Margaret stepped forward, her silver hair trembling around her face. For the first time since I had known her, the grand general’s widow looked less like a portrait on a wall and more like a mother.
“Daniel,” she whispered. “Tell me you didn’t know.”
He did not answer quickly enough.
That was all she needed.
Her hand went to her throat.
“My God. My God, what have you done?”
Daniel turned toward me then, anger finally cutting through the shock.
“You planned this.”
I gave a small laugh, though nothing about me felt amused.
“You invited me.”
“You brought investigators to humiliate me in my home.”
“No,” I said. “I brought the truth to protect my children. The investigators came because truth leaves a paper trail.”
His eyes narrowed. “You always were dramatic.”
It was such a familiar insult that for one second, the room disappeared.
I was twenty-six again, standing outside a military courthouse in a pale blue dress, one hand on my barely rounded stomach, rain soaking my hair while Daniel looked at me with cold certainty.
