Chapter 10 - THE OTHER PATIENT
The claim belonged to Paige.
Cosmetic surgery. Private clinic. Twenty-one thousand dollars.
Billed using a secondary policy attached to my military family coverage.
"How is that even possible?" I asked.
Claire looked grim. "False dependent designation. Someone submitted documentation listing Paige as your spouse for a period of six weeks."
I laughed once because the alternative was putting my fist through a wall.
"My sister became my wife on paper?"
"Long enough to bill the procedure."
"And nobody caught it?"
"Someone inside the system may have helped."
Voss.
I thought of every time he had smiled at me overseas. Every time he had told me not to worry about home.
That evening, I returned to the house carrying pizza.
Margaret looked delighted. "See? You're settling back in."
Paige had changed into a designer sweater. "I knew you'd calm down."
Gwen sat at the table with her hands folded.
I put the boxes down.
"Actually, I have good news."
Three heads turned.
"Command owes me a retention bonus. Could be sixty grand."
Paige's eyes flashed.
Margaret's expression barely moved, but her thumb stopped rubbing the stem of her wineglass.
"That's wonderful," she said.
"Yeah. I just need to update the deposit account."
Paige leaned forward. "I can help with that. I handled everything while you were gone."
Of course you did.
I smiled. "Tomorrow."
Across the table, Gwen looked at me.
She knew it was a trap.
At 11:42 p.m., our home router logged a new device connecting to my banking portal.
I had changed the password that afternoon and installed an alert with Claire's investigator.
The login attempt came from Paige's phone.
Two minutes later, another device tried.
Margaret's tablet.
Then a third.
Unknown device.
Remote location.
Claire traced the IP range within an hour.
Military housing near the base.
Captain Voss.
May you like
The trap had worked.
But before Claire could call the investigator, Gwen screamed upstairs.
