Chapter 6
The security guards looked uncertainly between Mr. Davis and Mrs. Vance, their hands lingering awkwardly on Arthur's olive-green jacket without applying any real pressure. Eleanor took a slow step backward, her pearl necklace clicking softly against the lapel of her white blazer as she clutched the burned photograph against her chest like a shield. Her mind raced back through decades of family dinners, quiet anniversaries, and the carefully curated life she had built with Marcus Davis, a man who had climbed the corporate ladder in her father's firm with a ruthless ambition that she had once mistaken for brilliance. Now, looking at the charred edges of the paper and the undeniable features of the man standing before her, the foundation of her entire adult existence began to tilt. "Marcus," she said again, her voice terrifyingly calm in its intensity. "Where did you get this photograph?" Davis swallowed hard, his throat working convulsively as he tried to adjust his purple silk tie with trembling fingers. "I... I found it, Eleanor. Years ago, when we were clearing out the old storage unit at the regional office. It was in a box of old administrative files from the seventies. It's nothing, just random war surplus garbage." Arthur let out another harsh, dry laugh, leaning his weight against a structural marble pillar to keep from slumping back to the floor. "A box of files," the veteran repeated, the sarcasm dripping thick from his weathered lips. "Is that what they're calling a burning base camp these days, Davis? A file cabinet?" Eleanor turned her gaze back to the veteran, her eyes searching his face for any sign of a con artist's trick, but finding only the quiet, crushing weight of reality. She remembered the official telegram her family had received in the spring of 1972—the one stating that Sergeant Arthur Vance had been missing in action, presumed dead after an overrun firebase near the Cambodian border. There had been no body, no personal effects returned, just a folded flag and a pension check that stopped coming after three years. Marcus had joined the company as a low-level clerk shortly after her father passed away, working his way into her confidence, her home, and ultimately the executive board with a smooth, relentless charm that now looked less like devotion and more like an ongoing insurance policy.
