Chapter 7 - The Safe House Door
We were forty minutes away.
It took twenty-three.
The safe house looked untouched from the road.
Front light on.
Curtains closed.
Dana’s team surrounded the property.
I entered through the rear.
“Lily?”
No answer.
I opened it.
Lily sat on the floor holding a fire extinguisher like a weapon.
Her face changed when she saw me.
“You left.”
“I came back.”
She shoved the extinguisher at me.
“One of your people tried to move me.”
“What person?”
“Agent Ross.”
Dana came in behind me.
“Ross isn’t assigned here.”
Lily looked at her.
“He had your credentials.”
Dana’s face hardened.
“What did he say?”
“That Bellhaven police found my medical records and I had to relocate.”
“Then?”
“I asked for the code word.”
Good girl.
“What code word?”
“You told me only a real team would know it.”
I looked at Dana.
She hadn’t told me that.
Lily had thought of it herself.
“He guessed wrong. I hit the alarm.”
Dana knew him.
“Ethan Cole.”
“Who?”
“Former federal contractor. Worked data support during Ashbridge.”
My stomach tightened.
Cole had copied files for our task force.
He had access to witness locations.
To Caleb Voss.
To Ben Alvarez’s travel schedule.
Dana said, “He vanished from contracting two weeks after Ben died.”
I stared at her.
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know until years later.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because you were gone.”
No.
Because someone wanted me gone.
We ran Cole’s recent financial records.
One payment stood out.
Whitmore Security Consulting.
Twenty-two thousand dollars.
Three days ago.
Richard’s family was paying a man connected to my dead partner’s last week alive.
Then Lily handed me something.
The fake agent had dropped a business card while leaving.
No name.
Just an embossed symbol.
A black compass.
I knew it.
Ben used to draw that symbol on case folders when he believed a source was lying.
On the back were four handwritten words:
ASK DANA ABOUT THE BRIDGE.
I looked at her.
She closed her eyes.
“What bridge?” Lily asked.
Dana whispered, “The bridge where Ben died.”
May you like
Then she looked at me.
“I was there that night.”
