Chương 9
That made the danger worse.
“How long?”
“Commander, leave now.”
Emma hung up.
She took the evidence bag, the black folder, her wallet, keys, medication, and Malik’s photograph. She hesitated beside the library books, annoyed by the thought of late fees during a federal investigation, then left them.
Mr. Alvarez was still in the alley.
“Back stairs,” she said.
He saw her face and did not ask.
They crossed through the surf shop below. The owner, a woman named Tessa, was repairing the rail of a longboard. She took one look at Emma and pointed toward the delivery door.
“Take my van.”
“I don’t need—”
“Keys are in it. Gas gauge lies after a quarter tank.”
Emma pressed the folder against her side.
“I may not bring it back tonight.”
“Then I get to tell people the Navy stole my van.”
Mr. Alvarez opened the rear gate.
Emma drove out as two dark sedans turned onto the street from opposite ends.
Neither followed immediately.
One did after three blocks.
The van smelled like resin and wet neoprene. Surf leashes swung from hooks behind the seats. Emma took the freeway south, then exited without signaling and reentered northbound. The sedan missed the turn.
Her hands remained steady on the wheel.
Her breathing did not.
She called Ortiz from the prepaid phone.
“Blue sedan, partial plate seven-kilo-three. Lost it near Birmingham.”
“We have units moving toward you. Where are you going?”
Emma looked at the folder on the passenger seat.
“Not the base.”
“Why?”
“Bell controlled Navy channels.”
“That was five years ago.”
“He attended my father’s foundation meeting last year.”
Ortiz exhaled. “Fair. Pick a public location.”
Emma thought of hospitals, police stations, crowded hotels. All predictable.
Then she thought of Evelyn Park.
The retired surgeon answered on the fourth ring.
“I was about to call again,” Evelyn said.
“I need somewhere private.”
A pause.
“My house. I’ll text the address.”
“No text.”
Evelyn gave it verbally.
The house sat in a quiet neighborhood east of Del Mar, modest compared with the cliff properties near the beach. Evelyn opened the garage before Emma arrived and closed it behind the van.
Inside, the surgeon’s home smelled of sesame oil and laundry detergent. A baseball game played silently on television. Two mugs sat on the coffee table.
“You have company?” Emma asked.
“My husband is upstairs pretending not to listen.”
A man called down, “I’m failing.”
Evelyn handed Emma a fresh button-up shirt. “This belonged to my daughter. She left half her closet when she moved to Seattle.”
Emma changed in the downstairs bathroom. The shirt was green and too broad in the shoulders, but it buttoned.
When she returned, Evelyn had put water on the table and drawn the curtains.
“I saw the video,” she said.
Emma sat.
“How bad?”
“It cuts off when the admiral arrives.”
“Convenient.”
“Another angle includes the salute.”
Emma looked at her.
“It has six million views,” Evelyn said.
The number had no shape.
“People are trying to identify your scars.”
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“There are medical accounts explaining burn patterns. Veterans posting their own photographs. Others say it was staged.”
“Of course.”
“Your sister’s firm issued a statement.”
Emma laughed without humor. “She doesn’t have a phone.”
“Someone does.”
Evelyn handed over a tablet.
The statement described a private family disagreement, denied intentional humiliation, and suggested Emma had arrived at the event seeking confrontation after years of estrangement. It referred to “unverified military claims” and requested privacy for all involved.
Emma read it twice.
“She planned this,” she said.
“The statement?”
“The beach.”
Evelyn sat opposite her. “Why?”
“She needed a public version of my scars before anyone else supplied one. If the admiral had not arrived, the story would be that I hid disfigurement because I was ashamed of what happened during misconduct.”
“That is a very specific plan.”
“Vanessa is specific.”
“Did she know the admiral was coming?”
Emma thought of the intercepted contact requests. The foundation invitation. The insistence that she attend a crowded event filled with military families.
“She knew someone was trying to reach me.”
The doorbell rang.
Evelyn’s husband came halfway down the stairs holding a golf club.
“It’s federal agents,” he said. “Unless burglars have become extremely organized.”
Ortiz entered with another agent and a warrant authorizing protective custody of the folder, not of Emma. She read the language herself before surrendering it.
“I want copies,” Emma said.
“You’ll receive an inventory.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Ortiz removed the red cord and counted pages while Emma watched. Each page went into a numbered sleeve. The process took nearly an hour.
One document was missing.
They counted again.
“The family assessment,” Emma said.
Ortiz checked the folder seams. “Not here.”
“I read it at the base.”
“Could it have remained on the table?”
“No. Hale closed the folder. I carried it.”
Evelyn’s husband said from the kitchen, “Did anyone touch it after?”
“My father was in my apartment.”
Ortiz looked up.
“He didn’t touch the folder,” Emma said. “I don’t think.”
“Who else?”
“Tessa at the surf shop. Mr. Alvarez. Hale. His aide. Everyone in the secure room.”
Ortiz called the base.
The original archive confirmed the page existed. No one in the secure room admitted removing it. Security video showed the folder in Emma’s possession, but the angle did not reveal whether loose pages had shifted.
Emma searched the van.
Nothing.
She searched the evidence bag containing the torn shirt. Nothing.
Then she emptied her pockets onto Evelyn’s dining table.
Wallet. Keys. Medication. The admiral’s card. A blue button. A folded piece of paper she did not recognize.
Ortiz opened it with gloved hands.
It was not the family assessment.
It was a photocopy of a transfer authorization bearing Emma’s signature.
The signature looked real.
The authorization ordered Malik Turner and three other team members to remain at the compound after Emma’s supposed evacuation.
Emma sat down hard.
May you like
“I never signed that.”
Ortiz examined the fold. “Someone put this in your pocket.”
