Chapter 7 - The Man Who Sent Me Away
Samuel Voss had approved every phase of my undercover assignment.
He had chosen the team.
Approved the safe houses.
Restricted my communications.
And personally told me that contacting Daniel might endanger my family.
Now he stood in Lily’s bedroom holding the file my father had died to protect.
“Marcus,” I said.
He took one look at the security feed and reached for his phone.
“Do not call the bureau.”
He stopped.
“Voss controls the response teams.”
“He doesn’t control everyone.”
“Seven agency employees are on the list.”
“And hundreds aren’t.”
“We don’t know which ones.”
The camera showed Voss placing the music box back on the dresser.
He had not disabled the system because he wanted us to see him.
This was a message.
He knew we had identified the leak.
He wanted us to understand that he was untouchable.
I activated the speaker through the security application.
“Samuel.”
Voss looked toward the camera.
“Victoria,” he said pleasantly.
His voice came through the room’s microphone.
“What are you doing in my house?”
“Recovering classified evidence.”
“That drive belongs to my family.”
“The contents concern an active federal investigation.”
“So you admit you knew it existed.”
Voss smiled.
“You have had a difficult night. I suggest you rest.”
“Put the drive down.”
“I cannot do that.”
“Then you’ll leave fingerprints.”
“I am wearing gloves.”
He held up one hand.
“But thank you for your concern.”
Marcus moved toward the hallway.
“I’m calling local police.”
Voss heard him.
“Agent Reed, contacting unverified law enforcement would be unwise.”
Marcus froze.
“You’re monitoring this room?” he asked.
“I’m monitoring many rooms.”
I scanned the hospital walls.
The room had been assigned through the agency.
A federal guard stood outside the door.
Voss knew where we were because he still controlled our security.
I woke Lily gently.
“Baby, we have to move.”
Her eyes opened in confusion.
“Again?”
The exhaustion in that single word filled me with guilt.
“Just to another room.”
“Will you come?”
“I’m not leaving you.”
Marcus opened the door.
The guard outside turned.
He was young, broad-shouldered, and unfamiliar.
“Everything all right?”
Marcus studied him.
“Who assigned you?”
“Deputy Director Voss.”
The guard reached beneath his jacket.
Marcus struck first.
He drove the man against the wall and removed his weapon before the guard could draw it. Nurses screamed. An alarm sounded.
Another guard appeared at the end of the corridor.
I lifted Lily and ran toward the emergency staircase.
Marcus followed after securing the first man with plastic restraints.
We descended two floors before hearing pursuit behind us.
“Parking garage,” Marcus said.
“They’ll expect that.”
“Then laundry exit.”
We crossed through a service corridor crowded with carts and supply shelves. Lily clung to me, silent now. Too silent.
A hospital employee opened a side door after Marcus showed his credentials.
Cold dawn air hit my face.
We entered an alley where delivery trucks idled beside the loading dock.
Marcus took the keys from a hospital linen van.
“Are we stealing this?”
“Temporarily borrowing federal witness transportation.”
“That is not what this is.”
“Complain later.”
We drove away just as two black SUVs entered the hospital parking lot.
Voss called my phone.
I rejected the call.
He called again.
I turned it off.
“Where do we go?” Marcus asked.
“Somewhere Voss doesn’t know.”
“Your agency has records of every property you own.”
“Not this one.”
My father had purchased a hunting cabin under the Carter Foundation twenty years earlier. No digital map connected it to my name. Only Marta and I knew it still belonged to the family.
We stopped first at a twenty-four-hour store. Marcus bought clothes, food, medical supplies, and a prepaid phone.
Lily stood beside me in oversized sweatpants while I brushed dried blood from her hair in the restroom.
“Is Daddy going to die?” she asked.
“No.”
“You don’t know.”
She was right.
“He was awake when we left the house,” I said. “The doctors were helping him.”
“Claire shot him because of me.”
“No. Claire shot him because she chose to pull the trigger.”
“He jumped in front of me.”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean he loves me?”
The question had no simple answer.
“He does love you.”
“Then why did he let her be mean?”
“Sometimes people love us and still fail us.”
She looked at her bandaged hand.
“Did Daddy fail you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still love him?”
