Boone slid the paper out of the envelope and recognized his mom’s handwriting.
Hi, honey,
Your former teammate, Rabbi, stopped by the ranch a few days ago. He said he was in the area and remembered you talking about how great Wind River Ranch is and how awesome your dad and me are. Thank you for that, by the way. Anyway, he said he just had to see the place for himself.
It was such a nice surprise to meet someone you served with. We had a lovely visit, and while he was here, he took some fun photos with one of those old Polaroid cameras. He asked that we not tell you about his visit because he wanted the photos to be a surprise. He also said to tell you that he thinks of you often. How sweet is that?
I hope you enjoy these photos as much as we did, and we hope to see you soon.
Love you,
Mom and Dad
Boone smiled at the thought of his folks meeting Rabbi. How cool was it that he stopped by their place to meet them.
He reached into the envelope and pulled out the stack of photos, slipped off the rubber band, and started flipping through them.
There was one of his mom’s favorite horse, Mandy; one of his folks together in front of the house; a few more of the barn and the cows in the fields.
He got to the last one and shot up out of his chair.
What the hell?
Boone stared at the photo in disbelief.
It wasn’t Rabbi standing with his parents on their front porch.
It was Aaron Udall, the man he’d sent to prison.
CHAPTER NINE
Lunasetherlaptopon the conference table and waited for the rest of the team to arrive. She’d just been getting ready to start sketching out an idea she had for a new and improved earpiece when Cole texted everyone to report to the conference room ASAP.
The team started filtering in and settled into their usual seats.
“Do you know what this is about?” Calliope asked.
“No idea.” Luna shrugged and powered up her laptop.
A few minutes later, Cole and Boone arrived, and they did not look happy.
Boone was holding a stack of papers when he sat next to her.
Cole took his seat at the end of the table. “Go ahead, Boone.”
“Yesterday, I received an envelope in the mail from my folks. In it was a note from my mom and some Polaroid photos. These are copies of the note and one of the photos.” He held up the papers, then started passing them out to everyone. He gave them all a minute to read the note. “The man standing on the porch with my parents is Aaron Udall.”
“Who is he?” Luna picked up the piece of paper and studied the man in the photo.
“He and I served together. The problem is, he’s supposed to be in prison.” He tapped his finger to his chest. “And I’m the one who put him there.”
They all gave closer attention to the photo.
“Luna, pull up what you can about Udall.” Cole pointed to her laptop.
She opened up a program and began her search. It only took a minute to find what she needed.
“Here it is. Wow, there’s a lot.” She tilted the screen back just a little. “Aaron Thomas Udall, court-martialed under Uniform Military Code of Justice Article 86, absence without leave; Article 92, failure to obey orders or regulations; Article 120, sexual assault; Article 103a, trafficking in persons; and finally, General Article 134 for related offenses not specifically covered elsewhere.” A catch-all charge. How the heck did Boone know a guy like Udall? “He was sentenced to fifteen years to life imprisonment, received a dishonorable discharge, a total forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and his rank was reduced to enlisted grade E-1.” Luna had to take a breath. “If he is ever released, he’ll be registered as a sex offender. One of the witnesses for the trial counsel was”—she turned to the man sitting next to her—“Boone Langston.”
