“Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, Mack,” Jenna cut in. “It’s a sign of someone strong enough to know when she needs a helping hand. We’ll start with this.” She released her grasp on my hand and reached into her purse, pulling out a card.

“What is this?” I asked, giving them a cautious look as I surveyed the light blue envelope.

“Just open it!” Brayden shouted, bouncing up and down on his barstool, his lips turned up into a sly smile.

Eyeing my two friends, I slid my thumb beneath the flap of the envelope and pulled out a card. Opening it, my jaw dropped. “Guys…,” I started.

Brayden held his hand up. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“But you have student loans to pay back, boo. And Jenna… This is too much.” I placed the card back on the bar and pushed it toward them.

“No, it’s not,” Jenna countered, pushing it back to me. “You need to take care of that baby, which means you need to take care of you, too. I know it’s tough with the restaurant just starting up. Richard was supporting us on his income alone before we even started the restaurant, so that money is just an extra bonus for us. I wish it could be that way for you, too. So, please, take the check, deposit it, and pay some of those bills sitting on your kitchen table. It won’t cover everything, but at least you’ll be able to buy groceries instead of trying to survive on ramen noodles. I’m tired of tricking you into eating healthy meals by ‘testing’ out new recipes at the restaurant. I’m running out of ideas.”

I stared at the check, speechless. “It’s just too much. You guys work so hard for your money.”

“So do you,” Brayden offered. “Consider it years’ worth of back rent for letting me crash at your place when I was too drunk to drive back to mine.” He winked.

“I’m not going to be able to persuade you otherwise, am I?”

“Not a chance in hell,” Jenna said, crossing her arms in front of her chest, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Fine.” I shoved the card into my purse and raised myself off the barstool, walking between them and hugging them both. “I love you wholes.”

“We love you, too,” Brayden soothed. “We’re in this together, Mack.”

I kissed both their cheeks and slid back into my barstool. Returning my attention to my very boring non-alcoholic drink, I took a sip of the tart cranberry, my eyes catching a news broadcast on the large screen mounted on the wall of the understated bar. Ghosts of my childhood flashed before me and my breath caught. I was unable to make sense of the scene being displayed.

“Can you turn that up, please?” I asked the bartender, my mouth becoming dry.

She finished making a drink and grabbed the remote, raising the volume.

“What is it, Mack?” Jenna asked, her voice heavy with concern.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, my tone even. “But I know that house.” I gestured with my head to the blonde reporter, her hair perfectly coifed, her makeup heavy, standing in front of a large white colonial. Reading the subtitle saying Double Homicide Outside Fort Bragg, I tried to wrap my head around what was going on.

“How do you know that house?” Brayden asked. I could feel his eyes examining me, penetrating my soul, reading all the secrets I could no longer guard.

“I grew up in it,” I muttered, the words leaving my mouth before I could stop them. “Nearly every night, I sat in that tree between the two yards with my best friend, Damian, who lived next door.” I instantly began to regret that I never tried to find him after I disappeared in the middle of the night all those years ago. I was warned not to because it could put my family’s life in jeopardy.

“I thought you grew up in San Antonio,” Jenna interjected. She tilted her head, scrunching her eyebrows.

“No.” I shook my head. “We moved there when I was ten. Before that, my dad was stationed at Fort Bragg.” I had probably already told them too much, but if I couldn’t trust my two best friends with the truth of who I was, who could I trust?

“New orders?” Brayden asked.

“Something like that,” I agreed, straining to listen to the newscast.

“Tragedy struck this tight-knit neighborhood in Fayetteville, North Carolina, just outside of Fort Bragg early this morning. This is a community of servicemen and women where people watch out for each other, but nothing could have prepared them for the horror they woke up to.”

The live broadcast cut to previously shot footage of a medical examiner rolling two gurneys down a driveway I remembered playing hopscotch on, the bodies covered with a sheet, distraught neighbors looking on with sorrow and condolence.

“The decapitated bodies of a married couple in their sixties were found at approximately nine o’clock this morning at the house behind me, which has been vacant for the past several years. A real estate agent stumbled on what is being called a ‘horrific, ritualistic killing’. The victims have been identified as Lucian and Emily Sheperd.”

A photo of a happy couple surrounded by an extended family appeared on the screen and I gasped, my trembling hand covering my mouth. It had been years, but I’d never forget the woman who was like a second mother to me when I was growing up… Damian’s mom. I didn’t recognize the man at her elbow. All I knew was it wasn’t Damian’s father. They must have divorced.

“Emily Sheperd was known as Emily Mills before she married her second husband approximately five years ago. She and her first husband lived in the house next door, but it is unclear whether that has any connection to her and her current husband’s murder. The Sheperds, who lived in Raleigh, were scheduled to return from an anniversary trip to the Outer Banks. According to the preliminary medical examiner’s report, they suffered blunt force trauma to the head, leading to the conclusion they were knocked out elsewhere, then brought here and decapitated in the early hours of the morning, their heads found just feet away from the remainder of their bodies. The family has requested privacy during this difficult time.

“Curiously, this neighborhood isn’t new to the headlines. Over fifteen years ago, Francis Galloway, a highly-decorated colonel, who lived in this same exact house, died during a gruesome and fiery attack on the U.S. Embassy in Liberia, which cost over sixty people their lives.”

A dated photo of my father in his dress uniform flashed on the screen. I could barely recognize him, his face clear of any scars or burns.

“Just hours after the attack, his wife and daughter were reported missing and were never found.”

My fears realized, old photos of both my mother and me appeared on the screen, my mother wearing the jeweled cross I had worn nearly every day until I ran from Tyler, leaving it at his house in Boston.

“There were always suspicions of a connection between the two events, although no suspect was ever brought in for questioning and the case has been left unsolved for the past decade-and-a-half.”

I could feel both Jenna’s and Brayden’s eyes on me as they glanced from the television to me. They had been in my bedroom and had seen the portrait that hung above my vanity, the jeweled cross clear for anyone to see. It was such a unique and remarkable piece. There was no way for me to deny who I was anymore.

“Mack…,” Brayden began before I hushed him, listening to the broadcast once more.

“The police here feared another unsolved case, but were able to lift hair fibers found at the scene. They were identified as belonging to one Charles Patrick Montgomery, who is on the FBI’s Most Wanted list in connection with over a dozen other murders spanning the better part of the past decade.”

A photo of Charlie wearing his Ranger beret appeared on the screen, his blue eyes brilliant as he smiled. That was before the madness ate away at him, before he dug into something he shouldn’t have…if his version of events could be believed.