Chapter 3
Mom looked at her plate.
Jason suddenly became fascinated by his beer.
Tyler smirked.
And I felt something I hadn’t expected.
Not anger.
Exhaustion.
Sixteen years.
Sixteen years of classified briefings, emergency calls, midnight assessments, names I could never repeat, photographs I wished I could forget, and decisions that followed me home even when the documents couldn’t.
Sixteen years of sitting at this table and being treated like the family secretary with a security clearance.
I folded my napkin.
“Okay.”
Frank blinked.
“Okay?”
“You gentlemen handle it.”
Tyler laughed.
Then Frank’s phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
Then again.
“Somebody wants you,” Jason said.
Frank pulled the phone from his pocket.
He adjusted his glasses.
I reached for the cranberry sauce.
Then Frank stopped moving.
Completely.
His eyes narrowed at the screen.
He read something again.
Then slowly looked up.
At me.
I noticed immediately.
So did Mom.
“What?” she asked.
Frank didn’t answer.
His eyes went back to his phone.
Then to me again.
“Tanya.”
I set down the serving spoon.
“Yes?”
His voice had changed.
“Do you know Colonel Matthew Reeves?”
My stomach tightened.
Of all the names he could have said.
“Yes.”
Frank stared at me.
“How?”
I gave him the only answer I could.
“Professionally.”
Nobody at the table understood why that mattered.
Frank did.
Matthew Reeves had served under him years earlier.
A captain then.
Colonel now.
Frank looked at his phone again.
“What did he say?” Tyler asked.
Frank ignored him.
“Tanya, what exactly do you do?”
Mom laughed nervously.
“She works in intelligence, Frank. You know that.”
He looked at her.
“No.”
Then back at me.
“I don’t think we do.”
I said nothing.
Frank turned his phone facedown.
His expression had gone pale.
Jason leaned forward.
“Okay, now you have to tell us.”
Frank hesitated.
Then looked at me.
“Can I?”
That was new.
Permission.
I shrugged.
“If it doesn’t contain anything sensitive.”
He picked up his phone.
“Reeves sent a Thanksgiving message to a group of us from the old battalion.”
He swallowed.
“He mentioned that he’d just come out of a briefing.”
My pulse slowed.
I knew exactly which briefing.
Frank continued.
“He said someone brought up how much intelligence work has changed since our generation.”
His eyes stayed on me.
“And he wrote…”
He paused.
Then read.
“‘If you old dinosaurs ever want to understand modern operational intelligence, listen to Tanya Granger. Half the people making decisions you read about in the newspaper have probably seen her assessments without knowing her name.’”