Page 21 of Rangers Last Promise

“You have, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

A strange pressure builds in my chest.

“How?”

“Public records. Newspaper articles. Department announcements.”

“You searched for me.”

“Once or twice a year.”

“For fifteen years?”

“Yes.”

This man has known where I was for half my life.

Not every day. Not every move I made.

But enough to know I graduated. Enough to know I became a deputy.

Enough to know I was still alive.

And he never spoke to me.

“You could have called.”

“I didn’t think you wanted to hear from the man who couldn’t save your brother.”

The self-hatred in his voice stops me.

Just for a second.

Then I remember the journal.

“You didn’t kill him. Someone betrayed your unit.”

Doc’s face empties.

Not confusion.

Recognition.

He knows.

“You knew that too.”

“I suspected it.”

“Grant didn’t suspect. He knew.”

I open the journal and turn to the final entry. My hands have stopped shaking.

Anger steadies them now.

“He wrote that someone changed your coordinates. He said you were deliberately sent into a valley without air support. He discovered who did it the night before he died.”