Colonel Ellison,
You don’t know me. I served with Captain Price. We thought she quit because she couldn’t handle pressure. I repeated that once. I am ashamed. Thank you for making me question the stories people tell when women disappear.
I folded that letter and kept it in my desk.
Alina testified in a closed session first.
I met her afterward in a quiet hallway outside the federal building. She was thinner than in her old photograph, her curls shorter, her eyes older. But she stood straight when she saw me.
“Colonel Ellison,” she said.
“Captain Price.”
Her smile trembled. “Not anymore.”
“Still earned.”
Her eyes filled, but she blinked the tears back. “I watched your speech.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I wasn’t going to answer them. Investigators, I mean. I have a life now. Small, but mine. Then I saw you standing there with no hair and no apology.”
