Chapter 2 - Someone Had Been Using My Name
The response team did not arrest Michael in my mother's kitchen and announce that justice had arrived.
Real life rarely cooperates with television that cleanly.
They secured his weapon.
Freed me from the chair.
Separated everyone.
Because Michael was the local police chief, his own department did not get to casually handle what had just happened.
State investigators were contacted.
A county supervisor was notified.
Military personnel remained because the secure communication that had been active when Michael threatened me belonged to a federal matter already underway.
Michael kept demanding to know what authority anyone had.
Then he would remember he had just handcuffed a general to a dining chair during a live government call and become quieter for approximately thirty seconds.
A medic cleaned my lip.
Emma sat opposite me.
“You knew they were coming.”
It wasn't exactly a question.
“Yes.”
“For Michael?”
“No.”
She looked toward the living room, where Tyler sat with an official standing nearby.
“For Tyler?”
“I didn't know yet.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
“It didn't make sense to me either.”
Michael heard from the hallway.
“You're lying.”
A state investigator had arrived by then.
He stepped between us.
“Chief, you'll have an opportunity to provide a statement.”
Michael looked around the house as if it had been stolen from him while he stood inside it.
I had seen that expression before.
At my mother's wedding.
At Tyler's high-school graduation.
Any room where Michael couldn't decide the tone became hostile territory.
Emma leaned closer to me.
“Avery. Why were you on that phone?”
There it was.
The question underneath the weapon.
I looked toward Tyler.
He was no longer cocky.
His phone rested on a table inside an evidence sleeve—not because someone had simply grabbed a citizen's property on instinct, but because Tyler had agreed to preserve it after being told exactly why investigators wanted it.
I said:
“For six weeks, someone has been sending communications using my name.”
Emma stared.
“What kind?”
“Statements. Endorsements. Messages that make it appear I'm personally supporting things I've never seen.”
Michael laughed from the hallway.
“There. You hear that? She admits somebody's impersonating her.”
I looked at him.
“Somebody is impersonating me.”
His expression sharpened.
“That isn't what Tyler found.”
I turned toward my brother.
Tyler looked at the floor.
“What did Tyler find?”
Michael answered for him.
“Proof you weren't a general.”
My mother slowly turned toward her husband.
“What?”
Michael kept his eyes on me.
“Your military record ended years ago.”
“No, it didn't.”
“You were separated.”
“No.”
“Tyler showed me.”
I looked at my brother.
“What did you show him?”
Tyler finally lifted his head.
“It was online.”
“What was?”
“A record.”
“What record?”
He hesitated.
Michael snapped:
“Tell her.”
Tyler looked at me.
“It said you left federal service nine years ago.”
I said nothing.
Because nine years ago was almost exactly when I had stopped coming home.
Emma whispered:
“Tyler, where did you get that?”
He rubbed his hands against his jeans.
“I don't remember.”
The first response officer returned.
He carried a slim folder.
He looked at Tyler.
“Then perhaps you can help us remember something else.”
He opened it.
Inside was a printed page.
My name at the top.
My rank.
A signature that looked close enough to mine to fool someone who had never watched me sign anything.
The officer placed it on the table.
“General Mitchell, have you ever seen this?”
“No.”
Michael looked at it.
His face changed.
He had.
May you like
The officer turned toward him.
“You should recognize it, Chief. Your department submitted it four months ago.”
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