Follow Erica Sinclair in her most dangerous and challenging adventure.
Website Migration Update
I moved the website to a new host, which I think will be more tolerant of the content this website hosts. Nevertheless, I do want to take a moment to remind everyone that the stories and content posted here MUST follow website rules, as it it not only my policy, but it is the policy of the hosts that permit our website to run on their servers. We WILL continue to enforce the rules, especially critical rules that, if broken, put this sites livelihood in jeapordy.
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JUST A SMALL ANNOUNCEMENT TO REMIND EVERYONE (GUESTS AND REGISTERED USERS ALIKE) THAT THIS FORUM IS BUILT AROUND USER PARTICIPATION AND PUBLIC INTERACTIONS. IF YOU SEE A THREAD YOU LIKE, PARTICIPATE! IF YOU ENJOYED READING A STORY, POST A COMMENT TO LET THE AUTHOR KNOW! TAKING A FEW EXTRA SECONDS TO LET AN AUTHOR KNOW YOU ENJOYED HIS OR HER WORK IS THE BEST WAY TO ENSURE THAT MORE SIMILAR STORIES ARE POSTED. KEEPING THE COMMUNITY ALIVE IS A GROUP EFFORT. LET'S ALL MAKE AN EFFORT TO PARTICIPATE.
Erica Sinclair - The Trek of Tears (M/F)
Erica Sinclair - The Trek of Tears (M/F)
When the US government decides to throw her late father under the bus to seal a political deal with the dictator of an African country, Erica Sinclair is taking up the fight, standing up to protect her father’s honor – even walking the Trek of Tears – deep in the jungles of Africa, because this case is as personal as it gets.
Follow Erica Sinclair in her most dangerous and challenging adventure.
Follow Erica Sinclair in her most dangerous and challenging adventure.
For all Erica Sinclair adventures, please visit my story collection over at Wattpad under:
https://www.wattpad.com/user/JS_writing
https://www.wattpad.com/user/JS_writing
The floor-to-ceiling windows frame the skyline like a painting, the late morning light glinting off Erica Sinclair’s mahogany desk. The office is quiet with only the distant thrum of city traffic below filtering through the thick glass.
While reviewing a deposition, red pen in hand, Claire Messner, her trusted assistant, knocks at Erica’s door.
“Come, please,” Erica says without looking up.
She glances at the Rolex dive watch on her left wrist: 9:55 AM.
Claire slips in, carrying a neat stack of mail.
“Morning delivery,” she says. “Mostly bills, client correspondences, and one suspiciously thin letter from the government.”
This catches Erica’s attention. “Suspicious in what way?”
Claire crosses the room, heels soft against the floor, setting the mail down beside Erica’s laptop.
“It’s from the Department of the Army,” Claire says, a touch more gently now. “Figured I’d flag it.”
Erica’s eyes settled on the envelope. White. Standard. Unimposing.
But the sender - Department of the Army - is printed in precise serif lettering on the upper left corner. No postage meter. No handwritten address. The kind of letter that doesn’t come often. And never without consequence.
Her hand hesitates only for a second before she picks it up.
Claire lingers.
“Anything else?” Erica asks, tone smooth, unreadable, but in those years working for her boss, Claire has learned to look through the façade, the protective walls Erica has erected around herself.
She shakes her head. “No, that’s it.” Then, after a beat: “I’ll be at my desk if you need me.”
Of course, where else would she be, but her gut feeling tells her that this unassuming envelope might carry a significance that would affect her as well.
“Thank you, Claire,” Erica says, taking the letter opener from the top drawer of her mahogany desk, but waiting to open the envelope till the door has whispered close behind Claire.
Only then does she slice the envelope open, sliding out two neatly folded pieces of paper.
One is a formal letter, the other a form sheet.
Scanning the former, she reads:
Subject: Reassignment of Burial Site – Col. Sinclair, NMN, Owen - U.S. Army (Ret., Deceased)
Classification: Administrative Action Notice – Section 24.4(a)
Her breath catches somewhere between her ribs.
Her eyes narrow.
This isn’t good.
She reads the opening paragraph once.
Then again.
Slower.
