Chapter 16 - CAPTAIN VOSS
"Where are you?" I asked.
Voss laughed softly. "Still a soldier. Always asking the tactical question first."
I motioned to Chen. She started tracing.
"You forged my documents."
"Your mother had needs. Your sister had ambition. You had money sitting around and no idea how to use it."
"And Gwen?"
A pause.
"Collateral complication."
My vision narrowed.
"Say that again."
"Don't get emotional. That's how people make mistakes."
"Like calling me?"
Silence.
Good.
I had him.
He recovered. "You think this ends with your mother in handcuffs? You think your command wants headlines about benefit fraud and forged casualty paperwork?"
"I think you sound scared."
"I'm warning you."
"No. You're negotiating."
Chen held up two fingers. Two minutes.
I kept him talking.
"Why Gwen? Why isolate her?"
"Because she noticed the transfers."
There it was.
The first clean admission.
"So you faked my emails."
"She needed to stop asking questions."
"You let her think I abandoned her during cancer treatment."
His voice changed. "Your mother handled the domestic side."
"Coward."
"Careful."
"You sat across from me overseas and told me my family was fine."
"And you believed me."
Chen pointed at her phone.
Location locked.
Military housing.
Agents moved.
Voss must have heard something because he went silent.
Then he said, "Tell Gwen I'm sorry."
The line disconnected.
Forty minutes later, Chen got the call.
Voss had been arrested trying to leave through the rear of his residence with two passports, cash, and a hard drive.
I should have felt relief.
Instead, Gwen called me.
Her voice was shaking.
"David, I found something in your mother's bedroom."
"What?"
"A hospital bracelet."
"Yours?"
"No."
She read the name.
May you like
And for the second time that day, the ground seemed to move beneath me.
PAIGE HAYES - MATERNITY SERVICES.
