Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Juni was playing with her stuffed animals in her room and Maren was sitting on the couch reading when Colin’s phone buzzed.
“Yeah, Boss?” As he listened, he paced away from her into the hallway, then back again. She knew something was wrong the second he got off the phone with Kyle.
“What is it?” she asked him when he stopped in front of her at the couch.
“Kyle’s called another meeting. We need to go in.” His voice was gentle, but she could see the stress in his face. “Someone’s connected Watchdog to you.”
Her stomach dropped. “Who is it? Are they here?”
Colin held out his hand to pull her up and she took it, moving straight into his arms.
“No, baby, they aren’t here. And they won’t be. We’ll see to that.”
“When is this going to end?” she whispered.
He stroked her hair. “Kyle is well and truly pissed. It won’t be long now.”
By the time they reached the conference room, Kyle was already seated at the head of the table, Lachlan beside him with his chewed pen casing between two fingers.
Gina stood near the wall with her arms folded.
Mac sat across from Charlie, who was silent in a way that made Maren’s skin prickle.
Flint was at the opposite end of the table from Kyle and Elissa’s face filled the screen of his laptop.
Kyle already knew something. She could see it in the set of his jaw—not just angry, but certain.
Colin grabbed her hand, surprising her. She looked from one face to the next. But no one else in the room looked surprised. Mac even nodded.
“About time,” he said.
Colin pulled out a chair and Maren sat beside him.
“Maren,” Kyle started. “I want you to know this is not your fault and we’ll do everything—everything—to protect you. This is an act of war against all of us.”
“Oh, God, what happened? How did they find us? Who are they?”
“I got a voicemail earlier telling me that Watchdog has been flagged for a review for the Lackland program. Then I got this.” Kyle turned his laptop so she could see the screen. There was an email.
She read it once. Then again, trying to make sense of it.
That concern is Maren Walsh. Make her available for a private interview.
“I don’t know who would want to talk to me. I don’t know anything, I swear.” She looked up from the screen at Kyle, then Lach and Gina.
“We know,” Kyle said. “We believe you.”
Gina and Lach both nodded.
Maren read the next line again.
No action involving the child is required.
Her hands went cold in her lap.
Juni was a bargaining chip and Maren was the price.
Colin wrapped his arm around her.
“You think Ray talked?” Mac asked.
Ray’s voice from the recording echoed in Maren’s mind. She imagined him making it, not knowing if it would reach her in time. Not knowing if she’d believe him. Trusting that she would do what needed to be done, because Mira had trusted him to get it right, and he was not going to let Mira down.
He held out.
“No,” Maren said before she could stop herself. “He—Ray—wouldn’t. He wanted to keep us safe. He knew he was going to die but wanted to save two strangers anyway. He wouldn’t talk.”
Kyle and Lachlan looked at her and she could damn near read their minds.
She’s naive.
But Colin’s arm squeezed her reassuringly.
“Guys, I’m with Maren,” Elissa said. “Call me an unrepentant optimist, but I don’t think he broke.
And I can tell you why.” She paused, and even through the screen Maren could see the triumph on her face.
“Your car idea worked, by the way, Maren. The Iowa trail. They burned days and serious resources chasing your Subaru through Denver and Nebraska before they figured it out. That bought us time. I used it.”
Gina looked at Maren. “Good operational call.”
“It was a panic call.”
“Those are still calls,” Gina said. “This one was good.”
“Here’s what I found.” Elissa pulled up a split screen—two document trails, a network map, a corporate org chart.
“The Lackland flag and the anonymous message. They route through different channels, different covers, but they converge on the same node. Same infrastructure, same timing pattern, same fingerprints on both. Someone was trying to make it look like two separate problems. They’re not.
So, I was able to zero in on one of the people at the top of LRH’s government contracts division who’s been there since Mira contacted NCIS. ” She zoomed in on the org chart.
“Warren Voss. Current CEO. Back then, VP of Government Contracts.”
Warren Voss. Now Maren had a name for the man who murdered her sister.
