Chapter 7
Camille requested a private meeting through counsel.
Lydia refused privacy.
We met inside a federal proffer room with attorneys present.
Camille looked thinner.
The diamonds were gone.
She stared at the scar near my collarbone.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know the material was on the Resolute.”
“You saw the deployment list.”
“I saw codes.”
“You approved the shipment.”
“Dad said the failed panels would be mixed with certified stock for noncritical use.”
“Burning material does not ask whether a room is critical.”
She looked down.
“Do you think I wanted you hurt?”
I considered the question.
“I think you wanted money and trained yourself not to see who might be hurt.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“It is to the person on fire.”
Camille began crying.
She had spent our childhood learning that Richard’s approval was oxygen.
When I left for the Naval Academy, she stayed.
He made her vice president before thirty.
Praised her instincts.
Called her the daughter who understood business.
Every compromise became proof that she belonged.
“I built Meridian because Dad said federal pricing rules made honest profit impossible,” she said.
“Did you falsify the tests?”
“I changed categories.”
“Did you know the panels failed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know they were installed?”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
Her silence answered.
“Before the explosion?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Dad said the Navy would replace them during the next maintenance cycle.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“He said if I panicked, the company would collapse.”
“Camille, I was aboard.”
“I know.”
“You sent me a care package the week before the fire.”
She covered her mouth.
Inside that package had been lemon cookies, a cashmere scarf, and a note saying she was proud of me.
She knew defective barriers surrounded my compartment.
“Did Dad know my ship carried them?”
“Yes.”
The room went still.
“Did he consider warning me?”
“He said the probability of a major fire was negligible.”
Probability.
A number used to make one daughter expendable.
Camille said Richard planned to replace the materials quietly after winning a new fleet contract. He intended to profit twice.
First from the counterfeit components.
Then from emergency modernization.
The Resolute explosion threatened the second contract.
So he obstructed.
Delayed records.
Attacked my memory.
Attempted to recover medical fragments.
Camille participated in all of it.
“What happened at the wedding?” I asked.
Her eyes shifted toward her attorney.
“Dad wanted you upset.”
“Why?”
“He believed Admiral Cross might attend.”
“He knew?”
“He saw her name on the security list.”
Richard planned the humiliation.
The refusal to walk me.
The comments about scars.
Camille’s suggestion to delay.
A photographer positioned near the chapel entrance had been hired by Vale public relations.
They hoped I would shout, strike Richard, or suffer a visible panic episode.
The footage would support the narrative that I was unstable and vindictive before arrests occurred.
My wedding pain had been another evidence-production plan.
“Did you know NCIS was coming?”
“No.”
“Did you know Dad would insult me?”
“Yes.”
“You smiled.”
Camille’s face crumpled.
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“You always know what to do when you’re scared.”
“No. I learned to stop using fear as permission to hurt whoever stands lower.”
Camille agreed to cooperate.
May you like
Her testimony did not erase her crimes.
It opened the next door.
