Letters To My Soldier

Letter Twenty Five

July 2019

"He's deceiving you, Priscilla! He's probably not even in the Marines. You want him in your life? Well then you don't have me!" he yells from across the room.

"You'd kick out your own daughter?" I yell back.

Dean's eyes darken as he says, "You are no daughter of mine."

Literally gasping from the shock of his horrible words, I run upstairs and slam the door to my room.

My bags are already packed.

I'm off to Virginia to start my new life.

~X~X~X~X~X~

But I don't make it past the front door.

I walk down the stairs to see Dean's shocked face, as if he didn't really think I'd go through with it.

"Priscilla, just hold on a minute," he says while moving to stand in front of the door.

"Why? You told me to leave, so I'm leaving."

He looks at me contritely and shakes his head, "I swear to you I didn't mean that."

I start to feel my anger lessen a bit as he looks at me.

"But I still believe he's being dishonest," and when I move to open the door, he grabs my wrist lightly, "Please just listen to me Priscilla."

"What more can you accuse him of?" I demand and watch as Dean slowly backs away from the door and opens the small drawer in the table next to it.

"It wasn't only because I found you to together that day," he says frowning at me.

Confused, I let him continue.

"That day, Heath and I went to the post office," he starts and I remember that day clearly, "He was looking through his mail and I remember him acting strangely. He must have gotten something interesting because he didn't talk at all on the way back to the house and kept whatever mail he had close to himself."

"When your mother and I came home, I went to the guest room thinking you two might be watching movies in there again but instead found...something interesting," he says, his frown deepening as he holds up an envelope in his hand.

"What is that?" I ask warily.

He sighs and looks down, "After studying law for years...I know a conman when I see one."

"What-"

"It's his bank records," he hands me the envelope, "there's sporadic deposits of large amounts of money in every year, even when he was supposedly on deployments."

"You think he's conning me for money?" I ask tightly, hoisting my suitcase back upright.

Dean nods, "Yes. It looks like many cases I've seen before. The evidence is all there, in the records and his behavior those last few days."

I'm silent as I scan the paper, not really comprehending what I'm reading.

"He also left this," Dean pulls out another envelope, "I didn't read it, but I just wanted you to know why I reacted the way I did."

I take the envelope with shaky hands and stuff it into my jacket pocket.

"I don't want you to get hurt by...whoever that man is."

I look down at the floor and says, "I appreciate your concern for me," I look up at him, "But I know Heath, and I know that all of what you told me is just speculation."