Chapter 5
When I emerged, he handed me a tablet.
“Temporary secure housing is ready. The board requests a formal introduction tomorrow. However, there is an urgent matter.”
I gave a tired laugh.
“More urgent than this morning?”
His expression did not change.
“I’m afraid so.”
He tapped the tablet screen.
A file opened.
My father’s name appeared first.
Then Chloe’s.
Then Ryan’s.
My chest tightened.
“What is this?”
“A preliminary financial exposure report,” he said. “Prepared after Stratix legal began tracing any prior access to Captain Carter’s research.”
I stared at the names.
“Access?”
“Your husband’s original notebooks were stored at your residence after his death.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “In my locked office.”
Colonel Hayes’s silence told me enough.
The tablet felt suddenly cold.
“Who opened it?”
“We believe your brother-in-law attempted to.”
The hallway shifted slightly around me.
Ryan.
Smug, polished Ryan with his remote meetings and soft hands and expensive watch.
“He wouldn’t even know what to look for,” I said.
“No,” Colonel Hayes said. “But someone he was speaking with might have.”
I looked down at the file again.
There were call logs. Email fragments. A shell company name I didn’t recognize.
Helix Meridian Consulting.
“What is Helix Meridian?”
“A private defense broker with foreign-linked investors,” he said. “They have attempted to obtain battlefield communication patents for the past six years.”
My stomach hardened.
“And Ryan contacted them?”
“Three times in the last month.”
The baby shifted inside me.
I gripped the edge of the tablet.
For months, I had coded after midnight at the dining room table, believing my family ignored me because I was invisible to them.
Maybe someone had been watching after all.
Colonel Hayes continued.
“We do not yet know whether he understood the value of what he was trying to access. But after this morning’s events, he may panic.”
I looked through the reinforced window at the gray November sky.
“What happens now?”
“Now,” Colonel Hayes said, “you rest. Our legal and security teams handle the rest.”
That would have been comforting from anyone else.
From him, it sounded like a warning.
By noon, my family began calling.
My personal phone lit up in waves.
Mom.
Dad.
Chloe.
Ryan.
Mom again.
Dad again.
Unknown number.
Then text messages.
At first, they were soft.
Maya, please call me. This has gone too far.
Your mother is crying.
We are family.
Then defensive.
You misunderstood everything.
Nobody forced you.
You always make yourself the victim.
Then frightened.
Police came to the house.
Why are people taking pictures?
Maya, what did you tell them?
Then angry.
You have no right to do this.
That house is our home too.
Daniel would be ashamed of you.
That one came from Chloe.
May you like
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I typed back one sentence.
