Chapter 10 - Why They Needed the Pregnant Widow
Shaw did not want me dead.
That would have been simpler.
She wanted my credentials.
For years, Meridian had exploited civilian databases to identify classified personnel.
But my current assignment involved something far more valuable:
the authentication architecture used to verify compromised logistics chains across multiple commands.
I didn’t carry the entire system.
No individual did.
But I controlled one human authorization component.
Marcus discovered Shaw intended to use my credentials.
His death was staged to destabilize me.
My emergency leave created predictable movement.
The funeral gathered every relevant family connection in one location.
Then the Thanksgiving extraction would move me through a route Shaw controlled.
The freezing garage?
Not part of the official plan.
Just cruelty.
That somehow made it hurt more.
My family didn't need a conspiracy to treat me badly.
They had done that themselves.
Shaw spoke again.
“Marcus is manipulating you.”
I laughed.
“Everyone apparently is.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Then Aaron called my burner.
Perfect timing.
Shaw’s team blocked normal signals but not the old Specter-band frequency Marcus had built.
Aaron:
“She has Raymond.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
After federal agents released him pending questioning, Raymond disappeared.
Shaw took him.
Why?
Because he knew Meridian’s financial pathways.
Victoria called seconds later, hysterical.
For the first time, she wasn't demanding anything.
“Please find him.”
I almost said something cruel.
Almost.
Then remembered who I wanted my daughter to see when she eventually heard this story.
“I’ll try.”
Not forgive.
Try.
Marcus and I escaped the warehouse through a maintenance tunnel Aaron had somehow known about.
That bothered Marcus.
“He shouldn't know this facility.”
“Why?”
“It was built after he disappeared.”
Another inconsistency.
Aaron knew too much.
Marcus finally admitted something he had withheld.
He had met Aaron.
Not remotely.
Face-to-face.
And Aaron had not looked like the man in the old photograph.
“What are you saying?”
“Your brother may be dead.”
“Then who have I been speaking to?”
“I don't know.”
The burner rang.
Aaron.
Marcus stared at it.
“Don't answer.”
I did.
“Who are you?”
Silence.
Then the voice said:
“Finally.”
The accent changed.
The familiar resemblance to Harrison vanished.
It had been synthesized.
“Where's Aaron?”
“Dead seventeen years.”
“Who are you?”
The caller laughed.
“You already met me.”
“When?”
“At your husband’s funeral.”
The line disconnected.
Marcus looked at me.
Then we both remembered the surveillance image.
The man believed to be Marcus near the tree line.
What if it hadn't been Marcus?
May you like
What if the eighty-seven-percent match wasn't an accident?
Someone had deliberately made himself resemble my husband.
