Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Every time Juni threw her arms around Colin’s neck and hugged him, he found that it got a little easier to hug her back. It hurt a little less. Star studied him with her father’s dark eyes, then reached out and patted his arm like he was an old friend, which cracked him up.
“Hey, Star. You being good for your mama?”
She gave him a nod and a giggle.
Colin looked up and locked eyes with Maren.
God, she was radiant, the way the sunlight fell on her hair, and the soft, wondering smile she gave him.
The same smile she’d given him last night before they’d both pulled back.
Before I don’t want to use you had stopped them both from crossing a line they couldn’t uncross.
Maren and Ellie stood from the bench and started walking toward him. Ellie leaned in and said something to Maren that made her blush, and Colin’s heart skipped.
“Star found two furry little sleeping bags,” Juni told him, deeply serious. “We think the fairies are sleeping inside.”
“Probably,” he agreed, with no idea what she was talking about.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of Maren. She looked different than she had this morning—not lighter exactly, but less braced.
Like something that had been drawn tight for days had finally been given permission to ease.
Whatever Ellie had said to her on that bench, it had done what Arden had sent her here to do—and there was no question in Colin’s mind that Arden had intended just that.
Colin realized he was breathing easier just seeing Maren relaxed and happy.
Watch yourself, soldier.
Yeah.
He looked away first, back to Juni, who was already tugging his hand toward the flower beds to show him the…
what did she call them? Fuzzy sleeping bags?
He stood and followed Juni and Star down the patio steps.
Behind him, he heard Ellie say something quietly to Maren.
He didn’t catch the words but he heard Maren’s small, flustered sound in response.
And when he glanced back a second later, Ellie was looking at him like she had just confirmed a theory.
I don’t want to know what that theory is.
Oh hell, yes I do.
Mac caught his eye from the doorway and raised an eyebrow.
“Here they are!” Juni stopped at the edge of the flower bed and pointed.
Ah. Cocoons. Of course.
“Shh,” Colin said, raising his finger to his lips. “Fairies get cranky when you wake them up, and then they play the worst pranks.”
He’d been at Watchdog all morning before that, in Kyle’s office, not the conference room.
Flint was already set up at the side table with his laptop, coffee going cold at his elbow.
Lachlan sat in the chair by the window, pen casing already between his teeth.
Gina stood against the wall with Fleur at her feet, doing what she always did in small rooms where she couldn’t pace—looking like she wanted to bolt through the nearest exit.
Elissa was on speaker, her voice coming through clear from LA.
“Morning,” Colin said.
Kyle looked up from the file he’d been reading. “Colin. Thanks for coming in. Mac’s got the safehouse?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Kyle gestured to the empty chair beside Lachlan. “We’ve moved past background checks. This is an update briefing. I want to know what’s changed since the first pass.”
Colin sat. Lachlan gave him a small nod—steady, grounding, the kind of acknowledgment that said you’re doing fine, keep going. Colin had seen him give Kyle that same look a hundred times.
Flint pulled up his notes. “First change. We already knew Mira worked contracts at LRH. What we didn’t know was exactly where she landed after that promotion.”
Kyle’s expression sharpened. “And?”
“She wasn’t just moved up. She was moved into naval weapons systems procurement.
” Flint glanced around the room. “Contracts side, not engineering or operations, but she would have seen vendor lists, change orders, exceptions, delivery problems, payments, subcontractors. The kind of paper trail nobody thinks is dangerous until someone knows how to read it.”
Colin’s jaw tightened.
Sean had been Navy. SWCC. Boat crew. The kind of operator who lived and died by the gear they ran.
Mira Walsh had been working contracts connected to naval weapons systems.
Sean wasn’t dirty. Colin knew that now as surely as Kyle did. Whatever else was going on, Sean Volker had died as the man they all believed him to be—a hero trying to get his team off a riverbank.
But Mira’s world had touched his somehow.
“When?” Kyle asked.
“Roughly a year before Juni would have been conceived,” Flint said. “So the danger predates Sean. Mira didn’t meet him and then stumble into something. Whatever she found at LRH was already in motion.”
Kyle’s shoulders lowered half an inch. “Go on.”
“That move is where her digital behavior changes.” Flint turned his laptop slightly so Kyle could see the screen.
“Her personal email goes quiet. Not abandoned exactly, but scrubbed down. No casual conversations, no receipts, no personal chatter that matters. Then she opens a second account through a private encrypted provider.”
