”
Her expression softened.
The watch.
She had been so distracted that she forgot the reason she came.
She pushed it toward him.
“Open it.”
Tyler carefully removed the paper.
When he saw the watch, he stopped breathing.
“Dad's?”
Rebecca nodded.
“He wanted you to have it when you became a staff sergeant.”
Tyler stared at the scratched silver face.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his eyes filled.
“He told you that?”
“Yes.”
Tyler turned the watch over.
On the back was a small engraving their father had added years earlier.
DO WHAT IS RIGHT, EVEN WHEN NOBODY IS WATCHING.
Tyler ran his thumb across the words.
Rebecca watched him.
“He was proud of you,” she said.
Tyler swallowed.
“I wish he were here.”
“Me too.”
He put the watch on his wrist.
Then looked at his sister.
“I think he'd be proud of you too.”
Rebecca smiled through tears.
For the first time that day, the tension between them eased.
Then her laptop chimed.
A new email had arrived.
No subject.
No sender name she recognized.
Attached was a photograph.
Rebecca opened it.
A civilian aircraft stood on a sunlit runway.
Beside it was a man with dark hair, a narrow scar near his jaw, and a silver ring on his right hand.
Daniel Mercer.
The timestamp indicated the photograph had been taken three years after his official death.
Tyler leaned closer.
“Is that him?”
Rebecca could barely breathe.
“Yes.”
At the bottom of the message was a single sentence.
ASK ADRIAN COLE WHY A DEAD PILOT WAS STILL FLYING.
Rebecca Bennett stared at the photograph until the edges of the screen seemed to disappear.
Daniel Mercer stood beside a civilian aircraft, his left hand resting on a metal railing. His dark hair was longer than she remembered. There was a narrow scar near his jaw, and his face looked thinner. But she recognized the slight bend in his posture, the familiar silver ring on his right hand, and the expression of a man who had never been entirely comfortable posing for photographs.