The Colonel's Daughter Is Gone novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Board

Lydia's POV

The guard at the Fort Hamilton gate checked my old ID and looked at it twice.

"Ma'am," he said, and stepped back from the window. "The board is in the second-floor hearing room."

I had driven through that gate for nineteen years as the Colonel's wife.

Today I walked through it beside my father, with Alana's hand in mine.

Cedric came three paces behind us, in a dark suit, saying nothing.

He had flown in on the red-eye without being asked.

The hearing room had a long table, a flag, and five officers in a row.

My husband sat alone at a smaller table with his medals pinned on straight.

He looked calm, and rested, and handsome.

I knew that look.

It was what he wore when he intended to win.

At the head of the table, the general tapped his pen once.

"Colonel Rainey. You have asked to speak first."

"I have, sir."

Rodney stood.

"I took in my late brother's orphan out of love," he said. "I raised her as my own."

"Since then my family has been turned against me by a very wealthy father-in-law."

"I have been hounded by a stream of lies."

He turned his body toward me.

"Lydia. In front of these officers, I apologize."

My father made a noise in his throat.

"I was a hard husband," Rodney said, to the room. His voice shook just enough. "I put the Army first. I want to make it right. Come home, and let's end this."

I heard Cedric's chair creak behind me.

I did not look back.

The officers watched me, all five of them.

It was a good move.

He was asking a wife to forgive him in front of a flag, and every man at that table had been married.

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