Daniel stiffened.
“What now?”
Captain Hale looked at me, not him.
“We found something in the estate office records. It involves the returned letters.”
My pulse slowed.
“Show me.”
He hesitated.
That alone chilled me.
Then he handed me a scanned copy of one of my old envelopes.
I recognized my handwriting immediately.
Margaret Reynolds.
Private and urgent.
Regarding unborn grandchildren.
Across the front, in black ink, were the words REFUSED BY ADDRESSEE.
But beneath the postal stamp was a signature.
Not Margaret’s.
Not Daniel’s.
It was signed by someone I had not thought about in years.
Victor Reynolds.
Daniel’s father.
The dead general.
PART 5 — THE DEAD GENERAL’S SIGNATURE
For a moment, I could not understand what I was seeing.
Victor Reynolds had died six years ago.
A heart attack, according to the obituary.
A decorated general. A titan of the old military world. A man whose photograph still hung above the estate’s central staircase, sword at his side, eyes fixed forward as if even death had not relieved him of command.
