Page 84 of The Criminal

I stepped back and shook my head. “Ray.”

Her hands hung in mid-air, still reaching for my shirt, her brow wrinkled. “This is really a thing for you, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

Her sigh was a world-weary sound that perfectly reflected how I felt. She turned from me to pour us each a cup of coffee. I took mine and stared down at the black liquid. I let the heavy, seething mass of ugly emotions connected to Ray rise from the depths of my mind where I kept them stored away. The blackness washed over me, chasing away all else. The silly apartment, the happiness of having Lee in my arms, the pride in a mission accomplished in Jersey. Guilt—numbing, painful guilt—consumed all of it.

My mood somber, I eventually followed Lee into the living room to sit on the couch. I set the untouched coffee cup on the low glass table before it shattered in my tense grip. I was losing control of things I didn’t fully understand. Big emotions that my stacks of self-help books hadn’t prepared me for.

“It wasn’t a training accident.” The words tore from me without context or preamble. I was done hiding the government’s secret. I had to purge.

“Ray?” Lee turned to face me, her expression open and non-judgmental. What I’d done was a massive disservice to her and her mom. I craved her judgment.

“He died in Iraq fighting to take back an oil depot. It was an off-the-books mission. It violated some UN convention or whatever. We were never there, black ops shit. He saved my ass that day. He was a hero.”

Lee took my hand and held it between both of hers. I closed my eyes as memories of that day teased at the back of my mind and threatened to pull me under. The remembered smell of burning oil and spent gunpowder replaced the scent of freshly brewed coffee. The younger, angrier version of myself was waking up. I’d waited twenty-something years to vent.

“They should have given him a medal. Instead, they sent me home with his body and a bullshit story about a training accident. He had the family, not me. It wasn’t right.”

“Derek, he knew the risks of being a SEAL just like you did.”

I barely registered her words.

“He had things to live for. Responsibilities. You, your mom. I didn’t have a family. Why do you think I was always in Oklahoma? Joining your family for the holidays was so much better than a TV dinner nuked in my on-base housing unit.”

“I knew. Ray told me. You were in the foster care system growing up.”

“It should have been me that day in Iraq.” My words were laced with loathing. Loathing for the navy. For the enemy fighters. For Ray and his stupid bravery. And most of all for myself.

“No. It shouldn’t have. Fate made her choice.” Lee touched my face with her hand.

“Can you forgive me?”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You were following orders. It’s what you do.”

Her words sank in little by little. She didn’t care. She wasn’t asking a million questions, digging for the truth. Worry and compassion filled her eyes. She wasn’t angry or heartbroken.

My earth-shattering confession hadn’t ripped her to shreds. I didn’t understand. She should hate me. Or at least blame me for all this…shit.

Chapter 44

Lee

“You’re not mad I lied to you and your mother?”

Derek’s guilt and grief were startlingly fresh. My sorrow about my brother had mellowed over the years. I missed him and occasionally wondered what life would have been like if he’d lived, but I hadn’t ached over his death in years. Decades. Learning how he died twenty years later was an uncomfortable footnote.

I shook my head. It was time I gave Derek some hard truths from my perspective.

“Knowing how he died wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. He was dead. Mom was on a one-way train to the bottom of a booze bottle, and I was determined to get the hell out of Oklahoma. How he died is an insignificant detail in this shitty history.”

Derek sat ramrod straight, and despair rolled off him in waves.

I kept talking, trying to get through to him. “You did what you could. Made me promise to stop stealing. It was how I honored his memory.”

“I should have done more…for you.” He looked like the confession was causing him physical pain. He was carrying a ton of guilt over things beyond his control. I’d do anything to help him set down this burden, but I knew he had to make that choice for himself.

“I wouldn’t have let you. I was a pissed-off teenager. Lashing out. Ready to run. You weren’t in a place to stop me.” The window when Derek could have made a difference in my life was so small as to never have existed at all. The night after the funeral, when he extracted the no-stealing promise, had been as close as I would have let him get to affecting my future.

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