Chapter 3 - The Broken Mask
The morning light broke over Frederick in pale streaks of slate and silver.
By 0700, the pain medication had dulled the sharp edges of my rib into a heavy, burning ache. Captain Ramos had arranged for a temporary billeting voucher at an extended-stay hotel adjacent to Fort Detrick, but I wasn't in the car yet.
I was standing outside the main entrance of Frederick Memorial, leaning slightly against Ortiz’s arm, when a battered blue Ford F-150 pulled violently into the drop-off zone.
The tires squealed against the curb.
The driver’s side door flew open, and Thomas Brooks stepped out.
He hadn't shaved. His gray hair was wild, sticking up in tufts where he had clearly been running his fingers through it all night. His flannel shirt was buttoned crookedly. He looked every bit of his fifty-six years—tired, defeated, and frantic.
"Hannah!" he shouted, stumbling toward the entrance. "Hannah, wait!"
Ortiz immediately shifted his position, stepping half a pace forward, his hand dropping to his side. "Halt. Sir, step back from the soldier."
"She’s my daughter!" Thomas yelled. His voice cracked with a pathetic, desperate strain. "Hannah, please! Look at me!"
I stopped. I didn't tell Ortiz to stand down, but I raised one hand slightly.
Thomas halted three feet away, his chest heaving. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
"They took Claire to the county jail," he said, the words spilling out of him in a breathless torrent. "They put her in a holding cell with... with criminals, Hannah. Real criminals. She had to sit on a concrete bench all night. Denise is at home having a nervous breakdown. The lawyer says the bail magistrate won't even see her until ten o'clock because of the federal hold your people put on her!"
I looked at him. I looked at the wrinkles around his eyes, the slight tremble in his lower lip, the posture of a man who had spent his entire life avoiding conflict until the conflict came with steel cuffs and an arrest warrant.
"Did you ask the doctor how my ribs were?" I asked.
Thomas blinked, as if I had spoken in another language. "What?"
"My ribs," I repeated. The cold wind bit into my face, but I didn't feel it. "Did you ask Dr. Aris whether your other daughter cracked my bones when she kicked me on your living room floor?"
A flush of shame crept up Thomas’s neck, turning his leathery skin a mottled purple. "Hannah... of course I care about that. You know I do. Claire was out of line. She was angry. She had too much wine. You know how she gets when she feels judged—"
"When she feels judged?" A short, bitter laugh escaped my throat, sending a dagger of pain through my side. "She called me a parasitic mutt. She stood over me while I was on the floor and put her boot into my ribs. And you stood six feet away and checked your watch."
"I was in shock!" he protested, his hands opening in a pleading gesture. "I didn't know what to do! Everything happened so fast! You know how Denise gets—if I take your side, she makes my life hell for three weeks! I just wanted peace, Hannah! I just wanted us to be a normal family for one dinner!"
"Peace at my expense," I said. "That’s been your policy since I was sixteen years old."
"That’s not fair!"
"Isn't it?"
Captain Ramos stepped out through the sliding glass doors, holding my discharge papers in a plastic folder. She glanced at Thomas with cool, clinical detachment.
"Mr. Brooks," Ramos said. "You should not be here. Under Maryland Code of Criminal Procedure, contacting the victim of an open domestic assault investigation can be construed as third-degree witness tampering."
"I am her father!" Thomas roared, finally losing his temper. "Who the hell are you to tell me I can’t talk to my own child?!"
"I am her commanding officer," Ramos said, not blinking. "And unlike you, sir, my job is to protect her."
Thomas shrank back as if he had been slapped.
I looked at him, feeling an emptiness inside me that went far deeper than the physical trauma in my ribs. For eleven years, I had held onto a tiny, irrational sliver of hope that somewhere beneath his weakness, my father still loved me more than he loved his own comfort.
That hope was gone. Dried up and blown away like dead leaves.
"Go home, Dad," I said quietly.
"Hannah... please. Just drop the charges. Tell the magistrate it was an accident. We can handle this inside the family. I’ll make Claire apologize. I swear to God I’ll make her apologize to you!"
"Claire doesn't apologize," I said. "She demands. And you give."
I turned toward the unmarked military sedan idling at the curb. Ortiz held the rear door open for me.
"Hannah!" Thomas cried, taking a step toward me. Ortiz instantly blocked his path with a rigid arm. "If you do this, Claire will have a criminal record! She’ll lose her marketing job in Bethesda! She won't be able to lease an apartment! You’re ruining her future over one mistake!"
I paused with one hand on the car door frame.
I turned back to him.
"She didn't ruin her future over one mistake, Dad," I said, my voice steady, flat, and absolute. "She ruined it over eleven years of believing that cruelty had no consequences. Tell Denise to start packing."
Thomas froze. "What?"
"Tell Denise to pack her bags," I repeated. "Because by next Friday, you won't have a house to invite me to anyway."
I slipped into the backseat. Ortiz shut the door with a solid, heavy thud.
May you like
As the car pulled away from the curb and merged onto the parkway, I looked through the tinted glass. Thomas was still standing in the drop-off lane, his hands hanging by his sides, his figure growing smaller and smaller until the gray morning swallowed him whole.
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