Chapter 2 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be DeadThe police arrived eleven minutes later.
Those eleven minutes felt longer than the eight months I had spent waiting for Reid.
I could not stop staring at him.
He stood near the kitchen doorway while two officers entered, one speaking calmly to Vivienne and the other checking on me. Reid kept his distance, almost as if he was afraid that if he touched me too quickly, I would disappear.
Finally, he whispered, “Clara.”
That one word broke me.
I stood too fast.
The room tilted.
Reid crossed it in two steps and caught me.
His arms were real.
His heartbeat was real.
The smell of dust and soap and the faint leather scent of his uniform was real.
I pressed my face against his chest.
“You're alive.”
His arms tightened around me.
“I came home.”
“You were dead.”
“I know.”
“No.” I pulled back and looked at him. “No, Reid. They told me you were dead.”
His eyes filled with something painful.
“I know.”
Vivienne suddenly laughed.
It was a small, sharp sound.
“You see?” she said to the officers. “This is exactly what I've been dealing with. She doesn't understand reality.”
Reid turned.
“Don't say another word.”
Vivienne stared at him.
He walked toward the table and picked up the casualty notice.
“This isn't mine.”
“What?”
“The seal is wrong.”
The room became silent.
Reid placed the paper beneath the kitchen light.
“My unit uses a different identification code.”
One officer leaned closer.
“You're saying this is forged?”
“I'm saying I never died.”
Vivienne's face had gone pale.
Reid looked at the psychiatric report.
“This doctor?”
“I don't know him.”
“Neither do I.”
Then he looked at me.
“Clara, did you ever see a doctor named Dr. Harold Vance?”
I shook my head.
“Never.”
Reid closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, I saw the soldier again.
Not my husband.
Not the man who used to dance with me while cooking pasta.
The captain.
The investigator.
The man who had survived something none of us understood.
The police took Vivienne into custody for questioning.
She did not resist.
That frightened me more than if she had screamed.
At the door, she looked directly at me.
“This isn't over.”
Reid stepped between us.
“It is for tonight.”
Her eyes hardened.
“You have no idea what you've come home to.”
Then she smiled.
“Ask your wife where the money went.”
My stomach dropped.
Reid looked at me.
I whispered, “What money?”
Vivienne walked away without answering.
That night, after the police left, Reid and I sat together in the nursery.
Neither of us slept.
He told me that three weeks earlier, his convoy had been attacked.
His team had been separated.
Communications were destroyed.
He and two others were taken to a temporary holding site.
“They told command I was dead,” he said.
“How did you escape?”
“I didn't.”
I looked at him.
He stared at the floor.
“Someone arranged for me to be moved.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“What happened?”
“Two days ago, I was found by a recovery team.”
“And you came straight home?”
“I tried.”
He reached into his bag.
Inside was a small envelope.
“My identification papers were missing. My phone was gone. I had no way to contact you.”
I touched his hand.
“Then how did you know to come home today?”
He hesitated.
“Because someone sent me a photograph.”
He showed me.
It was a picture of me sitting at our kitchen table.
Pregnant.
Alone.
Vivienne stood behind me.
The photograph had been taken through the window.
On the back, someone had written:
COME HOME BEFORE YOUR DAUGHTER IS BORN.
My blood ran cold.
“Who sent it?”
“I don't know.”
Reid stared at the picture.
“But I know one thing.”
“What?”
“Someone wanted me alive.”
May you like
He turned toward me.
“And someone wanted everyone else to believe I was dead.”
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