Chapter 6 - The Shopping Bag.
Agents returned to the mansion before sunrise.
I watched through a secure video feed while they searched the designer shopping bags Julianne had abandoned.
The third bag contained nothing.
The fourth contained a small stitched compartment beneath the cardboard base.
Inside was a silver encrypted drive.
Agent Hale called me immediately.
“We found it.”
Julianne sat across the hotel suite with her hands wrapped around a paper cup.
“David told me it contained tax documents.”
I stared at her.
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
Her honesty surprised me.
“Then why carry it?”
“Because I was stupid.”
“That isn’t an explanation.”
She looked down.
“He paid off my mother’s mortgage.”
I said nothing.
“He bought me a car.”
Still nothing.
“He made everything feel easy.”
I finally spoke.
“Easy for you.”
She flinched.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“My daughter died while you drank champagne with her father.”
Tears ran down Julianne’s face.
“I know.”
“No.”
“You know the sentence.”
“You will never know the moment.”
The room became quiet.
Agent Hale returned several hours later.
The drive had been partially decrypted.
Its contents were worse than expected.
David’s company had quietly collected confidential patient information through hospital software updates.
Names.
Insurance numbers.
Medical histories.
Prescription records.
Social Security numbers.
Millions of records.
Some had been sold through intermediaries.
Others were used to generate fraudulent billing claims.
I felt nauseated.
“How much money?”
Rebecca Sloan answered.
“Potentially hundreds of millions.”
“And Lily’s company?”
“LV7 Holdings received a portion.”
I stared through the window at Chicago below.
My husband had built our life with stolen identities.
One of them belonged to our daughter.
Agent Hale continued.
“There’s something called Project Orchid on the drive.”
My body went rigid.
“What is it?”
“A contingency protocol.”
“For what?”
“If regulators discovered the data theft, Project Orchid would erase selected server archives and move remaining funds offshore.”
“Who could activate it?”
Agent Hale looked at Julianne.
“According to the drive, David Vance and Thomas Mercer.”
Julianne started crying harder.
She had unknowingly carried the master records of a criminal enterprise across an international border.
But Agent Hale wasn’t finished.
“The drive contains recorded meetings.”
“David recorded himself?”
“Mercer did.”
One video was played.
David appeared on screen.
The date was four years earlier.
Lily had been three.
Thomas Mercer sat beside him.
David looked younger.
Confident.
Untouchable.
Thomas asked a question.
“What happens if something happens to Lily?”
David didn’t hesitate.
“We transfer ownership before the death certificate reaches the system.”
My fingernails dug into my palm.
Thomas laughed.
“And Maya?”
David leaned back.
“She never reads financial documents.”
I stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
Thomas asked another question.
“What if she starts asking?”
David smiled.
“Then everyone already knows she’s emotional.”
Something inside me went completely still.
He hadn’t simply betrayed me.
He had designed my credibility as a weakness.
Years in advance.
Julianne whispered.
“Oh my God.”
Agent Hale paused the recording.
“There are thirty-seven videos.”
I looked at him.
“Play every one.”
“Maya.”
“Every one.”
Because for fifteen years, David had controlled what I knew.
Now I wanted the entire truth.
May you like
Even if it destroyed what little remained.
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