He turned on his heel and walked out of the office, his boots clicking on the floor.

The door clicked shut behind him.

The silence in the room returned, heavier than before.

“General,” Merritt said. “We cannot let him walk away with an honorable discharge.”

“He has us cornered, Captain,” Albright said, taking off his glasses.

“If Arthur’s name is dragged through the mud, the entire command structure falls.”

“The trust we built with the Senate would be gone in an afternoon.”

I stepped closer to the desk. “My father did not do this, General.”

“I want to believe that, Eleanor,” Albright said, looking at me with tired eyes.

“But Cole has the signatures.”

“My father kept files,” I said. “Personal files.”

“Everything went to his estate house in Maryland.”

Albright rubbed his temples. “The FBI cleared that house months ago.”

“They cleared what was visible,” I said.

I thought of the security alert on my phone.

The study had a double-walled closet behind the bookshelves where he kept his old ledgers.

He had shown it to me once when I was twelve, during the summer he thought he was being followed.