Chapter 7 - THREE OTHER FAMILIES
The case widened overnight.
Marcus was no longer just a violent boyfriend with access to one soldier's finances.
His sister, Dana Price, ran a mobile notary business.
Investigators found questionable property transfers connected to three service members who had been deployed or hospitalized.
One family had lost a truck.
Another had nearly lost a house.
A third discovered credit cards opened in a soldier's name while he was recovering from a training injury.
Marcus had inserted himself where people were exhausted, frightened or absent.
Sarah was his easiest doorway.
When David learned that, he looked less angry and more sick.
"He chose us because I was gone."
Ortiz corrected him.
"He chose your family because he knew Sarah."
She slid a phone record across the table.
Marcus and Sarah had exchanged messages for eleven months.
Not five.
Almost the entire length of David's deployment.
Sarah stopped pretending.
She admitted meeting Marcus at a grocery store two weeks after David left.
At first, he was kind.
He carried bags.
Fixed a leaking faucet.
Watched Maya when Eli was born.
Then he began saying David had abandoned her.
He read military casualty stories aloud.
He convinced her she needed a backup plan.
By the time he became cruel, Sarah had already handed him passwords and authority.
"Did you love him?" David asked.
She cried.
"I thought I did."
"Did you see him hit Maya?"
Sarah's silence lasted too long.
David stood up.
"Answer me."
"Once."
Maya was in the next room coloring.
David lowered his voice.
"And you let him stay?"
Sarah whispered, "He said it would never happen again."
David walked out before he said something he could not take back.
I followed him.
Outside, he leaned against the wall, staring at nothing.
"I survived eleven months over there thinking home was waiting for me."
I didn't know what to say.
Then Ortiz stepped outside.
"David, there's one more person we need to talk to."
"Who?"
"Marcus's ex-wife."
May you like
She looked grim.
"She says he did the same thing to her daughter.
