“We received a flag from internal security. During the review of your domestic financial exposure, they found an access attempt connected to an old classified logistics network.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Connected how?”
“Through an account tied to Hayes Family Consulting.”
For a moment, the room seemed to tilt.
Daniel’s small company.
The one he claimed was inactive.
The one tied to redirected mortgage money and forged signatures.
I looked toward the bassinets.
“What level of access?”
“Attempted only, as far as we know. Blocked before entry. But the credentials used were familiar enough to concern us.”
My throat went dry.
“Whose credentials?”
The pause lasted too long.
“Yours.”
The word changed the room.
I stood, every ache in my body forgotten.
“That’s impossible.”
“We hope so,” General Whitaker said. “But the attempt was made forty-eight hours before your delivery.”
Forty-eight hours before.
While I packed my hospital bag alone.
While Daniel ignored my calls.
While Vanessa hosted dinner in the house I had saved.
My mind moved quickly through possibilities.
A stolen device.
A copied token.
A photographed file.
Something from my locked study.
Something from Daniel’s laptop.
Something I had missed because pregnancy, exhaustion, and heartbreak had made me believe the danger was only personal.
“Colonel,” Whitaker said, “do you have reason to believe your husband knew your true position before today?”
I thought of Daniel’s pale face when Major Calloway saluted me.
“No,” I said slowly. “But someone may have.”
The apartment felt suddenly too quiet.
Across the room, my personal phone lit up.
A text from an unknown number appeared.
I should have let security handle it.
But the first line showed on the screen before I touched it.
You finally stopped playing house, Colonel.
Below it was a photograph.
Not of me.
Not of Daniel.
Not of Vanessa.
It was a picture of Ethan and Grace in the hospital nursery, taken before Daniel had ever entered my room.
Then one more message appeared:
Ask Linda what she signed in 1998.
