Page 191 of Whisper
But itwasn’tDavid.
They’dmissedsomething. Goddammit, they’d missed something, for a whole decade.
“Caldera!” Wallace, again. This time, he shouted. Wallace was his SAD team leader, and if there was anyone who hated Kris more than Ryan did, it was Wallace. “I asked you a question!”
Kris’s bones creaked as he pushed back from his desk. His chair ground over paper, crinkled reports on the strike team’s mission, the recovery team’s findings at the destroyed mosque. His mouth tasted like death behind his molars, like burned coffee, worse than Afghanistan’s had been. Something was alive in his veins. Rage, hope, or too much caffeine, he couldn’t tell.
How long had he been sitting there? All night, since he’d raced back to headquarters, after picking himself up from the bathroom floor? The bartender had wanted to call the cops, certain Kris had been attacked, assaulted. He’d stumbled, fumbled, kept saying no, but no one could understand him through the shrieks, the wails, the body-shaking sobs. He’d managed to slip out of there before the cops arrived, jogging down the street as the bartender bellowed for him to come back.
An hour in his car, screaming, punching his steering wheel. Losing all of his shit, every last bit, like he’d never done before.
Until all that was left was silence and snot, an ocean of dried tears cracking into salt flats on his cheeks. Streaked mascara.
And questions.
He’d turned the key, put the car into drive. Steered toward headquarters.
Somewhere, there were answers. And he’d always been the man to find them, no matter how far he had to dig.
“I’m working, Wallace.” Kris stood, grabbing David’s autopsy and a list of files he couldn’t access, not from his station. He needed to get to the archives, pull the hard copies.
“Working what? Making a fucking mess isn’t your job!” Wallace grabbed one of the papers off the floor. His eyes flicked to Kris. “Why are you digging upthisshit?”
Kris shouldered past him.
Wallace grabbed his arm, spun him around. He shoved the paper against Kris’s chest. “SAD lost six guys that day, you know. Because ofyou.”
Kris stared. He said nothing. Didn’t reach for the sheet. Wallace let go, and it fluttered to the floor, slipping between their boots.
“Why’dyoulive, huh? When good people, good men, died?”
Kris ripped his arm free. He stared into Wallace’s eyes as he backed away, files tucked under his arms.
“Gonna make us clean up your shit again, huh?” Wallace kicked an empty coffee cup toward Kris. It flew, skittering and tumbling in the air before veering into another workstation. “You’re a Goddamn shitshow, Caldera!” Wallace bellowed. “I can’t fucking wait to get rid of you!”
Kris flipped Wallace off with both middle fingers as he backed out of SAD’s office.
“Caldera—”
Wallace’s shout cut off as the heavy door slammed shut.
Kris ran, racing down hallways, pushing through doors and throwing himself down stairwells until he finally made it to archives. Chest heaving, breathing hard, he hesitated outside the double doors.
What had they overlooked?
How had they let David go missing for ten years? Why hadn’t they turned the world upside down, shaking every tree, every mountain, until they found him?Never, ever leave a man behind. It was ingrained into the marrow of their bones, engraved on the underside of their ribs.Never, ever. How had David been left?
Had Kris missed something? Had he sentenced David to exile?
How had he left his husband, the love of his life, for a decade?
What hadhappenedto David, all this time?
What if he found what they’d missed?
What if hedidn’t?
Kris badged his way into archives, bypassing the check-in desk and heading for the old mission records. Archives smelled like dust and secrets, like redaction ink and old tears. The secrets and lies of the CIA were buried in the stacks, in between papers and in between the lines.
