After the formal portion ended, guests rose slowly from their seats. Conversations began in cautious fragments. Officers moved with purpose. Soldiers remained professional, but their eyes followed everything.
I stepped down from the stage with the briefcase in my hand.
I expected my family to wait.
They did.
Madison reached me first.
Her face was tight, her voice low.
“What did you do?”
I looked at her for a long moment.
There were a hundred things I could have said.
I could have reminded her of every holiday she ruined with a whisper.
Every phone call where she told me to stop embarrassing the family.
Every time she stood beside Jason and smiled while he turned my pain into a character flaw.
But the parade field was not the place for old wounds.
So I said, “I brought the file.”
Her eyes dropped to the briefcase.
“You kept it?”
“No. It was recovered.”
