Chapter Fifty-One Audrey
Chapter Fifty-One
Audrey
While Gwen and Hollis’s brother worked in the background to figure out how Rhett had gotten to Beth in that prison, Ryder shared over speakerphone what we’d learned with Trevor and Echo Team.
“Clearly Rhett and Beau had been working on their crazy plan to get hold of the evidence even before Christmas, because Beau was planted into our lives prior to that,” I added when Ryder finished talking, taking a seat next to him.
I wrapped myself up in a blanket before continuing, “The why’s and the how’s don’t matter right now, though.
Or the timeline. All I know is, we were manipulated from every side. ”
“But are we really believing Beth is good here?” Trevor asked in a steady voice, though he had to be shocked. “Did she truly give you the file so that you’d eventually figure out the truth?”
“Good is a stretch of the imagination,” Alejandro said bitterly, standing by the couch on Ryder’s end. He rubbed his stubbled jawline, gaze lowered. A world of hurt and blame clung to him for believing Beth.
We’d trusted the wrong people.
And Trevor’s own actions in trying to do the right thing had unknowingly placed a target on his head in 2017, not because Mitch was some psycho obsessed with me.
“Maybe Beth didn’t have a choice. Or maybe he promised something I couldn’t give her—a way out of prison.
Or, more than likely, Beth was playing both sides,” Alejandro explained, grit in his voice as he closed his eyes.
“She did what she agreed to do, but she didn’t tell them she had evidence on them.
That was her securing our favor in case we won at the end of this. ”
“Maybe,” Hollis began in a hesitant tone. “Or maybe she had no choice but to do what Rhett said.”
“No way Rhett overheard the secure call I had with Beth that Chandler set up. Plus, she told me about the flash drive. She wouldn’t take that risk if she thought someone was eavesdropping,” Alejandro remarked, now sounding a little like he believed Beth again.
The poor guy had to be feeling so many emotions right now.
“Then why not just tell us the truth to begin with? Why the games?” I asked, speaking my thoughts out loud.
“This is still Beth we’re talking about.” Alejandro opened his eyes. “She did what she was told to do, knowing if we didn’t follow the leads Rhett wanted us to, he’d know she didn’t hold up her end of the deal and it’d come back to bite her somehow.”
“By not outright telling us the truth, knowing we’d have to go get the flash drive and decrypt it, she bought herself a cushion,” Hollis answered.
“Beth earned herself a window of time so it looked to Rhett like she did what he wanted her to. And by the time we figured out the truth, thanks to the flash drive, Rhett wouldn’t connect the trail back to her. ”
“And she’d know we wouldn’t tell Rhett how we figured it out anyway.
This is a lead we wouldn’t want him to know about,” Alejandro said.
“But I still think we’re giving this woman a lot of credit in choosing to do the right thing.
” He shook his head, dragging his thumb along the underside of his lip. “I’m biased, though, so I don’t know.”
The room went quiet as everyone processed the unprocessable. Our two enemy number ones might not be what they’d seemed. Not when it came to all this, at least.
And that reminded me: Trevor had to confront what had happened to him in Afghanistan, and why, all over again. “Are you doing okay, Trevor?” I broke the quiet and asked, eyes on the phone as I waited for him to respond.
“I’ll be fine. Past is past, right?” Trevor said over the line, then redirected before I could shut down that lie. “If Mitch was really alive, I’d still kill him for what he did to you, though.”
“And what did he do?” Hollis pierced me with her concerned gaze.
I’d forgotten she didn’t know what had happened before Mitch’s last deployment or that I’d been planning to get divorced. I wasn’t looking to relive that night right now—not with Gwen on the call trying to save the day.
“Something I kept from you to protect you,” I admitted, staying vague for now. “I was worried you’d want to do what Trevor still does and kill him. Now that I know the real you, it’s probably good I didn’t say anything.”
Hollis’s green eyes narrowed on me, hands flexing at her sides. Ready to do battle with a dead man. I’d been right.
“Anything yet, Gwen?” I needed to deflect, and fast.
“I’m almost there. Give me another minute. I’m close to solving this,” Gwen responded, and hopefully she’d save me from opening up about Mitch to Hollis.
I didn’t even know what to think about that man anymore.
What he did to me was still horrible and deserving of divorce, but did he deserve death? I didn’t think so.
Plus, hadn’t he died trying to do the right thing? Though, from the sounds of it, he wound up putting a target on my head whether he meant to or not by hiding the key with me, also requiring me to be there to unlock the—
“Wait,” I blurted, forgetting no one was in on my thoughts.
“If the vault requires both Mitch and I to unlock it, then how do we get in? And Rhett must know that by now, right?” The blanket became a distant memory as I tossed it to stand.
“Beau and Rhett didn’t know where to look for the key because they didn’t even know what the key was, right? ”
“Rhett and Beau would’ve realized you didn’t know, either.
So questioning you would’ve been pointless.
They probably even discreetly searched your house back in Virginia while I was still in the navy.
