Chapter 3 - THE CRIME SCENE
I sat beside Rosalie for two hours, holding her uninjured left hand between my palms until the military neurosurgeon arrived to relieve Higgins. Her skin was cool, her pulse faint beneath the tape of the IV line. I pressed my lips to her knuckles, whispering the promises I had made to her in the letters I sent from overseas.
*I’m back, Rosie. I’m right here. Nobody touches you again.*
Leaving Cole and two armed guards outside her door with strict shoot-to-stop orders, I walked out of the hospital into the freezing Georgia drizzle. I got into Cole’s unmarked black Ford Expedition and drove ten miles west, out into the quiet pine forests of Oconee County where Rosalie and I had bought an old farmhouse on twelve acres of rolling hills.
She had loved that house. She had spent months planting hydrangeas along the wrap-around porch, painting the shutters sage green, determined to build a home that had nothing in common with the sterile, cold stone mansion in Buckhead where Catherine Miller had raised her like a prized show dog.
Now, as I turned up the gravel driveway, yellow police tape fluttered from the oak trees like torn banners.
An Oconee County sheriff's cruiser was parked near the barn. A deputy sat inside with the engine running, eating a sandwich from a brown paper bag. When my truck rolled in, he rolled down his window, scowling.
"Hey, pal! Crime scene’s closed! Turn that rig around!" he yelled.
I got out of the truck, leaving the door open. I wore my black tactical sweater and field trousers, combat boots silent against the gravel. I walked straight up to his window.
"Get out of the car," I said.
The deputy choked on his bite of bread. "Excuse me? Who the hell are you?"
I grabbed his door handle, wrenched it open, and flashed my red military intelligence identification badge right against the bridge of his nose. "I’m Captain Sinclair. This is my property. Take your sandwich and get down by the main gate. If I see you within a hundred yards of this house without a signed federal warrant, I’ll treat you as a hostile combatant on sovereign domestic property."
He saw the dead look in my eyes. He didn't ask questions. He threw the cruiser into reverse, tires spinning in the mud, and backed down the quarter-mile drive until his taillights were tiny red dots in the fog.
I walked up the porch steps.
The front door was untouched. The lock was intact.
I followed the wrap-around porch to the rear kitchen door. Detective Ward had told me Rosalie surprised burglars who came through the back.
I knelt down on the wooden boards. The back door was standing open, its frame shattered. But when I inspected the latch and the strike plate, my jaw clenched so hard my molars groaned.
The wood around the latch was splintered inward, yes—but the brass screws of the deadbolt had been unscrewed first. There were fresh scratches around the screw heads from a handheld Phillips-head screwdriver. Someone had undone the lock from the *inside*, kicked the door from the outside to make it look like a forced entry, and left it hanging.
"Amateurs," I muttered.
I drew my sidearm from its holster, held it in a low-ready position, and crossed the threshold into the dark house.
The kitchen was destroyed. Plates from our wedding registry were smashed across the terracotta tiles. The refrigerator door hung open, food rotting on the shelves. But on the center island sat Rosalie’s engagement ring, right next to her MacBook laptop and an envelope containing three hundred dollars in cash.
Burglars didn't leave laptops and diamond rings behind.
Then I saw the blood.
A dark, heavy spray arched across the pale yellow kitchen wall, starting at knee height and ending near the baseboards. Drag marks smeared through the red puddle, leading into the living room.
Rosalie had tried to crawl away.
I followed the marks into the living room. The Persian rug was bunched against the sofa. Near the hearth of the stone fireplace lay the heavy cast-iron poker. Its tip was encrusted with dried dark crimson, mixed with several long strands of dark brown hair.
My chest felt hollow, as if someone had fired a hollow-point bullet through my heart. I saw it all clearly: they hadn't just hit her. They had cornered her here. They had held her down against the rug while someone took their time.
*Twenty-seven fractures.*
"Why?" I whispered into the empty room. "What did you want from her, Catherine?"
I stood up, forced my tactical brain to take over, and began systematically sweeping the house.
The perpetrators hadn't searched the silver drawers or the electronics. Every book in Rosalie’s study had been pulled from the shelves. The floorboards in her home office were pried up. Her filing cabinets were ransacked, folders scattered everywhere like snow. They were looking for documents.
I walked up the stairs to our master bedroom.
The bed was torn apart. The closet was gutted. But underneath the closet floor, where I had built a reinforced steel floor safe before my deployment, the carpet had been peeled back. The digital keypad had several scratches on it, but the red LED light was still blinking.
They couldn't get in.
I knelt, punched in our anniversary date followed by my service number, and heard the heavy solenoid click. The lid swung open.
Inside was my spare passport, five thousand dollars in emergency cash, and Rosalie’s personal journal.
Tucked inside the back cover of the journal was a black SanDisk 1TB encrypted flash drive. Attached to it with a yellow sticky note was a message written in Rosalie’s neat, curving script:
*Alex—if they do something to me before you get back, take this directly to General Morrison at Fort Belvoir. It’s not just money. They’re killing your men. I love you with all my soul. Don't let mother win.*
My hand tightened around the drive.
Before I could pocket it, I heard the faint crunch of gravel outside.
Two pairs of boots walked up onto the back porch. Quiet. Deliberate.
May you like
I slipped the flash drive into my pocket, lowered the safe lid, and stepped into the shadow of the bedroom doorway, my sidearm drawn, safety clicked off.
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