The cruelty of it was almost impossible to comprehend.
Someone had kept those letters from reaching me.
The letters of a little girl who missed her big sister.
Caitlyn covered her face.
“All those years, I thought you didn’t love me.”
I pulled her into my arms.
“Little bird, I never stopped.”
She cried against my shoulder.
“I was so angry with you.”
“I know.”
“I hated you for not coming to my graduation.”
I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t know you wanted me there.”
She pulled back.
“I wanted you at everything.”
Those words hurt more than any battlefield wound.
Because I could never get those moments back.
Not the graduation.
Not the birthdays.
Not the first heartbreak.
Not the nights when she needed an older sister and had been told that sister didn’t care.
I held her hand.
“We can’t change those years,” I whispered. “But we can decide what happens now.”
She nodded through tears.
“Promise?”
I smiled sadly.
“Promise.”
Then Caitlyn reached into her purse.
“I found something this morning.”
She handed me a photograph.
It showed us as children, sitting on the dock at Grandma’s cottage.
I was holding a fishing rod.
Caitlyn was missing her front teeth.
We were both laughing.
On the back, she’d written a message in childish handwriting.
My sister is my hero.
I stared until the words blurred.
Caitlyn touched my arm.
“Erin, I need to tell you something.”
I looked up.
She was suddenly serious.
“Two weeks before my ceremony, Victor asked me a question.”
“What question?”
“He wanted to know whether I could get him information about a naval technology project.”
My pulse quickened.
“What project?”
She looked frightened.
“I told him I didn’t know anything about it.”
“Did he name it?”
“Yes.”
I waited.
Caitlyn swallowed.
“Project Lighthouse.”
My stomach dropped.
Lighthouse.
The painting behind my grandmother in the photograph.
The old cottage.
My grandfather’s hidden recording.
And now a naval technology project using the same name.
It could be coincidence.
But after everything that had happened, I didn’t believe in easy coincidences.
I took out my phone and called Admiral Hayes.
“Sir, I think we need to review what Victor was really trying to obtain.”
Hayes was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “Commander, where are you?”
“Outside the chapel.”
“Stay there. I’m sending someone to bring you to the briefing room.”
“Why?”
His answer made the hairs rise on my arms.
“Because twenty minutes ago, investigators discovered that Victor Sloane’s company has been attempting to compromise a major naval communications program.”
I gripped the phone.
“And the program’s internal nickname,” Hayes continued, “is Lighthouse.”
