The next few days passed in a blur of packing, crying, and saying goodbye to places and people I'd only started getting used to.

I didn't ask South if he'd known about my dad's forced retirement, and he didn't say. Guilt bubbled alongside the resentment that was forming over it. There were things I hadn't told him about that night at Castle Hill Inn or about the mysterious Jack Dougherty.

The night before Spencer's Charity Art Gala, I decided to stay home and spend time with my family. After my mom and dad helped me pack my car, we sat together on the couch and watched movies until mom and I fell asleep.

But, at two in the morning, something had woken me. I pulled a blanket over my mom's shoulders and got up as quietly as I could, walking towards a kitchen window that faced our busy downtown street.

I hadn't spent enough time here to explore each park and beach or have a favorite go-to restaurant. I wouldn't see the Newport Yacht Club's Sailing Regatta or the much anticipated Jazz Festival.

We wouldn't be in town when West debuted as Lumiére in Beauty and the Beast.

I stretched and looked back at my sleeping mother, who I'd always been so close with. More importantly, I wouldn't be home for my parents, who were going through something I couldn't even comprehend: the end of my father's career.

While we'd flexed around dad's naval career—changing schools and friends—he'd always had the reliability of a uniform.

This retirement had rocked him to the core. I'd never seen my dad so down—not since the day of Lydie's funeral. He wasn't sleeping on the couch, and I suspected I knew where to find him—sitting on the back porch, smoking a cigar and drinking warm whiskey.

The smell of tobacco smoke hung heavy in the night air, and it made me nostalgic for a time in my life I knew I'd never get back. A time when I believed my parents could do anything or solve any problem I had with a smile and a hug and a bowl of ice cream.

But life wasn't that easy. And I couldn't fix what had happened to my dad with a hug.

"Hey, Millie," dad said. The laugh lines around his eyes and mouth pulling tight. This time, I didn't correct his use of the old nickname. I welcomed it after my earth-shattering week. "How's my little girl doing?"

I sat down beside him on the settee. My shoulder pressing against his. "Just tired."

Sadness hung in the air right along with bluish smoke. No one prepares you for seeing your dad at the brink of tears, but here I was, sitting beside a fifty-seven-year-old man with glassy eyes.

What hurt the most was knowing this was all my fault.

"You still planning on driving down to Virginia on Sunday?" dad asked. Leaning back and easing his arm around the back of the small outdoor couch.

I set my hands on my knees to keep them from shaking. "That's the plan." South and I signed Rocky's adoption papers yesterday, and everything was set.

"My little girl is in love with a SEAL and leaving her old man."

"Dad, stop." I crossed my legs before grabbing his glass of whiskey and taking a sip.

"I blame myself for asking you to work with him."

His tone held none of his usual playfulness, and I had the impression he really did blame himself for me leaving—which wasn't true at all.

My dad took a long pull from his cigar and blew out a cloud of smoke. "You know, last time we were stationed here, I thought it was going to be for three years. Your mom and I planned on putting down some roots." He looked over at me. "Remember that little house we'd bought up in Portsmouth?"

I leaned my cheek against his shoulder, thinking back on the room I'd shared with Lydie and the pretty stained glass window above our dresser.

My parents had opted for a small house so they could afford the inordinately expensive tuition at St. Francis.

"I loved that house."

"Me too," dad admitted. "I loved seeing how close you girls were. Sharing clothes and staying up late gossiping about boys."

I flushed as red as the cherry tip of his cigar. "You heard us?"

"Those walls were thin as paper, Millie."

We shared a laugh that left me longing for the simplicity of the past and the life we could've had here.

My dad's demeanor shifted, the lingering smile pressed onto his face faltering.

"There's something I want to tell you, Millie."

I waited while he took the glass back and took another sip. "I know you're all in on being with South, and I'm not trying to tell you what to do. But, you should know that family is... complicated."

Complicated was an understatement. But, I was curious why my dad thought so.

"Complicated how?" I asked.

Dad stared into the nearly empty glass of warm whiskey.

"The last time we were here, back when you girls were younger, I caught Les Tenney misusing his government travel card."

Shocking, I thought grimly.

"I was the auditing officer, all young and naive, and I noticed he was using it to buy things he shouldn't. Unauthorized hotel rooms and meals over five hundred dollars. Things like that. I warned him that it looked suspicious and that it could get him in trouble."

