“Well, I’m asking now. Hank said you were court-martialed.”
“I was.” He shifted in the seat and looked out at the snow building up on the windshield. Coming faster now. The roads really were going to be a mess come Christmas morning. “I gave orders I knew were wrong and got good men killed, then tried to cover it up. All in the name of power. When it all came to light, they court-martialed me and sent me to Leavenworth. I was supposed to be there a lot longer, but my conviction was overturned on a technicality, and I got away with time served. Didn’t make me innocent. Just meant they couldn’t retry me. When I got out, I had nothing. No career, no family, no future. Just anger and a bad conduct discharge.”
He paused. The memory always brought a bitter taste to his mouth. He’d been such a power-hungry tyrant back then, ruthless and cruel. So far from the man he was now that he didn’t recognize himself in the old photos. The man who walked into Leavenworth had been a stranger to the man who walked out six years later.
“So I came back home, but this town treated me like I had the plague. Wouldn’t hire me. Wouldn’t talk to me. Crossed the street when they saw me coming. My wife had already left by then and took our daughter to start a life away from me. Can’t say I blame her. I wasn’t fit to be around anyone, let alone a kid.”
He turned back to Boone. “I let that anger eat me alive for years. Pushed away everyone who tried to help. Told myself the world owed me something for what it took.” His throat tightened. “By the time I figured out I was destroying myself, Stella, my daughter, was a teenager and didn’t know me. Didn’t want to. And I had no one to blame but myself, so I walked into a support group in Missoula, met Johanna, and?—”
He broke off, surprised by the words he’d been about to say:Met Johanna and fell in love.
No, he wasn’t going there with Boone, but he couldn’t leave the thought hanging, so he finished with, “and she helped me. She can help you, too, if you let her.”
More silence.
Boone rubbed his hand back and forth over the leather of the steering wheel. “I thought you were a hero. Mom used to talk about you when I was a kid. Said you were what a real soldier looked like. I wanted to be like you. It’s why I enlisted after high school.”
Walker felt that straight through his ribs. He hadn’t known Leonora Callahan remembered him, let alone spoke about him to her son. “I’m sorry. She was wrong. I was no hero.”
Boone looked away, jaw working.
Shit. He had come out here to give Boone a reason to stay, and instead, he’d just stripped away whatever illusions the kid had left.
But maybe that was necessary.
Maybe Boone needed to see that even broken men could build something worth having.
Walker reached for the folder on his lap, considering his next move carefully. There was a fine line between pushing too hard and not hard enough. Get it wrong, and Boone would be gone before the snow stopped falling.
“We found some things,” he said finally, holding out the folder. “About Crystal.”
Boone went completely still. For a moment, Walker thought he might refuse to take the folder, might kick him out of the truck and drive away with the door still hanging open. But then his hand moved, fingers closing around the edge of the manila paper.
“What is this?” Boone asked, voice suddenly wary.
“Read it.”
Boone hesitated, then flipped the folder open. He squinted at the first page, leaning toward the dim dome light. As he read, his expression changed, incredulity giving way to disbelief, then to something like pain.
“She opened a shelter,” he murmured, more to himself than to Walker. “For women like her.”
“Keep reading.”
Boone turned to the second page, and his hands started to shake. He flipped to the next page, then the next, reading faster now, his breath coming in short bursts.
Walker watched his face, searching for signs of what was happening beneath the surface. The boy had spent so many years hiding behind anger that even now, with evidence of redemption right there in his hands, he seemed unable to fully process it.
“She tried to recant?” His voice broke on the last word. “After the trial?”
Walker nodded. “Too late by then. System doesn’t work that way. But she tried.”
“Why?” There was so much raw disbelief in that one word. “She lied. She stood up in that courtroom and lied about what happened. Said I attacked them for no reason.”
“She was scared. Traumatized.” He paused, letting that sink in. “She’s doing good work now. Helping other women get out before it’s too late. Making something meaningful out of what happened.”
Boone stared down at the papers, his hands still trembling slightly. “I’m still angry at her,” he admitted. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive her for not telling the truth. She was genuinely scared that night. Yeah, I took it too far, and that’s all on me. I deserved to be punished for not stopping once he was down. But I know if I hadn’t intervened, she would’ve been the one who wound up dead that night. And instead of thanking me, she accused me of cold-blooded murder. She wanted to put me away for life.”
“You’re allowed to be angry, but you don’t have to let it destroy you.” He thought of his own anger, the rage that had consumed him after his court-martial, after prison. How it had eaten through everything good he had left until there was nothing but bitterness and an empty house. “Anger nearly destroyed me, Boone. I won’t watch it destroy you, too.”
