Chapter 7 - MRS. BENNETT'S LIE
Michael's mother, June, had died twelve years earlier.
She had spent thirty years insisting Thomas returned traumatized and changed.
She had explained the scar.
The nightmares.
The missing memories.
The different handwriting.
Michael had believed trauma could change a man that much.
Walter asked for photographs.
Michael brought boxes.
The first image from after Thomas returned made Walter sit down.
The man looked like Thomas.
Very much like him.
Same height.
Similar nose.
Same hairline.
But Walter saw differences.
The ears.
The hands.
The way he stood.
"That's not Tommy."
Michael's anger returned.
"You don't get to erase my father."
"I'm not."
"That man raised me."
Walter looked at him.
"Then he's your father in every way that mattered to a five-year-old boy."
Michael was not ready to hear that.
Daniel was.
He asked:
"Who is he?"
Walter studied the photograph.
Then covered the man's hair with his thumb.
The jaw became familiar.
Robert Voss.
Older-looking.
Scarred.
But Voss.
Michael laughed in disbelief.
"You're saying your dead captain came home pretending to be my dead father?"
Walter replied:
"I'm saying the man in this picture is Robert Voss."
Michael threw the box across the room.
Photographs scattered.
One slid beneath the couch.
Daniel retrieved it.
On the back, June Bennett had written:
ROBERT, MICHAEL, CHRISTMAS 1983.
Nobody spoke.
June had not accidentally written Thomas.
She had written Robert.
Michael sat down.
"She knew."
Walter looked at the photograph.
"At least by Christmas."
Then they heard glass break upstairs.
Daniel drew his weapon.
A bedroom window stood open.
Someone had entered the house while they were downstairs.
Nothing obvious was missing.
Until Michael checked the cassette player.
May you like
The tape was gone.
