Chapter 2 - THE MAN INSIDE THE RAIN
Captain Elias Ward died during Operation Silent Harbor.
At least, that was what I had believed for sixteen years.
Our team entered a damaged intelligence compound outside Mosul shortly before dawn. The building had been abandoned by the hostile force occupying it, but someone had left a red metal case chained beneath a desk.
Elias was the first person to see it.
He told us not to touch it.
Minutes later, gunfire came through the windows.
The floor collapsed during the attack.
Elias disappeared beneath concrete and fire.
We recovered what we believed were parts of his uniform and identity tags.
There was no intact body.
The Army listed him as killed in action.
I placed my challenge coin inside the coffin during the memorial because Elias had once given it to me after I saved his life.
Now a coin carrying his blood had been found beneath my daughter.
Detective Cole asked me to accompany him into the hospital consultation room.
A uniformed officer remained outside Lily’s door.
“We reviewed traffic and campus cameras,” Cole said.
He placed several photographs on the table.
The first showed Lily leaving the university library at 9:12 p.m.
The second showed her entering a coffee shop.
The third showed a tall man beneath a black umbrella watching from across the street.
His face remained hidden.
The same man appeared in footage from two earlier dates.
Outside Lily’s dormitory.
Near her biology classroom.
Inside the student bookstore.
“He had been following her for at least twelve days,” Cole said.
“Why did no one notice?”
“He changed clothing. Different vehicles. Different walking patterns.”
“Military surveillance.”
“That was our conclusion.”
The final photograph showed the man turning slightly as a passing vehicle illuminated his face.
A scar crossed his right cheek.
The image was blurred.
I recognized him anyway.
“Elias.”
“You are certain?”
“I watched him receive that scar.”
Detective Cole remained silent for a moment.
“If Captain Ward survived, why would the Army report him dead?”
“I do not know.”
“Why would he attack your daughter?”
“I do not know that he did.”
“His blood was on the coin.”
“Then perhaps Lily injured him.”
“The scene contained no weapon.”
“She was trained to defend herself.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
The detective looked toward the hospital door.
“Her injuries suggest she surprised the attacker at least once. There was blood beneath her fingernails.”
Relief entered me for the wrong reason.
Lily had fought.
Then I hated myself for needing that fact.
Detective Cole opened another folder.
“We searched her dorm room with her roommate’s permission.”
“What did you find?”
“A photograph of you, Captain Ward, and nine other soldiers.”
I had never given Lily that photograph.
It remained inside a locked box beneath my bedroom floor.
“Where did she get it?”
“Written on the back was a date and an address.”
He showed it to me.
The address belonged to an abandoned farm outside Chillicothe, Illinois.
The date was the following Saturday.
Three days away.
“Did Lily mention traveling there?”
“No.”
“Her roommate said she had been researching your military service for almost two months.”
“Why?”
“She received an email from someone claiming to know the truth about her mother.”
My wife, Sarah, died ten years earlier.
A truck crossed the center line during heavy rain and struck her car.
Police described it as an accident.
The other driver died at the scene.
Lily was nine.
For years, she blamed herself because Sarah had been driving to collect a forgotten school project.
I told her no child causes a traffic accident by forgetting a poster.
I believed I was telling the truth.
“What did the email say?” I asked.
Cole turned his laptop.
The message came from an encrypted account.
Lily,
Your mother did not die because of rain.
She died because Daniel Mercer brought something home from Iraq and refused to give it back.
Ask him about the red case.
If he lies, come alone.
Attached was the photograph of my unit.
The sender highlighted Elias Ward’s face.
A second attachment contained a police image from Sarah’s accident.
Someone had drawn a red circle around an object near the wreckage.
A military challenge coin.
I had never seen it in the original report.
“Was that coin collected?” I asked.
“There is no coin listed in evidence.”
“Then the photograph was altered.”
“Our imaging analyst believes it is authentic.”
My throat tightened.
Someone from Task Unit 14 had been near Sarah’s car after the crash.
“Did Lily respond?”
“Yes.”
The detective showed me her message.
Tell me where to go. I need proof before I accuse my father.
She had not been afraid of me.
She had been afraid the accusation might be true.
The sender directed her to the unfinished parking structure.
Lily went alone.
I closed my eyes.
She had been protecting me from an accusation while walking into a trap built from my past.
Detective Cole’s phone vibrated.
He read the message and looked toward me.
“What?”
“Your house alarm has activated.”
I stood.
“Lily’s protected here. Go.”
Two officers drove me to the small property outside Peoria where I had lived since retirement.
The front door remained closed.
No window was broken.
The alarm had been triggered by movement inside my bedroom.
We entered with weapons drawn.
Nothing had been stolen.
My television remained.
The emergency cash remained.
My Army medals remained inside the cabinet.
The locked box beneath the floor had been opened.
The unit photograph was gone.
Beside the empty space, someone placed a red military signal flare.
It was still warm.
A message had been carved into the wooden floor.
YOU BURIED THE WRONG MAN.
One officer called my name from the kitchen.
He stood beside the refrigerator holding a printed photograph.
It had been taken inside Lily’s hospital room less than twenty minutes earlier.
I was sitting beside her bed.
Someone had been watching from the corridor.
On the back, a message had been written in black ink.
THE GIRL SURVIVED THE FIRST QUESTION.
May you like
SHE WILL NOT SURVIVE THE SECOND.
Continue to the next part: The threat proves that someone connected to Daniel’s former unit has entered the hospital.
