A staff member approached Marisol before she could move away. The woman pointed toward a row of tables beside the windows, where family members sat beneath framed photographs of the dead.
"Spouses sit by the windows, ma'am."
"I'm not a spouse."
"Guest of somebody, then?"
"Sergeant Major Boone."
Hollister overheard the exchange and stepped nearer. His laugh was loud enough to attract attention from the reporter filming footage for his campaign. Across the room, the elderly man in the faded Dustoff cap watched without intervening, as if measuring the kind of trouble that was beginning.
"Boone's hiring cooks now?"
Hollister extended a hand he clearly expected her to take. When she left hers at her side, he turned the gesture into an introduction for everyone around him.
"Let me welcome her properly. Brock Hollister, candidate for Chatham County Sheriff. And you are?"
"Marisol."
He waited, then looked pointedly toward her bare lapel. There were former soldiers in the room who wore no decorations because they had never cared for such things, but Hollister acted as if the absence of metal were proof of absence from the war. His campaign aide, Rick, angled his phone toward them.
"Just Marisol? No unit patch, no ribbons. Where did you serve, ma'am?"
"Aviation, a long time ago."
Hollister let a beat pass before turning to his friends. It was the pause of a practiced entertainer, giving his audience time to anticipate the joke. Marisol had seen men like him humiliate nervous younger soldiers for amusement, and she knew that anger would only give him more material.
"A long time ago. Aviation! She means the snack cart, boys."
A handful of men laughed. One did not: a lean veteran with an injured leg, Tyler Reeves, who sat gripping the edge of a chair. Claire Mercer, seated beside Hollister, put her hand on his sleeve with the weary familiarity of someone who had spent years smoothing over his sharper words.
"Stop it, Brock. Stop it, Brock."
Marisol studied Hollister's face. It was older now, the features softened by years of public ceremonies, but there was no mistaking the man whose silhouette she had seen running away from the ravine. She forced her voice to remain level as she asked the question that had brought her across the state.
"Staff Sergeant, what color was the smoke that day?"
"Red. Every man there remembers red. Every man."
He said it almost angrily. The precision of his response, so immediate and so rehearsed, told her something the records alone could not: he still needed the color to be red because too many other parts of his story depended on it. Marisol gave him a small nod.
"Thank you."
His smile hardened. Around them, a few people shifted uneasily; others looked away, unwilling to question the celebrated veteran at his own reunion. Hollister stepped closer until she could smell his cologne.
"Ma'am, I don't know why you're here. Today is for men who bled."
"I know exactly who bled."
A young event organizer hurried between them with a clipboard, rescuing the room from a silence nobody knew how to break.
"Mr. Hollister, we're set for the plaque unveiling at 2:30."
"Right on time."
Hollister adjusted the ribbon on his chest and turned away as though he had won. Rick indicated the far corner of the room with a dismissive motion, repeating the table number rather than speaking her name.