Meant for Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

and he was waiting for me at the kitchen table.”
    The sound of their footsteps through the snow and a blowing wind were the only noises between them. They crossed the last of the field between the house and the barn. Julie lifted the cold metal latch and opened the door, lighting her flashlight for the darkness within.
    She led the way as Hank followed closely behind her. At the far end of the barn, she opened a small door and revealed an organized workshop. A red generator had been pulled into the middle of the floor.
    “Here it is.”
    Hank crouched down in front of the machine and extended his hand for the flashlight. She gave it to him and watched as he oriented himself to the older generator.
    “The fuel lines are intact. Electrical looks good so far.”
    “Yeah. I couldn’t get a response from the starter.”
    She did say she had already tried to fix it. He would do well not to underestimate this one. He moved on to examine the starter. “What did you and your dad talk about that day?” he asked.
    Julie leaned back against the wall. “He told me what was coming,” she said quietly. “The accusations. The charges of treason.” Julie took a trembling breath. “He told me he was leaving.”
    The picture of Julie surrounded by reporters flashed in his mind and Hank felt a surge of adrenaline, as if her father were here and he could beat some sense into the man who was willing to abandon his daughter to save his own skin. Didn’t he know what that would do to her?
    “He told me who set him up.”
    Hank looked at her in surprise. Nowhere in the file was there mention of any kind of conspiracy.
    A part of him clutched at the idea, wishing there was a way for this woman to be clean of her father’s sins, but the experienced investigator knew better. McDowell was a father who didn’t want his daughter to believe he’d done something terrible.
    “His commanding officer gave him messages to decode, just like always. He told him they were from Uzkapostan, but in reality they were coded messages from our own Navy. The content of the messages were things like coordinates and location names, dates, that sort of thing. Nothing that let my father know they were really our own intel.”
    Julie stared into the distance. “Until the Dermody went down. My father realized that the coordinates of the ship when it was sunk were identical to the coordinates he had decoded the day before.”
    “What did he do?”
    “He escaped.” Her features were oddly blank as she continued. “He went to the bank and emptied his accounts, then he came home to talk to me. He told me he would call Barstow and confront him once he was safe…”
    “Barstow?”
    “Yes, Captain Thomas Barstow. Do you know him? He was my father’s commanding officer.”
    If Hank had been standing, he might have fallen over. He heard himself answer in a monotone voice that sounded like a stranger’s. “He’s an admiral now.”
    “An admiral ?” Her hands were clenched at her sides. “That man should be the one laying in the morgue right now. Not my father. Barstow is the traitor.”
    Hank watched her fury, saw her chest rise and fall. Hank was a man who trusted his own gut, and his instincts were telling him that Julie Trueblood was telling him the God’s honest truth.
    “Why did he run?” he asked. “Why not defend himself?”
    “My father was born in Uzkapostan. He still has family there.”
    People had been convicted of espionage on less.
    If Julie was correct and the admiral was responsible, it would have been damn near impossible to prove it. Hank turned back to the generator. He needed to think.
    “Do you believe me?” she asked.
    Hank’s hands stilled, but he didn’t answer, unsure of what to say.  He would have been a lot more comfortable if she hadn’t asked the question.  His hand fiddled with the starter, and he saw her turn and walk out of the workshop from the corner of his eye. He looked up, staring after her and rubbing his