“Because complaints disappear.”
“Which complaints?”
Dean pointed to the notebook.
“Some names have marks next to them.”
Evelyn opened it again.
Small triangles appeared beside six names, including Andrew’s.
“What do those mean?”
“They reported.”
Her throat tightened.
“What happened to them?”
“Transfers. Bad evaluations. Extra duties. People saying they couldn’t handle pressure.”
Evelyn looked at her son’s name.
Andrew Hart.
Triangle.
She remembered his final year in uniform with painful clarity now. The sudden poor evaluation after years of strong reports. The request to transfer that had been denied. The silence at family dinners. The day he told her he was resigning.
She had asked if he was giving up because the Army had become too difficult.
He had looked at her for a long time and said, “Maybe I finally figured out what I’m willing to become.”
She had taken it as bitterness.
Now she understood it might have been an answer.
“How did Andrew get this notebook?”
Dean swallowed. “He started it when he was here. Other people added names after he left.”
“Who kept it?”
“Different people. Never the same place long.”
“And three days ago he gave it to you?”
Dean nodded. “I contacted a former sergeant after Doyle brought one of my friends in here. The sergeant connected me to Captain Hart. Your son said if they were using the room again, somebody needed to get the list outside the chain.”
“Why you?”
“Because I said I would carry it.”
Evelyn closed her eyes for one second.
Her son had trusted a frightened private with evidence he had never trusted his own mother to hear.
That was not Dean’s failure.
