Chương 9
Chloe pressed both hands over her mouth.
Thomas said, “Daniel does not need money.”
Sarah looked at him. “Everyone needs money. The question is why that much.”
Mercer’s personnel records showed no obvious financial distress. His mortgage was modest. His pension would be substantial. His wife had died seven years earlier after a long illness, but the medical debts were settled. He had no children.
Priya requested a deeper review.
At 7:10, local police took Marcus into custody on the Thanksgiving assault charge after Sarah formally provided a statement. Wells protested the timing but advised Marcus to surrender.
Marcus asked to speak with Chloe before processing.
She refused.
Then she changed her mind.
Sarah watched through glass as Chloe entered an interview room with Priya seated nearby. Marcus had been given clean clothes from a twenty-four-hour store: gray sweatpants, a black sweatshirt, cheap sneakers. He looked like a man interrupted on the way to take out the trash.
Chloe sat across from him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Marcus said, “You took the box.”
Chloe’s face went still.
Priya leaned forward. “How did you know?”
Marcus looked toward the observation glass, though he could not see through it. “Because it’s gone.”
“What is it?” Chloe asked.
“Insurance.”
“Against whom?”
Marcus rubbed both hands over his face. “This isn’t what you think.”
“That sentence should be illegal.”
“I was trying to protect us.”
“From Sarah?”
“From Mercer.”
Chloe laughed once. “You were paying him.”
“He was paying me.”
“We know.”
Marcus looked up sharply.
Chloe’s eyes filled, but her voice stayed level. “Eight hundred and forty thousand dollars.”
“Most of that wasn’t mine.”
“You remodeled our kitchen with some of it.”
“I was going to replace it.”
“With what?”
He looked away.
“Tell me one true thing,” Chloe said.
“I love you.”
She flinched as if he had reached across the table.
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the truest thing I have.”
“Then we’re in worse trouble than I thought.”
Marcus bent forward, forearms on his knees. “Mercer approached me two years ago. He said Sarah’s unit was running an internal assessment. He knew I had defense clients. He wanted to test what people would reveal through informal relationships.”
“Why would you believe that?”
“Because he was a colonel. Because he knew Sarah. Because he knew things about the family no outsider could know.”
Sarah felt cold despite the room.
Marcus continued. “At first he asked for public schedules. Conferences, receptions, travel. He paid through consulting contracts because he said the government couldn’t acknowledge the work.”
Priya asked, “Did you sign an agreement?”
“No.”
“Did you verify the assignment?”
“He said verification would compromise it.”
“You accepted secret payments from an Army colonel and never confirmed the work.”
Marcus’s face tightened. “I knew how it sounded.”
“You knew how the money spent.”
He looked at Chloe. “The firm was failing.”
“You told me it had its best year.”
“I was trying to keep you from worrying.”
“You borrowed against the house.”
“I was going to fix it.”
“When?”
“I had a deal coming.”
“What deal?”
He hesitated.
Chloe stood.
“Sit down,” he said.
She turned toward the door.
“Chloe, please. Mercer changed the arrangement last spring. He started asking for Sarah’s visits, her routines, which car she drove. I told him no.”
“The photographs say otherwise.”
“I didn’t take those. Someone sent them to me.”
“Why keep them?”
“Because I finally understood I wasn’t working for an internal test.”
“And you went to the police?”
Marcus stared at the table.
“You went to Sarah?”
His silence deepened.
“You told me?”
“I was afraid.”
Chloe’s voice broke on the next words. “So was I, every time the bank called. Every time you came home at two in the morning. Every time you said I was imagining things.”
“I was trying to get us out.”
“With more lies?”
“He had everything. The payments. The fake reports. Recordings of me asking clients questions. He said if I stopped, he would make it look like I had sold information knowingly.”
“Maybe you did.”
“I didn’t know at first.”
“At first.”
Marcus looked toward Priya. “I never gave him a classified document.”
“That is not the only kind of damage,” Priya said.
“I gave locations that were already discussed socially. Hotels. Restaurants. Meeting spaces.”
“Tomorrow’s Vanguard briefing was not discussed socially.”
“I didn’t know the location.”
“But you were expected to find it.”
Marcus swallowed. “He told me Sarah would have it.”
Chloe lowered herself into the chair again.
“How were you supposed to get it?” she asked.
“He said she’d bring a government phone or notebook.”
“She came to dinner with nothing.”
“He told me to provoke her.”
Sarah stared through the glass.
Marcus continued, barely above a whisper. “He said when Sarah gets angry, she stops protecting the edges. She reaches for whatever matters.”
The torn collar felt tight against Sarah’s throat.
Chloe looked toward the observation glass now.
Marcus said, “I thought if I humiliated her, she might pull out her phone. Or leave the table. I was supposed to see where she went, what she checked.”
“You grabbed her.”
“I was drunk.”
“You chose to drink.”
“I know.”
“You called her a clerk.”
“He told me to.”
“Did he tell you to call her a failure? Did he tell you to talk about the waitress she defended? Did he tell you to say she liked war because nobody there expected her to be human?”
Marcus’s face collapsed inward.
“No.”
“Those were yours.”
“Yes.”
Chloe nodded slowly, as if confirming a figure on a bill.
Priya said, “Why was the incoming message sent before you had information?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is the woman in the photograph?”
Marcus looked up.
Priya placed a copy on the table.
His reaction was immediate and involuntary. He leaned back.
“Her name is Anna Rook.”
“Real name?”
“I don’t know.”
May you like
“What does she do?”
“She handled the payments and communications after Mercer stopped meeting me directly.”
