Chapter 7 - The Sister Who Left

I had never been close to Victoria, but I remembered her teaching me to ride a bike. She'd run behind me until I stopped wobbling, then laughed when I crashed into a hedge. That girl existed somewhere inside the woman who'd handed me a cardboard box.

"Is she with him willingly?" I asked Ellis.

"We don't know. Your parents say they drove off together."

"He has Marcus's records."

"Possibly. We have officers obtaining the inventory and documenting what was moved."

The clinic team uncovered the drive's contents by late afternoon. Most files were encrypted again, layered with keys I didn't recognize. One accessible audio clip began with Marcus breathing hard.

"Claire, if you're hearing this, the money isn't the mission. Follow the supply numbers. Someone is sending flawed equipment to our people and billing for the good stuff."

The recording crackled. I leaned toward the speaker.

"I don't know how high this goes. Don't let anyone use the baby to pull you off the truth."

My heart lurched. He knew we were expecting before he left. We had planned to tell everyone after the first scan. I'd learned I was pregnant only weeks before his disappearance; he had heard the news through our secure channel while still deployed.

"And Claire," he continued, voice thinning beneath interference, "I love you even when you leave the porch light off."

It ended.

Price looked away. Ortiz slid a tissue box closer without saying a word. For the first time since the funeral, I cried in front of people who didn't treat it like a nuisance.

Ellis circled three numbers on a report. "These match an inspection lot from a defense supplier. Fairmont handled overseas logistics. If the lot was substituted, there may be a domestic paper trail."

"And Raymond took the records Marcus kept."

"That's one possibility."

My phone rang. Victoria. I put it on speaker.

"Claire?" Her voice shook. "Raymond says your people are after him. He says you lied about Marcus, about everything."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. We're at a gas station off the interstate. He won't let me see the map."

A door slammed on her end. Raymond shouted something I couldn't make out.

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Then Victoria whispered, "He has a gun in the glove compartment."