Chapter 12 - The Road Nobody Used
At three in the morning, the borrowed sedan crawled along an abandoned county road. Pine branches scraped the windows. No one spoke above a whisper.
Rourke had called the only investigator he still trusted: Special Agent Leah Ortiz, an inspector from outside the military chain. She agreed to meet at a farmhouse beyond the reservoir, but refused to make promises about Bell without proof she could independently verify.
"Fair," Rourke said after hanging up. "I wouldn't believe this over the phone either."
Mara sat beside Ranger in the back seat. When she closed her eyes, she saw Lily at eight, holding a crooked cake while Thomas pretended to conduct the singing. She remembered the night Thomas called and told her the convoy records were wrong. She remembered saying she'd be home by Sunday.
She'd missed four hundred and sixty-eight Sundays.
Cole watched her in the mirror. "My mom worked two jobs when I was a kid," he said. "She missed things. But I always knew she was trying."
"Lily didn't know," Mara replied.
"She knows now."
It was a small kindness, and it mattered.
They reached the farmhouse to find Agent Ortiz standing beside a dark SUV with her hands plainly visible. Two civilian investigators waited inside. Their badges checked out on paper directories Finch had brought.
Ortiz examined the tape, the card and Thomas's handwriting. "This is enough to open an inquiry. It isn't yet enough to arrest a general in front of live cameras."
"By sunrise, he may kill my daughter," Mara said.
Ortiz met her eyes. "Then we rescue her first."
She offered an outside emergency communications channel, medical support and a secure way to copy the original evidence. There would be no heroic rush into a building they hadn't mapped. Every step would have a fallback.
Rourke pointed at the lower drainage route. "I can get close without crossing the main gate."
Ortiz nodded. "You'll observe, not improvise."
Cole's phone vibrated once. A picture appeared from an unknown sender: Lily seated beside a flood-control wheel, holding a small cardboard sign.
May you like
On it she had written: THEY KNOW ABOUT THE FARMHOUSE.
Headlights swept across the kitchen curtains.