"What did he say?"

My dad took another pull from the cigar. "Funny thing. He actually thanked me. Told me he had no idea he was using the wrong card. Government credit cards were a new thing back then, so I believed him. He asked me to sweep it under the rug, and so I did. Because I didn't want to make waves. Les was big brass, and I was a newbie."

I shook my head. Les Tenney had been slimy from the start.

But my dad wasn't done with his story, his voice dropping low. "Then I saw him doing something that I shouldn't have seen. After a party downtown. And I kept that a secret too. In return, I got a glowing fitness report and was shipped off to Georgia with a fancy new promotion."

He'd bribed my dad into silence with a promotion, then kicked him out of town?

"What did you see, dad?"

My dad turned towards me. Looking as remorseful as I'd ever seen him. "I saw him mistreating a young woman. Him and another man I didn't know. Not a military guy. They—well, let's just say I should have called the police."

I felt the press of tears in my throat, followed by the sting of heat in my eyes. My dad, the man I looked up to and thought could fix anything, had watched Les Tenney assaulting a woman? When he had two little girls at home?

The whiskey in my stomach burned up my throat.

"I've never told anyone about that night. Not even your mother."

A tear rolled down his cheek, and he quickly pushed it away. "Do you think I'm a horrible person, Millie? Do you think less of me for being such a coward?"

Everything made so much sense now. Why my dad had been so nervous of upsetting Admiral Tenney and why he was ready to let South take over planning the regatta.

Did I think less of my dad?

"Even though I'd caught him doing something wrong, I still felt loyal to him and guilty for receiving a promotion out of it. The power he holds is intimidating. I mean—look what happened at the Pentagon. Les claimed he had nothing to do with it, but I think he did."

I chewed that over, staring up at a starry night sky. There were so many unanswered questions. So many pieces of information here that seemed unrelated, but that all fit together somehow—I just wasn't seeing it. 

I gave my dad a meaningful look. "You know, when we were little, you used to tell me and Lydie that we would get in less trouble if we admitted we did something wrong than if we tried to hide it from you."

A flat smile spread across my father's face. "Your right. I did."

"Maybe you should stop hiding from what happened all those years ago," I said, "and tell the truth."

My dad shook his head. "I don't know."

"What's the worst that could happen? They kick you out?"

"Too late," my dad replied, slamming back the last of the whiskey.

I slowly found my feet, staring down at the bandage still covering the stitches on my right hand. Maybe I could lead by example. With some small amount of reservation. I pulled up the hem of my shirt, revealing the tattoo I'd been hiding from my parents.

When I looked into my dad's eyes, I saw tears had spilled over the edge, and his hand was covering his mouth. "I got it for Lydie. She always told me to be brave and do the things in life that scared me."

I waited for the disappointed look. Or the lecture about tattoos lasting forever, and what if I hate it when I'm thirty, but that didn't come.

"Millie," my dad choked out through tears, "that's beautiful."

"You don't hate it?"

My dad snuffed out his cigar and rose from the bench. "No, baby, I don't hate it at all. I'm so damn proud of the woman you've become."

I dropped the hem of my shirt and hugged my dad like it was the last thing I'd ever do, like I was leaving his house for the last time. I wasn't sure I was ready to be the bold girl Lydie was or that I'd ever live up to her memory the way I'd been trying, but I knew I was on the way to being Millie. The real me.

And the real me wasn't going to let Admiral Tenney slither off while my dad lost his job, and West lived in fear, and everyone else around him thought he was untouchable.

I kissed my dad's cheek, told him I loved him, then left him on the outdoor couch while I went to my room and closed the door.

I might not be a private detective, but I knew how cop shows worked. Once you had a bunch of facts that didn't seem to go together, you wrote it all down on a whiteboard with your detective friends, and you figured it out.

I didn't have a whiteboard—but I had one friend who might be able to help me piece together the clues. A friend with insight into Admiral Tenney's world and what he'd been up to.

Connor Fitzpatrick.

I got out an old notebook, a pencil, and my cell phone. It was well past two in the morning, and I had my doubts he would answer, but after four rings, a groggy "Hey" came from the other line, followed by, "Do you know what time it is?"

A/N

The plot thickens!!! I can't believe we are about 4 chapters out from the ending!

NGL, Camilla hugging her dad was the first time I've cried while writing this book. 💔😭

xx
AJ