can’t do this right now,” I quivered, pulling my hand from his and jumping into my car. He stepped back, allowing me to leave, much to my surprise. I expected him to stop me, to want to push the conversation, but he didn’t. He simply let me leave him standing there, a hurt expression on his face. I didn’t know if I’d ever forgive myself for causing that look, but that still didn’t mean I could give up my life so he could live his.
Tyler
I PULLED MY BRONCO into the driveway of my house, wishing I had pushed Mackenzie to tell me what was really holding her back from agreeing to move to Boston with me. I knew asking her was risky, which was why I had been putting it off for the past month, but I didn’t want to go any longer with our current living arrangement. I wanted to come home to her every night to a house we shared. I wanted to be there to rock our son to sleep. I wanted to read him bedtime stories. I wanted him to be surrounded by a family who loved him.
And I wanted all of that back in Boston, not down here where we would both be reminded of our past. We had been given a chance to have a new beginning, and I didn’t want to squander that opportunity.
Entering my code into the keypad on my front door, I walked through the house, hearing animated voices coming from down the hall. I headed toward the study, surprised to see Martin, Eli, Benson, and Maxwell sitting around the table. The remainder of the team had stayed on, but I decided to only use them in a purely protective role, not investigative. I liked keeping my inner circle small, and everyone present had proved to be trustworthy, even Benson.
“What’s this all about?” I asked, sensing there must have been some sort of new development if all these people were here.
“Sir,” Eli began, shooting up from his chair. “We think we may have something. Benson and Maxwell found some questionable information about one of the missions Galloway was on while a Ranger.”
“Really?” I perked up. Over the past few months, we had hit nothing but dead ends. Just when we thought we were getting closer to figuring out who was behind everything, it turned out to be nothing. We had dug and dug into Galloway’s background…his time in the Rangers, his investigations while in Counterintelligence, even his home and family life. We had come up mostly empty-handed, which was frustrating and made me start to think that maybe he wasn’t being set up. Maybe he just wanted us to believe he was.
“What did you find out?” I asked, eyeing Benson and Maxwell as they sat at the table.
“Well, it took a while to put the pieces together, but we were finally able to access field reports from when Galloway’s unit was in Bosnia in the early nineties.”
Eyeing him skeptically, I grabbed a file off my desk and flipped through it. “I think you’re mistaken. There’s no record of him going to Bosnia. Not to mention, according to all the information we received from the CIA, Galloway had already transferred to Counterintelligence by the time of the conflict in Bosnia.” I had practically memorized the entire dossier of the missions he was involved in when a Ranger, and Bosnia wasn’t on the list. I would have certainly remembered that.
“Precisely,” Maxwell said, his excitement growing. “We always thought perhaps this guy was hiding something. He was Special Forces, then in Counterintelligence. It’s obvious he’s got some skeletons in his closet. Skeletons he had the skills and training to hide.”
Closing the file in front of me, I nodded, giving my full attention to Benson and Maxwell. “Tell me about this supposed mission he was on in Bosnia.”
“Well, his Ranger unit was sent there during the crisis in the early nineties,” Benson began. “As you know, the United States didn’t want to get involved in the civil war, but that didn’t mean we didn’t have some troops in the area. We did, and Galloway’s team was one of the units sent over there.”
“And what was their mission?”
“We don’t know,” Maxwell said, “but we found a copy of the only field report Galloway filed during his time over there, accounting for the casualty of two of his unit members. No details were given, just their names.”
“But if they weren’t involved in active combat…?”
“We had the same