Chapter 6 - The Photograph
Mercer stared at the photograph as if it might burst into flames. He was outside an Army medical clinic, younger by a year, his arm in a sling. Emma stood beside him holding a paper cup.
“I met her once,” he said. “She brought evidence to a veterans' assistance hearing. I was there about my brother's medical records.”
“You never told me,” Avery said.
“I didn't know she was your sister until Voss said her name today.”
“Look at the date.”
It was the day Emma had supposedly left for a conference in Virginia. Avery remembered the last call: Emma laughing, trying to sound ordinary, promising to bring home awful airport candy.
Ruiz spread the map on a metal shelf. “The warehouse belongs to a Northstar subsidiary. Private security, not military police.”
“That's why they're moving her,” Avery said. “They can deny she was ever on base.”
They took a maintenance vehicle from the motor pool, driving through a back gate while an ambulance entered with its siren on. Mercer kept both hands on the wheel. Ruiz crouched behind the passenger seat.
Halfway to the warehouse, Avery noticed a black pickup maintaining the same distance through three turns.
“Don't speed,” she told Mercer. “Take the next exit.”
He obeyed. The pickup followed. Avery sent a message from Ruiz's unregistered phone to Major Ward's emergency number: VOSS DEAD. WHO HAS EMMA?
The reply came instantly: NOT ME. YOU'RE BEING WATCHED.
The pickup accelerated. Mercer cut beneath an overpass, steering into a construction access road. Gravel struck the undercarriage. The pursuer overshot the turn and braked hard.
For a moment they were free.
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Then Ruiz pointed at the dashboard. A small green light blinked beneath the ignition, where no factory indicator belonged.
“We brought the tracker with us,” he said.
