Page 88 of The Archer Brothers

I shake my head. “You died and everything changed. Being a SEAL’s wife didn’t appeal to her anymore so she left and I let her go. I didn’t ask her to stay because the rejection, I think, would’ve been worse and I didn’t want to hold her back either.”

“The letters that I received, they never talked about Cara. I was so happy to hear from Ryley that I didn’t think about what Cara was doing or what you were doing. Hell, I didn’t even know that Carter and Lois had a kid until the other day. I wrote you, though. And O’Keefe assured me that you knew what was going on... that you were keeping Ryley safe.”

Looking at Evan as he stares at his grave makes me wish he had those letters. “He lied. I know you don’t want to believe me, but I’m telling you the truth. If I knew what was going on, I would’ve done something. Carole would’ve done something. After you died, she looked into everything, trying to figure out why you guys were over there and found nothing.” I shift my stance, kicking some grass as I do. “Do you remember any of those letters?”

He looks up and shakes his head. “I wish. I memorized the important things like EJ’s birthday. Sometimes the letters were short, others were long. They were all typed. Then there would be months when we wouldn’t get anything and now that I think about, we’d ask about getting the hell out of there and suddenly a box would come. We’d get pictures, letters, sometimes clothes and our favorite foods all days later after asking. It was like whoever was behind this had a team with them. I don’t know.”

The crunching of gravel sounds around us, causing us both to look. Cara and Carole get out of their shared car and make their way over to us. Carole stands next to Evan, while Cara takes my side and even though it’s been years since she and I have been together, the urge to grab her hand is there. I’m thankful I’ve left my hands in my pockets or I’d have some explaining to do.

“Why are we here?”

“Thought we’d dig up my body,” Evan says as he laughs, earning a slap from Carole and an eye roll from Cara. “Sorry, I found this under some towels in the bathroom at River’s house. As I was holding it a text message came in. I haven’t looked at the messages on there because honestly it’s been some time since I’ve touched a cell phone and I didn’t want to risk erasing something.” He holds the Blackberry in the palm of his hand and the indicator light blinks rapidly.

“There are more messages or alerts,” Cara says as I look at her questioningly. “What? Mine blinks like that.” She says, shrugging.

We stand around Evan and his outstretched hand as if he’s holding a timer to a bomb. I don’t know if we’re waiting for it to go off again or what, but none of us are moving.

“Evan,” Carole says his name so calmly, I feel like she’s about to deliver bad news. “Have you prepared yourself for the possibility that we could look at that and find out that River is involved?”

He shakes his head, clasping his fingers over the phone. “I don’t think he’s involved.”

“Why?” I ask.

“If he were, he wouldn’t let me stay at his house.”

“Good point,” I say, looking at everyone. “I figured this is the safest place right now. I want answers. I want to know who did this to us.” When I say “us”, my eyes find Cara’s. Last night I thought about how things would’ve been different. In all likelihood she and I would be married by now and living in Virginia. But someone decided to screw with my family and now they must pay.

“We could put a tap on the phone and put it back,” Cara offers.

Evan shakes his head. “I want to know now.”

It’s been days since Carole took the cell phone from us. We were tempted to read it all right there, but she wanted everything from it, including emails and internet searches. Carole has a friend in NCIS who is helping her, someone she trusts. The hard part was letting go of what we considered a huge piece of evidence and probably the key to discovering who is behind all of this.

I reported for work, keeping up the guise that everything is fine. A few team members had a lot of questions, but others just sat there, likely contemplating how something so fucked up happened to someone they know. Believe me, I’ve been asking myself the same question over and over again.

Evan didn’t return to River’s and I told him that he could stay with Ryley and EJ, and I’ll stay at Carter’s. It’s not ideal, but my brother doesn’t have any place to live so it is what it is… for right now. Evan also hasn’t informed River, McCoy or Rask about the phone. He’s not sure who he can trust right now and feels that keeping a low profile is better. The one thing hehasdone in the past few days is finally got his own cell phone.

“Is it weird?” Tex asks, interrupting my daydream. When I said I’m back to work, I am, but only in the sense that I show up on base and watch everyone, even Carole. Commander Clarke, as I refer to her when we’re on base, suggested I keep my eyes and ears open and my mouth and my fingers off the keyboard. I’m doing as she says.

“Is what weird?” I ask, bending over to pick up some rope.

“Having your brother back?”

I shrug, keeping up the pretense that we’re on the outs. We’re not, but we’re not exactly friends. He does respond to my text messages and I consider that a huge step from where we were earlier.

“I’m happy he’s home, but he’s trying to steal my woman.” I make it sound worse than it is. Truth is, Ryley belongs to Evan and it’s something that I’m slowly starting to realize. Now if only my heart would listen.

“It’s not mine,” he blurts out, catching me off guard.

“What isn’t?” I ask as I wait for him to pick up the other section of rope. I found us grunt work to do that would put us near the building of Admiral Ingram. Tex doesn’t need to know, but having an unsuspecting partner in crime is always nice.

“The baby, it’s not mine.”

“How do you feel about that?”

He stops mid stride, causing me to turn around. “You said being a dad is one of the greatest joys in your life, do you still feel that way knowing your brother is going to take your son away?”

I set my section down and look at Tex. “It’s not that Evan will take EJ away, I’ll still be there. EJ needs to know that Evan is his dad, but we’re not forcing the situation. But yeah, being a dad is pretty much the best feeling in the world, why?”

---