Instead he pulled out a small business card.
His name.
His number.
An address across town.
“If you want to talk, call me.”
I took it.
“What unit?”
He told me.
The designation was real.
I knew enough history to know where they would have been and what they would have been doing.
“You’re sure it was Daniel Hayes?”
“I’m sure.”
He hesitated.
“And Victoria?”
“Yes?”
“He talked about you.”
I frowned.
“I would have been a baby.”
“You were.”
A faint smile appeared.
“He carried a picture of you.”
Something inside me shifted.
Before I could respond, Walt called Samuel from the main room.
Samuel squeezed my shoulder once.
Then left.
Denise waited until he was gone.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“That was an extremely unconvincing yes.”
“I’m fine.”
“That was worse.”
I looked at the card in my hand.
“My father told me he spent those years at Fort Stewart.”
“Maybe part of them.”
“He said he hated jumping out of airplanes.”
Denise shrugged.
“Maybe he did.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
That sounded exactly like my father.
He had spent most of his life insisting that anyone who willingly jumped from a working aircraft had poor judgment.
