Chapter 2 - A Name I Couldn't Protect
"How long have you known my father is in this file?" I asked.
Ward took the folder from me before anyone else could glance at it. "Since the clerk brought it to my desk an hour ago. I was checking whether it belonged in our records. I didn't know how to tell you."
"You could've started with his name."
"You could've told me Vale was threatening you instead of meeting him in the corridor."
That stopped me. I'd seen Vale waiting near the elevators and gone straight toward him because I wanted to ask my question before he could disappear. I'd believed a face-to-face confrontation would force an answer. Instead, I'd created a spectacle and almost displayed information belonging to other people.
Ward guided me into a small office and closed the door. "Sit down. We need to write down what happened while it's fresh."
She didn't speak like a friend. She spoke like the staff sergeant who had caught me rushing work before and made me start over. I hated how grateful I was for that voice.
Ten minutes later, Major Elena Brooks arrived. Her service uniform was spotless; her patience wasn't.
"Vale says Corporal Ross threatened to expose confidential client information unless his company surrendered private records," she said.
"That's not what happened," I replied.
"I know what he alleges. I asked you what happened."
So I gave her the truth, including the part where I'd raised the document in the hall. When I finished, Brooks looked at Ward, who confirmed what she'd seen and did not pretend she'd heard the first part of the argument.
"The authorization may be false," Brooks said. "It may also be a clerical error. Neither possibility authorizes an improvised confrontation."
"He used my signature."
"Then we preserve the original. We don't try the case next to the drinking fountain."
She instructed Ward to log where the records had come from, restrict the packet, and coordinate with the installation's legal office and information-security personnel. She ordered me to stay away from the PAX representatives and removed my ability to alter the relevant referral records while they were reviewed.
"Am I being investigated?" I asked.
"Your actions are being reviewed. So is the document. Those are separate questions."
I knew she was trying to be fair. It still felt like being shut out of my own life.
Afterward Ward handed me a blank incident statement. "Write facts, not conclusions. His exact words if you remember them. If you don't, say approximately."
I looked at the space for witnesses. "Will you sign yours?"
She hesitated. "I have to."
My first impulse was to thank her. My second was to ask why she'd hesitated. I did neither.
At lunch, my phone rang. The screen said DAD.
Dennis Ross had served in the Marines before a vehicle accident overseas left him with pain that didn't fit neatly into anyone's paperwork. Now he repaired transmissions at a two-bay shop outside Oceanside and called every appointment "just another tune-up." He had taught me to change a tire at eleven, to keep my word at fourteen, and never to complain when I couldn't fix something by myself.
"You busy?" he asked.
"Not too busy. Why?"
"Some woman from a place called PAX was here. She said my account was flagged."
I gripped the edge of the desk. "What account?"
"Old paperwork. Nothing important."
"Dad."
"Erin, I can handle my own business."
"Did they charge you for benefits help?" I asked.
Silence. Then the hollow rattle of a socket falling against concrete.
"Come by after work," he said. "And don't bring your uniform."
When I left the base, Brooks's warning kept circling in my head. I couldn't use military records to question my father about his civilian account. I couldn't explain the contents of an investigation that hadn't started. But I could ask what he'd agreed to and listen.
At the garage, he was wiping down an engine that was already clean. An open envelope lay beneath the cash register.
"Tell me you didn't sign away part of your benefits," I said.
He set down the rag. "I signed something. I thought I was getting help."
The envelope held a payment schedule. PAX had taken $2,460 from his checking account over six months for "coaching" and "claim readiness services." On the last page, he had written the names of four veterans he had recommended to the company.
One of the names was circled in red ink.
"Why did you circle Teresa Cole?" I asked.
He didn't answer immediately. When he finally looked at me, the tears in his eyes made him seem older than any gray hair had.
May you like
"Because I told her they were people she could trust," he said. "And yesterday she told me they never submitted her application at all."
