My Estranged Cousin Tried to Evict Me From the Normandy Base Wash Station—Until I Pinned Him to the Concrete Floor
The aftermath of the explosion was chaos, but a different kind of chaos than the one Douglas had manufactured. With the washhouse ruined, the base scrambled to re-establish essential services.
Amidst this, Douglas’s public confession rippled through the ranks.
Adjuster Walter Prynne, looking even more pale and twitchy than usual, found me by the temporary water pump the next afternoon. Captain Garrick had vanished, undoubtedly fearing an investigation into the collapse might expose his black-market activities.
“Ms. Croft,” Prynne stammered, wringing his hands. “About those… those scrap reports.”
He pulled a fresh set of forms from his satchel, noticeably different from the ones he’d shown me earlier. “There seems to have been… a clerical error. A misidentification of inventory.”
He handed them over. The six 2.5-ton truck axles, previously marked “CRACKED,” were now listed as “VERIFIED. TRANSFER TO SUPPLY DEPOT B.” The negligence claims were gone.
“Douglas made a full confession,” I stated, my eyes fixed on Prynne. “He admitted hiding Garrick’s thefts.”
Prynne gulped, his gaze darting around. “Yes, well. A regrettable misunderstanding. The records have been corrected. No need for further… investigation. Or a formal audit, I’m sure.”
He quickly shuffled off, clearly eager to disappear before Master Sergeant Finch could catch him. Prynne had withdrawn his fraudulent scrap reports, silently covering his tracks and avoiding the official scrutiny that would have exposed his complicity.
Later that evening, Silas Finch found me, a quiet smile on his face. “Prynne’s logs are clean, Nora. No charges against Douglas have been filed. Not formally, anyway.”
He held out a laminated card. It was my original civilian contractor pass, crisp and pristine. The temporary one Douglas had torn, now replaced.
“Unrestricted access,” Silas said, pointing to the stamp. “To all facilities. Effective immediately.”
Douglas walked up then, his shoulder bandaged but his eyes clearer than I’d ever seen them. He took the pass from Silas and held it out to me. His hand was steady this time.
“I was… ashamed,” Douglas admitted, his voice quiet. “Ashamed that an old woman, my cousin, could fix something I couldn’t. Could be stronger than me. I let my father’s bitterness poison me.”
I took the pass. The plastic felt cool and solid in my palm. The line that had been unwound was not just the records, but the years of twisted animosity.
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