I took a sip of champagne as I said, sarcastically, “Good one, Caroline.”
She stopped in her tracks. “What? What do you mean ‘good one’? I’d say this was pretty epic.”
I ran my finger down the white blob in the painting, then the black one. “This was supposed to be Jack’s painting,” I said. “You sold Mom and Jack.”
“What?” Mom asked. “Caroline Murphy Beaumont, I knew I shouldn’t have let you talk me into this. This is why I said no after Grammy’s funeral.”
I turned and looked at her. “You’re the white streak. Jack is the black one.”
Jack put his hand to his heart. “I’m the black one? Is that symbolism?”
“Sort of.” I grinned.
“Am I darkness or something?”
“Of course not, Jack!” I smiled sneakily. “You’re the groom.”
Everyone laughed as Jack said, “From your mouth to God’s ears.”
“I didn’t even realize it until I was finished,” I said. That was what I loved most about painting. The surprises. The way a piece could take over if you let it lead you.
Three hours later, I emerged from the marble mosaic-tiled shower, my hair wrapped in a towel, my body swathed in one of Caroline’s plush robes, and smelling of her expensive rose cream.
When I walked out of the bathroom and into Caroline’s living room, I saw Emerson and Mom crying, and Jack was as white as a ghost. I sensed this was about Adam, but if the military knew something, if they had found him—or realized they weren’t going to find him—they would have contacted me first.
My stomach rolled as I sat down on the couch between Emerson and Mom. A YouTube video was playing on Caroline’s huge TV over the fireplace. Well, actually, James’s huge TV. Caroline hated TVs over the fireplace. I was suddenly freezing.
“What?” I asked. “Please tell me.”
But, in a way, I knew already.
Though I tried not to watch often, I’d seen the footage of the soldiers in Iraq, their helmets, their rucksacks, their tanks. I’d heard the ear-splitting gunfire, the missile launches, the yelling, the radio static, the repeating of coordinates over and over again. I’d seen them behind concrete walls, behind little more than sandbags, among the desolate remains of fallen cities. I’d seen armed men fight armed men.
I’d never seen anything like this. But I knew what it was. The grainy, tan picture shot from above. I could make out the tops of the men’s heads, the long shadows, and the slow-motion running. The white numbers and letters in the four corners of the screen. This was persistent surveillance footage from a Predator drone. At first, I felt heartened. Maybe this was rescue footage. But even through the grainy picture and the faraway view, I could see these men had no helmets or weapons, and a few of them appeared to be shirtless. It was impossible to get a clear view of them, and the silence was deafening. There was no commentary, no voice-over, just nightmarish quiet. The only clue we had, the only tip, was a simple title below the video frame, “Escaped American POWs.”
Common sense told me Adam and his unit were the only soldiers missing. This had to be them. If it was current footage, and if he was still alive, one of these running men was my husband.
“How did you find this?” I managed to eke out. “What is this?”
“Kyle called me,” Emerson whispered. “He follows a YouTube channel that posts footage filmed by American soldiers. But the commenters seem to think this footage was leaked.”
“So did this just happen?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Are we sure it’s even real?”
“I’m sorry, Sloane,” Em said. “We just don’t know.”
I could barely make it out on the camera, but there was a man running, then a man on the ground, still. Even through the faraway picture, I could tell from the way he fell that he had been gunned down. This wasn’t a trip or a fall. It was a death. Then the playback ended as abruptly and terrifyingly as it had begun.
“Play it again,” I said. “And pause on the fallen man.”
“Sloane,” Emerson said gently.
“PLAY. IT. AGAIN.”
Mom was sobbing horrible, agonized sobs, and Jack said, “Sloane, I’m going to call the post. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”
My entire body was covered in chill bumps. My mouth was dry, my insides cold. Was that Adam? Were there more dead men? And if it wasn’t Adam it was surely one of our friends. Wasn’t it?
My first instinct was to call Major Austin. But I couldn’t. If what happened after that man fell was what I could only assume had happened, I didn’t want to know the truth. It was as if someone had reached inside me and pulled my heart out of my chest as I screamed, “No! No, no, no!”
I wasn’t crying. I was too numb and terrified for that—the exact same way I had felt that day after Major Austin and the chaplain had come to tell me Adam was MIA. That quiet that defied explanation, the intensity of a pain that can’t even be expressed.
My sisters were trying to hug me, but I was so far beyond comfort. Jack took my hand, his phone up to his ear. “Is it true, Jack? Tell me it can’t be true.”
I can’t explain why it was Jack I turned to. Maybe it was because he was a man or because he always seemed to take charge. Maybe, I had to admit, it was because he was the closest thing to a father I had left.
He put his finger up, and I could hear him saying, “Then you’ve seen it too. Yes. Is there any information about the soldiers?”
He walked out into the hall, and the tears finally came.
I