Maybe even before I started poking—” Trevor dropped his words and cursed. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
“Did what?” I spun around, staring at the phone as if Trevor was physically with us instead.
“I woke a sleeping giant. Rhett found out I was digging into Arlo’s death and Mitch’s crash.
That prompted Rhett to dig deeper. He thought he shut everything down when he killed Mitch on the way to the safehouse after Chandler faked the crash, but then he discovered Mitch hid something in New Zealand prior to that. ”
“And that’s when Rhett realized his mistake. He killed the only person who could tell him where and how to get the damning evidence,” Gwen chimed in.
“Which brings us back to how will any of us unlock the vault without Mitch?” Ryder asked, standing up.
“There has to be a loophole clause,” Hollis said. “Doubt the company wants anyone to know about that fine print to prevent people from taking advantage of it. But I bet if one party dies, legal death certification will trigger a fail-safe, allowing the surviving partner conditional access.”
“And that’d be me.”
“They knew they had a time limit in locating the key for the vault. They played the long game by placing Beau into your life,” my brother said as if all the how’s and why’s were now clicking.
“Get on the inside and try to find the key that way. But they ran out of time and had to accelerate the process.”
“Beau was the best choice. He knew Mitch the most. Stayed in contact over the years.” Hollis reminded us of what Hobbs’s files had revealed. “He’d know about his Hell signature. Nickname for you. They twisted this all around to blame a dead man who couldn’t defend himself. And set the trap.”
“And we walked right in it,” Alejandro noted bitterly.
“Mitch went to my grandfather because of Trevor’s connection to him.
He didn’t know who to trust until after he was in a safe location.
” Gwen softened her tone when adding, “And maybe in Mitch’s own weird way, he was also trying to keep Audrey safe.
You have to be alive to open the vault for whoever had the key, which made you off-limits from harm. For the year, at least.”
“Mitch had counted on Trevor to keep Audrey safe if the worst happened,” Alejandro commented. “He was relying on you two working together to finish what he started.”
“And now I know how Rhett convinced Beth to help,” Gwen shared, cutting through the tension in the room here. “He didn’t blackmail her; he threatened her.”
“You’re serious?” Alejandro scoffed, and I went over to stand next to him.
“Cipheria hacked a government-sanctioned mental health app embedded in a prison-simulation game that the Agency allows their inmates access to for an hour a week to help reduce behavioral issues. Text chat is supposed to be disabled.”
Gwen zoomed in on lines of code as they flashed across the screen. All gibberish to me.
“Cipheria reverse-engineered the platform. Built a hidden back door into the app’s code, then used a cached server log to find Beth’s ID.” She paused to let us absorb what I never would. I knew piano notes, not cyber code. “Reconstructing the deleted conversations now. One second.”
What had looked like Greek to me suddenly converted to English in the blink of an eye.
Now there was only a message, which I read out loud: “If I can breach this system, imagine what else I can access. You think you’re safe?
If you don’t do what we say and offer Mitchell Langston’s name, then I will make it look like you had a psychotic break and jumped from a walkway.
Or perhaps slipped in the shower and fried yourself. Who knows. Accidents happen, right?”
“The good news is, Cipheria made a mistake, and she left a breadcrumb in her code that I’m going to follow now with the help of Hollis’s brother,” Gwen continued after we let the shock roll through the room like a tidal wave.
“We’ll find out who she is—and my money is, she’s the brunette you flagged this morning with Helix. ”
“What does this all mean? Now that we know who’s behind this and what they want, what do we do now?” I asked, scanning the room while taking Alejandro’s offered hand.
“We still don’t have eyes on Rhett or Beau yet where you’re at, right?” Ryder asked Trevor and Echo Team.
“Negative,” Trevor responded, his tone low and bitter. Still pissed off and blaming himself. I’d need to talk to him later. Remind him of the hero he was and forever would be, and how his son wanted to grow up to be just like him.
“Then we Charlie Mike,” Ryder said with a nod. “Mitch won’t be at the auction tomorrow night like we thought, but we will be.” He shot a quick look at Hollis to check if we were all set in regard to the event.
“Item to auction and invites secure,” she confirmed.
Ryder nodded his thanks. “Echo, where are we on the other team for backup?”
“They’ll be here in time,” someone answered.
My brother scrubbed a hand over his face. “We’ll keep eyes on both properties we know about. If Rhett or Beau don’t show up before the auction, then we’ll stick to the plan we put together last night and not deviate from it.”
“There’s one problem with that plan,” Trevor remarked in a low voice.
“Some of those men who work for Helix might not know the truth. They might think we’re the enemies and that they’re following the president’s orders.
I can’t take the lives of innocent veterans.
Some of these guys are our brothers out there. ”
“He’s right,” Alejandro said, tightening his grip on my hand.
“Hollis, what if we ask your brother to get hold of every cell number tied to Helix’s operatives, and the second we’re ready to pull the trigger and move forward with the plan at the auction, he’ll text them the truth?” Gwen suggested.
“It’ll be up to them to pick a side.” Ryder nodded in agreement. “Good or evil. That’s what it always comes down to.”