I knelt in front of her.
“I love the person I believed he was. I don’t know the person he became.”
“Is that the same thing?”
“No.”
She considered this with heartbreaking seriousness.
“Will you leave again?”
“No.”
“You said your work helps people.”
“It does.”
“Then who will help them?”
“Someone else for a while.”
Her eyes filled with relief.
I realized how long she had been waiting to hear that answer.
At the cabin, Marcus secured the doors while I settled Lily on the sofa.
The building smelled of cedar and dust. My father’s old fishing rods still leaned against one wall. A faded photograph of us stood above the fireplace.
I was fourteen in the picture, holding a fish and pretending not to be proud.
Richard stood behind us.
My father smiled beside him.
Three people who had believed they knew one another.
Only one had been honest.
Marcus connected the black drive from the vault’s computer backup to an offline laptop.
“Your father’s transmission contained thousands of documents, but this drive may hold something separate.”
“The list?”
“Possibly the original evidence.”
The drive was encrypted.
A password field appeared.
I tried my father’s birthday.
Wrong.
My mother’s name.
Wrong.
My childhood address.
Wrong.
Then I remembered the brass roots beneath the chandelier.
VLC.
I entered my initials.
The drive opened.
Folders filled the screen.
Financial transfers.
Recorded calls.
Photographs.
Surveillance logs.
One folder was labeled VICTORIA.
Inside was a video recorded three days before my father’s death.
He sat in his study, visibly exhausted.
“Victoria,” he began, “if you are watching this, then I failed to tell you the truth while I was alive.”
I leaned closer.
“Richard’s network has been watching you since you joined federal service. Your career gave them access to investigations they wanted controlled. I tried to protect you without damaging the work you loved.”
Marcus glanced at me.
My father continued.
“Samuel Voss approached me fourteen years ago. He offered to bury the investigation into Carter International if I gave him access to company contracts. I refused.”
Fourteen years.
Voss had known my family long before he became my supervisor.
“After Richard disappeared,” my father said, “Voss claimed the network had collapsed. He lied. Richard remained active under the name Alexander Arden.”
The signet ring.
The letter A.
Richard had not merely worked with Arden.
He was Arden.
“Voss will attempt to isolate you,” my father warned. “He will use duty, secrecy, and your desire to protect others against you. Do not trust the mission he assigns you.”
The undercover operation had been designed from the beginning.
But why?
The answer appeared in the next sentence.
“The organization you are investigating is real, but you were not sent to dismantle it. You were sent to find the evidence Richard believed I gave you.”
Navarro had known my identity because Voss wanted him to.
Every risk had been intentional.
My assignment was not law enforcement.
It was bait.
A knock sounded at the cabin door.
Three slow taps.
Then two.
Marta’s old signal.
I approached carefully with a gun raised.
“Marta?”
“It’s me.”
I opened the door.
Marta stood outside wearing hospital clothing beneath a borrowed coat. A young female detective supported her.
“Detective Lena Ortiz,” the woman said. “Marta refused protective custody unless I brought her here.”
“How did you find us?”
“I didn’t,” Ortiz said. “She gave me the address.”
Marta entered and hugged Lily.
For the first time since the mansion, Lily cried like a child instead of a frightened witness.
I waited until she calmed.
Then I showed Marta the video.
She watched my father in silence.
When it ended, she closed her eyes.
“You knew,” I said.
“Some of it.”
“How much?”
“Your father asked me to hide the drive.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the last person he trusted with the truth died.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
The room went still.
My mother had died from an aneurysm when I was sixteen.
Or that was what I had always believed.
Marta reached into her coat and removed a folded hospital report.
“I found this in Daniel’s office,” she said. “It is why Claire imprisoned me.”
I unfolded it.
The report bore my mother’s name.
The cause of death was listed as acute poisoning.
At the bottom was a handwritten authorization transferring the body before a full autopsy.
The signature belonged to Samuel Voss.
A vehicle engine sounded outside.
Marcus moved to the window.
Black SUVs were approaching through the trees.
Voss had found us.
Marta grabbed my arm.
“There is a tunnel beneath the kitchen.”
May you like
My father had prepared for this too.
We had less than one minute to disappear.
