Chapter 16 - The Last Spy
We checked everyone.
Staff. Guards. Drivers. Nurses. Contractors.
Ruiz ran backgrounds. Marcus searched devices. Daniel audited payments.
Nothing.
Then Lily solved it.
She was sitting on the floor with crayons when she heard us arguing about the photograph.
“That's not this morning,” she said.
I turned. “What?”
“My bunny is there.”
She pointed to the image. A stuffed rabbit sat near her pillow.
“Nora washed Bunny yesterday,” Lily said. “He was downstairs all morning.”
The photo was older.
Lauren wanted us to believe someone still had access.
Marcus enlarged the metadata recovered from the original message.
The image had been taken fourteen weeks earlier.
The same week the hidden transmitter appeared under my chair.
“Who had access then?” Ruiz asked.
Nora went pale.
“The children's photographer.”
Lauren had arranged a private family portrait session.
The photographer had spent six hours in the house.
Marcus searched the vendor records.
Fake company. Fake insurance. Fake name.
But one parking camera had a clear picture of his face.
Daniel recognized him.
“He worked for Thomas years ago. Corporate intelligence.”
We finally had the installation point for the surveillance system.
More important, we had his payment trail.
It led to Whitmore Strategic Holdings.
At 8:30 that night, Ruiz obtained warrants for three accounts and two properties.
At 9:10, police found Lauren at a townhouse owned through one of those accounts.
She did not resist.
When they brought her in, she asked to speak to me.
I agreed.
She sat across the interrogation room table looking exhausted for the first time since I had known her.
“Thomas used me,” she said.
“You used me too.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about the shooting?”
Her eyes filled, but I no longer trusted tears.
“I knew he wanted you injured.”
“That's not what I asked.”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
May you like
The room felt very quiet.
Then she whispered, “But your father ordered the first attempt.”
