Snowstorm of Our Past novel · Chapter 8 of 32

Chapter 8: The Gold Star Tree

The band played four more bars and then trailed off.

Somebody's fork hit a plate.

On the stage, Amber saw me and lowered the gold star.

Clint's hand came off her back.

I walked between the round tables until I was standing at the foot of the stage.

Gabe stayed one step behind me. Gran stayed by the door with her purse clutched in both hands.

"Mallory," Clint said. His voice was low and fast. "Not here. Please."

"You posted it here," I said. "Your friend did. You liked it."

I turned to the colonel.

He was a broad, gray man of about fifty. I'd met him at two promotion parties and one funeral.

His wife stood beside him in a red dress, holding a glass of wine she'd forgotten about.

"Sir," I said. "I'm sorry to interrupt your party. I'll be quick."

"Mrs. Keller." He glanced at Clint. "I think this might be better handled privately."

"It was handled publicly, sir. Sixty thousand people. I think your battalion should hear the other half."

He hesitated.

Then he nodded once.

"Go ahead."

"Was the battalion on a training exercise between the fourteenth of November and last week?"

The colonel's eyebrows came together.

"No. We've been in garrison since October."

"Was Major Keller in the field?"

"Major Keller was on leave." The colonel looked at Clint. "Family emergency, he told me."

A murmur went across the room.

"He told me he was on a training exercise," I said. "For a month. He called me every night and said the wind was so loud he couldn't hear me."

I took a breath.

"He was at the post hospital the whole time. With Mrs. Dwyer. For the birth of their son."

The murmur turned into something louder.

At a table near the stage, a woman put her hand over her mouth.

"That video you all saw," I said, "starts after I walked into that room and found my husband and his friends congratulating him on his baby boy. It cuts right before I walked out."

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