“Voss went looking for leverage the moment he connected Maren to Watchdog. The Lackland application is publicly filed—anyone who knew where to look and had the right contacts could find it and apply pressure through the review process.” Her voice went flat.
“Which he did in less than forty-eight hours. He’s resourceful and he’s motivated and he’s done shit like this before. Dude is networked.”
“The LRH contract,” Lachlan said.
“Yeah.” Elissa nodded. “Back when Mira was working at LRH, Mira found something in the compliance documentation—I’m gonna guess procurement fraud, possibly worse.
We don’t know what it was for sure. Now LRH is about to do a DoD contract renewal worth two billion dollars on the same thing Mira almost blew the whistle on.
Voss has spent two years making sure nobody who knew anything was still in a position to say so.
Ray never gave up on the case and it cost him his life.
” She paused. “Voss is thorough. He’s patient.
And until Kyle threatened his timeline by sheltering Maren, he was invisible. ”
“He made a mistake,” Charlie said quietly.
“He made a big mistake,” Elissa agreed, nodding. “He’s paranoid and panicked. And panicked people leave fingerprints.”
“We know who he is,” Kyle told Maren. “What we don’t know yet is where Mira’s evidence is. Or how Voss connected you to us in the first place.” He held her gaze. “That second question especially. If Ray didn’t talk, someone else gave him Watchdog’s name.”
Maren looked around the table—Kyle, Lachlan, Gina, Charlie, Mac, Flint, Elissa’s face on the screen. Colin beside her.
“You have all been carrying this with me since I showed up at your gate. You’ve kept me and Juni safe.
” Her throat tightened, but she didn’t let her voice shake.
“I’m not going to let the people who killed my sister take anything from you.
Tell me what you need from me. Let me finish the work Mira started. ”
Colin pressed his knee against hers. The room was quiet for a moment.
“All right,” Kyle said. “Then let’s finish it.”
Gina nodded. “Is there anything that Mira left behind that might have the information? A computer, a thumb drive, anything?”
“She had a computer, but it belonged to her company and they confiscated it immediately. A guy actually went through her apartment looking for any confidential material before they would even let me in.” Maren dropped her head.
“At the time, I didn’t know. I was in shock, I suddenly had a little girl to look after.
I figured it was probably standard for someone with a security job like hers to have someone go through and remove things. ”
“Don’t feel bad,” Elissa said. “Voss took total advantage of the situation to try and look for her intel.”
“He obviously found nothing,” Gina said. “So, that means she was storing it off-site. Did she rent a storage locker or a safe-deposit anywhere?”
“Not that I ever found when I was going through and paying her bills.”
Gina smiled almost to herself. “Did she leave you any designer purses?”
“No…why?”
“Sorry.” Gina waved off her own question.
“I was hoping lightning would strike twice. Ask April about it sometime.” She paced.
“So, no storage units, no safe-deposit boxes, she lived in an apartment, so probably no false walls or floors.” She sighed.
“At least I hope not. It would take time to get one of my old contacts into her place to tear up the place.”
“You could do that?” Maren asked.
“I could. So, what belongings of hers do you still have?”
“Um. Not much, honestly. I didn’t need her furniture. I have photo albums from when we were kids. A couple sweaters our grandma knitted for her. I have—had some of her jewelry until whoever ransacked my house took it.” She touched the locket around her neck. “But they didn’t get this.”
Gina stopped pacing and held out her hand. “May I see it?”
“You think there’s a secret compartment in my locket?” She started to unhook it.
“I’ve seen it before. Hell, I’ve done it before.” She took a minute to thoroughly examine the locket before she gave it back to Maren. “Nothing. Is there anything else, anything that would have been special to your sister? Anything she specifically left to you in her will?”
“No, I…Oh.”
Gina’s smile lit her face. “I like that ‘oh.’ What is it?”
“It’s kind of a weird thing, but maybe not, since I now apparently live in an espionage novel and anything is possible.
” She looked at Colin. “The Blue Fairy Book. It was our favorite book when we were kids. When we moved out of the house, we flipped a coin to see who got to keep it and she won. I didn’t speak to her for three days. ”
“Show me this book.”