Chương 8
His photograph showed a heavyset man with close-cropped hair and a pale scar beneath his lower lip. Daniel recognized him from surveillance outside Victor’s office. Vale had driven Emily twice during the week before her abduction.
Federal agents issued a warrant.
They also learned that Vale had visited Raymond Cole’s home three days before the inspector’s fatal crash.
Emily sat at Claire’s kitchen table while Voss explained the connection. Daniel remained near the doorway. He had been invited, but not to the table.
“The payment I approved went to the man who may have killed Raymond,” Emily said.
“We don’t know that,” Voss replied.
“I paid him.”
“You authorized a transfer to a consultant presented as Nolan Price.”
“I knew it was strange.”
“Strange is not the same as homicide.”
Emily’s face tightened. “Please don’t comfort me with vocabulary.”
Voss closed her notebook. “I’m not comforting you. I’m preserving accuracy.”
Daniel almost smiled. He understood why Emily trusted the agent.
“What happens now?” he asked.
Voss looked at him. “Vale is considered dangerous. We believe he helped transport Emily to the factory. We do not know whether he remained on-site.”
“He wasn’t there when we entered.”
“You cleared the main floor and offices. The lower dye tunnels were not searched until later.”
Daniel pictured the factory’s old drainage system. As a teenager, he had crawled through parts of it with Emily following him despite every warning. The tunnels opened near the river behind the property.
“Vale could have left before the perimeter closed,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Why would Victor stay?”
“Because Victor believed no one had found them. Vale may have heard your entry and used the south tunnel.”
Emily’s gaze moved between them. “He took my phone.”
“Victor had your phone when arrested,” Voss said.
“No. He had the personal phone. Curtis took the company phone.”
Voss reopened the notebook.
Emily pressed her wrapped wrists against the table. “There are authentication apps on it. Email tokens. Access to the old inventory system.”
“Can he reach the encrypted files?”
“Not the drive. But he can alter records on the company server.”
Voss stood and made a call.
Daniel looked at Emily. “Why didn’t you mention the second phone?”
“I forgot.”
He almost asked how anyone could forget.
Then he saw her expression.
Not defensive. Terrified by the unreliability of her own memory.
Daniel moved closer but did not touch her. “You remembered now.”
“What else did I forget?”
“We’ll find out.”
Her eyes sharpened.
He corrected himself. “You’ll remember what you remember.”
Voss ended the call. “The server went offline nineteen minutes ago.”
Vale had not hacked it remotely. Someone had entered the warehouse that housed Victor’s corporate records and removed two physical drives from a locked server rack. Security footage showed a man in a maintenance uniform whose face remained hidden beneath a cap.
His height and build matched Vale.
The theft turned a financial case into a manhunt.
It also created a problem for Emily. Her credentials had opened the building’s exterior door.
Victor’s attorneys released a statement accusing her of destroying evidence to secure favorable treatment. Rusk went on television and described Daniel as the leader of “an unofficial armed family enterprise.”
The phrase spread.
Outside Claire’s house, reporters began waiting in parked cars.
A woman from a true-crime channel knocked on the door and offered Emily fifty thousand dollars for an exclusive interview. Claire told her to leave. The woman asked whether Claire was benefiting financially from hiding a federal suspect.
Claire poured a glass of water on the woman’s shoes.
Daniel arrived twenty minutes later and found local police separating them.
“I had it handled,” Claire said.
“You assaulted a journalist.”
“She said it was rain.”
“There are no clouds.”
“Then she’s a liar too.”
Emily stood behind the screen door, pale and shaking.
Daniel ignored the cameras and walked to the porch.
“Did they touch you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did anyone enter the house?”
“No.”
“Do you want to leave?”
Emily looked at the reporters. “Where?”
The government could place her in a protected location, but that would require strict limits on visitors and communication. Voss recommended it. Emily refused.
“I spent years asking permission to go places,” she said. “I’m not moving into another controlled house.”
“It would be temporary,” Daniel said.
She turned on him. “Of course you like the idea.”
“I like security.”
“You like locked doors when you have the key.”
Claire stopped pretending to clean water from the porch.
Daniel felt the old instinct to defend intention. He had only wanted safety. He had only wanted to remove risk. He had only wanted—
Victor had probably used the same sentence beginning.
Daniel stepped back. “You’re right.”
Emily blinked.
He continued, “You should choose. But choosing means understanding Vale may be using your credentials and may try to contact you.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
Her face closed.
Daniel cursed himself silently.
Emily opened the screen door. “Go back to base.”
“Em.”
“Please.”
He went.
Three hours later, she entered protected housing.
The decision was hers, Voss told him. Emily did not call him for four days.
During that time, Daniel’s suspension became public. The Army announced that he would not return to operational command until completion of the review. Commentators argued about whether he was a hero, a criminal, or an example of military power intruding into civilian life.
Former soldiers posted stories about him.
Some described a commander who carried wounded men under fire and memorized the names of their children. Others described an officer who pushed teams beyond exhaustion and treated fear as a solvable defect. A medic named Aaron Bell recounted an incident in which Daniel had broken his hand punching a wall after losing two men.
Daniel did not remember the wall. He remembered the men.
Emily finally called on a Sunday morning.
May you like
“Did you know Dad visited me before my wedding?” she asked.
Daniel sat on the edge of the narrow bed in his quarters. “No.”
