Eyes still unfocused, she lifted her head. And realized she was looking at an awake but very groggy Charlie.
She flew from her seat, eased to her knees, and leaned against the mattress. Unsure where to touch him that didn’t hurt, she stopped short. “Charlie. Thank God. I’m so sorry,” she said. “You were right. And I’m sorry.” Lightly, she brushed the mop of blond waves out of his face. He always kept his hair longish—it used to drive their father crazy—but he usually kept it pulled back in a ponytail.
He shook his head, his movements sluggish. “No worries.” Typical Charlie. “Thanks for not giving up on me,” he managed.
“I would never. Do you hear me? Never. I love you.”
“Me, too, sis.” The swallowing sound he made was hard and rough. “I would kill for a Mountain Dew.”
She laughed. “How about some water to start.”
He grunted but took a long draw from the cup she held. “Where am I?” he asked, eyes darting over the rough industrial space of the gym.
“A friend’s house,” she said for now. But she smiled at Rixey, and he winked.
Charlie’s eyes scanned around the gathered group. Everyone had gotten up when she’d said his name. “The Colonel’s team,” he stated, using the name he’d called their father for years. It was like he’d recognized them right off. “And some other dudes,” he said, eyeballing Jeremy and Miguel.
“How do you know us?” Nick asked. “I’m Nick Rixey, by the way.”
Charlie nodded. “My dad had some files on a thumb drive. Just personnel records, like patrol schedules and fitness reports, and stuff.” He shrugged. “I was able to patch together the names of most of the team.”
“No shit? There were fitness reports?” Marz said, looking at the other guys. “That’ll give us Merritt’s own copies to challenge the official records. Oh, I’m Derek DiMarzio, by the way. Any chance you still have those?”
“Yeah. I still have the drive.”
Becca sat on the edge of the mattress. “How, Charlie? Your place was tossed. So was mine, actually.”
He frowned and shifted like he was trying to get comfortable. “Thumb drives are hidden inside the wall of a motel I stayed in.” Holy crap. One of the ones they’d gone to, presumably.
Wide-eyed, Nick stepped to the edge of the mattress and looked down on her brother. “Can you start from the beginning and tell us what you found, what Church’s guys are looking for, and why you told Becca to find me?”
Becca looked between the two men she loved most in the world. Her heart ached for Charlie to know something that might help the team.
“Water again first, please?” Charlie said, reaching out. The guys all edged closer as he drank. He passed the cup back to her. How she wished she could do more for him. “Two months ago, I got a letter from a Singapore bank in the mail. It was addressed to my father at my apartment, which was frackin’ hilarious because he never once stepped foot in my place and wouldn’t have trusted me to handle his affairs. Letter said that per the account holder’s request, notification was being sent because of prolonged inactivity on the account. It’d be closed unless the account holder contacted them within ninety days.” He met Becca’s gaze, his blue eyes so like their father’s. His whole face, really.
“The bank wouldn’t give me the money or any other account information since my name wasn’t on the account and I didn’t have the passcode, even though I explained the account holder was dead. I even sent a copy of his death certificate, but they kept denying me. So I hacked in. Every single deposit was made by the same depositor. A company, presumably, called WCE. They deposited twelve million dollars.”
She gasped. Curses and mutters went around the room. God, there it was in a numerical value. What it had taken for her father to throw away everything he’d ever valued. The price put on the lives of Nick’s six comrades who’d died there on a dirt road in Afghanistan. It made her nauseous. “That’s what the 12M stood for in the note you hid in my jewelry box?” She reached up a hand to Nick. His expression was a storm about to open up. He sat down and kept his fingers intertwined with hers.
“You found that? Yeah. When things started getting dicey, I needed to make some copies of the info. I put it in Mom’s necklace, too, but I lost it.”
“I found it at a motel. How did you get the necklace, though?”
A sheepish expression came over his exhausted face. “I broke into your back door. Needed to hide some stuff without you knowing.”
“Charlie! I thought I was going crazy! What else did you hide?”
“Two of my laptops are in your basement crawl space.”
Becca shook her head, completely overwhelmed by Charlie’s story.