Chapter 8 - THE LISTRebecca survived the shooting.
The bullet passed through her shoulder without striking major vessels.
Federal agents placed her under guard in a different hospital under an alias.
For once, I considered that poetic.
Lily remained at Mercy General.
More agents surrounded her floor.
Nobody entered without two forms of verification.
Her room looked less like a hospital room and more like an embassy during a coup.
She hated it.
She wrote on her board:
THIS IS RIDICULOUS.
I answered, “Good.”
She rolled her eyes.
That tiny normal reaction almost made me cry.
Instead, I smiled.
Then I told her about the list.
Her expression changed.
She remembered.
Lily explained that while copying files from the donor network, she had seen one encrypted spreadsheet titled HARBOR PERSONNEL.
She couldn’t open it.
So she copied the entire folder.
“Where is it?”
She wrote:
NOT USB.
“Where?”
She gave me an exhausted look.
Then wrote:
I’M NOT STUPID, DAD.
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“No, you inherited that from your mother.”
Lily’s mother, Sarah, had died from cancer five years earlier.
She had been the smartest person in every room and never needed anyone to know it.
Lily had inherited that too.
She pointed toward my phone.
I handed it over.
She opened a photo-sharing application.
Then an old album.
Pictures of sunsets.
Campus buildings.
Food.
Nothing unusual.
She selected one image of a fountain.
Zoomed.
Tiny letters appeared in the corner.
MERCER1989BLUE.
Password.
“For what?”
She wrote:
CLOUD ACCOUNT SOPHIE MADE.
Ruiz obtained a warrant.
Digital analysts accessed it.
The Harbor Personnel file was there.
Encrypted.
Maya spent six hours breaking through.
When the list opened, nobody spoke.
Thirty-seven names.
Contractors.
University personnel.
Former military officers.
Two customs officials.
One congressional staffer.
One federal investigator.
Three names were marked active inside Defense Department procurement offices.
The network wasn’t history.
It was alive.
Then Maya scrolled to the final entry.
Ruiz stopped breathing.
“No.”
“What?”
She pointed.
ELENA RUIZ.
I looked at her.
She stepped backward.
“That’s impossible.”
The room changed instantly.
Federal agents reached toward their weapons.
Ruiz raised both hands.
“I have never had anything to do with Harborlight.”
An agent took her badge.
“Detective, step away from the computer.”
She stared at me.
“Daniel.”
I studied her face.
Fear.
Anger.
Shock.
Could be genuine.
Could be practiced.
I had trusted people before.
Kessler proved what that was worth.
Ruiz was escorted out.
Lily watched from the bed.
Her eyes asked the question she couldn’t speak.
Do you trust her?
I didn’t know.
Thirty minutes later, Maya contacted me privately.
“There’s a problem with the list.”
“What?”
“Metadata.”
“Explain.”
“The file was modified recently.”
“How recently?”
“Two days ago.”
After Lily’s attack.
“So names could have been added.”
“Yes.”
“Who modified it?”
“That’s the interesting part.”
Maya traced the encryption signature to a system associated with Westbridge Police Department.
Someone wanted Ruiz blamed.
Maybe the same person who corrupted the original USB.
I went looking for her.
Federal investigators had placed Ruiz inside an interview room.
Before I reached it, the fire alarm sounded.
Again.
I was beginning to hate fire alarms.
Smoke appeared near the evidence wing.
Agents moved.
Sprinklers activated.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency power followed.
When I reached Ruiz’s room, the door was open.
Empty.
A guard lay unconscious outside.
Ruiz was gone.
Everyone assumed she escaped.
I didn’t.
Because her badge and weapon remained on the table.
A fugitive takes both if available.
A kidnapped cop leaves them behind.
Security footage had been disabled thirty seconds before the outage.
Then I received a message.
A photograph of Ruiz bound inside a vehicle.
Text:
BRING LILY’S COPY. MIDNIGHT. RIVER WAREHOUSE 6.
No signature.
We had ninety minutes.
Federal command wanted to use a decoy.
I agreed.
But Lily noticed something in the photograph.
She pointed at Ruiz’s wrist.
A watch.
The display reflected faintly in the vehicle window.
Numbers.
8:42.
But the photograph had arrived at 10:31.
“Old photo?”
Lily shook her head.
She typed:
LOOK AT DATE.
The watch showed tomorrow’s date.
Incorrect setting?
No.
Ruiz had deliberately changed her watch.
She was signaling.
Then I remembered something she said during our first night.
“My watch runs exactly eleven hours ahead because my nephew changed it and I’ve been too lazy to fix it.”
At the time, meaningless.
Now?
8:42 tomorrow minus eleven hours meant 9:42 tonight.
The photo had been taken forty-nine minutes before it was sent.
Location clues.
Vehicle window.
Behind Ruiz was a reflection.
A red neon crown.
I searched.
The Crown Motel.
One location in the city.
Federal agents moved.
Room 18.
Inside, they found Ruiz tied to a chair.
Alive.
One captor surrendered.
Another escaped through a rear window.
The captured man was not a contractor.
Not campus security.
He was Sergeant Paul Dennison.
Westbridge Police Department.
Ruiz’s colleague.
The same officer who had originally classified Lily’s attack as a medical emergency.
The rot had been there from the beginning.
Dennison demanded a lawyer.
But his phone contained a recent text.
MOVE RUIZ. MERCER IS CLOSER THAN EXPECTED.
Sender saved under one initial:
R.
Richard Vale?
Rebecca?
Someone else?
Then another message arrived.
This one on Lily’s phone.
A number she knew.
Sophie Caldwell.
LILY, I’M BACK IN WESTBRIDGE. I KNOW WHO R IS.
Lily stared at me.
Sophie had been hiding for two months.
Now she had returned.
And she claimed to know the identity of the person who had spent years protecting Harborlight.
But before we could respond, Sophie sent a second message.
DO NOT TRUST YOUR FATHER’S GENERAL.
I read it twice.
My general?
Only one current general knew everything.
Thomas Reed.
The man who had recommended Maya.
May you like
My oldest friend.
And suddenly every favor he had done for me looked completely different.
