They told her her father was gone, leaving her to accept a painful loss. But everything changed when eleven Marines walked in, revealing a truth that challenged what she had been led to believe.

I didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

Diane Mercer had a way of making her presence known without raising her voice. She was the head of the school’s parent committee, the kind of woman who organized events down to the smallest detail and expected acknowledgment for it. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, her dress immaculate, her posture perfect in a way that suggested effort rather than ease.

She stopped just beside us, her gaze dropping first to Lily, then to me.

“Oh,” she said, her tone carefully arranged somewhere between surprise and something that pretended to be concern. “I didn’t realize you’d be attending.”

I stood slowly, meeting her eyes. “We got the invitation like everyone else.”