“Activity?” Gina asked.
“Enough to know she used it. Not enough to know for what. The account went dark roughly two weeks before her death.”
Gina stopped pretending not to pace. She took two steps, turned, then took two steps back. Fleur tracked her movement but stayed down.
“Either she walked away from it,” Gina said, “or someone found it and shut it down for her.”
“That gives us a tighter window,” Lachlan said around the pen casing. “Two weeks before Mira died.”
“Exactly,” Flint said. “Whatever scared her enough to stop using that account probably happened then. Or whoever killed her started closing in then.”
Kyle looked toward the phone on his desk. “Elissa. What about our mysterious caller?”
“Some progress, no name yet,” Elissa said.
“But I’ve got more than I had yesterday.
The call came from a burner. Cash purchase, no registration, no useful customer trail.
However, there’s no completely escaping the eye in the sky.
The phone pinged a tower in the Gaslamp Quarter of San Diego when the message deployed.
I’ve got the timestamp, routing, cell sector, and approximate radius. ”
“But no face,” Kyle said.
“Not yet. I’m pulling footage from everything I can get near that radius. Traffic cameras, private lots, ATMs, storefronts. It’s slow. Some of it’s garbage quality. Some of it’s gone. Some of it’s locked behind systems I don’t want to kick too hard unless we’re ready for someone to kick back.”
“Good,” Gina said. “Slow is right.”
“I hate slow,” Elissa muttered. “But yeah, go low and go slow is right. The bigger point is that this confirms the dead man’s switch wasn’t theory. He set it up in advance and knew he might not be there to make the call himself.”
“That’s not civilian behavior,” Colin said.
“Nope,” Elissa said. “He knew how to cover his tracks. Knew how to set the timer. Knew enough to warn Maren to run instead of going to law enforcement. Whoever he was, he was trained.”
“NCIS,” Kyle said.
“Probably,” Gina said. “Or tied close enough to know their procedures.”
Colin heard the caution in her voice. Gina didn’t like closing doors too early. He understood why, even if it made him want to put his fist through one.
Elissa continued. “I’ve also got eyes on the San Diego County ME’s office, police reports of unidentified bodies, missing persons, NamUs, and hospitals.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow. “Hospitals?”
“I know, I know.” Elissa’s voice turned defensive. “I’m wired for optimism. I hate to think the guy’s dead. He sounded so concerned about Maren and Juni in that message.” She paused. “I’ll keep looking.”
Colin stared at the grain of the table.
He sounded so concerned.
Yeah. He had. Was he feeling guilty because he’d sent Maren and Juni running into the unknown? Or because Mira was dead?
Or both?
“What changed?” Gina said quietly. Everyone looked at her.
She had stopped pacing entirely now, her focus turned inward and sharp.
“Maren and Juni lived in San Diego for years after Mira died. No contact. No threat they knew about. No one tried to take Juni. No one came after Maren. Then suddenly our mystery man sets up a dead man’s switch, Maren’s house gets ransacked, and she’s driving through the night with a little girl to meet up with total strangers who may or may not help her. ”
Colin’s chest tightened.
“Could be the caller did something that exposed them,” Lachlan said.
“Could be,” Gina agreed. “Or it could be that LRH is under new scrutiny. Maybe a new contract. New audit. New leadership. Something that makes old loose ends dangerous again.”
“Voss,” Flint said.
Everyone looked at him.
He tapped a key and brought up a file photo of a man in an expensive suit.
“Warren Voss. Current CEO of LRH Defense Systems. At the time Mira worked there, he wasn’t CEO yet, but he was already high in the defense-contracts chain.
The program Mira moved into eventually rolled up under his authority. ”
Kyle leaned forward. “Direct link between him and Mira?”
“Not yet,” Flint said. “Mira was too far down the food chain for public-facing contact. But if something was wrong in that division, it would have lived somewhere in the structure beneath him.”
“And now?” Gina asked.
“Now he’s pushing hard for a major Navy contract expected to be awarded this year.”
“How major?” Lachlan asked.
“Billions,” Flint said. “The kind of contract that makes old questions inconvenient.”
Gina’s eyes narrowed. “Build the org chart.”
“Already started,” Flint said. “Mira’s supervisors, program managers, finance people, procurement contacts, subcontractors. Anyone who touched her division during the window around the encrypted account.”
“Elissa,” Gina said. “Can you dig without alerting them?”