Chapter 4 - THE FILE NAMED STEEL
The call came at 6:12 the next morning.
Marco was already awake.
So was I.
Neither of us had slept much.
Federal investigators had opened the flash drive.
Most of it contained financial records.
Invoices.
Shipping documents.
Military procurement contracts.
But one folder carried my name.
STEEL.
Inside was a video.
Ethan Mercer appeared on the screen.
He looked exhausted.
There was a bruise near his temple.
He stared directly into the camera.
“Colonel Daniel Steel, if you're watching this, I'm probably dead.”
Marco stopped moving.
I felt cold.
Ethan continued.
“You may not remember me.”
“I remember you,” I whispered.
“I worked under people who used your name as the standard for what an officer should be.”
Ethan looked over his shoulder.
Then back toward the camera.
“I found something.”
He explained.
A private logistics company called Northstar Defense Solutions had been billing the government for equipment that never existed.
Millions of dollars.
Fake deliveries.
Fake warehouses.
Fake signatures.
Ethan discovered the fraud accidentally.
Then he discovered something worse.
Rebecca's older brother, Grant Holloway, was Northstar's chief financial officer.
Marco muttered something under his breath.
Ethan continued.
“I made copies.”
“I don't know who I can trust.”
“My wife knows I'm investigating something, but she doesn't know everything.”
Then his expression changed.
“If something happens to me, protect my children.”
My chest tightened.
“Rebecca loves money more than she loves them.”
“She believes controlling Lily and Owen gives her control of everything I leave behind.”
Then Ethan leaned toward the camera.
“And Colonel, there's one more thing.”
The recording glitched.
Static filled the screen.
Then the video ended.
Marco stared at me.
“One more thing what?”
Investigators tried recovering the damaged portion.
No success.
Not yet.
But we had enough.
Ethan Mercer had predicted his own death.
And he had named Rebecca.
That afternoon, I visited Lily and Owen.
Lily ran toward me.
Then stopped halfway, as though remembering she wasn't supposed to expect people to return.
I opened my arms.
She finished the distance.
Owen followed more slowly.
He carried the teddy bear.
“Did you find Daddy's secret?”
I knelt.
“Yes.”
“Was Daddy bad?”
The question stunned me.
“Why would you think that?”
“Rebecca said police only keep secrets from bad people.”
I looked at him.
“Your father was trying to stop bad people.”
Owen absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“Okay.”
Children sometimes accept truth more easily than adults.
Lily took my hand.
“Can we go home?”
Sarah looked away.
I understood why.
They couldn't.
Their home was part of the investigation.
Rebecca was fighting to regain custody.
May you like
And her attorney had just filed an emergency petition claiming I had manipulated the children.
The war had begun.
