He had loved her with all his heart, but she had betrayed him. Worse, his father was dead, and for years, she had allowed him to wonder what had happened to him, to hope that he might find him someday, that there would be some kind of explanation. Dammit, he had joined the military to find him. To impress him. But his father had been gone. Dead. Buried by the girl he’d loved and trusted more than anyone else in the world. Bile rose to his throat. The earth tilted and grew black, and he gripped the edge of a sycamore to steady himself. For a moment, he wavered between passing out and throwing up. Using the techniques he’d learned in the military to mentally and physically prepare for a mission, he took slow, deep breaths, then wiped sweat from his forehead as the nausea subsided. Sadie’s confession echoed over and over in his head. She had heard the gunshot, seen his father collapse. He wasn’t breathing. They had buried him. So where was his body? Sadie said someone had threatened her.
