Snowstorm of Our Past novel · Chapter 16 of 32

Chapter 16: Statements

I didn't text him back.

I drove down to Fort Carson the next morning instead.

Gabe offered to come. I told him no.

"This one's mine," I said. "He's my mess."

"He's a mess with a lot of friends."

"Then they can watch."

Gran kept Tilly. The kid gave me a copy of his video on a thumb drive, in a sandwich bag, labeled EVIDENCE in marker.

Battalion headquarters was a long brick building with a flagpole out front.

I'd been inside it a hundred times as Major Keller's wife.

The sergeant at the front desk recognized me and half stood up.

"Ma'am, the major's in a staff meeting."

"I know. That's why I came now."

I walked past him down the hall.

The conference room door was open.

Clint sat at the head of a long table with eight officers and sergeants around it, a slide of training dates up on the screen.

The captain with the mustache was halfway down the table.

Every head turned.

Clint stood up.

"Mallory. You can't be in here."

"It'll take five minutes."

"This is a staff meeting."

"You had a staff meeting in my nursery once," I said. "I think we're even."

Nobody laughed.

A sergeant near the door looked like he wanted to be anywhere else.

I walked to the end of the table and set down a manila folder.

I'd made copies at the library in Leadville. The originals were in the sheriff's safe, where Gabe had driven them the night before.

I opened the folder and laid it all out in front of him, one at a time.

"Your check stub. Your handwriting."

He looked at it.

"Fifty-one money orders from Amber, all to the man who lives in that cabin."

I put down a printout of the photo. The gray beard. The squint. Amber beside him on a porch.

Clint didn't touch any of it.

The captain with the mustache leaned forward in his chair to look.

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