“Pursuant to recent developments regarding unauthorized operations conducted by Special Missions personnel in 1994 within the sovereign territory of the Republic of Ngabo, and as part of a joint resolution between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ngabo Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of the Army is undertaking a reevaluation of military honors and interment status associated with Colonel Owen Sinclair.”
They are doing…what?
She reads the words again - too polished, too surgical, as if grief doesn’t apply.
Her breath catches like a trap snapping shut between her ribs.
No.
No.
Then her gaze lifts - sharp and clear - out the window toward the skyline of the city that supposedly never sleeps.
And just like that, the stillness of the morning is gone.
~~~
While reviewing a deposition, red pen in hand, Claire Messner, her trusted assistant, knocks at Erica’s door.
“Come, please,” Erica says without looking up.
She glances at the Rolex dive watch on her left wrist: 9:55 AM.
Claire slips in, carrying a neat stack of mail.
“Morning delivery,” she says. “Mostly bills, client correspondences, and one suspiciously thin letter from the government.”
This catches Erica’s attention. “Suspicious in what way?”
Claire crosses the room, heels soft against the floor, setting the mail down beside Erica’s laptop.
“It’s from the Department of the Army,” Claire says, a touch more gently now. “Figured I’d flag it.”
Erica’s eyes settled on the envelope. White. Standard. Unimposing.
But the sender - Department of the Army - is printed in precise serif lettering on the upper left corner. No postage meter. No handwritten address. The kind of letter that doesn’t come often. And never without consequence.
Her hand hesitates only for a second before she picks it up.
Claire lingers.
“Anything else?” Erica asks, tone smooth, unreadable, but in those years working for her boss, Claire has learned to look through the façade, the protective walls Erica has erected around herself.
She shakes her head. “No, that’s it.” Then, after a beat: “I’ll be at my desk if you need me.”
Of course, where else would she be, but her gut feeling tells her that this unassuming envelope might carry a significance that would affect her as well.
“Thank you, Claire,” Erica says, taking the letter opener from the top drawer of her mahogany desk, but waiting to open the envelope till the door has whispered close behind Claire.
Only then does she slice the envelope open, sliding out two neatly folded pieces of paper.
One is a formal letter, the other a form sheet.
Scanning the former, she reads:
Subject: Reassignment of Burial Site – Col. Sinclair, NMN, Owen - U.S. Army (Ret., Deceased)
Classification: Administrative Action Notice – Section 24.4(a)
Her breath catches somewhere between her ribs.
Her eyes narrow.
This isn’t good.
She reads the opening paragraph once.
Then again.
Slower.
“Pursuant to recent developments regarding unauthorized operations conducted by Special Missions personnel in 1994 within the sovereign territory of the Republic of Ngabo, and as part of a joint resolution between the U.S. Department of Defense and the Ngabo Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of the Army is undertaking a reevaluation of military honors and interment status associated with Colonel Owen Sinclair.”
They are doing…what?
She reads the words again - too polished, too surgical, as if grief doesn’t apply.
Her breath catches like a trap snapping shut between her ribs.
No.
No.
Then her gaze lifts - sharp and clear - out the window toward the skyline of the city that supposedly never sleeps.
And just like that, the stillness of the morning is gone.
~~~
For all Erica Sinclair adventures, please visit my story collection over at Wattpad under:
https://www.wattpad.com/user/JS_writing
https://www.wattpad.com/user/JS_writing
To think, it was her father who gave Erica much of her inspiration in life.
But as we've seen here in the U.K. with the Horizon Post Office scandal, governments are NOT beyond throwing decent, honest people 'under the bus' in order to mask THEIR mistakes.
Good, promising start @Jenny_S
But as we've seen here in the U.K. with the Horizon Post Office scandal, governments are NOT beyond throwing decent, honest people 'under the bus' in order to mask THEIR mistakes.
Good, promising start @Jenny_S
Dear @LunaDog, thank you so much. This is, in effect, the first in a miniseries within the Ericaverse where we learn more about her family - and in which Erica discovers a lot about herself. I wish you and all my readers a lot of fun and I hope that you will root for Erica. She needs the support. Really.
For all Erica Sinclair adventures, please visit my story collection over at Wattpad under:
https://www.wattpad.com/user/JS_writing
https://www.wattpad.com/user/JS_writing
I rather suspect that you can put your mind at rest there, @Jenny_S